The Lurker at the Threshold : A Horror Mystery by Brandon Berntson (books under 200 pages .txt) 📗

Macky screamed.  “Millie!  Something’s got me!” 

Mr. Kalabraise ranted off a series of yelps.  Asenath sat, laughing.

“You’ll never leave us!” The breath was like a soft, warm blow in his ear.  “You can be one of Pickman’s models.”

Macky looked down.  A gray, tentacle-like thing was around his ankle.  It was tearing his pant leg.

Millie grabbed his arm.  She, Capshaw, and Armitage tried to pull him up.

“Hurry!” Macky cried, both arms in front of him while the three of them pulled. “It’s got me!”

Capshaw had one hand.  Armitage had the other.  A tearing sound came from Macky’s pants, and he was set free.  He stumbled up the stairs, colliding into Millie, Capshaw, and Armitage, and they tumbled to the floor.  Mr. Kalabraise continued to bark. Asenath was laughing so hard, she was crying.

The thing was coming up the stairs—a breathing, wet sound slumping onto the steps, lifting itself, and slumping down again.

Capshaw and Armitage hurried over, shut and locked the door, and braced themselves against it.

Chapter 15

“He was taken by . . . what?”

Jerry Fogherty stood behind the desk, a tall divider that separated him from the public. He was a foot above the rest of them. The woman had come in thirty seconds ago. Her hair was in curlers.  A ratty pink robe with slippers to match hung about her plump frame.  Her hands were shaking.  An unfocused look was in her eyes—glazy, red.  She was close to fifty, but she looked older.

“Bats!  Bats!  Bats!” the woman said, making wide gestures with her hands.  “I know it sounds crazy, but you gotta believe me!  Bats are what took him.  Bats are what’s killing him!  Not that he doesn’t deserve it!  I’m just saying!  If bats could do that, who knows what they’re capable of?”

The phone calls had started several hours ago.  A few at first, they steadily increased.  It was a weeknight. That meant trouble.  Something in the air.  Something in the wind, the October moon.

It was lunacy to the third degree.  If there was a fourth-degree, it would qualify for that.  Jerry was going to make a joke about it, but he didn’t think it would go over too well.  He going to say was something about rats.  Rats would’ve been believable, plausible even. But bats?  How did bats carry away a full-grown man?  How many did it take?  He was going to ask her these questions, but he didn’t have the heart.  It was just as well.  Where did they take him?  He was going to ask this question, too, but the woman looked frazzled.  Her eyes were bugging out of her head.  Her nose and cheeks were ruddy.  He knew what that was.  He recognized the smell.

His next thought was, If I’d seen someone carried off by bats, I’d be hitting the sauce pretty hard, too, and that’s the truth.

Innsport was turning into a 24-hour creature feature.  The hound business . . . that was something.  Someone had called him about a giant spider earlier.  He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but now he wondered.

“Ma’am, please.  It’s okay,” Jerry said.  “Just calm down.  Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

The woman, whom he’d learned the name of, was Caroline Walters.  She was on the other side of the desk looking up at Jerry as if he were her executioner.  The stars and twinkles were coming out in full force.  That’s what his dad used to say.  It never made sense, but it didn’t have to.  His dad had been referring to the lunacy of the moment when things just didn’t make sense.  Stars and twinkles sounded like a good way to label it.  It made you scratch your head.  There were more things going bump in the night than he cared to admit, but that didn’t make it easier to accept.

Jerry got up and got her a cup of coffee.  “Cream and sugar?” he asked.

“No, thanks.  I mean, yes.  Yes!  Cream.  Sugar.  Both.  I think.”

He raised his eyebrows, fixed her coffee, and brought it back to her.  She took a sip, spilling some.  She was shaking.

“He was just taking a walk,” she explained.  “He gets insomnia.  Sometimes I like to wait for him.  I can’t sleep if he’s not in bed with me.  We’ve been happily married for twenty-five years.  They’d been good years.  So, I sit up.  I wait.  He’s a good man.  We never had kids.  I’m broken.  In more ways than one.”  She started laughing.  “He was walking back.  I’d been up for about an hour or so.  I sit in the chair, and I can see the sidewalk from the window.  He was there one minute, and I heard him scream.  It was awful.  Terrible, the worst sound I ever heard in my life.  I hope to never hear another one like it.  He was there.  He was screaming.  He was trying to brush them with his hands, fighting them, but I could see them.  They were fluttering.  Loud as could be, even with the window shut.  That was the funny thing.   All those wings flapping, fluttering, carrying on, and screeching.  That was the worst.  The screeching mixed with Burt’s screaming.  Oh, my gosh, I’m going to have nightmares for weeks!  Years!  Longer, probably.  Horrible.  Terrible.  I may never sleep again!  It was ghastly.”

Jerry suppressed a smile.  He didn’t understand it.  What he wanted to say was, “No, it was bat-ly.”  But he couldn’t bring himself to say it.  Good thing, too.  The city was falling apart, people were being terrorized, and here he was cracking jokes.  It wasn’t like him.

But wasn’t this funny?  Wasn’t this crazy?  He didn’t know what was wrong with him.  He didn’t act this way.  Sometimes, in dealing with tragedy, people joked.  It depended on