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

even God, said everything was going to be perfect. Except maybe in the end.  Pain and suffering are unavoidable.  They’re things we have to live with, and they come in some pretty ruthless forms.  We’re broken people, Newt, living in a broken world, and I think God has a plan for restoration.  But he’s also showing us how to have joy and love, despite the places of pain and suffering.  It sounds impossible to me sometimes, but it also gives me a different perspective.  And it’s the only thing I’ve got so far.  Let me ask you something, Newt?  How are we supposed to embrace sacrificial love if there’s no such thing as evil?  How are we supposed to make a choice?  How do we know what compassion and empathy are, or how do we make a choice between good and evil otherwise?  That all began with Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit.  Maybe all this is the result of that.”

“I didn’t know you were a believer, Duke,” Newt said.

“I’m not.”

“But you just said . . .”

“It helps to question, and I think it’s healthy in the face of evil.  That’s what we’re facing.  It’s good to question and wonder why.  It’s one of many philosophies.”

“So, you’re a philosopher?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re not making any sense, Duke.”

Duke looked at him.  “No?”

They’d been following the beast for a while.  The elusiveness of the creature was suddenly not so elusive.

“We’re following a creature that took out a few people, some our own men,” Duke said.

“Maybe it’s providing a sort of dark service,” Newt said.

“Tell that to Muncie.”

The city buildings began to fade.  The clouds, moon, and stars pulled back revealing a deeper darkness, a shadow to the world that revealed a countryside.  It had been showing itself for a while, a fabricated reality that warped the edges of Innsport.  It had left them confused.  They’d talked about it, but it was becoming normal.  The farmland, the open country was more visible.  There was no actual gate they passed through.  Small hills and trees were in the distance to their left.  The smell was stronger—thick, heavy, tarry stickiness.  It was stronger than any place they’d been so far.  It congealed and grew.  It made Newt’s eyes water.

“What I’m saying, Newt,” Duke continued.  “Is that the sinful nature of humanity is the reason for evil.  We are the cause.  We have to take responsibility for it.  Anything else, as far as I’m concerned, lets us off the hook, but we’re the guilty parties.  People wonder why God doesn’t interfere.  My question is, why should he?  Why do we allow poverty when we have enough to house, enough resources to feed and clothe the homeless?  Why do we, as a culture breed narcissistic, racist, homophobic, chauvinistic, sexist, morally bankrupt people?  It’s a corrupt system.  It’s the same throughout history.  We have put a system in place that allows these people to want power, and we vote for them.  We support them.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.  That’s the sadness of it.  The finger we point and use to judge another, along with social issues, is the same finger pointing back at us.”

“We need to be the change,” Newt said. “We need to lead by example.  Is that what you’re saying?”

“Something like that.  Gandhi said the same thing.”

“Ah, so you’re a Buddhist?  Eastern religion?”

“Hardly.  I’m a realist living in a world populated by monsters and portals.”

Newt nodded.  “Thanks, Duke.  I’m not sure I agree with all that, but it’s nice to have a bigger picture.”

Duke shrugged.  “Let’s just keep walking.”

The land opened around them.  Cows were visible.  Something was wrong with their skin.  The foliage was sparse, rotted, as if the very air were corrupt with some fatal contagion.  Streams of bluish-green light came from the barn, the extension from the side of the house.  It pulsed slightly.

“Where are we, Duke?”’

“Not in Innsport, I know that.”

The evil in the air was so thick, it was palpable.  It was everywhere.  Something dense, heavy, and dark, lay like soot across everything around them.  One part of the trees to their left had been mowed down by some gigantic force.  It had torn up the ground in a large swath traveling to the extension of the house.

“Heellp meeeee!” someone cried.

Newt knew that voice, had listened to it a hundred times but had never heard it scream.

“That was Amelia,” Newt said, eyes wide.

Duke and Newt ran toward the farmhouse.

—

Nyarlathotep led the way inside.  Macky was the first behind him. The others followed.  Mr. Kalabraise was as smiling and ever-lovable as ever, even in the grimness of the situation.  Millie, Capshaw, and Armitage came in afterwards.

Macky looked around once they were inside.  It was hard to process—a geometrically constructed labyrinth of lights, doorways, walls, staircases, pictures, scenes from various times and places, a mish-mashed amalgam of dreamscapes, space, and time.  The interior was in complete opposition to the outer structure of the house, stretching for miles in every cosmic direction.  Macky had a hard time wrapping his head around it.  It made no physical, rational sense to the naked eye, yet he was seeing it.  If this was the crux, the nexus to all things in the Mythos, anyplace in the Mythos could be accessed from the witch-house.

The lights and electricity coming from unknown sources were brighter and more blinding.  The place was shrouded in an alien, technological, sustainable energy that gave the witch-house its power.  The interior was infinite.  It had no end.

Physical rules didn’t apply.  Or so it seemed.  The electrodes of currents sizzled, zapped, and arced across the interior in every mind-bending direction.  The portals and doorways moved, circled, faded, came into sight, shortened and expanded, revolving around each other, exchanging places with other scenes and portals.  Blue, pink, green, purple, red, orange,