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

hear Mr. Kalabraise barking after he’d made the leap, but he couldn’t see the dog anywhere.

The landscape was a vast, rolling, countryside.  The grass was pinkish rose.  The verdure was alien, bushes and trees with strange configurations, flowers (were they flowers?) he’d never imagined before.  The sky was a fleece of orange light, interwoven with yellow and pale blue.  The place owned a surreal aspect of moving in and out of time, a bubbling mass of optical illusion.  It toyed with all five senses.  He was here, yet it looked like a dream.

“That’s why Nyar-baby called it a dreamscape, Dev,” he said to himself.  “My deductive genius has never been more acute.  That means ‘sharp.’”

It was Kadath—a dreamscape developed by a writer and his Mythos.

If this was the home of the Elder Gods, he had to move fast.

But what to do?

He stood still and looked around.  Large, rock-like formations were on the hill to his right.  To his left, the land descended into a wide plain with a canal running through it.  He could hear Mr. Kalabraise barking in a nearby dimension, as though next door.  He thought he could hear Millie, Armitage, and Nyarlathotep arguing.  The sounds were muted over the distance, but it was audible.  Beyond all this was a city under siege—Cthulhu rising from the deep.

He surveyed his clothes and body.

“No broken bones,” he said. “Haven’t dirtied my suit, except for this darn tear on my pants.  Might be the first time ever I came away somewhat clean.  My hat is still in good shape.  A bit sweaty, but that’s to be expected under the circumstances.  There’s nothing that can be done except to take it to the cleaners.  We’ll worry about that later.  What’s a private dick to do, you might ask?  That is the question.”

There was no answer.  He didn’t expect one.  When dealing with cosmic entities of horror from other dimensions, you had to improvise.  Considering the circumstances, he was doing quite well.  Or so he told himself

“Hellooooo!” he shouted into the landscape, cupping his hands over his mouth.  “Yo!  Anybody home?  Elder Gods!  Protectors of the Realm!  Anyone!  Helllooooo!”

Nothing.  It was just as well.  Maybe he ran into the wrong portal, or gate, or dimension, or whatever it was.  He looked down and realized he’d forgotten to ask Nyarlathotep for the Elder Scrolls.  That could be a problem.

“Rash, Dev,” he said.  “Very rash.”  He put his hands on his hips.  “It might be possible I didn’t plan this very well.”

He surveyed the land again.

“Hey, Millie!” he called.  “Can you hear me!?  Millie!  Yo!  Armitage!  Henry!  Capshaw! Nyar-baby!”

Nothing. Just the void.  Silence.  His own voice coming back in a strange, reverberating manner, different than an echo.

Movement caught his eye from over the hillside to his right.  A mass of strange, bumbling creatures with long arms, and making a loud commotion, was coming straight toward him.

—

“Are you going to do anything, or are you just going to stand there?” Millie asked, face red with anger.

“Things are just beginning to get interesting,” Nyarlathotep said.  “There’s not a whole lot one can do.  Stand back and watch.”

“You’re useless,” Millie said.

“Help to mortals, I’ve never been, nor will I be.  I pointed you in the right direction.  I gave you a chance.”

“Maybe some divine intervention to save Duke and Newt,” Millie pleaded.  “To save Mr. Kalabraise and Dev.”

“It’s touching, the bond you have.”

“If the alternative is to walk in lonely silence with an inflated sense of self-importance, I’ll take the friends.”

Nyarlathotep laughed.

“Maybe we should pray,” Armitage said.

“Good idea,” Millie said.

“Speaking of useless,” Nyarlathotep said.

—

Duke wasn’t sure what he saw was real.  It couldn’t be.  How was it possible?  There was the convenient excuse that he was dreaming.  That’s what he wanted to believe.

He saw Newt running toward the farmhouse at a dead run.  A cocker spaniel bolted after him, long ears blowing back from her head.

“Are you okay?”

The voice came from behind him.  Duke couldn’t see the owner of the voice because he was still face first on the ground.

He lifted himself onto his hands and feet.  A hand appeared in front of him, an older man wearing a bowler hat.

“You must be Duke,” the man said.  “I’m Creighton Capshaw, the museum curator.  I’ve been with Macky, Millie, and Dr. Armitage all night.”

Duke grabbed the man’s hand, and Capshaw helped him to his feet.

“Dr. Armitage?” Duke said.

“It’s a long story.  But Macky has filled us in on some of it.”

“What on earth are you doing here?” Duke said, brushing off his pants.

“Trying to save Millie’s dog,” Capshaw said, who was slightly out of breath from running.  “What are you doing?”

“Trying to save Newt,” Duke said.

Capshaw looked toward Newt.  “What’s he doing?”

“Trying to save Amelia,” Duke said.  “Come on!”

—

“Left alone.  Big, scary place.  We’re Weevles.  No druthers.  No surrogate mothers.  Hungry.  Make stew. Make bread.  Make pillow for big head.”

The thing holding onto his leg was a pink-skinned creature with large black eyes and a snout like a dog.  It had a jumble of layered, dangerous-looking teeth.  It looked, in some fashion, as if it had been turned inside out, a dog-like dinosaur.  Macky realized that was exactly what it was.

It was a hissing, laughing, rhyming creature.  Its spine protruded from its back.  It had a long tail and moved about on four legs, or two, depending on its preference.  Some waddled.  Some walked on all fours.  It had extraordinarily long arms, scales, or something similar that shifted with the landscape. They were like chameleons.  A bone-hard armor of some kind made their skin, which looked soft and tender but was like stone when Macky touched it.

He’d been running from them when he tripped over a rock, and the creatures had