and could now recall a montage of restless memories, all cavorting in her mind’s eye: miners stripped of their hands, and in some cases, their heads; the purple fingernails of the missing young woman who’d liked to dress as a goth; Meg’s husband taking advantage of his company, claiming back more money than he’d spent…These and other notions frightened Meg, but none prevented her from achieving her goal: tapping on the bedroom window and getting whatever lurked inside to betray its sordid self.
At last she’d reached the glass. Time dripped by while she hesitated, wondering what to do next. The window was curtained, and in the darkness formed by this felt material, Meg examined reflections of the moon and stars shining with inscrutable intensity. She recalled observations, recently communicated via the media, about evolutionary advantages; she pictured opposable thumbs and sharp vision, each newly fused to primordial limbs…And then she knocked at the windowpane.
Silence followed, broken only by wind howling and the distant sea breaking on rocks. A squidlike creature might rely on a coastal environment, Meg thought, but moments later, she noticed something flash briefly in the tiny gap between the twin halves of curtains.
Nobody could have just switched on a lamp in the room, because that would have made all the material shine with muted illumination. Whatever was at work inside must have a means of conveying light, but Meg knew her husband didn’t smoke and the woman she’d met yesterday wouldn’t either. She’d been beautiful, just as Harry was ruggedly attractive, and cigarettes always had a deleterious effect on that. Neither could have sparked up flames. The thing in the room must be creating this effect by some other conjuring means.
As Meg processed these intrusive thoughts, a wedge of the curtain was snatched back. A hand had performed the deed, she noticed; its fingers still gripped the neatly hemmed edge. This was a man’s grip—her husband’s, undoubtedly. The gold wedding ring she’d bought him in return for the chunky diamond she herself wore encircled the third finger.
“Harry,” Meg called, but her voice was stillborn in a gaping mouth.
She’d glimpsed what else was in the room beyond the windowpane.
Amanda’s head, looking out through the gap, was soon joined by that of Meg’s husband. The loving couple waited, gazing out with soulless, uncaring eyes…but then Meg realized why so little life was evident in their combined expressions. There was little life in them . They were dead. They’d been decapitated. The bloodied stumps of their necks had been penetrated by writhing tentacles.
This was proven a moment later when a third face joined the throng, floating in the center of the bedroom the way the man’s and woman’s was. The newcomer’s head belonged to the missing goth and was similarly supported by a squidlike limb; it was now the pale, painted instrument of a terrible alien intelligence.
Another hand joined in the activities of the one that had pulled back the curtains. This bore a delicate palm and purple fingernails—a lady’s appendage, without question, but far more manic than Meg had anticipated. Then other hands set to work, yanking aside the curtains, tossing up bedsheets, casting back a mattress. Soon the room was filled with chaos, as something unspeakably brutal, bearing as many limbs as a centipede, churned its jellylike mass back and forth, to and fro, hither and thither. More heads were hoisted, several withered to the bone. Some might even belong to the miners who’d first sustained the creature, and many of the additional hands that appeared almost certainly had: the flesh was all but gone, with just wasted tendons sustaining movement as their host and its innumerable tentacles sought fresh supplies of such guidance tools: human body parts, severed without consideration of their owners.
The thing beyond the window was squirming with light; it made a
At last she’d reached the glass. Time dripped by while she hesitated, wondering what to do next. The window was curtained, and in the darkness formed by this felt material, Meg examined reflections of the moon and stars shining with inscrutable intensity. She recalled observations, recently communicated via the media, about evolutionary advantages; she pictured opposable thumbs and sharp vision, each newly fused to primordial limbs…And then she knocked at the windowpane.
Silence followed, broken only by wind howling and the distant sea breaking on rocks. A squidlike creature might rely on a coastal environment, Meg thought, but moments later, she noticed something flash briefly in the tiny gap between the twin halves of curtains.
Nobody could have just switched on a lamp in the room, because that would have made all the material shine with muted illumination. Whatever was at work inside must have a means of conveying light, but Meg knew her husband didn’t smoke and the woman she’d met yesterday wouldn’t either. She’d been beautiful, just as Harry was ruggedly attractive, and cigarettes always had a deleterious effect on that. Neither could have sparked up flames. The thing in the room must be creating this effect by some other conjuring means.
As Meg processed these intrusive thoughts, a wedge of the curtain was snatched back. A hand had performed the deed, she noticed; its fingers still gripped the neatly hemmed edge. This was a man’s grip—her husband’s, undoubtedly. The gold wedding ring she’d bought him in return for the chunky diamond she herself wore encircled the third finger.
“Harry,” Meg called, but her voice was stillborn in a gaping mouth.
She’d glimpsed what else was in the room beyond the windowpane.
Amanda’s head, looking out through the gap, was soon joined by that of Meg’s husband. The loving couple waited, gazing out with soulless, uncaring eyes…but then Meg realized why so little life was evident in their combined expressions. There was little life in them . They were dead. They’d been decapitated. The bloodied stumps of their necks had been penetrated by writhing tentacles.
This was proven a moment later when a third face joined the throng, floating in the center of the bedroom the way the man’s and woman’s was. The newcomer’s head belonged to the missing goth and was similarly supported by a squidlike limb; it was now the pale, painted instrument of a terrible alien intelligence.
Another hand joined in the activities of the one that had pulled back the curtains. This bore a delicate palm and purple fingernails—a lady’s appendage, without question, but far more manic than Meg had anticipated. Then other hands set to work, yanking aside the curtains, tossing up bedsheets, casting back a mattress. Soon the room was filled with chaos, as something unspeakably brutal, bearing as many limbs as a centipede, churned its jellylike mass back and forth, to and fro, hither and thither. More heads were hoisted, several withered to the bone. Some might even belong to the miners who’d first sustained the creature, and many of the additional hands that appeared almost certainly had: the flesh was all but gone, with just wasted tendons sustaining movement as their host and its innumerable tentacles sought fresh supplies of such guidance tools: human body parts, severed without consideration of their owners.
The thing beyond the window was squirming with light; it made a
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