Read Online New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ramsey Campbell
Ads: Link
juke. If you don't hav~ becvming no one, everything, e.ndless space.
that H tomorrow, you goin' to suffer. Mister, you goi~ ('orne alive! he snapped at himself and jerked to suffer.' upright behind the wheel. But it was no good. He felt They uncuffed him and were gone before he couli that he had to get out of the car, and when he did it
get to his feet. All things considered, they had bee~ was like moving in a dream. He felt light as a cloud
practically cordial. beginning to vanish. A shadow was spreading its ú ú ú an~nyrnous dark over everything, and the air was
66 New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
becoming soft as rock seen underwater. His limbs were remote and rubbery and seemed to be moving by
their own will. He let them guide him down the slope and through a swatch of burned reeds. When he stopped moving, he looked down, and there, huddled among the crusts of dirt like a stunned animal, was the stone that had cut him.
It came away from the ground easily, and the dry dirt crumbled revealing a palm-sized green rock.
When he had first seen it, wet, he thought that colour was moss. But the green and the oily shine were its own strange attributes, and when he saw them again, the dizziness and the nausea returned.
Henley moved to heave it away, but something about the patterning on the rock stopped him.
Looking closely, he saw that it was engraved with sharp cuneiformlike designs. He ran his fingers over them, studied again the fine cutting edge, and turned to take it back with him.
The return walk to the car was uneventful. His body no longer felt light. It was hungry, and he decided to find a restaurant and eat. On the highway, he turned towards the city impulsively. He wanted to wheel around and go west, but it was impossible to do more than speculate about that. He felt stoned and uneasy, and he stopped several times to question his motives, but each time he stopped an overriding urgency, razorapt, urged him back into his car. When he arrived in New York, his clothes were soaked through with a cold sweat.
He returned the rented car and took a room at the Elton on East Twenty-sixth. There he unbagged the heroin and repeatedly touched it with his fingertips. It had become the primary purpose in his life, yet he was doing everything with it wrong.
He took a pinch of it, divided it into two thin slivers, and used his thumbnail to snort them. A few moments later, he was drifting slowly and powerfully through the cool red light of day's end. He mastered a small spasm of nausea and floated to the corner of his cot where he sat down, all of the day's problems already on the point of an energetic solution.
An hour later the room was darkening. Stern shadows, deep as oil, gloomed on all sides. Everything seemed immense, and the apprehensions of the nightmare began to feel real. The cutting stone, propped up on the windowsill, pulsed a dull incandescent green. It's drug-action, he reassured himself, but he wasn't confident. Fear hazed around him like a thunder charge. He realized that at any moment the horror could begin again. Something dark and cold as an ocean current was tugging at him, pulling him away.
He touched the bedspread to reassure himself. It was death-cold flesh! He hopped off the bed in terror before he saw that he had touched the metal backpost.
He breathed deeply to calm himself. It came to him that the nightmare was still there, somewhere deeper, much deeper than awareness. It was continuing. It had never stopped. Like the thunder beginning too late to remember the light, his mind was shivering in the afterfall of an intractable doom. Clearly, he saw that it was only a matter of time before the darkness welling within. surged up. He sat shivering in the twilight and resolved to contact Ralf. He had to unload the heroin. If he went into a coma and was found with it, it would be better if he never woke up.
There was a pay phone in the lobby. Henley called Ralf's apartment, and the phone rang a long
that H tomorrow, you goin' to suffer. Mister, you goi~ ('orne alive! he snapped at himself and jerked to suffer.' upright behind the wheel. But it was no good. He felt They uncuffed him and were gone before he couli that he had to get out of the car, and when he did it
get to his feet. All things considered, they had bee~ was like moving in a dream. He felt light as a cloud
practically cordial. beginning to vanish. A shadow was spreading its ú ú ú an~nyrnous dark over everything, and the air was
66 New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
becoming soft as rock seen underwater. His limbs were remote and rubbery and seemed to be moving by
their own will. He let them guide him down the slope and through a swatch of burned reeds. When he stopped moving, he looked down, and there, huddled among the crusts of dirt like a stunned animal, was the stone that had cut him.
It came away from the ground easily, and the dry dirt crumbled revealing a palm-sized green rock.
When he had first seen it, wet, he thought that colour was moss. But the green and the oily shine were its own strange attributes, and when he saw them again, the dizziness and the nausea returned.
Henley moved to heave it away, but something about the patterning on the rock stopped him.
Looking closely, he saw that it was engraved with sharp cuneiformlike designs. He ran his fingers over them, studied again the fine cutting edge, and turned to take it back with him.
The return walk to the car was uneventful. His body no longer felt light. It was hungry, and he decided to find a restaurant and eat. On the highway, he turned towards the city impulsively. He wanted to wheel around and go west, but it was impossible to do more than speculate about that. He felt stoned and uneasy, and he stopped several times to question his motives, but each time he stopped an overriding urgency, razorapt, urged him back into his car. When he arrived in New York, his clothes were soaked through with a cold sweat.
He returned the rented car and took a room at the Elton on East Twenty-sixth. There he unbagged the heroin and repeatedly touched it with his fingertips. It had become the primary purpose in his life, yet he was doing everything with it wrong.
He took a pinch of it, divided it into two thin slivers, and used his thumbnail to snort them. A few moments later, he was drifting slowly and powerfully through the cool red light of day's end. He mastered a small spasm of nausea and floated to the corner of his cot where he sat down, all of the day's problems already on the point of an energetic solution.
An hour later the room was darkening. Stern shadows, deep as oil, gloomed on all sides. Everything seemed immense, and the apprehensions of the nightmare began to feel real. The cutting stone, propped up on the windowsill, pulsed a dull incandescent green. It's drug-action, he reassured himself, but he wasn't confident. Fear hazed around him like a thunder charge. He realized that at any moment the horror could begin again. Something dark and cold as an ocean current was tugging at him, pulling him away.
He touched the bedspread to reassure himself. It was death-cold flesh! He hopped off the bed in terror before he saw that he had touched the metal backpost.
He breathed deeply to calm himself. It came to him that the nightmare was still there, somewhere deeper, much deeper than awareness. It was continuing. It had never stopped. Like the thunder beginning too late to remember the light, his mind was shivering in the afterfall of an intractable doom. Clearly, he saw that it was only a matter of time before the darkness welling within. surged up. He sat shivering in the twilight and resolved to contact Ralf. He had to unload the heroin. If he went into a coma and was found with it, it would be better if he never woke up.
There was a pay phone in the lobby. Henley called Ralf's apartment, and the phone rang a long
Similar Books
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past
Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair
