Read Online The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey - Free Book Online

by—a living specimen of the species hanging in our basement. But they were not cries of panic or fear, I assured the old man; they were the ejaculations of a miner, his pan coming up empty yet again.

    Presently the doctor returned and flopped down next to our deepening hole in utter dejection, stabbing the end of the torch into the mound of dirt beside it. He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his long arms around them, staring glumly at our upraised sweat-streaked faces with the expression of a man who has suffered some irreplaceable loss.

    “Well? Did ye find anything, Doctor?” asked Erasmus Gray.

    “Nothing!” snapped the doctor.

    Erasmus Gray was obviously relieved, and the doctor, just as obviously, was not.

    “It defies all logic,” the doctor said to no one in particular. “It flies in the face of reason. They are not phantoms or shape-shifters. They cannot float above the ground like pixies or astral project themselves from one spot to another. He must have found her by use of his acute sense of smell, and that is employed by crawling over the terrain, yet there is no evidence of his passing anywhere.” A stake lay within his grasp. He reached over and tugged it from the earth, turning it over and over with his dexterous, delicate fingers. “Hewould have left a breathing hole, yet there is no breathing hole. He would have left a trail, yet there is not so much as one bent blade of grass.”

    His eyes fell upon our upturned faces. He stared down at us; we stared up at him; and no one spoke for a moment.

    “Well, what in God’s name are you doing? Dig. Dig!”

    He rose and, in his frustration, hurled the stake toward the line of trees, where the deep shadows swallowed it with a muted rattling hiccup of broken branch and fallen leaves.

    From the small rutted path behind us came a huffing and a snorting, and all heads swiveled to follow the sound. The old horse, with flaring nostril and rolling eye, stamped its forelegs and gave a low-pitched whinny.

    “What is it, ol’ Bess?” Erasmus Gray called softly. “What’s the matter, girl?”

    The beast dropped its head, stretched forth its thin neck, and pawed at the hard ground. The ancient cart creaked and the rickety wheels rasped. I glanced up at the doctor, who was staring at the horse, arms hanging loosely at his sides, his entire being focused on the animal’s distress.

    “Something’s spooked her,” said Erasmus Gray.

    “Quiet!” breathed the doctor. He slowly pivoted on his heel, scanning the grounds and the path that snaked through the headstones, glimmering sentinels in the starlight, until he stopped, his back to us, peering against the darkness toward the trees. For a long, awful moment there was no sound at all, save for ol’ Bess’s soft protests and the stamping of herhooves upon the path. The doctor raised his left hand, fingers curling and uncurling, his shoulders drawn back with tension, and a terrible sense of foreboding overcame me. A few more seconds dragged by, during which the animal’s agitation grew, corresponding with my own.

    And then, on the heels of that ghastly silence, from the trees came the hissing.

    Low-pitched. Rhythmical. Faint. Not from one particular spot, but from many. Were they echoes—or replies? Not continuous, but sporadic:
hiss
… pause …
hiss
… pause …
hissssss
…

    The doctor turned his head, looking over his shoulder at me. “Will Henry,” he whispered. “Did you remember to fill the flash pots with gunpowder?”

    “Yes, sir,” I whispered back.

    “Fetch them at once. Quietly, Will Henry,” he calmly cautioned as I heaved myself out of the hole. He dropped his hand into the pocket of his coat where he had dropped the revolver.

    “I left my rifle in the cart,” Erasmus said. “I’ll get the pots. The boy should—”

    “No! Stay where you are! Go, Will Henry. Bring as many as you can carry.”

    “And my rifle if you can manage it, Will!” quavered Erasmus.