Read Online The Wells of Hell by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

how old is the stuff
in the Bodines’ water?’
    Dan paused. ‘Would you believe two
million years? Or thereabouts, anyway.’
    ‘Two million years? You mean the
organic stuff in that water is prehistoric?’
    ‘That’s right. We’ve checked, and
there’s no mistake. That water must have come up from subterranean sources more
than a mile and a half under the surface.’
    I finished my coffee and whisky, and
coughed. ‘That’s ridiculous. Their well isn’t more than a hundred feet deep, if
that.’
    ‘The tests are conclusive.’
    ‘Okay, they’re conclusive. But what
do they prove? So the Bodines drank some very old water.
    Where does that leave us?’
    Dan said patiently: ‘I don’t think
you’re following me. The organisms in that water are also two million years
old.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘The little
squiggly creatures. I’ve tested the fluid that comes out of them, and I’ve tested their own
organic fabric. The results are always the same. I’m sending a small sample
over to the radio-carbon laboratory at White Plains, just to make doubly sure,
but I don’t think there’s any room for doubt. They’re two million years old.’
    I closed my eyes. It was all getting
too much for me. ‘Listen, Dan,’ I said tiredly, ‘how can anything be two million years old and still be living? Those
organisms don’t even have beards.’
    ‘All the same, it’s true. They’re
living fossils. Rheta’s checking up now, to see if we can relate them to any
known prehistoric species.’
    I was silent for a long time.
Standing there listening to Dan on the telephone, I suddenly felt tired and
lonesome and mystified by everything that had happened in the past twelve
hours. I was frightened, too, to tell you the God’s-honest truth. I kept
thinking about Oliver’s scales, and the bony carapace in the bathtub, and the
shuffling hulking figure I had seen disappearing over by the Bodines’ fence.
    Dan said: ‘I think we’re going to
have to make some more tests, Mason, and maybe dig down into the well itself.
That water’s coming up from some-place, and for the public’s protection I need
to know where. Maybe you’d like to come out with us later this afternoon and
give us some help. I’ve already advised Carter, and he’s going to give us all
the co-operation we need.’
    ‘What time would you like me to be
there?’ I asked him.
    ‘Get some sleep first. I’m going to,
just as soon as I’ve finished up here. Make it two-thirty, up at the house.’
    ‘All right,’ I said, and put the
phone down. I looked across at Shelley and he squeezed his eyes closed, as if
he was bored with the whole business.
    ‘It’s no good looking like that,’ I
said, walking through to the bedroom. ‘There’s a whole gang of
two-million-year-old fossils in this town’s drinking water, and so far it looks
like they’re giving people fish-scales. Do you want to wind up with
fish-scales? You, a cat?’
    I undressed, straightened the bed
out of the rumpled condition in which I had left it the morning before, and
climbed between the sheets. I was so exhausted that it couldn’t have been
longer than four or five minutes before I was asleep.
    While I slept, I had the weirdest
dream, or dreams. I felt I was standing by the seashore, at night, and the moon
was shining its shattered light across the surface of the ocean. Then, I was
swimming, carried up and down on the waves, and I could feel the chill of the
briney water. The moon appeared and disappeared like a remote and alien signal
lamp.
    Before long, I was plunging beneath
the surface of the ocean itself. I wasn’t afraid, and for some reason I felt no
need to breathe. The water itself seemed to be breathable, and I could feel the
cold, refreshing flow of brine through my lungs. It was almost impossible to
see anything, though. The water was very dark, and I could only feel my way
through the currents and undertows, and through the icy glittering schools of
herring