New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Read Online Free PDF

going crazy,' Lonnie said, and laughed shakily.
    Doris had looked at her watch earlier and saw that somehow it had gotten to be quarter of eight. The light had changed; from a clear orange it had gone to a thick, murky red that glared off the windows of the shops in Norris Road and seemed to face a church steeple across the way in clotted blood. The sun was an oblate sphere on the horizon.
    'What happened back there?' Doris asked. 'What was it, Lonnie?'
    'Lost my jacket, too. Hell of a note.'
    'You didn't lose it, you took it off. It was covered with — '
    'Don't be a fool!' he snapped at her. But his eyes were not snappish; they were soft, shocked, wandering. 'I lost it, that's all.'
    'Lonnie, what happened when you went through the hedge?'
    'Nothing. Let's not talk about it. Where are we?'
    'Lonnie — '
    'I can't remember,' he said more softly. 'It's all a blank. We were there . . . we heard a sound . .
    . then I was running. That's all I can remember.' And then he added in a frighteningly childish voice: 'Why would I throw my jacket away? I liked that one. It matched the pants.' He threw back his head, gave voice to a frightening loonlike laugh, and Doris suddenly realized that whatever he had seen beyond the hedge had at least partially unhinged him. She was not sure the same wouldn't have happened to her . . . if she had seen. It didn't matter. They had to get out of here. Get back to the hotel where the kids were.
    'Let's get a cab. I want to go home.'
    'But John — ' he began.
    'Never mind John!' she cried. 'It's wrong, everything here is wrong, and I want to get a cab and go home!'
    'Yes, all right. Okay.' Lonnie passed a shaking hand across his forehead. 'I'm with you. The only problem is, there aren't any.'
    There was, in fact, no traffic at all on Norris Road, which was wide and cobbled. Directly down the center of it ran a set of old tram tracks. On the other side, in front of a flower shop, an ancient three-wheeled D-car was parked. Farther down on their own side, a Yamaha motorbike stood aslant on its kickstand. That was all. They could hear cars, but the sound was faraway, diffuse.
    'Maybe the street's closed for repairs,' Lonnie muttered, and then had done a strange thing . . .
    strange, at least, for him, who was ordinarily so easy and self-assured. He looked back over his shoulder as if afraid they had been followed. 'We'll walk,' she said.
    'Where?'
    'Anywhere. Away from Crouch End. We can get a taxi if we get away from here.' She was suddenly positive of that, if of nothing else.
    'All right.' Now he seemed perfectly willing to entrust the leadership of the whole matter to her.
    They began walking along Norris Road toward the setting sun. The faraway hum of the traffic remained constant, not seeming to diminish, not seeming to grow any, either. It was like the constant push of the wind. The desertion was beginning to nibble at her nerves. She felt they were being watched, tried to dismiss the feeling, and found that she couldn't. The sound of their footfalls
    (SIXTY LOST IN UNDERGROUND HORROR)
    echoed back to them. The business at the hedge played on her mind more and more, and finally she had to ask again.
    'Lonnie, what was it?'
    He answered simply: 'I don't remember. And I don't want to.'
    They passed a market that was closed — a pile of coconuts like shrunken heads seen back-to were piled against the window. They passed a launderette where white machines had been pulled from the washed-out pink plasterboard walls like square teeth from dying gums. They passed a soap-streaked show window with an old SHOP TO LEASE sign in the front. Something moved behind the soap streaks, and Doris saw, peering out at her, the pink and tufted battle-scarred face of a cat. The same gray torn.
    She consulted her interior workings and tickings and discovered that she was in a state of slowly building terror. She felt as if her intestines had begun to crawl sluggishly around and around within her belly. Her mouth had a