The Atrocity Archives Read Online Free PDF

stereo could generate that
kind of volume, and maybe if I don't do something about it I'm going to
vanish through the floorboards. So I stand up unsteadily and weave my
way into the kitchen. The cellar door is ajar and the light's on and
the noise is coming from down below; I grab the fire extinguisher and
advance. There's an ominous smell of ozone … 
    Chateau Cthulhu is a mid-Victorian terrace, an
anonymous London dormitory unit distinguished mainly by having three
cellar rooms and a Laundry residential clearance, meaning that it's
probably not bugged by the KGB, CIA, or our enemies in MI6. There is a
grand total of four double-bedrooms, each with a lock on the door, plus
a shared kitchen, living room, dining room, and bathroom. The plumbing
gurgles ominously late at night; the carpet is a peculiarly lurid
species of paisley print that was the height of fashion in 1880, and
then experienced an undeserved resurrection among cheap-ass landlords
during the 1980s.
    When we moved in, one of the cellars was full of
lumber, one of them contained two rusting bicycle frames and some
mummified cat turds, and the third had some burned-out candle stubs and
a blue chalk pentacle inscribed on the floor. The omens were good: the
house was right at the corner of an equilateral triangle of streets,
aligned due east-west, and there were no TV aerials blocking the
southern roofline. Brains, pretending to be a God-botherer, managed to
negotiate a 10 percent discount in return for exorcising the place
after convincing Mr. Hussein that a history of pagan activities could
severely impact his revenues on the rental market. (Nonsense, but
profitable nonsense.) The former temple is now Pinky's space, and if
Mr. Hussein could see it he'd probably have a heart attack. It isn't
the dubious wiring or the three six-foot-high racks containing Pinky's
1950s vintage Strowger telephone exchange that make it so alarming:
more like the way Pinky replaced the amateurish chalk
sketch with a homemade optical bench and properly calibrated
beam-splitter rig and five prisms, upgrading the original student
séance antics to full-blown functionality.
    (Yes, it's a pentacle. Yes, he's using a fifty
kilovolt HT power supply and some mucking great capacitors to drive the
laser. Yes, that's a flayed goatskin on the coat rack and a half-eaten
pizza whirling round at 33 rpm on the Linn Sondek turntable. This is
what you get to live with when you share a house with Pinky and the
Brain: I said it was a geek house, and we all work in the
Laundry, so we're talking about geek houses for very esoteric—indeed,
occult—values of geek.)
    The smell of ozone—and the ominous crackling
sound—is emanating from the HT power supply. The groaning/ squealing
noise is coming from the speakers (black monoliths from the 2001 school of hi-fi engineering). I tiptoe round the far wall from the PSU
and pick up the microphone lying in front of the left speaker, then
yank on the cord; there's a stunning blast of noise, then the feedback
cut out. Where the hell is Brains? I look at the PSU. There's a
blue-white flickering inside it that gives me a nasty sinking feeling.
If this was any other house I'd just go for the distribution board and
pull the main circuit breaker, but there are some capacitors next to
that thing that are the size of a compact washing machine and I don't
fancy trying to safe them in a dark cellar. I heft the extinguisher—a
rather illegal halon canister, necessary in this household—and
advance.
The main cut-off switch is a huge knife switch on the rack above the
PSU. There's a wooden chair sitting next to it; I pick it up and,
gripping the back, use one leg to nudge the handle.
    There's a loud clunk and a simultaneous bang from the PSU. Oops, I guess I let the magic smoke out. Dumping the
chair, I yank the pin from the extinguisher and open fire, remembering
to stand well clear of those big capacitors. (You can
leave 'em with their terminals exposed and they'll pick