The Lurker at the Threshold : A Horror Mystery

by Brandon Berntson

  “We’re not out of this yet,” Armitage said, huffing and puffing behind him.

  Millie’s apartment was coming into view, the chairs, kitchen, everything blending into the hillside but slowly overrun by the natural growth of Sarnath. The front door leading into the hallway sat at the top of the hill like a lone portal.

  Screaming continued from below. Flames were bright in the dark, the city of Sarnath under siege. Draperies were on fire outside balcony windows. The shouts and tribal calls of Ib echoed over the square and up the hill where Macky, Capshaw, and Armitage continued to run. The lights and flickers from across the lake grew dim with the onset of fog. The moon shone like a single, approving eye.

  Macky was in what should have been Millie’s apartment. In some aspects, it was still there. He grabbed the front door, pulled, and made it into the hallway. He set Millie on her feet. She turned and slapped him as hard as she could. The jolt stung and warmed the side of his face. He saw stars, swooned, and put a hand to his face.

  “That’s what I get for saving your life?” he asked.

  She reared back to slap him again. He grabbed her wrist.

  Armitage told Capshaw to hurry.

  Capshaw stopped and turned. He grabbed the sword in both hands and hurled it at their attacker. It somersaulted through the air and sank into the tribesman’s belly. The man stopped instantly, dropped his sword, fell to his knees, and pitched forward.

  Macky raised his eyebrows. Armitage looked stunned.

  Capshaw turned and hurried into Millie’s apartment, still holding his bowler’s hat. He made it through the door and into the hallway with the others. Macky and Armitage slammed the door shut. Mrs. Newson’s door opened from across the hall. She took one look outside, screamed again, and slammed the door shut.

  Chapter 12

  Millie reared back and slapped Macky again.

  “Ouch!” he said, rubbing his cheeks, eyes blazing. “What the matter with you?”

  “I demand to know the meaning of this!” Millie demanded. “What are your names? Who sent you? What tribe do you belong to?”

  “Millie, honestly, don’t you recognize me? It’s, Dev. You’re under some spell. Snap out of it. This isn’t you!”

  “How dare you shorten my name for your convenience! Who told you you could take such liberties!”

  “Can you guys help me out?” Macky asked Capshaw and Armitage.

  “Give me my dog!” Millie shouted. Armitage handed her over, eyebrows raised. Millie took the dog and coddled the cocker spaniel. “Have they hurt my wittle, precious doggie, schnook-ems, upset poor, licky-face, Mr. Kalabraise?”

  Mr. Kalabraise licked her face. Macky raised his eyebrows, amused.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” he said.

  “Here, let me try,” Armitage said.

  Macky motioned for Armitage to go ahead.

  “Millie, it’s me, Henry Armitage,” the doctor said. “You remember Miskatonic? The University? The library? We had some laughs, didn’t we? Well, maybe laughs is the wrong word.”

  She looked at Armitage and frowned.

  “Offer her money,” Macky said. “That might help.”

  “I’ve never killed a man before,” Capshaw said, hand to his brow. “What on earth has become of me? What am I turning into?”

  “Hey,” Macky said. “You did what you had to do. You saved our lives. Besides, the whole situation happened about ten-thousand years ago. It was like running an old film. We just got a front-row seat. It had a few variances, sure, but it wasn’t the real thing.”

  Capshaw continued to shake his head. He tried to ponder this, but it didn’t help. “I still . . .” he said. “I never killed anyone before. I feel sick, Dev. Do you think this is the Mad Arab?”

  Macky put his hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s the instinct for survival.”

  Millie was looking at Armitage in some sort of trance. Her eyes were glassy.

  “It’s no use,” the doctor said. “I don’t know how to snap her out of it.”

  “Off with their heads!” Millie said, waving her arm dramatically in the air. “Where are my guards? I demand you return me at once!”

  She reached for the door. Macky stepped in front of it.

  “Creighton killed them anyway,” Macky said. “The loyal soldier.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Capshaw said. “this weighs heavy on my heart.”

  Mr. Kalabraise barked.

  “I am the Queen of Sarnath!” Millie shouted.

  “This is getting old,” Macky said. “Millie, dear. Let-me-make-your-dreams-come-true. It’s-part-of-all-I-try-to-dooo. Won’t-you-come-home? Oh, won’t-you-come-home?”

  “You, sir, have a terrible voice,” Millie said.

  “I think she’s coming back,” Macky said.

  “I want to know who you people are and why you’ve kidnapped me! My city is being invaded! I need to save my people!”

  “It’s a little too late for that, sunshine.”

  “So help me, if you call me one more pet name again, I’m going to scream! Then I’ll cut off your head! That’s Queen von Clydesburgh, you private gumshoe!”

  Macky couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing.

  “Millie, look,” Armitage said. “You’re city is under attack. We know that. It’ll be gone. It already is, but that’s not who you are. You’re in a dream state. This is where you live. Apartment 6C. You’re in Innsport. You work for Macky, here. Devlin. You’re his secretary.”

  “Work? As in servitude? Don’t be ridiculous! I wouldn’t throw an oyster at him!”

  “Look,” Armitage said. He went to the door and pulled it open, as much as he could. In the time they’d been here, the branches, vines, and twigs had lost their hold. The flowers had faded. The apartment was returning to normal.

  “Wait!” Macky said.

  “Macky,” Armitage said. “She needs to see.”

  “Does this make me some kind of brute?” Capshaw said, shaking his head. “Am I a ruffian?”

  Armitage grabbed the knob, turned it, and pulled. Beyond was the silence of a thousand years. The city of Sarnath was in ruins. It was daytime. The sun shone high. But the ruins were just ruins, moss-covered, grown over, and silenced. Sarnath looked 10,000 years old. The place was not only deserted, it was gone. There wasn’t a soul anywhere. The cry of a lone bird added a further sense of desolation.

  Millie stared at the world she’d come from. Macky could see it on her face. It wasn’t registering. He thought it might be the Mad Arab, not disillusionment. The towers had fallen, invisible under the growth.

  “Ib sought revenge,” Armitage told her. “And succeeded.”

  “What are—?”

  “Monsters. Warriors. The tribe of Ib—of the moon. Sarnath is no more.”

  Millie’s knees buckled. She hit the floor and sobbed.

  —

  Capshaw managed, also, to snap out of his delirium. Millie was petting the head of Mr. Kalabraise, who was the only one among them undaunted by the entire episode.

  “I’m getting sick of moving all the time, Dev,” Millie said.

  “I know. It’s not my fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said.

  “It’s good to have you back, Mill.”

  “‘If only I could’ve been Queen for a day.’ I guess it was worth it to some extent.”

  “You slapped me pretty hard. Twice.”

  “That wasn’t the real me.”

  “I just remembered!” Capshaw said, eyes brightening.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “Mike, the security guard!” Capshaw said. “I wonder if he . . . Oh my goodness! Somehow, I kept thinking . . .”

  “Mike?” Macky asked. “I don’t remember a Mike. The security guard I met was named . . . Wilbur. That was it. Odd name. Who would name their kid . . ?”

  “Wilbur?” Armitage asked, alarmed.

  “Yeah. Why?” Macky asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “
Wilbur is the name of . . .” He looked at Millie.

  “Who?” Macky asked. “The name of who?”

  “Nothing,” Armitage said. “Never-mind. I’ll tell you later.”

  “We should get back to the museum,” Capshaw said.

  —

  The hound bayed when they stepped outside.

  “There’s more than one,” Macky said. The hackles on the back of his neck stood up.

  “Now what?” Armitage said.

  “Dev, are you looking at this?” Millie asked.

  Things were moving through the air. The wind was blowing. The glowing orbs of Yog-Sothoth appeared at random. The city of Innsport was changing.

  “Look,” Armitage said, and pointed.

  A tear in the night sky was visible, a bluish fabric letting in things from the other side of the cosmos. Stars and fire, streams of foggy light, stars embedded in a gossamer strand that looked like the souls of ghosts. Monsters and other creatures jumped from it to the sidewalk. Behind the tear, something so massive and colossal took up the space, it was impossible to see it in its entirety. Macky knew what it was. Yog-Sothoth, the Lurker at the Threshold. The Keeper of the Gate was waiting to enter.

  “It’s the Mythos itself,” Armitage said. “It’s coming through on its own. The gates are opening.”

  “Holy heaven,” Macky said. “How are we supposed to stop this?”

  “The museum!” Mr. Capshaw said.

  Mr. Kalabraise barked.

  —

  They piled into the coupe and headed back to the museum. Macky noticed several things at once. The fog was rolling in. Something was happening in the sky that defied logic. The hound continued its ceaseless baying. It was starting to unnerve him. Wind blew, autumn leaves tumbling down the streets. In the sky, under the foggy moon, something pieced itself together—the very matter of Yog-Sothoth coming from various, random orbs scattered throughout the city.

  “Unto the earth, and all that is in me, being fed, I will offer my power. Be my offspring.”

  The sound was something like a deep, resonating wind, barely noticeable, yet voiced through the portal. Could The Necronomicon be responsible for all this? It didn’t seem likely.

  They drove down the road. Capshaw and Armitage were in the backseat, Millie (still wearing her chiton and gold leaflet) and Mr. Kalabraise in front. Macky pulled to a stop in front of the museum. They climbed out, slamming the doors. Erratic clouds of black wings spotted the moon.

  Capshaw dug into his pockets for his keys. He got the doors unlocked, and they hurried inside.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Armitage said, looking around.

  Mr. Kalabraise ranted off a series of barks. Millie put her down. The dog ran off toward the east hallway, and everyone followed. She rounded a corner, slid on the polished floor, nails clicking on the marble, and bumped into the wall. She was back on her paws and heading down the hall in seconds. At the first door she came to, she stood barking and pawing. Archives was written on a small black plaque. Capshaw got there first and opened it with his keys. The others followed.

  Mr. Kalabraise trotted down the steps and stopped on the bottom floor. It was dark in the room. Capshaw looked for a chord and pulled it. The room brightened by a single bulb on the ceiling.

  “Do you hear that?” Armitage said. “It sounds like digging.”

  They hurried to another door at the end of the passage. Capshaw opened this one, too. Much like Millie’s apartment, they were transported to another world. A mound of earth filled the space. A giant hole led into an abyss of darkness, a ladder propped against the hole. Someone was down there. They could hear the grunting and digging.

  Another figure stood in the corner in the shadows, a tall lanky character with dim, white eyes.

  “Mike, is that you?” Capshaw asked. He was on his hands and knees, shouting into the excavation. “Mike, please! Talk to me! Where’s The Necronomicon?”

  The digging continued. There was no reply. Macky saw the figure in the shadows. He was about to say something when he realized what was going on. They were reliving another Lovecraftian Mythos.

  They weren’t in the museum. They were outside in a quiet night in a graveyard . . . except for the digging. The moon was obscured by a thin layer of clouds. The fog was thin and vapory above the headstones. A lantern stood crooked on a mound of dirt, shedding a faint glow.

  Macky approached the hole in the ground. A large metal plate with handles on the top had been set to one side. It was more than a grave. It was a pit. The air coming out of it was bone-chillingly cold.

  “Mike! Please, answer me!” Capshaw said.

  The figure moved, and Macky studied him once more. What had once been a corner of the museum archives was now a graveyard under the shadow of the moon. There was Mike (supposedly) in the pit, and the figure standing a ways off by a large tombstone.

  “Dev, are you all right?” Millie asked.

  “Mike?” Capshaw asked. “Speak up, man!”

  The figure in the shadow of the tombstone stared at Macky. The flash of some subterranean glow flashed behind his eyes.

  “Where’s The Necronomicon?” Macky asked.

  The figure smiled. Or did it?

  “Dev?” Millie asked, again. She put a hand on his arm. She turned to where he was looking but couldn’t anything.

  The sound of digging continued from the pit. It was faint, farther away.

  The figure in the shadows put his hands up and shook its distorted head.

  “Mike!” Capshaw yelled. He was about to catapult himself into the hole.

  Mike responded from below:

  “Don’t come down here, Creighton! Whatever you do! My God, it’s hideous! It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen!” There was a pause. Then: “Run! Run! Creighton, for God’s sake! Seal up the hole before it’s too late! Seal it up! Don’t waste any time! Dear God, man! Put the lid back in place! And don’t come down! Don’t come down, whatever you do. It’s . . . hideous!”

  “Mike, we’re coming down!” Capshaw cried. “Everything’s going to be all right!” He moved into the hole before Armitage grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

  “You heard him,” the doctor said. His face was rigid, jaw set.

  Capshaw fought him, tried to get loose. “Are you mad? He’s down there! We have to save him! Something’s down there with him!”

  “Whatever it is, it’s too late,” Armitage said. He wouldn’t let go.

  “Mike, please!” Capshaw cried, trying to get free. There were tears in the old man’s eyes. “Come up! Get out of there! Please, for God’s sake!”

  No sound from below. Except . . . yes. Macky heard something. It was getting louder, moving down the passage toward the opening where the ladder was.

  “Mike!” Capshaw wailed. “Miiiiike?”

  “Fool!” the thing from below said, deep intonation like the voice at the gate. The voice of a demon.

  “Mike?” Capshaw said. “Mike? Is that you? What happened?”

  The man was weeping, but not like before. This was grief and horror.

  “Fool!” the voice sounded from below. It moved closer to the opening. “Mike is dead!”

  Chapter 13

  From below, in the cavern under the grave, the faceless, nameless horror inched closer.

  Mr. Kalabraise stood at the edge of the excavation, looking down, and barked.

  “Help me with this thing,” Macky said. He, Capshaw, and Armitage grabbed the metal plate. They grunted, sweated, and lifted it into place over the grooves. After securing it, they turned the handles, locking it in place.

  Macky looked and noticed the figure he’d seen had disappeared.

  Mr. Kalabraise stopped barking. The others stood in the dark with the lantern light, the moon illuminating the cemetery. The clouds drifted back. The walls of the museum materialized. The door was visible. They were back in the museum.

  They turned and headed upstairs, down the hallway, and back outside.

  �
��The Necronomicon is opening portals all over,” Capshaw said. “Mike must’ve investigated after I left and found the book.”

  “With a little help from the Mad Arab,” Macky said.

  —

  “Let’s get back to the office,” he told the others. “I want to make sure Duke and Newt are okay. What time is it?”

  Armitage looked at his watch. He widened his eyes. “Good Lord, it’s after midnight already. How did that happen?”

  Macky frowned. “Maybe it’s the portals. The time we spent there. It’s longer than it seems. Maybe that’s why the portals are opening so quickly.”

  Capshaw was wide-eyed, visibly shaken. He had no words. Armitage put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Mike is . . .” the curator said.

  Armitage nodded. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Capshaw didn’t look like anything was ever going to be all right again.

  “I don’t want to be alone, Dev,” Millie said. “And neither does Mr. Kalabraise.”

  “I’m not sure I want anybody out of my sight for the rest of the night,” he said.

  —

  The sky was a teeming, churning miasma of clouds and stars. Layers of space beyond gave another series of dimensions to a warped reality of sky. Rips in the atmosphere appeared at random, pulling back to reveal a deeper, darker, colder layer of space. Things Macky had no name for: cyclones of bats, shadowy tornadoes rose into the air, making formations that blotted the sky. The baying of the hound continued. Portals opened and closed. Macky thought he saw a giant leg disappear around the edge of a building, something that belonged to a massive spider.

  “Is anyone else getting thirsty?” Macky asked. “All this running around and monsters and things going bump in the night.”

  Millie raised her eyebrows.

  Armitage and Capshaw were in the backseat, trying to read, despite the lack of light. Capshaw seemed more his old self after some gentle words from Armitage.

  “No, thanks,” Armitage said.

  “None for me, Dev,” Capshaw said.