The next morning the horse was dead in the barn, and of course we would of had to walk to the deepo or all those miles to Warren’s farm. Aunt Lucy was scared to go and scared to stay and she allowed as how when Cap Pritchett comes by we had best go with him over to town and make a report and then stay there until we found out what happened.
Me, I had my own ideas what happened. Halloween was only a few days away now, and maybe them ones had snatched Uncle Fred and Cousin Osborne for sacrefice. Them ones or the Druids. The mythology book said Druids could even raise storms if they wanted to with their spells.
No sense talking to Aunt Lucy, though. She was like out of her head with worry, anyway, just rocking back and forth and mumbling over and over, “They’re gone” and “Fred always warned me” and “No use, no use.” I had to get the meals and tend to stock myself. And nights it was hard to sleep, because I kep listening for drums. I never heard any, though, but still it was better than sleeping and having those dreams.
Dreams about the black thing like a tree, walking through the woods and sort of rooting itself to one particular spot so it could pray with all those mouths—pray down to that old god in the ground below.
I don’t know where I got the idea that was how it prayed—by sort of attaching its mouths to the ground. Maybe it was on account of seeing the green slime. Or had I really seen it? I’d never gone back to look. Maybe it was all in my head—the Druid story and about them ones and the voice that said “shoggoth” and all the rest.
But then, where was Cousin Osborne and Uncle Fred? And what scared the horse so it up and died the next day?
Thoughts kep going round and round in my head, chasing each other, but all I knew was we’d be out of here by Halloween night.
Because Halloween was on a Thursday, and Cap Pritchett would come and we could ride to town with him.
Night before I made Aunt Lucy pack and we got all ready, and then I settled down to sleep. There was no noises, and for the first time I felt a little better.
Only the dreams come again. I dreamed a bunch of men come in the night and crawled through the parlor bedroom window where Aunt Lucy slept and got her. They tied her up and took her away, all quiet, in the dark, because they had cat-eyes and didn’t need light to see.
The dream scared me so I woke up while it was just breaking into dawn. I went down the hall to Aunt Lucy right away.
She was gone.
The window was wide open like in my dream, and some of the blankets was torn.
Ground was hard outside the window and I didn’t see footprints or anything. But she was gone.
I guess I cried then.
It’s hard to remember what I did next. Didn’t want breakfast. Went out hollering “Aunt Lucy” and not expecting any answer. I walked to the barn and the door was open and the cows were gone. Saw one or two prints going out the yard and up the road, but I didn’t think it was safe to follow them.
Some time later I went over to the well and then I cried again because the water was all slimy green in the new one, just like the old.
When I saw that I knew I was right. Them ones must of come in the night and they wasn’t even trying to hide their doings any more. Like they was sure of things.
Tonight was Halloween. I had to get out of here. If them ones was watching and waiting, I couldn’t depend on Cap Pritchett showing up this afternoon. I’d have to chance it down the road and I’d better start walking now, in the morning, while it was still light enough to make town.
So I rummaged around and found a little money in Uncle Fred’s drawer of the bureau and Cousin Osborne’s letter with the address in Kingsport he wrote it from. That’s where I’d have to go after I told folks in town what happened. I’d have some kin there.
I wondered if they’d believe me in town when I told them about the way Uncle Fred had disappeared and Aunt Lucy, and about them stealing the cattle for a sacrefice and about the green slime in the well where something had stopped to drink. I wondered if they would know about the drums and the lights on the hills tonight and if they was going to get up a party and come back this evening to try and catch them ones and what they meant to call up rumbling out of the earth. I wondered if they knew what a “shoggoth” was.
Well, whether they did or not, I couldn’t stay and find out for myself. So I packed up my satchel and got ready to leave. Must of been around noon and everything was still.
I went to the door and stepped outside, not bothering to lock it behind me. Why should I with nobody around for miles?
Then I heard the noise down the road.
Footsteps.
Somebody walking along the road, just around the bend.
I stood still for a minute, waiting to see, waiting to run.
Then he come along.
He was tall and thin, and looked something like Uncle Fred only a lot younger and without a beard, and he was wearing a nice city kind of suit and a crush hat. He smiled when he saw me and come marching up like he knowed who I was.
“Hello, Willie,” he said.
I didn’t say nothing, I was so confuzed.
“Don’t you know me?” he said. “I’m Cousin Osborne. Your Cousin Frank.” He held out his hand to shake. “But then I guess you wouldn’t remember, would you? Last time I saw you, you were only a baby.”
“But I thought you were suppose to come last week,” I said. “We expected you on the 25th.”
“Didn’t you get my telegram?” he asked. “I had business.”
I shook my head. “We never get nothing here unless the mail delivers it on Thursdays. Maybe it’s at the station.”
Cousin Osborne grinned. “You are pretty well off the beaten track at that. Nobody at the station this noon. I was hoping Fred would come along with the buggy so I wouldn’t have to walk, but no luck.”
“You walked all the way?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“And you come on the train?”
Cousin Osborne nodded.
“Then where’s your suitcase?”
“I left it at the deepo,” he told me. “Too far to fetch it along. I thought Fred would drive me back there in the buggy to pick it up.” He noticed my luggage for the first time. “But wait a minute—where are you going with a suitcase, son?”
Well, there was nothing else for me to do but tell him everything that happened.
So I said for him to come into the house and set down and I’d explain.
We went back in and he fixed some coffee and I made a couple sanwiches and we ate, and then I told him about Uncle Fred going to the deepo and not coming back, and about the horse and then what happened to Aunt Lucy. I left out the part about me in the woods, of course, and I didn’t even hint at them ones. But I told him I was scared and figgered on walking to town today before dark.
Cousin Osborne he listened to me, nodding and not saying much or interrupting.
“Now you can see why we got to go, right away,” I said. “Whatever come after them will be coming after us, and I don’t want to spend another night here.”
Cousin Osborne stood up. “You may be right, Willie,” he said. “But don’t let your imagination run away with you, son. Try to separate fact from fancy. Your Aunt and Uncle have disappeared. That’s fact. But this other nonsense about things in the woods coming after you—that’s fancy. Reminds me of all that silly talk I heard back home, in Arkham. And for some reason there seems to be more of it around this time of year, at Halloween. Why, when I left—”
“Excuse me, Cousin Osborne,” I said. “But don’t you live in Kingsport?”
“Why to be sure,” he told me. “But I did live in Arkham once, and I know the people around here. It’s no wonder you were so frightened in the woods and got to imagining things. As it is, I admire your bravery. For a 12 year old, you’ve acted very sensibly.”
“Then let’s start walking,” I said. “Here it is almost 2 and we better get moving if we want to make town before sundown.”
; “Not just yet, son,” Cousin Osborne said. “I wouldn’t feel right about leaving without looking around and seeing what we can discover about this mystery. After all, you must understand that we can’t just march into town and tell the sheriff some wild nonsense about strange creatures in the woods making off with your Aunt and Uncle. Sensible folks just won’t believe such things. They might think I was lying and laugh at me. Why they might even think you had something to do with your Aunt and Uncle’s—well, leaving.”
“Please,” I said. “We got to go, right now.”
He shook his head.
I didn’t say any more. I might of told him a lot, about what I dreamed and heard and saw and knew—but I figgered it was no use.
Besides, there was some things I didn’t want to say to him now that I had talked to him. I was feeling scared again.
First he said he was from Arkham and then when I asked him he said he was from Kingsport but it sounded like a lie to me.
Then he said something about me being scared in the woods and how could he know that? I never told him that part at all.
If you want to know what I really thought, I thought maybe he wasn’t really Cousin Osborne at all.
And if he wasn’t, then—who was he?
I stood up and walked back into the hall.
“Where you going, son?” he asked.
“Outside.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Sure enough, he was watching me. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight. He came over and took my arm, real friendly—but I couldn’t break loose. No, he hung on to me. He knew I meant to run for it.
What could I do? All alone in the house in the woods with this man, with night coming on, Halloween night, and them ones out there waiting.
We went outside and I noticed it was getting darker already, even in afternoon. Clouds had covered up the sun, and the wind was moving the trees so they stretched out their branches, like they was trying to hold me back. They made a rustling noise, just as if they were whispering things about me, and he sort of looked up at them and listened. Maybe he understood what they were saying. Maybe they were giving him orders.
Then I almost laughed, because he was listening to something and now I heard it, too.
It was a drumming sound, on the road.
“Cap Pritchett,” I said. “He’s the mailman. Now we can ride to town with him in the buggy.”
“Let me talk to him,” he says. “About your Aunt and Uncle. No sense in alarming him, and we don’t want any scandal, do we? You just run along inside.”
“But Cousin Osborne,” I said. “We got to tell the truth.”
“Of course, son. But this is a matter for adults. Now run along. I’ll call you.”
He was real polite about it and even smiled, but all the same he dragged me back up the porch and into the house and slammed the door. I stood there in the dark hall and I could hear Cap Pritchett slow down and call out to him, and him going up to the buggy and talking, and then all I heard was a lot of mumbling, real low. I peeked out through a crack in the door and saw them. Cap Pritchett was talking to him friendly, all right, and nothing was wrong.
Except that in a minute or so, Cap Pritchett waved and then he grabbed the reins and the buggy started off again!
Then I knew I’d have to do it, no matter what happened. I opened the door and ran out, suitcase and all, down the path and up the road after the buggy. Cousin Osborne he tried to grab me when I went by, but I ducked around him and yelled, “Wait for me, Cap—I’m coming—take me to town!”
Cap slowed down and stared back, real puzzled. “Willie!” he says. “Why I thought you was gone. He said you went away with Fred and Lucy—”
“Pay no attention,” I said. “He didn’t want me to go. Take me to town. I’ll tell you what really happened. Please, Cap, you got to take me.”
“Sure I’ll take you, Willie. Hop right up here.”
I hopped.
Cousin Osborne come right up to the buggy. “Here, now,” he said, real sharp. “You can’t leave like this. I forbid it. You’re in my custody.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I yelled. “Take me, Cap. Please!”
“Very well,” said Cousin Osborne. “If you insist on being unreasonable. We’ll all go. I cannot permit you to leave alone.”
He smiled at Cap. “You can see the boy is unstrung,” he said. “And I trust you will not be disturbed by his imaginings. Living out here like this—well, you understand—he’s not quite himself. I’ll explain everything on the way to town.”
He sort of shrugged at Cap and made signs of tapping his head. Then he smiled again and made to climb up next to us in the buggy seat.
But Cap didn’t smile back. “No, you don’t,” he said. “This boy Willie is a good boy. I know him. I don’t know you. Looks as if you done enough explaining already, Mister, when you said Willie had gone away.”
“But I merely wanted to avoid talk—you see, I’ve been called in to doctor the boy—he’s mentally unstable—”
“Stables be damned!” Cap spit out some tobacco juice right at Cousin Osborne’s feet. “We’re going.”
Cousin Osborne stopped smiling. “Then I insist you take me with you,” he said. And he tried to climb into the buggy.
Cap reached into his jacket and when he pulled his hand out again he had a big pistol in it.
“Git down!” he yelled. “Mister, you’re talking to the United States Mail and you don’t tell the Government nothing, understand? Now git down before I mess your brains all over this road.”
Cousin Osborne scowled, but he got away from the buggy, fast.
He looked at me and shrugged. “You’re making a big mistake, Willie,” he said.
I didn’t even look at him. Cap said, “Gee up,” and we went off down the road. The buggy wheels turned faster and faster and pretty soon the farmhouse was out of sight and Cap put his pistol away, and patted me on the shoulder.
“Stop that trembling, Willie,” he said. “You’re safe now. Nothing to worry about. Be in town little over an hour or so. Now you just set back and tell old Cap all about it.”
So I told him. It took a long time. We kep going through the woods, and before I knew it, it was almost dark. The sun sneaked down and hid behind the hills. The dark began to creep out of the woods on each side of the road, and the trees started to rustle, whispering to the big shadows that followed us.
The horse was clipping and clopping along, and pretty soon they were other noises from far away. Might have been thunder and might have been something else. But it was getting night-time for sure, and it was the night of Halloween.
The road cut off through the hills now, and you could hardly see where the next turn would take you. Besides, it was getting dark awful fast.
“Guess we’re in for a spell of rain,” Cap said, looking up. “That’s thunder, I reckon.”
“Drums,” I said.
“Drums?”
“At night in the hills you can hear them,” I told him. “I heard them all this month. It’s them ones, getting ready for the Sabbath.”
“Sabbath?” Cap looked at me. “Where you hear tell about a Sabbath?”
Then I told him some more about what had happened. I told him all the rest. He didn’t say anything, and before long he couldn’t of answered me anyway, because the thunder was all around us, and the rain was lashing down on the buggy, on the road, everywhere. It was pitch-black outside now, and the only time we could see was when lightning flashed. I had to yell to make him hear me—yell about the things that caught Uncle Fred and come for Aunt Lucy, the things that took our cattle and then sent Cousin Osborne back to fetch me. I hollered out about what I heard in the wood, too.
In the lightning flashes I could see Cap’s face. He wasn’t smiling or scowling—he just looked like he believed me. And I noticed he had his pistol out again and was holding the reins with one hand even though we were racing along. The horse was so scared he didn’t need the wh
ip to keep him running.
The old buggy was lurching and bouncing, and the rain was whistling down in the wind and it was all like an awful dream but it was real. It was real when I hollered out to Cap Pritchett about that time in the woods.
“Shoggoth,” I yelled. “What’s a shoggoth?”
Cap grabbed my arm, and then the lightning come and I could see his face, with his mouth open. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the road and what was ahead of us.
The trees sort of come together, hanging over the next turn, and in the black it looked as if they were alive—moving and bending and twisting to block our way. Lightning flickered up again and I could see them plain, and also something else.
Something black in the road, something that wasn’t a tree. Something big and black, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching.
“Shoggoth!” Cap yelled. But I could scarcely hear him because the thunder was roaring and now the horse let out a scream and I felt the buggy jerk to one side and the horse reared up and we was almost into the black stuff. I could smell an awful smell, and Cap was pointing his pistol and it went off with a bang that was almost as loud as the thunder and almost as loud as the sound we made when we hit the black thing.
Then everything happened at once. The thunder, the horse falling, the shot, and us hitting as the buggy went over. Cap must of had the reins wrapped around his arm, because when the horse fell and the buggy turned over, he went right over the dashboard head first and down into the squirming mess that was the horse—and the black thing that grabbed it. I felt myself falling in the dark, then landing in the mud and gravel of the road.
There was thunder and screaming and another sound which I had heard only once before in the woods—a droning sound like a voice.
That’s why I never looked back. That’s why I didn’t even think about being hurt when I landed—just got up and started to run down the road, fast as I could, run down the road in the storm and the dark with the trees squirming and twisting and shaking their heads while they pointed at me with their branches and laughed.
Over the thunder I heard the horse scream and I heard Cap scream, too, but I still didn’t look back. The lightning winked on and off, and I ran through the trees now because the road was nothing but mud that dragged me down and sucked at my legs. After a while I began to scream, too, but I couldn’t even hear myself for thunder. And more than thunder. I heard drums.
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Page 30