Rachel waited in the darkness under the trailer until she heard the biplane roar down the strip. She climbed out and watched the plane climb gradually into the distance. Although it hurt her face, and the cuts on her mouth split open, she couldn’t help smiling. She had discovered her personal power. It lay hidden under the trailer in a five-gallon asphalt can, now half full of aviation grade motor oil.
A policeman came to the trailer that afternoon. His jaw was set with the stoic resolve of a man who knows he has an unpleasant task to perform and is determined to do it, but when he saw Rachel sitting on the steps of the trailer, the color drained from his face and he ran to her. “Are you all right?”
Rachel could not speak. Garbled sounds bubbled from her broken mouth. The policeman drove her to the hospital in his cruiser. Later, after she had been cleaned up and bandaged, the policeman came to her room and told her about the crash.
It seemed that Merle’s biplane lost power after a pass over a field. He was unable to climb fast enough to avoid a high-tension tower and flaming bits of Merle were scattered across a field of budding strawberries. Later, at the funeral, Rachel would comment, “It was how he would have wanted to go.”
A few weeks later a man from the Federal Aviation Administration came around the trailer asking questions. Rachel told him that Merle had beat her, then had stormed out to the plane and taken off. The F.A.A. concluded that Merle, in his anger, had forgotten to check out his plane thoroughly before taking off. No one ever suspected Rachel of draining the oil out of the plane.
16
HOWARD
Howard Phillips, the owner of H.P.’s Cafe, had just settled down in the study of his stone cottage when he looked out the window and saw something moving through the trees.
Howard had spent most of his adult life trying to prove three theories he had formulated in college: one, that before man had walked the Earth there had been a powerful race of intelligent beings who had achieved a high level of civilization, then for some unknown reason had disappeared; two, that the remnants of their civilization still existed underground or under the ocean, and through extreme cunning and guile had escaped detection by man; and three, that they were planning to return as masters of the planet in a very unfriendly way.
What lurked in the woods outside Howard Phillips’s cottage was the first physical evidence of his theories that he had ever encountered. He was at once elated and terrified. Like the child who is delighted by the idea of Santa Claus, then cries and cowers behind its mother when confronted with the corpulent red-suited reality of a department-store Santa, Howard Phillips was not fully prepared for a physical manifestation of what he had long believed extant. He was a scholar, not an adventurer. He preferred his experiences to come secondhand, through books. Howard’s idea of adventure was trying whole wheat toast with his daily ham and eggs instead of the usual white bread.
He stared out the window at the creature moving in the moonlight. It was very much like the creatures he had read about in ancient manuscripts: bipedal like a man, but with long, apelike arms; reptilian. Howard could see scales reflecting in the moonlight. The one inconsistency that bothered him was its size. In the manuscripts, these creatures, who were said to be kept as slaves by the Old Ones, had always been small in stature, no more than a few feet tall. This one was enormous — four, maybe five meters tall.
The creature stopped for moment, then turned slowly and looked directly at Howard’s window. Howard resisted the urge to dive to the floor and so stood staring straight into the eyes of the nightmare.
The creature’s eyes were the size of car headlamps and they glowed a faint orange around slotted, feline pupils. Long, pointed scales lay back against its head, giving the impression of ears. They stood there, staring at each other, the creature and the man, neither moving, until Howard could bear it no longer. He grabbed the curtains and pulled them shut, almost ripping them from the rod in the process. Outside he could hear the sound of laughter.
When he dared to peak through the gap in the curtains, the creature was gone.
Why hadn’t he been more scientific in his observation? Why hadn’t he run for his camera? For all his work at putting together clues from arcane grimoirs to prove the existence of the Old Ones, people had labeled him a crackpot. One photograph would have convinced them. But he had missed his chance. Or had he?
Suddenly it occurred to Howard that the creature had seen him. Why should the Old Ones be so careful not to be discovered for so long, then walk in the moonlight as if out for a Sunday stroll? Perhaps it had not moved on at all but was circling the house to do away with the witness.
First he thought of weapons. He had none in the house. Many of the old books in his library had spells for protection, but he had no idea where to start looking. Besides, the verge of panic was not the ideal mental state in which to do research. He might still be able to bolt to his old Jaguar and escape. Then again, he might bolt into the claws of the creature. All these thoughts passed through his mind in a second.
The phone. He snatched the phone from his desk and dialed. It seemed forever for the dial to spin, but finally there was a ring and a woman’s voice at the other end.
“Nine-one-one, emergency,” she said.
“Yes, I wish to report a lurker in the woods.”
“What is your name, sir?”
“Howard Phillips.”
“And what is the address you are calling from?”
“Five-oh-nine Cambridge Street, in Pine Cove.”
“Are you in any immediate danger?”
“Well, yes, that is why I called.”
“You say you have a prowler. Is he attempting to enter the house?”
“Not yet.”
“You have seen the prowler?”
“Yes, outside my window, in the woods.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He is an abomination of such abysmal hideousness that the mere recollection of this monstrosity perambulating in the dark outside my domicile fills me with the preternatural chill of the charnel house.”
“That would be about how tall?”
Howard paused to think. Obviously the law enforcement system was not prepared to deal with perversions from the transcosmic gulfs of the nethermost craters of the underworld. Yet he needed assistance.
“The fiend stands two meters,” he said.
“Could you see what he was wearing?”
Again Howard considered the truth and rejected it. “Jeans, I believe. And a leather jacket.”
“Could you tell if he was armed?”
“Armed? I should say so. The beast is armed with monstrous claws and a toothed maw of the most villainous predator.”
“Calm down, sir. I am dispatching a unit to your home. Make sure the doors are locked. Stay calm, I’ll stay on the line until the officers arrive.”
“How long will that be?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Young woman, in twenty minutes I shall be little more than a shredded memory!” Howard hung up the phone.
It had to be escape, then. He took his greatcoat and car keys from the foyer and stood leaning against the front door. Slowly he slipped the lock and grabbed the door handle.
“On three, then,” he said to himself.
“One.” He turned the door handle.
“Two.” He bent, preparing to run.
“Three!” He didn’t move.
“All right, then. Steel yourself, Howard.” He started the count again.