Cthulhu Lives!: An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft by Greg Stolze, Tim Dedopulos, John Reppion, Lynne Hardy, Gabor Csigas, Gethin A. Lynes Read Free Book Online Page B

unpleasant smell slowly started to build, acrid and sour, like a broken car battery.
    Eventually, we came out into a large concrete root cellar. Various cupboards, shelves and partitions broke up some of the space, but there was a wide open area of floor. A strangely irregular, rune-carved stone pillar sat in the center of it, some four feet in height, with a trapdoor some distance behind it. A very strange yellow box sat on the pillar, even more asymmetric than the stone column.
    Philip gave a strangled cry and dashed over to it in a flat panic, struggling to undo his jacket. I followed, and as he fought his arms from his sleeves, I smashed him across the base of the skull with the butt of my pistol.
    The rest of the cult had arrived by the time he came round, securely bound and gagged at the foot of the pillar. I knelt down in front of him and smiled at him pleasantly as his expression melted through pain and confusion into horrified betrayal.
    I ruffled his hair fondly. “Your intuition is magnificent, Philip. The long wait is almost done. Very soon now, the stars will be right again. Great Cthulhu sent the stone back to us, borne from the mud by one of Dagon’s beasts. The Haunter knows so much... Far more than Al-Hazred or von Juntz ever dared to dream. Y’ha-nthlei is furious.”
    He grunted wildly and thrashed about, cracking his head painfully against the pillar in the process.
    “Don’t worry. There is no more you can do. You will be its thirteenth. It’s only fitting – the sins of the grandfather... But my gods, man! The eternities you’ll experience within that creature. The midnight cities of black-lit Yuggoth. The bleeding of Atlantis. The infinite gulfs at the center of the universe. Almighty Azathoth itself! Honestly, I envy you, but I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I’m required here.”
    I gestured to the others, and they started the chant, a low, guttural phrase in a language long-dead when mankind first escaped from its creators. As Philip started screaming into his gag, I took a good hold of the trapdoor and switched off the flashlight. The last earthly words he heard were my instructions to the creature: “The soul is yours, but leave the lower skull and jaw intact. I’ll need them later.”

    Saturday 22nd

    They held Philip’s funeral today, at a churchyard in Fox Point. Most of the investigators were there, and I shared stunned condolences with them. Cassie seemed particularly agitated, and stopped me after the service. We discussed our mutual loss, and she revealed that she had followed Philip into Elmwood in the week before his disappearance.
    I assured her that I didn’t know what he had been working on, and then recalled that he had, in fact, left some notes in my safe. She has agreed to come over to look at them tomorrow, to see if we can work out what he might have been investigating, and possibly pick up where he left off.

HOBSTONE by G. K. Lomax

    Only a student of architecture would have noticed it, and possibly only then on a clear crisp spring morning, after a night of revelry and inebriation.
    James Belmont leant heavily on the wall at the mouth of the alleyway. Opposite, across Harstow Road, stood the house that for the time being he called home. He smiled triumphantly, and steeled himself for the last stretch. It was shortly after dawn, and he’d partied all night – an important rite of passage for a young man living out of reach of parental disapproval for the first time.
    The details of the party were already beginning to blur, but he was sure it had been good. He’d had a respectable amount to drink, he knew that. There had been a couple of drags on a joint that was being passed round too, a new experience, not that he’d admitted it. Then had come the dancing – energetic, uninhibited, exhilarating and prolonged – during which he had finally summoned up the nerve to make a move on Mel. To his astonishment and delight, Mel had proved equally energetic