The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online Page B

moment. I believe it was when I was reading that business about the squid. It felt as if a wet tentacle slid across my cheek, or a strand of seaweed. It even smelled like it, just for an instant. I was just barely aware of it, you know, like when there’s a fly buzzing for minutes before you notice it. Then the droning sort of filters in and you look around. Try to spot him. But he stops, lands somewhere. There’s no more buzzing, no fly, and you can’t swear, finally, that there ever had been. Do you follow me?”
    But William wasn’t ‘following anything but the advancing Yamoto, who had returned and angled in toward the window, grinning hugely and waving once again at William whose face hovered an inch from the glass. The roar of the mower crested and then fell away as Yamoto retreated, following the snaking path of the flowerbed toward the front of the house.
    “What are this man’s credentials?” asked William suddenly.
    “I haven’t any idea,” Edward replied. “He was recommended. All he does is cut the lawn. Say, I’ve got a fine idea .…”
    But whether he had a fine idea or was frantically trying to dream one up to lure William away from the window was immaterial; William ignored him.
    “I know this man.”
    “I don’t believe so.”
    “He was groundskeeper at the Manor. I’m certain of it.”
    “Orientals,” said Edward with a placating wave of his hand.
    “Don’t humor me!” cried William. “I won’t be humored. There’s trouble here. Frosticos is behind this. Things are becoming clear. Very clear. Who put you up to this?”
    Before Edward could sort out an answer, here came Yamoto again, grinning around a night-blooming jasmine, leering in toward the kitchen window, the grinding of his mower seeming to take on a slow cadence like the distant marching step of an approaching but unseen army, or the convolutions of an immense, inexplicable, and possibly unnatural machine churninginto the earth beyond a concrete wall in deadly, suggestive rhythms.
    William was aghast. He could picture quite clearly an infinite succession of approaching Yamotos, peering in at him. Edging out of sight. Reappearing suddenly from beyond a bush or the trunk of a tree. Now drawing a bit closer, then, without William’s being aware of the exact moment, flickering away, receding again, shrinking to a speck like the fossils of Basil Peach, encased in blue ice.
    The drone of the mower grew louder. William was certain that if he waited in the silent kitchen, it would not be Yamoto, finally, who would appear behind the machine. Perhaps not on this pass or on the next, but soon, very soon, the white-haired doctor would come smiling toward him, reaching out a gloved hand. He had only to wait. The white of billowing trousers appeared briefly beneath the limbs of a low tree, as Yamoto swung round toward them. Edward looked helplessly at Jim who stared at a plate of broken fried eggs. Yamoto slanted past. William, vexed into motion, stormed into the living room, out through the front door and onto the porch. Yamoto sailed across the grass, his trousers alive in the breeze, and mowed unhindered onto the lawn of the Pemblys, making a turn around the perimeter and heading back toward where William stood. Shaking. Unable to speak. Edward waved a coffee cup at him, but William was oblivious, collecting himself perhaps, or just the opposite.
    “The Pembly lawn too?” he croaked.
    “What?”
    “He cuts the Pembly lawn too? He works for them?”
    “Well, ‘works’ is hardly the word ….” Edward began. But at that moment Mrs. Pembly, a nightmare of pink plastic hair curlers and voluminous robe, wandered out onto the walk to have a word with Yamoto. The gardener nodded and very unfortunately pointed briefly toward William and Edward.
    “By God!” shouted William, leaping off the porch. “We’ll see! We’ll filthy well see who it is this Yamoto works for. By God, he doesn’t work for me!” Mrs. Pembly threw one hand