Masques by J. N. Williamson (ed)

Author:J. N. Williamson (ed)
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fantasy, horror, anthology
ISBN: 9780786014552
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2001-12-01T03:09:49+00:00

Early the next day—March twentieth

While the pale, pink glow which sometimes gave detail to it had gone away long ago, the food opening still attracted the thing. Snug against warm, moist walls, it stared, anticipating.

The thing had no conception of itself; its appearance, its proportions, or the involuntary surges through its muscular system. It had no knowledge that its size was so great that it would soon be wedged against the walls which, since birth, had been its home.

Knowing only hunger, the thing had been moving steadily toward the membrane-covered opening for days, inching through a bloodied forest of twists and turns. It was precisely smart enough to have become weary of waiting for more and, wriggling and flexing another fractional inch of advancement, it headed for the opening.

Sharp pain brought Barry from light sleep and he experienced, at once, the waking nightmare he had not described to Doctor Roberts.

He had not wished to be urged to see a different kind of doctor.

Fleetingly, he seemed to be elsewhere, peering through eyes other than his own—not hungry, but avaricious. The instant he focussed unblinkingly at a place his Barry-part did not recognize, yet salivated for nourishment, he was no longer human. He was savage; dedicated, exclusively, to self.

Then he was leaping from bed and racing downstairs to the kitchen where, in a cupboard, he found a nearly-full box of corn flakes. Barry did not care for corn flakes. Snatching a halfgallon of milk from the refrigerator, he started shoveling tablespoon-sized helpings of the breakfast food into his upturned mouth, washing it down directly from the bottle.

When he paused, gasping for breath, he saw internally bestial eyes looking back at him: flat, persistent, insatiable, unhuman.

He shoveled in more flakes as fast as he could.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.