Carter & Lovecraft by Howard Jonathan L

Author:Howard, Jonathan L. [Howard, Jonathan L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9781466866652
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

THE PISTOL IN THE HOUSE

Carter had heard there were worse ways to die than drowning, and that was self-evidently true. You could be eaten by army ants, or cook slowly, or dissolve in acid, or explode like that poor son of a bitch in the casino. Even setting aside the really nasty end of ways to die, though, drowning was supposed to be not so bad. Some understandable panic, and then dreams and game over. It sounded okay when it was put like that. On the other hand, not one of the people who had told him this over the years had actually experienced being drowned themselves, so what the fuck did they know?

Carter knew he didn’t want to die right then. He had too many balls in the air, too much unfinished business, and he especially didn’t want to be killed by William Colt. Carter had his standards, and if he was going to die with his boots on, it wouldn’t be because of some smug motherfucker in a button-down shirt killing him with math.

He tried to find an air pocket in the recess where the trapdoor was, huffing in what little was there. Then he felt a closeness trickle in at the corner of his lips, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. Either the layer would drop again before he drowned, or he would drown before the layer dropped. Those were the possible outcomes, and he didn’t see any others. He concentrated on staying calm, on avoiding burning through the oxygen in his lungs and in his blood for as long as he could. He thought of nothing, clearing his mind, trying to stretch that moment of his being long enough that whatever timer Colt had put on this fish tank of his would finish first.

The seconds passed. The minutes accumulated. The oxygen burned. The layer did not drop.

Carter could hear his heart beating. It was beating faster as his body started to realize that there was insufficient oxygen in his blood to keep him alive. So, it beat faster to get the oxygen from his lungs around his body, because there’s always oxygen to be had in the lungs. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Beat faster, and faster, and faster. At the same time, the amount of carbon dioxide was building in his lungs as his blood dumped the stuff there, the exhaust from his metabolism. His lungs weren’t keen on high levels of carbon dioxide, and started autonomic actions to clear the stuff out. That’s it, buddy—breathe. You need to breathe. You really, really, really need to breathe.

Carter fought it until he was beyond thought, in an agony of burning lungs and terror of dying. Then his mouth opened, dead air burbled out into non-water, and he drew in the breath that would kill him.

He thought of Lovecraft and what she would think when he didn’t come back. Of what would happen to the store. He thought of Colt winning.

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