No One Dies from Love by Robert Levy

Author:Robert Levy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror Collection
Publisher: Word Horde
Published: 2023-04-28T18:40:50+00:00

I followed Martin’s pickup through town until we reached a turnoff leading us past a large gatehouse. We drove up a scenic winding drive, and soon a grand and imposing mansion arose before us in a stunning assemblage of turreted towers and bluestone. We pulled around the castle-like building and into a largely empty parking lot in the rear, where we both got out of our respective cars and rejoined beside a slate patio overlooking the impressive property, the rolling lawns a stalwart green despite autumn’s onward march toward winter.

“What is this place?”

“Grey Towers. The estate of Gifford Pinchot, who was the governor of Pennsylvania about a hundred years ago. Before that he was the first head of the U.S. Forest Service. His wife was a big suffragette. Fascinating family, the mansion is to die for. But we’re not going inside.”

“Martin, I’d really like to head back to the city while it’s light. And it’s starting to get late…”

“Come.” He pointed away from the estate, past the parking lot and toward a wide stand of trees where a path snaked its way into the woods. “We’re going there.”

We hadn’t walked for long before the scattered hemlocks and white pines began to thin and we reached a clearing, on the other side of which was an unusual wooden structure. Raised up on iron piping and suspended about twenty feet above the forest floor, it was quite large and resembled a grain silo, or perhaps a water tower you might see atop an apartment building in the city. It was tilted, however, at what appeared to be a forty-five-degree angle.

“What is that thing?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the setting sun as it stole low beneath the weblike tree canopy.

“It’s what I wanted to show you. This way.”

The air crisped in a swelling breeze, the crunch of dry leaves underfoot its own steady pulse as we made our way across the clearing to the mammoth structure. Peering up at it, I could now see it wasn’t barrel-shaped so much as conical. Or perhaps it could be best described as corkscrewed, the wood at its base narrowed like the mouth of a conch but still wide enough for someone to access through a narrow rusted ladder bolted to its frame that led up and inside the occluded interior.

“It’s called a cosmoscope,” Martin said, and placed a pale hand against the dark wood. “It’s a kind of observatory. Conceived long ago by a scientist from New Zealand, a summer visitor at Grey Towers. The cosmoscope was built to his specifications by Yale School of Forestry students, between the world wars. Unfortunately, the damned thing has been in disuse for decades. Sad, really. They haven’t had the budget to restore it.”

“This is all very interesting, but…”

“But what does it have to do with Jasper? They found him out here. Just last month. In fact, that seems to have been the very last time anyone saw Jasper at all. He’d been living inside the cosmoscope.

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