The Burrowers Beneath and the Transition of Titus Crow by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley [Lumley, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: !Fantasy, Horror, Modern fiction, Horror & Ghost Stories, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780312868673
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC
Published: 1999-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘I can’t answer that. I only … glug … know what They are interested in, not why. Over the years They have drained it all from my mind. All I know, everything. Now I have nothing … glug … that They are interested in

… glug … and this is the end. I thank God!’ The horror in the chair paused. Its swaying and nodding became wilder in the flickering light.

‘Now I must be … going.’

‘Going? But where?’ I babbled. ‘Back to - Them?’

‘No … glug, glug, glug … not back to Them. That is all … glug …

over. I feel it. And They are angry. I have said too much. A few minutes more and I’ll be … glug … free!’ The pitiful horror climbed slowly to its feet, sloping somehow to one side, stumbling and barely managing to keep its balance.

Titus Crow, too, started to his feet. ‘Wait, you can help us! You must know what they fear. We need to know. We need weapons against them!’

‘Glug, glug, glug - no time - They have released Their control over this …

glug … body! The protoplasm is

. . . glug, glug, ggglug … falling apart! I’m sorry, Crow

. . . gluggg, aghhh … I’m sorry.’

Now the thing was collapsing in upon itself and waves of monstrous, venomous fetor were issuing from it. It was swaying from side to side and stumbling to and fro, visibly spreading at its base and thinning at its top, melting like an icicle beneath the blast of a blowtorch.

‘Atomics, yes! Glugggg, urghhh, achhh-achhh! You may be … gluggg …

right! Ludwig Prinn, on … gluggg-ughhh … on Azathoth!’

The stench was now intolerable. Fumes of black vapour were actually pouring from the staggering, melting figure by the open door. I followed Crow’s lead, hastily cramming a handkerchief to my nose and mouth. The horror’s last words

- a gurgled shriek - before it collapsed in upon itself and sloped across the planking of the floor, were these:

‘Yes, Crow … glarghhh, arghhh, urghhh … look to Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis!’

In a matter of seconds then, there was merely a spreading stain on the floor -but, God help me, within the pattern of that stain was a hideously suggestive lump!

A human brain in an alien, protoplasmic body!

I was paralysed, I don’t mind admitting it, but Crow had leaped into action.

Already the paraffin-lamp was back to full power, filling the cabin with light, and suddenly my friend’s commands were echoing in my ears:

‘Out, de Marigny. Out on to the gangplank. The stench is positively poisonous!’ He half pushed me, half dragged me out through the door and into the clean night air. I sat

down on the gangplank and was sick, horribly sick, into the obscenely chuckling river.

Crow, though, however affected he was or had been by the occurrences of the last half hour, had quickly regained control of himself. I heard the latticed cabin windows being thrown open, heard Crow’s strangled coughing as he moved about in the noisome interior, heard

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