"Here, here!" said Trey huskily. "This Poppa's room. Quiet
now! Shh!"
As short as he was, the
agent had to get down on all fours to squeeze in. His trouser knees joined his
now-tattered socks in being soaked by the dripping slimy floor, and as worn as
the rocks were, he managed to snag and tear them, bloodying his kneecaps. Once
inside he stood up groaning loudly, much to the alarm of Trey and the squirming
horde that followed them impulsively behind.
"Sh! Sh!" susurrated
huskily through the little chamber, with frightened glances at a shadowy
corner. Most of the beasts started scattering immediately to the door on the
other side of the room, flowing like water past the disoriented little man. He
almost went to his knees again with the pattering pressure. Only Trey's
grasping clutch on Abernathy's shoulder kept the bewildered agent upright. But
he was nearly knocked down in the panicked exodus that ensued when a loud angry
voice from the shadowy corner yelled out, "Here! What disturbs my
sleep?"
In a twinkling the beasts
had scrambled out and away, yelping, all except Trey, who stood cringing and
whimpering, Abernathy's shoulder pinched cruelly in the reflexive grip of his
black claws. Abernathy himself might have followed after them, if it weren't
for that. He watched in dread fascination as the tall shadowy figure hunched
and scrabbled in the darkness. There was the crack and flare of another
crystal, and the hairy and horrible figure of the thing was revealed.
It was tall but bent, with
bloody red eyes and matted, grizzled brown hair that tangled into a trailing,
filthy beard. It was dressed in hanging, rotten rags. Its entire countenance
was drawn down in a frown, burly black eyebrows and pinched mouth screwed up
around a long thin nose, a nose that looked suddenly very familiar. Abernathy
gasped.
"Wallace
Kindermass!" he exclaimed.
The tall man looked stunned.
He drew back and took in the little figure before him: Abernathy's clothes,
ruined but fancy; his figure small, but upright.
"A man," he
breathed, mouth gaping to show black, broken teeth. "After all these
years, another human man."
The little agent gulped,
then stepped forward, and thrust his hand out.
"Ambrose
Abernathy," he said. "Of the Department of Extranatural Affairs. I'm
glad to meet you, Mr. Kindermass."
"I thought I'd never
see another human in this life," the other said, his face squeezing into a
pained smile, tears flowing from his squinting eyes. "But what are you
doing here? You are in great danger. You've got to flee!"
"I wish I could,"
said Abernathy. "But damned if I know how. I came in through the wardrobe
and it closed behind me."
"Me too, me too!"
the other nodded. "How long ago it seems!"
"Your eldest sister
said it's been almost twenty years."
"Twenty years! And
Sylvia is still alive?"
"And your other
sisters," said Abernathy hurriedly. "But that can wait for now! Don't
you know any other way out of here?"
"None." The other
slumped backwards. "Oh, I tried to escape in the early years, but SHE put
a stop to my wandering quick enough."
"She?"
"She who keeps me here.
She who holds me prisoner. She who steals my substance to breed this race of
... of horrors!" Kindermass pointed venomously at Trey, who cowered under
the accusation. He turned back to Abernathy. "She who will surely capture
you when she learns of your presence!"
"Where?" Abernathy
looked around nervously. "Where is this She?"
"Through that
tunnel," Kindermass said, pointing to the hole where the gangrel pack had
fled. "Oh run, man! You haven't much time!"
"Come with me,"
the agent said, and held out his hand. "We can get out of here together,
sir."
The other laughed bitterly.
"If it was that easy,
don't you think I'd have left long ago? Look, look here," he said,
gesturing Abernathy closer.
The agent drew nearer to
where the shaggy, bent figure stood in the dim blue halo of crystalline light,
then gasped and drew back in dismay. Kindermass's almost skeletal legs were
knotted through by pale quivering tentacles, going in and out of the scrawny
flesh, that attached him to the cave floor like alien roots.
"What ... what happened
to you?"
"I was drawn down a
shining tunnel that suddenly appeared in my wardrobe, ever downward into the
earth, until I came upon Her! She had lured me into the lair where she had
dwelt for thousands of years, and I, poor fool, the first man ever to fall for
her wiles!"
Abernathy's eyes boggled.
"Are you telling me
there is a centuries-old woman living in this cave?"
Kindermass cackled
obscenely.
"A woman only by
analogy, only by simile. This ... this shapeless thing stole my essence, my
seed, and when it ensnared my family's poor bitches from the world above, it
harvested their germens and mingled them together to create in the blasphemous matrix
of Her abnormal body these ... these monstrosities!" He brought his
battered knuckles down in sudden anger on Trey's skull. The creature whimpered
in pain and cowered under the assault.
"She brews inside her
foul innards a milk, like a female, but it is merely water and lime and fungus.
This is what she feeds me on to keep me alive, me and these...these freaks!
These half-breeds!" The ragged old man seemed suddenly transported with
rage, bringing his hand down again and again on the dog-man's head and back.
"Here! Here, now!"
Abernathy said, grabbing the withered arms and trying to get between the two.
"Violence won't help. If what you say is true, the poor beast is in some
misbegotten way your own son!"
Kindermass collapsed in his
grip.
"Do not remind
me," he sobbed. "The shame! The shame..."
"Pull yourself
together, man," the little agent said, shaken. "What we've got to do
now is ..."
Whatever he thought they had
to do was quickly rendered moot. There was a sudden touch at his ankle, and he
was pulled backward off his feet, falling slap-down on the wet, spongy floor.
He lifted himself up on slippery hands, face trailing slime, and looked around.
While he had been distracted
with Kindermass and the hapless Trey, several long tentacles had snaked out of
the further cavern opening, oozing silently to where he stood. They gleamed
wetly in the dim rock-light. One was already twining around his leg, while
another raised up like a questing cobra, seeking for a further grip. Before he
could break out of his fascinated horror, it lashed out and grabbed his wrist.
"Momma!" Trey
yapped happily. "Momma will help brudder Natty!"
"Resist, sir,
resist!" howled Kindermass.
"I'm trying, I'm
trying!" Abernathy yelled. But he was being pulled along, hopping on one
leg, unbalanced, the dog-man bounding enthusiastically at his heels. The last
he saw of Kindermass as he was dragged into the low cave-mouth was the skeletal
bearded wretch slumping backward in his rags, the waning blue phosphorescence
highlighting his despairing face.
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