Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (40 page)

“Horse and buggy,” I said. Aunt Lucy perked up.

“You’re right,” she says, all at once. And it is, because we see it. The horse is running fast and the buggy lurches behind it, crazy-like. It don’t even take a second look to see something has happened, because the buggy don’t stop by the gate but keeps going up to the barn with Aunt Lucy and me running through the mud after the horse. The horse is all full of lather and foam, and when it stops it can’t stand still. Aunt Lucy and I wait for Uncle Fred and Cousin Osborne to step out, but nothing happens. We look inside.

There isn’t anybody in the buggy at all.

Aunt Lucy says, “Oh!” in a real loud voice and then faints. I had to carry her back to the house and get her into bed.

I waited almost all night by the window, but Uncle Fred and Cousin Osborne never showed up. Never.

The next few days was awful. They was nothing in the buggy for a clue like to what happened, and Aunt Lucy wouldn’t let me go along the road into town or even to the station through the woods.

The next morning the horse was dead in the barn, and of course we would of had to walk to the deepo or all those miles to Warren’s farm. Aunt Lucy was scared to go and scared to stay and she allowed as how when Cap Pritchett comes by we had best go with him over to town and make a report and then stay there until we found out what happened.

Me, I had my own ideas what happened. Halloween was only a few days away now, and maybe
them ones
had snatched Uncle Fred and Cousin Osborne for sacrefice.
Them ones
or the Druids. The mythology book said Druids could even raise storms if they wanted to with their spells.

No sense talking to Aunt Lucy, though. She was like out of her head with worry, anyway, just rocking back and forth and mumbling over and over, “They’re gone” and “Fred always warned me” and “No use, no use.” I had to get the meals and tend to stock myself. And nights it was hard to sleep, because I kep listening for drums. I never heard any, though, but still it was better than sleeping and having those dreams.

Dreams about the black thing like a tree, walking through the
woods and sort of rooting itself to one particular spot so it could pray with all those mouths—pray down to that old god in the ground below.

I don’t know where I got the idea that was how it prayed—by sort of attaching its mouths to the ground. Maybe it was on account of seeing the green slime. Or had I really seen it? I’d never gone back to look. Maybe it was all in my head—the Druid story and about
them ones
and the voice that said “shoggoth” and all the rest.

But then, where was Cousin Osborne and Uncle Fred? And what scared the horse so it up and died the next day?

Thoughts kep going round and round in my head, chasing each other, but all I knew was we’d be out of here by Halloween night.

Because Halloween was on a Thursday, and Cap Pritchett would come and we could ride to town with him.

Night before I made Aunt Lucy pack and we got all ready, and then I settled down to sleep. There was no noises, and for the first time I felt a little better.

Only the dreams come again. I dreamed a bunch of men come in the night and crawled through the parlor bedroom window where Aunt Lucy slept and got her. They tied her up and took her away, all quiet, in the dark, because they had cat-eyes and didn’t need light to see.

The dream scared me so I woke up while it was just breaking into dawn. I went down the hall to Aunt Lucy right away.

She was gone.

The window was wide open like in my dream, and some of the blankets was torn.

Ground was hard outside the window and I didn’t see footprints or anything. But she was gone.

I guess I cried then.

It’s hard to remember what I did next. Didn’t want breakfast. Went out hollering “Aunt Lucy” and not expecting any answer. I walked to the barn and the door was open and the cows were gone. Saw one or two prints going out the yard and up the road, but I didn’t think it was safe to follow them.

Some time later I went over to the well and then I cried again because the water was all slimy green in the new one, just like the old.

When I saw that I knew I was right.
Them ones
must of come in the night and they wasn’t even trying to hide their doings any more. Like they was sure of things.

Tonight was Halloween. I had to get out of here. If
them ones
was watching and waiting, I couldn’t depend on Cap Pritchett showing up this afternoon. I’d have to chance it down the road and I’d better start walking now, in the morning, while it was still light enough to make town.

So I rummaged around and found a little money in Uncle Fred’s drawer of the bureau and Cousin Osborne’s letter with the address in Kingsport he wrote it from. That’s where I’d have to go after I told folks in town what happened. I’d have some kin there.

I wondered if they’d believe me in town when I told them about the way Uncle Fred had disappeared and Aunt Lucy, and about
them
stealing the cattle for a sacrefice and about the green slime in the well where something had stopped to drink. I wondered if they would know about the drums and the lights on the hills tonight and if they was going to get up a party and come back this evening to try and catch
them ones
and what they meant to call up rumbling out of the earth. I wondered if they knew what a “shoggoth” was.

Well, whether they did or not, I couldn’t stay and find out for myself. So I packed up my satchel and got ready to leave. Must of been around noon and everything was still.

I went to the door and stepped outside, not bothering to lock it behind me. Why should I with nobody around for miles?

Then I heard the noise down the road.

Footsteps.

Somebody walking along the road, just around the bend.

I stood still for a minute, waiting to see, waiting to run.

Then he come along.

He was tall and thin, and looked something like Uncle Fred only a lot younger and without a beard, and he was wearing a nice city kind of suit and a crush hat. He smiled when he saw me and come marching up like he knowed who I was.

“Hello, Willie,” he said.

I didn’t say nothing, I was so confuzed.

“Don’t you know me?” he said. “I’m Cousin Osborne. Your Cousin Frank.” He held out his hand to shake. “But then I guess you wouldn’t remember, would you? Last time I saw you, you were only a baby.”

“But I thought you were suppose to come last week,” I said. “We expected you on the 25th.”

“Didn’t you get my telegram?” he asked. “I had business.”

I shook my head. “We never get nothing here unless the mail delivers it on Thursdays. Maybe it’s at the station.”

Cousin Osborne grinned. “You are pretty well off the beaten track at that. Nobody at the station this noon. I was hoping Fred would come along with the buggy so I wouldn’t have to walk, but no luck.”

“You walked all the way?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“And you come on the train?”

Cousin Osborne nodded.

“Then where’s your suitcase?”

“I left it at the deepo,” he told me. “Too far to fetch it along. I thought Fred would drive me back there in the buggy to pick it up.” He noticed my luggage for the first time. “But wait a minute—where are you going with a suitcase, son?”

Well, there was nothing else for me to do but tell him everything that happened.

So I said for him to come into the house and set down and I’d explain.

We went back in and he fixed some coffee and I made a couple sanwiches and we ate, and then I told him about Uncle Fred going to the deepo and not coming back, and about the horse and then what happened to Aunt Lucy. I left out the part about me in the woods, of course, and I didn’t even hint at
them ones
. But I told him I was scared and figgered on walking to town today before dark.

Cousin Osborne he listened to me, nodding and not saying much or interrupting.

“Now you can see why we got to go, right away,” I said. “Whatever come after them will be coming after us, and I don’t want to spend another night here.”

Cousin Osborne stood up. “You may be right, Willie,” he said. “But don’t let your imagination run away with you, son. Try to separate fact from fancy. Your Aunt and Uncle have disappeared. That’s fact. But this other nonsense about things in the woods coming after you—that’s fancy. Reminds me of all that silly talk I heard back home, in Arkham. And for some reason there seems to be more of it around this time of year, at Halloween. Why, when I left—”

“Excuse me, Cousin Osborne,” I said. “But don’t you live in Kingsport?”

“Why to be sure,” he told me. “But I did live in Arkham once, and I know the people around here. It’s no wonder you were so frightened in the woods and got to imagining things. As it is, I admire your bravery. For a 12 year old, you’ve acted very sensibly.”

“Then let’s start walking,” I said. “Here it is almost 2 and we better get moving if we want to make town before sundown.”

“Not just yet, son,” Cousin Osborne said. “I wouldn’t feel right about leaving without looking around and seeing what we can discover about this mystery. After all, you must understand that we can’t just march into town and tell the sheriff some wild nonsense about strange creatures in the woods making off with your Aunt and Uncle. Sensible folks just won’t believe such things. They might think I was lying and laugh at me. Why they might even think you had something to do with your Aunt and Uncle’s—well, leaving.”

“Please,” I said. “We got to go, right now.”

He shook his head.

I didn’t say any more. I might of told him a lot, about what I dreamed and heard and saw and knew—but I figgered it was no use.

Besides, there was some things I didn’t want to say to him now that I had talked to him. I was feeling scared again.

First he said he was from Arkham and then when I asked him he said he was from Kingsport but it sounded like a lie to me.

Then he said something about me being scared in the woods and how could he know that? I never told him
that
part at all.

If you want to know what I really thought, I thought maybe he wasn’t really Cousin Osborne at all.

And if he wasn’t, then—who was he?

I stood up and walked back into the hall.

“Where you going, son?” he asked.

“Outside.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Sure enough, he was watching me. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight. He came over and took my arm, real friendly—but I couldn’t break loose. No, he hung on to me. He knew I meant to run for it.

What could I do? All alone in the house in the woods with this man, with night coming on, Halloween night, and
them ones
out there waiting.

We went outside and I noticed it was getting darker already, even in afternoon. Clouds had covered up the sun, and the wind was moving the trees so they stretched out their branches, like they was trying to hold me back. They made a rustling noise, just as if they were whispering things about me, and he sort of looked up at them and listened. Maybe he understood what they were saying. Maybe they were giving him orders.

Then I almost laughed, because he
was
listening to something and now I heard it, too.

It was a drumming sound, on the road.

“Cap Pritchett,” I said. “He’s the mailman. Now we can ride to town with him in the buggy.”

“Let me talk to him,” he says. “About your Aunt and Uncle. No sense in alarming him, and we don’t want any scandal, do we? You just run along inside.”

“But Cousin Osborne,” I said. “We got to tell the truth.”

“Of course, son. But this is a matter for adults. Now run along. I’ll call you.”

He was real polite about it and even smiled, but all the same he dragged me back up the porch and into the house and slammed the door. I stood there in the dark hall and I could hear Cap Pritchett slow down and call out to him, and him going up to the buggy and talking, and then all I heard was a lot of mumbling, real low. I peeked out
through a crack in the door and saw them. Cap Pritchett was talking to him friendly, all right, and nothing was wrong.

Except that in a minute or so, Cap Pritchett waved and then he grabbed the reins and the buggy started off again!

Then I knew I’d have to do it, no matter what happened. I opened the door and ran out, suitcase and all, down the path and up the road after the buggy. Cousin Osborne he tried to grab me when I went by, but I ducked around him and yelled, “Wait for me, Cap—I’m coming—take me to town!”

Cap slowed down and stared back, real puzzled. “Willie!” he says. “Why I thought you was gone. He said you went away with Fred and Lucy—”

“Pay no attention,” I said. “He didn’t want me to go. Take me to town. I’ll tell you what really happened. Please, Cap, you got to take me.”

“Sure I’ll take you, Willie. Hop right up here.”

I hopped.

Cousin Osborne come right up to the buggy. “Here, now,” he said, real sharp. “You can’t leave like this. I forbid it. You’re in my custody.”

“Don’t listen to him,” I yelled. “Take me, Cap. Please!”

“Very well,” said Cousin Osborne. “If you insist on being unreasonable. We’ll all go. I cannot permit you to leave alone.”

He smiled at Cap. “You can see the boy is unstrung,” he said. “And I trust you will not be disturbed by his imaginings. Living out here like this—well, you understand—he’s not quite himself. I’ll explain everything on the way to town.”

He sort of shrugged at Cap and made signs of tapping his head. Then he smiled again and made to climb up next to us in the buggy seat.

But Cap didn’t smile back. “No, you don’t,” he said. “This boy Willie is a good boy. I know him. I don’t know you. Looks as if you done enough explaining already, Mister, when you said Willie had gone away.”

“But I merely wanted to avoid talk—you see, I’ve been called in to doctor the boy—he’s mentally unstable—”

“Stables be damned!” Cap spit out some tobacco juice right at Cousin Osborne’s feet. “We’re going.”

Cousin Osborne stopped smiling. “Then I insist you take me with you,” he said. And he tried to climb into the buggy.