“Bah!” the doctor went on, but then he took on a more crafty aspect, “remain if you will and mock me with your pronouncements. Yes, remain. I’m sure
they will be just as impressed. And then you may…”
Suddenly he stopped, shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow. Turning his sightless eye-sockets up toward the blackened void of the steeple, he cocked an ear as if listening. Several crumbling bits of mortar and stonework clattered down from above, causing him to flinch and wail pitifully.
“Oh, now you’ve awakened… no, and there is no meat!” Dr. Saleon, his anger quite vanished, now shrank into his rickety wheelchair in fright. Preparing for the impossible, Inspector Vakarian readied his rifle, aiming up into the dark reaches of the collapsed ceiling.
The thing that dropped from the darkness was beyond what any earthly experience could have prepared me for. Indeed even the stolid detective inspector, hardened by the occasional mundane horrors of his work, was thunderstruck by the sight, the barrel of his rifle wavering as he staggered in shock. For myself, I could only stand and stare though every fibre of my being desperately wished to look away. Miss Zorah remained steady, but standing behind me as she was, she may not have beheld all that I did. In one ghastly instant, I realized that what I had thought was a curtain obscuring the altar was instead a membranous web of monstrous proportions.
How can such a thing be described? A creature of a size more suited to an autobus hulked, rugose and chitinous, buzzing horribly from a dozen mouths. Of legs, it had more than an arachnid’s share, though in a similar configuration. Compound eyes unnumbered stared Argus-like from its bulbous head, surmounted by a pair of repulsively whipping tentacles. However, it seemed imperfectly formed, for its broad, translucent wings were torn and ragged, the edges showing evidence of having been burnt. Through the screen of its web it regarded us with dreadful intelligence, then tentatively extended one disgustingly cilliated leg through the curtain.
This galvanized Dr. Saleon, causing him to fumble desperately within his coat to produce a curious glyph inscribed on a greenish disc of stone. Presenting it before himself, he gabbled an afrighted injuction for the thing to keep its distance. The creature slowly drew back, as if with great reluctance, then turned its gaze more fully upon Inspector Vakarian, Miss Zorah and myself. Its pandemoniac buzzing reached a stuttering crescendo and then began to organize itself with bizarre regimentation, finally forming a repellent approximation of human speech. The thing from the steeple began to
speak!
"Humans... you free us..."
Modifié par NuclearBuddha, 11 juillet 2010 - 07:31 .