I saw Bruce nod, and I waited until Eb Corey made his way expertly back downstairs in the dark. Then I quickly crossed the hall to where Bruce stood with the lamp in his hand. “I don’t like this at all,” I began. “What’s this business about you being…”
“Come on in here, and I’ll tell you.”
Everywhere in this house I had been aware of that dank, age-old, peculiar odor. I might almost call it a yellow odor. I had smelled it in other old houses. But the moment we entered this upstairs room it seemed magnified, became almost tangible. The place seemed half bedroom and half store room. One side was piled haphazardly with trunks, boxes, broken tables and chairs. Bruce held the lamp high, looked around, and grinned most delightedly.
Already he had espied a tall, clumsy bookcase in the far corner. He strode over to it, and examined the faded tomes. Quickly he pulled one out, then another, and another. I groaned. I might have known this. Bruce had had this detour planned all the time; he had come up here deliberately. I sat down on a rickety chair and watched him. Finally I said, “All right, what is it this time? And don’t give me any more of that Necronomicon stuff, for I know that’s a myth.” Bruce was an authority on certain terrible lores and forbidden books dealing with such lores, and he had told me things from a certain Necronomicon that literally made my flesh crawl.
“What?” he said in answer to my question. “Why look at these! Not Necronomicons, but most interesting!” He thrust a couple of worn, leather-bound volumes into my hands. I glanced at the titles. One was Horride Mysteries by the Marquis of Grosse; the other, Nemedian Chronicles. I looked up at Bruce, and saw that he was genuinely excited.
“Do you mean to say,” I said, “that you really didn’t expect to find these?”
“Of course not! I’ll admit I came up here deliberately because I’ve heard certain rumors…”
“Something to do with a dream?”
“No, nothing to do with a dream. And I’m as surprised as you are to see these books. These two I’ve seen before in expurgated editions. But this I’ve never seen before, although I’ve heard vaguely of it.” He looked fondly at a third book he held, and I could see that his eyes were aglow with a sort of wild anticipation.
I reached for the tome, and he relinquished it almost reluctantly. It was huge, heavy, and the pages were brittle and brown. There was no title on the spine or cover, but on the first page I read in a delicate, faded script: M-O-N-S-T-R-E-S A-N-D T-H-E-I-R K-Y-N-D-E. Each word was in script capital letters, free of each other. No author was mentioned. I placed the book on my knees and saw that the edges of the leather binding were well worn, frayed in places. As I turned a few pages at random, a powdery brown dust blew out and lodged in my nose. I sneezed.
“Hey, be careful how you handle that!” Bruce took the volume back solicitously as a mother with her child. I took one more look around the room, sniffed the air distastefully, and said, “I’m getting sleepy. Good night.”
I don’t think he even heard me. When I left him there, to cross the hall into my own room, he was sitting hunched over the table by the oil lamp, opening Monstres and Their Kynde tenderly, peering down into it.
The next morning I was downstairs early only to be informed by Mrs. Corey that Bruce had preceded me. He had eaten hastily and said he was going down the road to see Lyle Wilson. She pronounced the name distastefully, and I could see that she didn’t like the old man. I didn’t blame her.
I waived breakfast, my only concern being to get out of this morbid town as soon as possible. I was doomed to disappointment, however. Upon reaching Lyle Wilson’s store, I saw that Bruce and the old man had been talking in what appeared to be a mutual earnestness, if not eagerness. I came up in time to hear the latter say:
“I’m sartinly glad yew intend ter stick araound a mite. Ain’t many outside uns hankers ter do thet. I’ve heerd more nor one o’ ’em calc’late as haow the sunshine, an’ the land, an’ all araound here be sorta unhealthy like…” He stopped a moment when I came up; then went on with renewed eagerness, as if he didn’t often have such an audience. “An’ leave me tell ye suthin’, young sirs—they may be right. Thur be sartin things I could tell abaout the cause o’ it, tew—things sech as ye’d never b’lieve. But mark ye this: they be more in this waorld nor meets the eye, an’ they be other things asides them as walks on top th’ graund…” He looked from one to the other of us, grinning, and I moved back a pace to avoid his obnoxious breath.
But Bruce, to my surprise, said, “You mean things such as…” And he pronounced a word that I wouldn’t even attempt. Lyle Wilson’s eyes popped out in amazement. He looked at Bruce with a sudden startled suspicion.
“I read about it,” Bruce hurried to explain, “in a book called Monstres and Their Kynde.” He regarded the old man carefully, to see the effect his words would have.
The effect was one of relief. “Oh, thet book. It aren’t much. Belonged to old Hans Zickler—Eb Corey’s grandfather—he thet built the haouse. But d’ye know, I got a better book than thet…” He chuckled in a way that sent a cold chill up my spine. He paused and peered at Bruce as though waiting for him to exhibit some curiosity, but Bruce wisely did not.
“I’ll tell ye anyway. I got old Zick’s diary! Eb Corey, he used ter hev it, but real suddint one day he told me as he war goin’ ter burn it. I reckon as haow he had been readin’ inter it. I asked Eb fer it, an’ I guess he war more’n glad ter give me it as payment fer some things he war owin’. Said he didn’t keer what become o’ it, ceptin’ as he wouldn’t have it in his haouse no longer.”
Now I could see Bruce’s curiosity surge up, and his voice bordered almost on excitement. “You say you still have this diary?”
“Yep. Reckon I be the only person thet’s ever seed inter it, ceptin’ Eb Corey hisself, and I dun’t think he read much o’ it. He thought ’twar only the old man’s crazy ravin’s.” Wilson’s voice became confidential. “D’ye know, I’m kinda glad you fellers dropped by. Folk here-abaout wun’t lissen ter me. Acause they be scairt to, thet’s what; they be scairt o’ what I could tell ’em abaout ol’ Zickler an’—an’ sartin things I seed ’im do. Things thet—thet warn’t jest right. But sometimes when I gets ter ponderin’, an’ rememb’rin’, an’ readin’ in the diary agin, thur comes a kinda hankerin’ like; an’ I wanta try, so’s I kin know them things too, like ol’ Zick did. An’ sometimes the hankerin’ gits too strong like…”
He stopped suddenly, as though afraid he would go too far, and a wild light died slowly out of his eyes.
“O’ course,” he went on more calmly, “I war jest a young un then, when I spied on ol’ Zick, but I remembers right enough. An’ even ef the land dew be gittin’ better every year, an’ things araound here ain’t so bad as they used ter be, they’s still suthin’ abaout an’ active oncet in a while. Look’t the young Munroe boy, he as they claim wandered off an’ fell daown in the ravine. But I knows a heap better. Ef he fell daown the ravine whyn’t they ever find the body?” He moved his stool closer to Bruce, leered at him and repeated almost defiantly: “Eh? Whyn’t they ever find the body?” The old man chuckled delightedly at the sensation he had made.
I was becoming considerably annoyed at all this crazy gibberish. I told Bruce I was going back to the house. He nodded absently. As I left, he hunched forward, listening intently as Lyle Wilson started on another wild trend.