And after an indefinite space of crawling through this and other stone-lined burrows, and sometimes through passages whose angles hurt his eyes, he would creep forth into a subterranean chamber. Great slabs of granite a dozen feet across formed the walls and ceiling of this buried chamber, and between the slabs other burrows pierced the earth. Altar-like, a gigantic slab of gneiss waited in the center of the chamber. A spring welled darkly between the stone pillars that supported the table. Its outer edge was encircled by a groove, sickeningly stained by the substance that clotted in the stone bowl beneath its collecting spout.
Others were emerging from the darkened burrows that ringed the chamber—slouched figures only dimly glimpsed and vaguely human. And a figure in a tattered cloak came toward him from the shadow—stretched out a claw-like hand to seize his wrist and draw him toward the sacrificial table. He followed unresistingly, knowing that something was expected of him.
They reached the altar and in the glow from the cuneiform lattices chiselled into the gneiss slab he could see the guide’s face. A mouldering corpse-face, the rotted bone of its forehead smashed inward upon the foulness that oozed forth . . .
And Leverett would awaken to the echo of his screams . . .
He’d been working too hard, he told himself, stumbling about in the darkness, getting dressed because he was too shaken to return to sleep. The nightmares had been coming every night. No wonder he was exhausted.
But in his studio his work awaited him. Almost fifty drawings finished now, and he planned another score. No wonder the nightmares.
It was a grueling pace, but Dana Allard was ecstatic with the work he had done. And Dwellers in the Earth was waiting. Despite problems with typesetting, with getting the special paper Dana wanted—the book only waited on him.
Though his bones ached with fatigue, Leverett determinedly trudged through the graying night. Certain features of the nightmare would be interesting to portray.
The last of the drawings had gone off to Dana Allard in Petersham, and Leverett, fifteen pounds lighter and gut-weary, converted part of the bonus check into a case of good whiskey. Dana had the offset presses rolling as soon as the plates were shot from the drawings. Despite his precise planning, presses had broken down, one printer quit for reasons not stated, there had been a bad accident at the new printer—seemingly innumerable problems, and Dana had been furious at each delay. But the production pushed along quickly for all that. Leverett wrote that the book was cursed, but Dana responded that a week would see it ready.
Leverett amused himself in his studio constructing stick lattices and trying to catch up on his sleep. He was expecting a copy of the book when he received a letter from Stefroi:
“Have tried to reach you by phone last few days, but no answer at your house. I’m pushed for time just now, so must he brief. I have indeed uncovered an unsuspected megalithic site of enormous importance. It’s located on the estate of a long-prominent Mass. family—and as I cannot receive authorization to visit it, I will not say where. Have investigated secretly (and quite illegally) for a short time one night and was nearly caught. Came across reference to the place in collection of 17th century letters and papers in a divinity school library. Writer denouncing the family as a brood of sorcerers and witches, references to alchemical activities and other less savory rumors—and describes underground stone chambers, megalithic artifacts etc. which are put to ‘foul usage and diabolic praktise.’ Just got a quick glimpse but his description was not exaggerated. And Colin—in creeping through the woods to get to the site, I came across dozens of your mysterious ‘sticks!’ Brought a small one back and have it here to show you. Recently constructed and exactly like your drawings. With luck, I’ll gain admittance and find out their significance—undoubtedly they have significance—though these cultists can be stubborn about sharing their secrets. Will explain my interest is scientific, no exposure to ridicule—and see what they say. Will get a closer look one way or another. And so—I’m off! Sincerely, Alexander Stefroi”
Leverett’s bushy brows rose. Allard had intimated certain dark rituals in which the stick lattices figured. But Allard had written over thirty years ago, and Leverett assumed the writer had stumbled onto something similar to the Mann Brook site. Stefroi was writing about something current.
He rather hoped Stefroi would discover nothing more than an inane hoax.
The nightmares haunted him still—familiar now, for all that its scenes and phantasms were visited by him only in dream. Familiar. The terror that they evoked was undiminished.
Now he was walking through forest—a section of hills that seemed to be close by. A huge slab of granite had been dragged aside, and a pit yawned where it had lain. He entered the pit without hesitation, and the rounded steps that led downward were known to his tread. A buried stone chamber, and leading from it stone-lined burrows. He knew which one to crawl into.
And again the underground room with its sacrificial altar and its dark spring beneath, and the gathering circle of poorly glimpsed figures. A knot of them clustered about the stone table, and as he stepped toward them he saw they pinned a frantically writhing man.
It was a stoutly built man, white hair disheveled, flesh gouged and filthy. Recognition seemed to burst over the contorted features, and he wondered if he should know the man. But now the lich with the caved-in skull was whispering in his ear, and he tried not to think of the unclean things that peered from that cloven brow, and instead took the bronze knife from the skeletal hand, and raised the knife high, and because he could not scream and awaken, did with the knife as the tattered priest had whispered . . .
And when after an interval of unholy madness, he at last did awaken, the stickiness that covered him was not cold sweat, nor was it nightmare the half-devoured heart he clutched in one fist.
Leverett somehow found sanity enough to dispose of the shredded lump of flesh. He stood under the shower all morning, scrubbing his skin raw. He wished he could vomit.
There was a news item on the radio. The crushed body of noted archeologist, Dr. Alexander Stefroi, had been discovered beneath a fallen granite slab near Whately. Police speculated the gigantic slab had shifted with the scientist’s excavations at its base. Identification was made through personal effects.
When his hands stopped shaking enough to drive, Leverett fled to Petersham—reaching Dana Allard’s old stone house about dark. Allard was slow to answer his frantic knock.
“Why, good evening, Colin! What a coincidence your coming here just now! The books are ready. The bindery just delivered them.”
Leverett brushed past him. “We’ve got to destroy them!” he blurted. He’d thought a lot since morning.
“Destroy them?”
“There’s something none of us figured on. Those stick lattices—there’s a cult, some damnable cult. The lattices have some significance in their rituals. Stefroi hinted once they might be glyphics of some sort, I don’t know. But the cult is still alive. They killed Scotty . . . they killed Stefroi. They’re onto me—I don’t know what they intend. They’ll kill you to stop you from releasing this book!”
Dana’s frown was worried, but Leverett knew he hadn’t impressed him the right way. “Colin, this sounds insane. You really have been overextending yourself, you know. Look, I’ll show you the books. They’re in the cellar.”
Leverett let his host lead him downstairs. The cellar was quite large, flagstoned and dry. A mountain of brown-wrapped bundles awaited them.
“Put them down here where they wouldn’t knock the floor out,” Dana explained. “They start going out to distributors tomorrow. Here, I’ll sign your copy.”