Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois Read Free

the back porch, wiped her hands on her apron, and stepped back into the cool interior of the house. Taking a few minutes to wash up and change, she tucked her wallet in the back pocket of her jeans and left the house again. This time, it was her turn to head to the barn and back out with her old Chevy Cavalier. It was a car she and Daniel had picked out the year before in nearby Boxton Township to be used for household errands but which they both referred to as “her” car ever since. At the end of the driveway, Ruth paused to make sure the road was clear before pulling out; it almost always was, but once her brother had made the mistake of assuming it was as empty as usual and ended up being clipped by Hank Zygot’s pickup. It was only luck that Hank just managed to slow down enough to avoid a full collision. Seeing the road was clear, Ruth pulled out and headed north toward the center of town. A few miles farther on, she crossed the Aylesbury Pike and glanced in the direction where it led toward Dunwich. Seeing how the trees on the sides of the road seemed to crowd closer overhead, making it appear as if the Pike narrowed to a trail in the distance drew Ruth’s mind back to her concerns regarding Daniel’s working i
    It wasn’t as if she took any stock in the stories of haunted farmhouses, unholy rites or Indian legends of monsters and were-things that moved about deep in the forest. They were fine for children gathered around a campfire eager for the pleasant thrill of a spooky story, but not for adults. Not that there weren’t plenty of people in Dean’s Corners who, if they didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts and monsters, at least gave enough credence in their spirit to avoid going to Dunwich if they could. And it didn’t help that Dunwich was almost completely depopulated, filled with abandoned farmhouses, dilapidated barns and overgrown fields. The few people who still lived there, were old timers who refused to leave, families more attached to their land than making a better life for themselves or outsiders who went there to get away from it all. And while some development was slowly creeping in the area, none at all was going on in Dunwich. So far as she knew, there hadn’t been a new home built there in thirty years; there were no stores except one or two feed stores that also offered general provisions and almost no town government to speak of. She’d heard that there was a Board of Selectmen but that they met infrequently, a broken down fire engine that hadn’t been used in decades sat behind the old town hall and emergency services and law enforcement had to be provided by neighboring towns. There were, however, a couple churches whose spires could still be seen at a distance, poking hopefully above the treetops from the summits of the Four Sisters hills that surrounded Dean’s Corners. Ruth remembered how she and her friends used to speculate on what lay beneath those trees on summer days when they were on vacation from classes at Boxton High School. They’d pack lunches as they did when they were younger and hike up to the top of one of the Four Sisters and picnic amid the rings of old stones up there. It was while on one of those excursions that Daniel noticed her for the first time, really noticed her. Dean’s Corners being such a small town, they’d known each other for years before that, but as usually happened among younger children, you took each other for granted. After that, whenever the gang went up to one of the Four Sisters, she and Daniel would pair off and find a place to neck…
    The honk of a car shattered Ruth’s daydreaming and she suddenly realized that she’d driven all the way over from the Pike to the town center without ever noticing it. Quickly, she pulled into the small plaza off Route 12 and stopped in front of the A&P. Still wondering at her absentmindedness, she took a carriage from the small corral in the parking lot and headed for the main entrance. It sure had