The Dark Rites of Cthulhu Read Free

normal domestic habits of a family with two kids—and a stain on the hallway wall I didn't like to look at too closely.
    Upstairs proved little more fruitful, although a search of the study delivered a small notebook tucked in the back of a drawer that contained columns of letters and figures that were obviously in some sort of code. Jake pocketed that, and finally we headed to the one place neither of us really wanted to go—down into the dark cellar.
    Despite our best efforts, neither of us could find a light switch, so we both had our flashlights lit as we went down—me first, this time. My fingers were twitching to draw my weapon—it felt like the situation demanded it, but I knew it was just my mind reminding me of the last time. Even so, I half expected to see a naked corpse on the dusty floor when I reached the foot of the steps. I let out a sigh of relief when a sweep of the torch showed nothing but the etched circle of strange pictograms, the design partially scuffed and smudged by the footprints of the cops and forensics men that had come through here.
    A bulb burst into light just above my head, almost blinding me. I turned to see Jake, hand on a switch.
    "Well, that's something at least," he replied, and smiled, although I saw the same tension in his eyes that I felt in my chest.
    We made a search of the room, each of us—consciously or otherwise, working around the drawn marks on the floor, as if fearful of stepping on—or worse, inside, the lines. There was nothing to see but packing cases, packed earth and dry walls. I was about to admit defeat when Jake hushed me into silence.
    "Do you hear it?" he whispered.
    If I hadn't known Jake better, I might have thought he was about to take a powder. Then I heard it, too—distant chanting, getting louder.
    "Where the fuck is it coming from?" I whispered, suddenly afraid to raise my voice. The chanting got closer—a strange, guttural cacophony that contained no words of any language I could recognize. At that point I wasn't even sure that human vocal chords were capable of making the sounds we heard—yips and cries, chirps and whistles intermingled with bass drones and harsh glottal stops. The whole effect chilled me to the bone, exasperated by a sudden blast of cold air that swept through the room like a gale.
    "Somebody opened a window," I said.
    "I don't think so," Jake replied, and pointed into the left-hand corner of the room.
    At first it was just a darker shadow that seemed to suck the light away, leaving only bitter cold behind. My eyes strained to make out detail as the chanting rang in my ears and the room vibrated in sympathy. The light fitting swung lazily in time.
    My whole body shook, vibrating with the rhythm. My head swam, and it seemed as if the walls of the cellar melted and ran. The light receded into a great distance until it was little more than a pinpoint in a blanket of darkness, and I was alone, in a cathedral of emptiness where nothing existed, save the dark and the pounding chant.
    I saw stars—vast swathes of gold and blue and silver, all dancing in great purple and red clouds that spun webs of grandeur across unending vistas. Shapes moved in and among the nebulae; dark, wispy shadows casting a pallor over whole galaxies at a time, shadows that capered and whirled as the dance grew ever more frenetic. I was buffeted, as if by a strong, surging tide, but as the beat grew ever stronger I cared little. I gave myself to it, lost in the dance, lost in the stars.
    I don't know how long I wandered in the space between. I forgot myself, forgot Jake, dancing in the vastness where only rhythm mattered.
    After a while I dreamed. I dreamed a funeral—an open coffin where Jake's pale face stared up at me, a face I could barely see through my tears. I stretched out a hand to touch his cheek.
    A gunshot brought me back—reeled in like a hooked fish, tugged reluctantly through a too tight opening and emerging into the blazing light of a cold