the fluff at the threshold

8/14/2019 The Fluff at the Threshold

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The Fluff At The Threshhold

Being a H.P.Lushcraft storyEdited and re-typed by S.Barber 1996

It was to my cousin's house on Carcosa Crescent that I came that December,to look over the property and to set the place in order. I had been long overseas,

first working as an assistant to the Professor Of Difficult Sums at Celaeno GateCollege in thesultry Celebes Islands, and then recalled to the family Regiment when it formedup at the end of the War of Liberation in 2029, when the stranglehold of the ECover the (now happily Nationalised) landmass of Europe, had been so crashinglybroken.

The house had been undamaged in the war, despite it being withinearshot of the great tank battle of the Thirsk Salient, where the Royalist armieshad smashed the EC federation's forces. Not so grand as many on the street, stillit had its own garden front and back, and was built of the solid grey stone of the hillsaround - and indeed there were some fine features of the neighbourhood, that mademe hesitant to part with it. For I had intended to sell it, having a house of my

own in the farthest reaches of the Dales, where the local industry of raising great cyclopeanaltars for the export trade still flourished profitably..

"Over there," the Agent had waved towards a hilltop just two streets behindthe house, "ancient prehuman temple, recently renovated and brought back online.Services every new moon, usual splendid revived customs."

I had nodded, impressed. Like most people, I'm not overtly religious, butwhen the night's right to stand on a hilltop beneath the lurid skyglow and makeshocking, howling obesiance to whatever's taken the trouble to turn up despite theweather - well,it'd be right handy, I told myself. Handy indeed and no mistake.

"And is everything ..... undisturbed ?" I asked. I had the keys from thefamily Solicitor - as the last survivor of our line, the property had passed to

me, with all else that came with it.The agent had nodded, his jackal ears and long, sharply handsome Annubis-

like muzzle turning to face me. "It's a sorry way to come into an Inheritance," helooked at me solemnly, "But it's all yours. Everything he had, passes on to you."

Later, I was to remember those words. But as always - Later, would meanfar too late.

It was a bright and cheerful day, when I went over the place. Two storieshigh, with a fine cellar built onto the ruins of buildings long destroyed innameless times, before even the invention of the digital toothbrush. I pokedaround in the sub-basement, marvelling at the pre-Saxon round-headed arches mysteriously sealed up, and the

runic seals undisturbed for a dozen centuries. Plenty of room for an extensiondown there, I told myself cheerfully, knocking with the haft of my entrenchingtool on the ancient stone, and being rewarded with an answering sound that was not an echo. Sofar, so good ..... and my first night's sleep was undisturbed as I rolled out mysleeping bag and made camp on the dining room floor. Rocked to sleep by the gentlesloshing as of some miles-high thing of jelly walking deep in the ground, I slept.

The next day, I met my neighbour at Number Eleven, Mr. Heppleshaw. He was atall, six-horned goat of good local stock, the kind whose portraits you see etchedin beautiful pre-druidic Monoliths dredged up from where the North Sea rolls


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today."So tha's movin' in, like tha' cousin ?" He greeted me over the fence,

waving an unlit pipe at me. "He went off to the wars, like ..... summat told me,he'd not be coming back."

"Oh ?" My wolf ears twitched, as I looked at him. "Did you ... know him well?"

The goat nodded thoughtfully. He scratched his lower set of horns with thepipe, and I caught the familiar scent of refined hensbane and Asafoetida incense

about him. "Aye ..... there was a time I knew him well enough. But ........ not atthe end, like." His ears twitched, and he walked round to the gap in the fences of CarcosaCrescent where a EuroStandard Type 6 Tank had driven through to judge from thetrack marks still visible : not all the houses had made full repairs yet. "Comeand sit thissen down, and I'll tell 'tha."

I followed him into a warm and crowded kitchen, lined with wooden barrels ofale. He grinned, pouring a foaming tankard for us both, in the oddly proportionedmugs that I recognised as having been illegally cut down from a litre to a pint."Drop o' thebest, to go with it," he gestured ."Took us a while to get the breweries backdoing owt but that StandardBrau muck, most of us got back to mashin' the ales at

home."The ale was excellent: not too cold (ten degrees, the perfect temperature, I

admitted) and rich with floating yeast and hops. As I supped it, he looked at me,one eyebrow raised quizically.

"I can see tha's a cousin ..... summat .... out of the way in the both ofyou, happen." He said slowly. "Did tha' know 'im well ?"

I shook my head. "Not since before the Occupation .... I was about tenthen, he was fourteen ... I hardly remember him." And then I stopped. It was true- I had found not one photograph of Cousin Osric, and indeed the house was quitestripped of photographs. "I'm not sure even what he looked like."

Mr. Heppleshaw motioned me to stay seated, while he went into the parlour,and I heard him rummaging around. He came back a minute later, with an old

printout photo, obviously taken on a digital camera. "During the Occupation, thiswas," he told me gravely. "Us folk had got a batch of ..... unmarked food, were doing us a barbecue.Illegal, o'course. But then, tha' knows .... most things were."

I nodded. "That which is not illegal, is compulsory. That which is notcompulsory, is illegal", EC Directive 000000000000000001 . I know. I might haveescaped out of Europe, but it doesn't mean I didn't care. I came back when Icould: I was at Milton Keynes, at the end." My face must have blanched, a difficult thing to do under furin most other circumstances.

But then I looked down, and saw the photograph. It was taken over the gardenfence, then intact, and showed a happy-looking group, standing found a barbecue.I could date it fairly well: the roof over the whole business was of wet, heat-

absorbing blankets, which must have meant sometime after StandardSat 11667 had orbited in thesummer of 2027. That flying eye could spot a trespasser in the middle of a fieldby the heat signature, let alone a subversive barbecue.

My Cousin was looking anxiously up at the sky - not at the camera, if indeedhe knew a picture was being taken. He resembled me, in that he was of wolf stock.... but there the resemblance ended. I frowned. There was something definitelyODD about thelook of cousin Osric ...... it certainly had not been there as a cub, when I knewhim. Children are super-sensitive to the smallest oddities, always seeking newhooks to hang an insulting name on. What it was that so disturbed me, I really


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found hard todescribe. He looked plump for a Wolf ........ but I had seen carnivores, evencheetahs, with figures like beer-barrels, and none of them had looked so ......disquieting.

My ears dipped. "Do you have any others of him ? I'd be grateful. I can'tseem to find any in the house."

The hex-horned goat shook his well-equipped head. "That's the last one,like. I had a bundle, on the other film ..... he begged them from me and the disc

they were on, said he were going to get'em enlarged." He sucked the pipemeditatively. "Never did see them again. And you say you've not found any ?"

I shook my head, and he looked at me for a long minute."I see the resemblance .... in the bone, not in the fur, like. And he were

more like you ..... first year I knew him, he were in here. Not that I knew himto talk to, back then .... I were living down at Number Six then, across the waya piece. Chap tha' wants to talk to, lived that side," he gestured over my back lawn, towards myother neighbour. "But he's gone, too. Happen he might be coming back, if he evergets .... cured."

That afternoon I spent sorting through the sad remnants of a life, boxingthings up. I divided mercilessly into three piles: items I wanted to keep, itemsof some value that the Charity shop could use, and items to dispose of. The pilesgrew as I ransacked drawers and cupboards, grimly passing judgement. But it was in one cupboardthat I found something Strange ..... or rather, what was strange was what wasmissing.

On the first floor, there was a chimney neatly dividing the room, on thewall facing my missing neighbour, the far side from Mr. Heppleshaw. On one sideof the fireplace, the niche had been boxed over into fitted cupboards full ofclassic Rohan clothing I appropriated at first sight without even consulting the Classic pricecatalogue. But the other ..... there was nothing there. And yet there should have

been. Either an alcove by the chimney side, four metres long by two deep, or thesame thing boxedin as on the far side. And yet .... nothing, only a blank wall that rang as solidas any other to my enquiring knock.

I stood there, scratching my head. It occurred to me that the houses couldbe built in pairs on the terrace: instead of having straight boundaries, perhapsthey overlapped like a chain of Sieg Runes, nesting entwined with each other. Tofind out - I would first have to ask my other neighbour. And before that, I would have to findhim.

"In a more ignorant world," the white-coated attendant explained seriously,as I followed him through the electric fences of the Earldom's recently re-opened

Bedlam Institute, " Mr. Smithers-Jones might have been diagnosed as a"Traumatically Exposed Individual of Tragically Triggered Reality Denial", and left at large in thecommunity. But these are modern times."

I nodded my head, walking past the spike-walled broom-cupboards whereClaustrophobics were encouraged to get it all out of their system before tastingwater or seeing daylight ever again. "But what's your prognosis ?"

The weasel medic's whiskers twitched. "Mr. Smithers-Jones is what we in themedical profession call "A Looney". It's a medical term. Though he's makingreasonable progress: the first month he was here, we had to keep his head nailedto the floor. Most o


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f the evil spirits should have departed by now though ..... otherwise we couldn'tlet you be exposed. You can catch it by eye contact, you know. Though I'm sure hepicked it up in the line of duty .... he was almost in our Profession in theOccupation, you know. Worked for the EC, training airbourne troops not to worry about unnaturalforces harming them when jumping out of aircraft......"

I strained to hear him over the screams of the inmates being encouraged toSnap Out Of It, by one means or another. "What did you say he did ?"

"Like I said ...." the attendant gestured towards the room at the end of thecorridor. "A ParaPsychologist." We were brought up sharply at the end of thecorridor, by another of the Doctors. "Doctor Inselapfen, head of the Secure Unit,"my guide explained. "He's looking after your cousin." With that, he handed me over and hurrieddown the corridor.

I stood looking at the Doctor for a few seconds, weighing him up. He was afurless ape-descendant, but posessed a good growth of head hair, and looked backat me with merrily twinkling eyes.

"Well now, so you're here to see Smithers-Jones," he boomed, jabbing thestem of his pipe towards me. "First visitor he's had in awhile. Sad case, indeed -very sad. Almost untreatable, but we're doing what we can."

"Is he in any .... state to talk to ?" I asked him cautiously , "All I need

is a few minutes with him..."Inselapfen looked through one of the shutters into the cell, and shook his

head. "Not right now ..... if he moves, one of the puff adders will probably bitehim. It's Acclimatisation Therapy, you see .... turns out he needed treating forfear of snakes. Shouldn't be encouraged, you know ..... as Blenkinshaw and Yasamura discoveredfifteen years ago, it's all in the mind." He tapped his head with the pipe stem."All in the mind......"

I followed him into the office, and I explained my mission. The Doctornodded thoughtfully, and tapped a few keys on his computer. "Looking forinformation on your cousin, eh ? Well, now ..... I might have some of thatmyself..... the name rings a bell..." He pressed a few more keys, and the bell rang obediently. "Well, now.....

yes, we have. Of course, naturally I can't disclose confidential Patientinformation..."

I tossed an envelope of newly-minted nine-pound notes onto his desk; like astriking seabird with a fish he snatched it up and riffled through, barelybreaking the conversation for a second.

"Osric Olmthwaite, referred to various specialists.... well, as he's dead,it's of no harm now, eh ?" He puffed his pipe meditatively. "Diagnosed assuffering extreme paranoia, and refractophobia .... onset very sudden, whole thingstarted overnight, soto speak. Referred to various specialist centres for genetic diseases ..... hmmm,can't find those. Records all lost in the War, no doubt.."

"Refractophobia ?" I looked at him curiously. "Fear of mirrors ? I'venoticed .... there isn't a mirror in the house .... not even a reflective

surface."Doctor Inselapfen nodded. "That's part of it. Paranoia, self-loathing .....

obesssional behaviour of all sorts. Nowadays, of course, we'd give him a goodtalking-to and tell him to Pull Himself Together - but those were unenlightenedtimes. Same thing with his neighbour, to an extent ..... we're keeping Smithers-Jones in full sensorydeprivation and feeding him nothing but jam for days at a time, but .... even so,we can't do miracles."

The clock struck two, and there was a sound as of iron trapdoors closing,and the Doctor looked up. "Ah.... that'll be the treatment cycle changing. Let'sgo and see if he's in a talkative mood."


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Smithers-Jones was in a very talkative mood - evidently the enforced companyof puff-adders and spitting cobras had discouraged him from making much noise forthe rest of the day. But as I entered the room, the grey-furred rabbit's eyesbulged in horror....... and he was looking at me, ears rigid in fear.

"Ye've Come Back !" He croaked..... " and like before .... before yeknew...... as was promised....."

I blinked. "Ummm... I don't think we've met. I'm looking for people whoknew my Cousin Osric's house .... your neighbour ?"

A change came over him.... a crafty expression slid over his face, and hebeckoned me closer. "Osric, is it ? Yer cousin ? Aye' that'll do very well....coming back, and none to know ..... back to the house, and folk won't wonder atit, though you look like you did years before.... don't forget, it was me put you on the road..."

"I'm not Osric ! " I protested, showing him my Celaeno Gate Library pass andmy Heavy Armoured Vehicle Driver's licence. "I'm his cousin Rufus .... look !"

He winked at me, looking at the documents. "Ye've done well, lad .... Rufus,do they call you now ? The face .... it's near enough ..... they'll not suspect.And you didn't believe me .... you went off to die, so you thought ..... but youshould have

believed the second chapter of Von Tuu's book ...... and here ye stand, proof.Proof!"

I looked at the rabbit, leering up at me, though safely held down by therazorwire of the therapist's couch. And then I made a descision, that I was tobitterly regret. I nodded, looking around as if to check for eavesdroppers.

"Yes, it's me...." I whispered .... not lying, though how he interpreted itwas his own business. "I'm back in the house.... is everything .... as I left it ?"

He looked around, a crazed glee shining on his features. "Aye ! The Placebetween ..... I sealed it up when they said you'd died ..... everything's safe. Iknew you'd come back, you see ... I knew it ...." His voice sank till even mywolven ears could barely hear it. "And .... when you come into your full Powers ..... will you

come and get me out of here ? After the Change, you know .... bars and grilleswon't stop you." He giggled, looking around the room. "I've measured it, you see... there's agap of four milimetres under the door ... more than enough ... for You ....."

"Can I get in through your house ?" I persisted, pulling out a notebookwhich I'd brought with me for this event. "I just need your permission..." Iwinked at him, waving at the walls around us. "For THEM, you know .... so theywon't suspect."

He signed a consent form for me to look around his house unescorted, andstarted giggling convulsively. I took my leave, but just as I turned to go, hewhispered pleadingly....

"Von Tuu, second chapter ! Don't forget !"

I returned to Osric's house, having first taken the precaution of playing agood hour-long video session of "Immoral Kombat", the fast-paced carnage of thegame cleansing diseased thought-patterns from my mind, disinfecting it. Sunlightwas streamingdown Carcosa Crescent when I got in, to find Mr. Heppleshaw sitting on his patio,a flagon of fine ale at hand. He waved cheerfully, and invited me over. "Tha'looks like tha' pulled a hard day's work, lad," he grinned, pouring me a glass.

"It feels like it," I nodded, gratefully accepting it. "I've been to see Mr.Smithers-Jones, in the Asylum. I've got his permission, to look around. And I'venothing else to do, right now." A thought struck me. "It's the middle of the


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week, and most folk are at work ..... what do you do for a living ?"

The six-horned goat got up, and beckoned mysteriously. I followed him intothe house, and he gestured towards an array of plaques and awards on the wall,each framing a short quote written in gold calligraphy.

"Virtual NQ/D Error - do not metaphasically alter limiting limitationlimits," I read on one. "Ecneumenical Phase Imbalance Associations - See VVD-666aURGENTLY." I looked at the other. Then it dawned on me. "I always WONDERED who did

that for a living!"

He grinned. "Aye, lad. I'm the chap who thinks up cryptic and ambiguousError Messages for computer systems. Family trade, like - this was me grandpa's,fifty year back."

I looked at the ancient award on the wall, and almost bowed in awe at itstimeless simplicity. Given the technology, with far less to go wrong than thedelights of an Artificial Stupidity System, it was hard to imagine ever beatingit. "Missing Keyboard- Press any key to Continue ! "

I looked at my new neighbour almost in awe. And decided, there and then, totell him all that had happened to me. Here, I knew, was a wise being indeed - andin the mysteries I found myself surrounded by, I could use his help.

We talked, until the sun went in, and the shadows lengthened. The first jugof ale ran dry, and the second followed it, before we retreated for the night tohis kitchen. For something distinctly Strange was happening, and before I leftCarcosa Crescent,I intended to find out what.

The next morning, I fired up my old wristwatch Cray computer, tapping intothe official enquiries office of the Ministry Of Peace. Indeed, I was told, OsricOlmthwaite had joined up, trained, and followed the flag in the liberation ofEurope. But thenhe had vanished - his name was posted as "Missing In Action", but of what thataction might have been, there was no clue.

"It was a very confused situation, in the final month," the clerk explained

apologetically, pointing me towards the Official Histories. "The combined NationalForces waded in as fast as they could, as we knew the EC was about to unleashsomething we couldn't stop ..... you know, of course, what they'd done already ?"

I nodded grimly. To first take, and then retain control, the EC's plannersin Brussels had brought in aid from Outside the familiar seven dimensions thatmortals and Elder Ones know. And though their final plans were frustrated, therehad already been some hideous ..... Entities, made incarnate on Earth. And neither normal weapons orMnaran Rune magic had affected them greatly ..... the monstosities that would havefollowed them, fortunately defied imagination. For the powers of Legomancy hadsummonedthem as a desparate meadure: the evil art of rewriting Regulations to reshape the

fabric of spacetime itself."We've only fragmentary records, especially of the Rotterdam Counterattack,"

the clerk nodded. "That was after we'd pushed some of the Entities out of Holland.... by that time, the second wave of them had been Summoned. The West Cornish179th Tank Armywas annihilated, as was the Albanian 71st Guards next to them, by what came outof Belgium. The final battles, " he shrugged. "One constant melee, falling backmetre by metre, street by street, we threw in whatever forces were left. Nobodywas keeping records, exactly .... anything could have happened. And the few survivors,well...." he sucked in his breath sharply. "After what they saw, I doubt they'll


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want to talk about it."

But that night, as I leafed through official histories, something struck meas odd. Perhaps I was starting at the wrong end here - from what my neighbours hadgathered, my cousin had left here, not intending to return. And it matteredlittle in what burned out EC shopping mall or drive-in dentists of the Rotterdam suburbs he had methis end - why had he gone there ? I closed my eyes, relaxing. And then a thought

struck me, as I lay half-asleep. Or, more than a thought .... an image - as if Iwas looking at an architect's section of this house.... and in between my upstairs sparebedroom and that of Smithers-Jones, there was a room-sized square block,windowless and unaccounted-for.

"The Place Between", I murmured, recalling the madman's words. "What did hesay, "It was me put you on the Road"? Now, then ......."

I got up, purposefully, feeling the key to next door suddenly pressing in mypocket. There was an accounting to be settled - with a few cubic metres ofmystery..

Outside, it was a calm night. Just behind Carcosa Crescent, a factory waschanging shifts - they made customised hockey-masks and balaclavas for axe-wielding psychopaths (Or "Differently Moralled Persons of hard-to-satisfy

desires", as they would have been smilingly called under the EC's Correctness Regulations.) and were working allhours. I looked up at the skies: Formahault and Algol were wheeling high above,and the lanscape was washed with the pale light of a quite astoundingly gibbousmoon. Reassured by the calm normality, I went in to face the Unknown.

In Smithers-Jones' house, all was orderly and neat, as if its owner had juststepped out for a minute. It was quiet, the thick stone walls cutting out thenoise of the factory workers heading home: the only sound was from the kitchen: Irecognised the twin of a food processor my Cousin had, evidently bought at the same sale ofDaemonically Possessed kitchen and household goods. With only the sound of itssharp whirring blades and garbled screams for company, I headed upstairs.

Finding the right wall was easy enough, but finding the catch that openedit, took me half the night. At last, I saw a narrow hatchway sliding aside as Ipressed the deceptively obvious bright red button on the wall, and looked inside.My heart sank.

The room was windowless, barely two metres my three, and had been some formof library. But a blueish fungal growth covered everything, and the books turnedto dust as I touched them. Even the computer's plastic shell caved in ..... as ifit was riddledwith rot, every component subsiding into an impalpably fine dust. Only one thickbook on an upper shelf survived even long enough for me to read its title - "DieUber Pflaumig Kulten", by Compte Von Tuu. But as I touched it, it caved in,showering me with dust and fibres, floating down through the air light as puffball spores.

I had come too late.

"Count Von Tuu," Mr. Heppleshaw nodded the next day, as we sat at ease inhis kitchen, he with his pipe and both of us with our ale, "Aye, I've gotsomething for you there, like. Found this in the Library, down in the Stacks."He pulled out a faded volume, and opened it on the desk - I shivered as I saw the title, for I had hearddread things of "Every Boy's First Wonder Book of Unthinkable Rituals", which wassaid to have inspired the Brussels Legomancers themselves.

"Count Von Tuu," he read slowly, from the brief entry, " was an individualgifted, or cursed, with what can only be called Excessive powers of Observation.


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Without external evidence, on several occasions he was simply Revealed things thatlater proved to be true, though hideously unlikely. "

"Such as ?" I looked at him. The goat snorted, the bar-like pupils of hiseyes narrowing.

"His first Revalation," he read on, "Came as a child, when walking pastSandwell's World Of Leather, a well-established furniture and clothing chain. Heinsisted to his parents that behind the visible organisation, it was controlled by

Aliens who reallyDID come from a World Of Leather .... a tough but wipe-clean planet, whose peacewas only broken by the horrified screams of offworld geologists andPlanetographers exiled there for professional misdeeds, and left there with theirSanity Points meltinglike ice in the sun."

"His parents, naturally, believed him, and encouraged him to write an exposeof it for his School newspaper. And the very next day after publication,Sandwell's World Of Leather had vanished from Earth, leaving only preciselypunched-out hemispherical holes where the shops had stood, before they had been taken away without a trace orwitness."

Mr. Heppleshaw paused, to refill his pipe. "But of the book you want, "Die

UberPflaumig Kulten," it hasn't got a lot to say. It means "Cult of the Ultra-Fluffy", and was said to be his last book ..... before he Vanished, from inside asealed and lockedroom. THey never Did find out what happened to him .... and the manuscript waslost, apart from a pirated edition that got circulated through Unthinkable Book OfThe Month Club, some ten years or so back. Strange, though .... the Dates."

I blinked. "He was writing it just before the fall of Belgium ? He knew eventhen they were preparing to Summon up the Evil That Cuddles ?"

His ears twitched, and he put the book down. "Nay, lad. That'd be nowt sostrange ... or at least, it'd tie in with his usual talents. Belgium fell in 2029....... but Von Tuu vanished, more'n Forty Years Earlier !" He clapped the bookshot with an impressive bang. "And his Talent never dealt with the future, as such - it just

revealed, ..... what was already Happening."My mouth was suddenly dry, in a way that a swallow of the excellent Ale

somehow failed to relieve. For the dates referred to a time before either of uswere born, or our parents either ....... in our Grandparents' time, the 1970's or1980's, was a shocking hint that the world had been invaded by the cute Things that we had thoughtbad enough in our own time, along with Psychotronic warfare and the like. Realityhad barely survived even in the late 2020's, where the technology had been rushedinto existence in the last desparate hours to cope with them. I shivered.

"There's no trace of whatever was in the room, nothing I can read, anyway,"I admitted glumly, and told him of the strange decay of the computer and books.... as if their baterial had been, not so much rotted, as Transformed, into some

substance unrecognisably .... Other.

There was nothing more to be done. I finished sorting out the house onCarcosa Crescent, spent a few more evenings with my Neighbour - and then businesscalled me away across the country, for three months. The mystery was pushed to theback of my mind -and then came that frosty October evening, when the phone rang.

"Ey up, lad," I recognised Mr. Heppleshaw's voice at once. "I've got summatfor thee. Ah bin checkin, like, on folk as knew tha' cousin ..... an' I foundone, who was with him near enough at the finish..."


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I must have blinked almost audibly. "You Have ? Who ?"There was a silence. "It only happens to be us local Vicar, that's who. He's

been away, but he's coming back next week, to take up preachin' at Our Dark MotherOf The Woods convent .... just ower Ramsgill Moor from us. Art tha' comin' ower ?"

"Definitely !" I nodded, and arranged to return for the following week. As Iput the phone down, I nodded. It was something I should have thought of ....although the official Military records might have very little to say, the post-

Milennium Clergy were always on battlefields, and had their own records. Just on the horizon at theThirsk Salient battle, I recalled they had made their debut ..... and now thewhite-collared Chaos Vicars were a regular feature, urging their troops on,providing psionic defences against unwelcome Incursions from rival realities, and at need be,administering the final rites to the fallen to make sure they would not riseafterwards as the hideous pastel variants of Undead that had plagued Belgium.Their long black coats flapping, pistols and the precious tantalum plush-grollicking knives unsheathed,they would be in the forefront of every action where there was Unstuffed Horror tobe fought.

"Our Dark Mother Of The Woods," I smiled to myself, making a reverent

sinuous gesture, as tentacle-like as an internal skeleton would allow, to Shub-Niggurath, the Dark Goat Of The Woods With A Thousand Young. "Or, as they'd callher under the EC's Correction Enforcement Policies, "The Ethnically Coloured Caprine Deity-Person of TheSylvan Ecosystem With The Relaxed Attitude To Birth-Control"........"

It was raining again on Carcosa Crescent, when I arrived back. I was late, Iknew, having stopped off in the town square - they had been bayonetting someMulticulturalists, a sight you rarely get to see much these days. I stood there,on the doorstep,looking out into the garden. And there I saw ..... no, "saw" is not the word forit. It was more of an afterimage .... you know when you stare at a sharp image and

look away onto a white sheet of paper ? It was just a shape, fading .... as ifsomeone, orsomething, was standing in the grass at the bottom of the garden, looking at thehouse.

I stared, but there was nothing there, if indeed there ever had been. Thehouse was undisturbed, so after dropping my pack in the hall, I went next door. Bythe hop aroma flooding out across the cold night winds, Mr. Heppleshaw was brewinga new batch.

"Ey up lad," he greeted me, turning round from the boiling vat he wasstirring. "Good to see thi', like !" And then he must have seen something in myface, for his own goat ears twitched. "Looks like tha's seen a ghost."

I shook my head. "Not tonight. I've seen ghosts, and .... well. This wassomething Else." I sat down heavily, suddenly realising I had been trembling.

"Have you .... noticed anything, out there ?"He shook his head, and we both listened. For a minute there was nothing, and

then both our ears twitched. There was a sound, coming faintly down the wind, asif falling from endless heights of Outer space. Our ears pricked up in alarm ...and suddenlymy neighbour laughed.

"I know what That is, lad," he chuckled. "It's that time of year again, tha'knows ? Wait till folk get thessen a bit nearer, and relax thissen. Drink up !"With that, he filled another two of the illegally ground-down glasses, and passedme a foamingmeasure.


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Soon enough, I could hear the words, of the little band of singers workingtheir way down Carcosa Crescent. Then they were at the door, Mr. Heppleshawflinging it open to smile on the little band Lurking At The Threshold. They sang,one of the old, oldseasonal tunes that still brings a lump to my throat every time I hear it, or seea Balefire blazing merrily on some lightning-crowned hilltop far away:

"Roodmas time, tentacles and slimeChildren do unspeakable crimes

Blood on the altars, balefires burnTime to rejoice as the Old Ones Return!"

I hardly need to add that both my neighbour and I howled shocking obesiancewith the choruses of all ninety-six verses. When the singers moved on, theirpockets jingling with spare change, bon-bons, mal-mals and other such treats, wesat down again, feeling spiritually refreshed.

"Aye, lad, they Do sing'em like that these days," he smiled, raising histankard. "I remember learnin' it in School, it were in that musical, "Joseph andthe Appalling Monochrome Trenchcoat."

"I did that one !" I nodded. "I didn't get to sing, though .... theteachers thought I was pretty hot stuff playing the thin and sinister nameless

flute ..... and I'm not too bad at clicking the bone-dry crotala, either...""I think Everyone did that musical at school .... " he mused .... It's even

in the Hr'ghyal'gha Shards, they pulled out of a Precambrian landfill site fromeight hundred million years back .... well, you know what they say." His voicechanged, and wrestled with a vocabulary that biologies suited to drinking carbon-based beer andsitting in three-dimensional rooms were not wholly optimised for.

"Ry'lhrrg... Chttttrgggg.. ny'tharg'ha ... Urupthraaah'g ... ry'llllgh'nyath.. p'ghrygg.. phftaaagh..."

I applauded. "But what does it Mean ?"He gave a sudden, lop-sided grin. "Nobody knows, like .... but it's been

passed down since Precambrian times, so it's got to be good, tha' reckons ? Theonly bits anyone translated of it read "Joseph And The Appalling Monochrome

Trenchcoat...""There was a pause, while we mulled over our thoughts, and mulled ale on the

fire as the night grew chill. Eventually, I bade him good-night, and strolled homeonder the light of the sinister stars and a quite phenomenally Gibbous moon.

The next day I set out alone, hiking out over Ramsgill Moor, eager to findout more, if I could. It was becoming something of an obsession, I admitted tomyself ..... it was not that I had ever known my cousin all that well ..... mybrothers had perished in one of the EC's Political Correctness Enforcement Community Centres, and Ifelt no burning need to find out the details of that. No, it was something else..... something that struck a cord deep within me, as I left the house with nomirrors, or

photographs to reveal just what Osric had looked like.I found myself wondering just what had been on those shelves, and stored on

the computer ..... which had fallen into such strange dust, almost like thethreads and spores of a fungus. But what sort of fungus could eat plastic, glassand all the mixed exotic parts of a computer ? The books were easily enough explained: paper and skinbindings perish easily, in the dampness. Though I would have been happier in away, if there had BEEN some trace of dampness having been in the windowless roombetween thehouses.

The vicarage was easily spotted: it was one of the standard wartime designs,


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looking rather like a battleship on tracks, but much bigger and far more heavilyarmoured. It was dug in hull-down next to the post-office: as I stepped out ontothe drawbridgeI shivered at the fifty metre drop to the top of the tracks in the greatartificial canyon yawning below me.

Summoning up my courage, I knocked on the door.

"Your Cousin," I heard the Reverend Fanshaw deeply intoned, "Was, I musttell you, deeply suspect when he came to us. You do know of our Mission ? And whatour duties are ?"

I nodded wordlessly, looking across the expanse of the desk. It was abeautiful leather-topped desk two by three metres across, its surface a mosaic ofhundreds of rat-sized blue skins, cunningly jigsawed together. "You root out all.... unwanted intrusions from the wrong side of the time-tracks."

He nodded ponderously. The Vicar was a tall, horn-crowned deer of some kind:with his twisting, long horns I wondered if he proudly claimed descent from thefamous Vlad The Impala. "We do that. However they may be found. Some, you know,arrive direct, as it were ..... in full form, from Universes of ghastly cuteness so extreme that

they glow in the dark here, the pastel lambence of real matter breaking down,corrupting to their own substance where it touches them." He took a deep breath."And living things that have been ... exposed .... they too become corrupted, and warp theirshapes in time to things of similar, but lesser horror."

The Vicar stood up, and looked out of the window, a fine stained-glassaffair depicting stylised crusaders (all black armour, Chaos runes and spiky bits)hacking apart something of such sweetness that I felt nauseous when the lightpassing through its image fell on my crawling fur.

"With those, spotting them is simple enough. Dealing with them is less so.... but fortunately, it was found just in time that certain rare metals candisrupt their auras enough to send them back to the foulness from whence they

came. " He flicked hislong coat aside, and I saw the crossed hilts of a pair of fighting sabres, plainbasket hilts and black nylon holsters.

"Tantalum," he pulled one from its scabbard, and slid it towards me."Tantalum and technicium, the only non-radioactive elements that are suited to thejob. When Nasimura first isolated the fundamental particle, the Kawaiion, back in'09, nobody knew any material that would stop it without being .... corrupted."

I picked up the sabre, as he turned back towards the window - at least Itried to, then tried to pick it up again. The blade was incredibly heavy, astrangely textured pattern on it catching the sunlight, like the Widmanstaatenlines of polished iron meteorites. And then I touched it - and gave a sudden yelp of pain, dropping it on

the table with a hard thud."Cut myself," I explained, sucking my paw as he whirled to face me. "Those

things are Sharp !" I had a mental image of how they would be used, one ten-kiloblade in each hand, the Reverend's trail on the battlefield a hideous spray ofsmashed plush andspilled stuffing, the like of which would sizzle most Mortal's Sanity points awaylike water on a hot stovetop.

He gave me a hard look, then relaxed slightly, nodding. "Those blades I woreto Belgium," he said simply, as if nothing else needed to be said. There was along silence, and he began again to speak, without preamble.

"Your cousin joined us after we had already thrown the EC out of France,


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though there was one particular ..... Site, South-West of Paris, that was neverreclaimed. What they had intended to do there, we dared not guess - but we hit thearea with short-lived radionucleides and VX agent, and sealed it off forever. That accounted forall the Mortal cultists, we know, and by now .... well, without Sacrifices,whatever Gate they had built, would have gone offline in weeks. So we went intoBelgium ..... into the heart of it. Just in time for the new breed, you might say..."

He pulled off his mirror sunglasses, and looked at me hard. My heart skippeda beat, and as I flinched away from his gaze, I knew why all Vicars were said tobe Differently Sane, as the EC Directive 0085569922110 bis would have forced me tosay. Those eyes had stared into the pastel Abyss of ultimate fluffiness, and their owner wasstill alive nearly ten years after. Exactly what he had seen and done there, I wasglad I would never have to know. Or so I thought at the time, that afternoon inthe studylit by the oddly tinted sunlight shining through that holy and damned window.

"Olmthwaite, O, 4566444," he mused, breaking tone again as he tapped at aSony DataStation he pulled out of an inner coat pocket. "Some military skill, anda lot of true crusading Zeal ..... his own Vicar thought highly of him. Whichcovered over thing

s that might have otherwise..... not gone unnoticed. For the Corruption of theCute can be subtle, mark you ! Subtle and slow, and perhaps lie dormant for yearsawaiting that trigger to full-blown contagion. And so we have to be, so Verycareful, evennow. They are among us still."

"I first met him when the Reverend Hubberholme had given his life topreserve his troops .... given them time to get away by duelling with a Totoroidmonstrosity at the Marne crossing. They can recognise us, and you can scarcelybelieve the glee they radiate when we come within possible hugging reach. It was your cousin who heldthe retreat together, and stopped it becoming a rout. A fine leader, but to lookat him .... there was something deeply disturbing. His shape. Round as roundnessshould not

be .... and he became no thinner, even in the September campaigns where theresupply failed, and the rations were halved. I never saw him after that - forsome reason he disliked using the video link. Why that should have been ....disturbs me, even now."

"Then, there was that final campaign .... just when they were about tounleash the flood of That Which Squeaks below, and needed to be sure we didn'toverrun the Summoning sites they needed to do it. There were very few survivors ofour forward groups,and your cousin was thrown into a rag-tag of whatever forces we had left -including a Russian artillery unit, the 103rd Guards, nicknamed "FarewellMotherland.""

He looked at me with those eyes, that seemed to be focussing on a spot a

light year behind the back of my head. "You must understand, that until thatcampaign, there had been very few of those from Outside, summoned up against us.At no time, more thantwo hundred - but what those things ARE, is almost indestructable. Conventionalweapons might blow them across the landscape, but with no more harm to them than afootball takes from being kicked. Even nuclear devices - need to hit them,literally, within twenty radius' distance of the warhead core, or it'll do is punt them into highorbit, to land somewhere less prepared for their pastel horror.

"By the final campaign, though .... there were Many of them. And ourinstruments detected a vast surge in the Kawaiion flux, deep under Brussels


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itself, as if thousands were massing. I was thirty kilometres away from yourcousin at the end, in the outersuburbs of Rotterdam ....." he Shivered. "That was in the final hours, and muchwas done there that will never be known. But the comms link to his Assault gunbattery stayed up till the end."

He told me what he knew, from the official reports, and even managed to pulloff a few pages of the original datascript, from that desparate time. The Cornish179th Tank Army had been almost wiped out, its vehicles picked up and Cuddled till

they crumpled like tinfoil ... whole regiments had gone down beneath the all-conquering (buthideously Adorable) toes of the fluffy Horror that was planting its real Pastelbridgehead on Earth. For they had been the ones who had told the EC how to seizepower: theUnification Directive and the horrors of the Occupation had been simply theiridea of a good joke. Under their inspired leadership, all that was not forbiddenbecame compulsory, and the Regulations were changed until the living envied thedead (who paidless taxes anyway.)

But in that suburb of Rotterdam, the survivors dug in and held, rationingtheir ammunition. The Russian artillery unit that was covering the bridge crossingwas down to half its strength, and with barely a hundred tonnes of ammunition

remaining - and with one of the big, smurf-killing 435 mm pieces on full automatic fire, a hundredtonnes does not last long.

Osric was there, surprisingly alive and sane, despite having been exposed toline-of sight contact with the pastel Horror several times. He was crewing theassault-gun when the final attack came in - mortal EC troops first, then tinysqueaking blue-skinned Daemons in a subhuman Wave attack .... and the rubble of Rotterdam bouncedwith the concussion as the last scores of 435 mm shells threw them back. For afew minutes all was silent, but then over the comms link there came a united groanof horror in half a dozen languages, followed by a distant burst of high, screaming laughteras one of the gun crew suffered another psychiatric fatality. Something Big was

coming, rising up out of the river, it's drip-dry, machine-washable fleecestreaming with water, in a ghastly caricature of an Old One happily striding up from one of thebeautiful cities beneath the Pacific.

There was hardly any ammunition left, by then .... and none of the full-calibre concrete-pierving shells that might just would it, if a long enough bursthit a seam. But the comms link caught hints - not translated till all was over -of how there was one shell they were keeping till last, a reprocessed RSZ-11 Artillery round twentyyears old, that had been hurriedly fitted with a contact fuze and an outer jacketto fit the larger calibre piece they were using. And then there was no more timeto talk,for it was on them.

Perhaps Osric was the last one left alive and sane by then, for the trackedSmurf Destroyer had no runic protection, only the "Chelyabinsk Chobham", and thatlevel of Cuteness could penetrate the top and sides armour in seconds, at thatrange. For he stayed at his cannon, the final shell in the breech, even while the very steel andceramic around him began to glow pink with contamination ..... waiting till thevery last second....

The Reverend Fanshaw stopped, and looked at me. "How he stayed functioningso long, is something that .... puzzled me at the time," he said slowly. "For hekept on calling out ranging information even when the Fluffy thing was within afew hundred metre


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s ..... he had to be sure the RSZ shell hit a vulnerable seam, and penetrated.And then .... something very .... strange happened. IT seemed to sense where hewas, behind the armour, and made straight towards him. His last shout was that itwas opening its mouth .... by then it was only fifty metres away, and preparing to Hug."

There was a silence. At last, I stirred, finding I had been gripping the armof my chair painfully hard. "And he lived long enough to fire ?"

The Chaos Vicar gave a single, abrupt nod. "He did. That we DO know - in

the last second before he was overrun, he destroyed the Main Battle Fluffy thatwould have crushed whatever resistance we had left. A single shell, right in itsgaping maw .....that was what it would have needed, for brand new the RSZ-11's yield was barelyfour kilotonnes, and the warhead was in its last working year."

So has Osric died, I knew, knowing what he did, and knowing what he had todo. But still.... there was still a question beyond that, still so be answered.The Vivar was looking at me oddly, fingering his asymmetric star Octafix, when thephone rang, anold-fashioned one fixed to the wall in the corridor. He left me there in hisstudy without a word, and I looked around at the book-lined walls.

Just then, my heart gave a strange jump. I recognised on the shelf, a bookthat I had seen before - a second copy, of Von Tuu's "UberPflaumig Kulten", twin

to the one that had crumbled to such odd dust in my hands ! I could still hear theVicar talkingdown the hallway, so in haste I grabbed it, taking great care to first spotexactly how it had lain on the shelf.

The book was Old, I could see ..... it must have dated back to the nineteen-seventies, at least ..... and the script was in the style and font coming downfrom the dark days before the Milennium. The fly-leaf stamp showed this copy tohave been part ofthe private collection of the Dutch transport rental magnate, Albert Van Hire, andI shuddered to recall things I had heard whispered of the circumstances of his..... disappearence, for nothing readily identifiable as a body had ever beenfound.

Quickly, I pulled out my pocket Leica, flicking through the dread paperback

page by page and photographing it, glad I had worked so hard for my Espionage Goldbadge in the Cub Scouts. Just in time, I heard the phone going down in thecorridor and replaced the book, matching to the milimetre the dust-line showing where on the shelf ithad rested.

"I'll look into the files on your Cousin, if you're interested," ReverendFanshaw nodded as I left that day, back over the moor. "I'm sure there's neverbeen a .... full corerelation of what we know. And then ...." he smiled at me,though I managed to avoid his eyes, "I'll let you know."

Back I walked across Ramsgill Moor, breathing easier for it. And for a fewdays nothing extraordinary happened ..... except that I was conscious, perhaps

.... of being Watched. It was nothing definite .... but when I worked outside thehouse, even in daytime, my fur prickled as if someone was standing right behind me. Nothing wasthere. The photos I had taken were sent off to be developed by some Privatised ex-KGB lab near St.Petersburg: foolishly I had forgotten how few cellulose filmprocessors there were these days.

And then came that night of Horror, when my life was changed forever. It hadstarted innocently enough: I had tuned in to watch that famous Japanese game show,"Pro-Celebrity Bomb Disposal", Happily settling down to watch the studio audiencevote on wh


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ich wires last season's stars should try next, I was content. And then the phonerang.

I was already out of the chair and halfway across the room when I rememberedsomething fairly basic. I didn't HAVE a phone here. There was an old handset, butit was not connected: what little voice communication I wanted, went via mywristwatch Cray and its Aetheric modem. I found the white plastic telephone, and picked it up .....the whole cable coming with it, the unconnected plug swinging freely. And still it

rang.I froze, standing there in the hallway, with the shrilling thing in my

hands. Then, very slowly .... I picked up the reciever.At first I heard nothing. Then, there was what seemed like an endlessly

distant voice, as if I was only hearing the echo bouncing off the dome of a greatsoft Cathedral, pouring down like syrup from the stars. There were words .... butfor a minute, I could make nothing out. Then I could, and I froze in horror.

".......... past ..... never Knew ........ away, tried to ...... it wastoo late! The ...... lastday, I knew ......... tried end it all, but ........surely enough to finish me , but ....... never saw the flash ........... sofast..... then I Woke Up !"

The last words were in a kind of horrified squeak, and I almost dropped thephone. But as my fur fluffed out in horror, I realised there was something in thevoice that I ought to recognise. Not by its distant squeakiness, never had I knownthat before, but ..... something familiar was there, behind it, that struck a deeply-buriednote somewhere.

"............ was Grandfather, he didn't know ...... " the voice wasgetting higher-pitched now, and harder to follow, though somehow nearer. "Worked........Florida.. ..... ney, the Castle ...... two seasons,and...............took root ..........can't .......... it spreads down the years ! Father knew, he .......... endit properly....... no scrap, if you can .............too late..... now.....looking down the years, he found out today ! " There was a muffled squeak. and

then there wasone last clear burst, before the phone hissed and suddenly went dead. "He's almostat the house ! Run !"

I stood there a full minute, my mind blank but seething like a pot ofboiling water. My ears went down, and carefully I put the phone down, staring atit as if it was some poisonoussnake. But there was nothing more: the phone stayed as silent as an unpuggedplastic thing should remain. I shivered, and turned to return to the room.

Suddenly, there was a...... what I can only describe as a wave of Silence,flowed through the house. It lay like mist, cold, choking mist ....... almost asif the air had been frozen and solidified, so nothing moved in that place. Andfrom out of the windows, I saw a hideously suggestive glow of light, as no light should ever be.

What colour it had, I can hardly put a name to ..... but it seemed to ooze throughthe stalled air, as if it spread at some speed of its own that Einstein wouldnever have countainanced nor tried to measure.

It was in the back garden. It was coming from that direction where I hadthought I had sen something standing like an invisible statue, looking at me andat the house. With legs that seemed lto be working severely time-lagged, I forcedmyself to move tothe kitchen window, and look out. Just as I opened the curtains, the light flaredand faded to a dim glow.... and sound returned, as if the air had been desparatelyholding its own breath and only now let it out.


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My hand was on the door handle: grimly I forced it to turn, for there areSurvival routines in the hindbrains of us all, that are there for very goodreasons. But I overrode them, and stepped out into the garden, expecting to beoverwhelmed by some noxious stench. The air was indeed strangely sickly-sweet, but nothing unbearable.Slowly, I went down the garden - and there my old life ended.

The Reverend Fanshaw's own life had stopped too: I found his body stillwarm. His face was set in a rictus of hate; in each hand was an unsheathed

Tantalum sabre, the keen edges of which seemed somehow ..... blunted, almostglowing. On their razor edgeswere lines of dim phosphorescence, that faded as I watched, leaving the place indarkness. Examining him, I found no obvious wound, but by the grating of brokenbones as I turned him over, I realised he had been crushed .... as if bear-huggedto death in some final deadly embrace with a foe he had come here prepared to meet.

The glow had gone from the surroundings, as I have said. But as my eyesadjusted, I saw to my horror that there was a fading trail of it leading behindthe potting-shed - and a stronger, though flickering glow reflected from the fencebehind.

If only I had run, there and then ! The voice on the telephone had told meto run, and I might have gone far indeed, by which time certain .... traces, would

have faded with the daylight. But I followed the trail, and around the corner Icame face to face with that which haunts my dreams even now.

It was rounded, a blueish thing of such ..... proportions, and ... texture,that I only know my mind mercifully blanked off the worst of what I was there. Andit was fading: the Tantalum blades had torn it apart with wounds that itsunnatural vigour could never heal. It flickered .... like a hologram in the last seconds of batterylife, and then it looked at me.

"I tried .... stop him ...... he didn't know until now ... and didn'ttell ... anyone.." It was the voice I had heard on the phone, faint now but clear."I saw you'd come back ...... absorbed ..... evidence, didn't want you to know.The film you took

..... I couldn't stop that .... you'll have to know, now ..."The pastel thing squeaked painfully, and as it turned its head I caught an

alarming .... Resemblance, so shocking I staggered and almost fell, It panted andflickered wildly, and spoke again, its huge eyes fixed on me.

"They checked up on me, but .... they couldn't prove anything. Because ....there was nothing Outside.... I changed from Within .... it was Grandfather, yousee. Exposed .... it took hold of him, but he died normally before ..... anyone.. knew. Except Father .... the furnace, remember?"

I looked at him, and recognised what ghastly hints of face and voice hadbeen telling me. And then I DID faint, to wake up only with the daylight, whereno trace remained. What had been there had .... evaporated, for it was not matterof our kind at al

l ..... a kind of ghastly fluff shed from the cosmic String of a universe soalien, and yet so covetous of our own sane and healthy six dimensions.

The police took the Reverend's body away the next day; I told them of thelight and the Silence, and of the Thing I had seen - but not a word of what it hadtold me. And when the photographs from that terrible Book came back that day, Ilooked through them once before destroying them. For they only confirmed the thing I dreaded tosee.

Von Tuu's book truly was a monstrous thing to read, and I am only glad hewrote no more. Had it been Prophetic, it would have been bad enough, for it has


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this to say of the things the world found out about almost too late to stop:"And they shall come forth in their legions, from the false castles raised

and praised throughout the world: those of softness and squeaking, whose namesshall be on all lips, yet no mortal lips shall know the name they give Themselves,nor mortal earshear their plans till they are ripened. And in the form they take before they arefully bodied, neither shall eyes that live see them, whether in naked fibre orfibrous corruption sheathed in flesh. The Devilbunnies are their kin, yet they can

spy them but dimly, and none shall know the secret sowing in mortal flesh till its season ofripening and bitter harvest comes."

"For the corruption they bring may pass through the blood, and sleep longyears to awaken: they shall walk among us unknown and unknowing, except to thosewho share that cup of horror. And at the last the secret seed shall ripen, andtrouble all the ages until the last of it is burned, burned without trace nor relic."

All this, I knew, or could guess. But the date was wrong ! If Von Tuu hadspoken truth, it was not in my lifetime, even, but much, much earlier when thefirst of them had set foot on Earth, and decided it would be theirs.

Von Tuu was right. The Thing that spoke to me before it died ...... I knewit at the last, and I know what it meant. My cousin Osric had removed the mirrors

from the house and tried to destroy all records of his appearence when he felt theChange coming ...... and somehow he found out what was happening. Some of the books that nowwere dust in the Room Between had the look of Family records, and some hint ofwhat his Grandfather - MY Grandfather had done, and where he had been, might havesurvived. Some time when Von Tuu was dreaming his hideously accurate visions, GrandfatherOlmthwaite had worked across the Atlantic in a place that was known as Floridawhen it lay above the waves, at a certain ..... Complex whose name has not beenspoken willinglyfor long years.

What did the pastel thing say ? Of someone who had found out, and madecertain that his body would not change further, nor rise again even in the normal

Undead fashion ? Osric's Father, my Uncle, I recalled from the family legend, hadmet a tragic and inexplicable end by falling into a blast furnace that the investigation proved hadexcellent safely guards against Accidents like that. What of him ?

For I knew even as I fainted, that Osric had not died in Holland. He hadtried to - but already, enough of him had been ...... altered, to survive even thefate he embraced. And he had regained consciousness, bit by bit, month aftermonth, in a waking nightmare as he knew exactly what he had become. Not in solid form, oh no, but in asentient cloud, a constellation of particles of Their matter, gaining strength andsolidity all the time, and at last making its way back to the only home it knew,hopingperhaps to warn me.

I look down at my hand every now and then, at the scar on my hand. In theVicarage, I had picked up the Tantalum blade ..... but its edge had not cut me -it had Burned me like red-hot iron. Now I know why the Reverend Fanshaw hadlooked at me so oddly, why the lunatic in the asylum had half recognised something of Osric in me ....not for the natural genetics we shared, but for that Other thing that we share now- that curse which no natural death will remove.

As I write this, I know what I must do. There will be no furnace for me: theChange may be too far advanced for even that to succeed. I will hand this to myneighbour, with instructions to open it a week after I am gone ..... for I knowthe Reverend Fan


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shaw was coming not for my Cousin, but for me, and I have another fate in mind. Iwill go to that destroyed land that was called Belgium, and seek out the others ofmy kind ..... for we have no Count Von Tuu for this decade, and beneath the greenradioactive scabs of Brussels, horrid life stirs in secret.

Cousin Osric came back to warn me ...... can I do less for the world ?

#End Transcript 125666 #

the fluff at the threshold

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