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128 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
128 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta name="generator" content=
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"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 14 February 2006), see www.w3.org" />
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<title>2</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
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<link rel="stylesheet" type=
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"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
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"page-template.xpgt" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="text">
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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>2</h2>
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<p>Down on Clydeshore Avenue, close to the shingle bank of the wide
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firth estuary, the thunderclap exploded overhead just as a jagged
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fork of lightning stabbed down from the black cloud, a sizzling
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stutter of energy which tore the air apart and speared the fork of
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a massive beech tree. The westward half of the tree simply peeled
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away from the main trunk and fell forty feet, flames licking up its
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entire length, to the ground below where the drenching rain
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instantly doused the fire.</p>
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<p>The girl woke, wide eyed, mouth agape, a cry trying to blurt
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from a fright-locked throat.</p>
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<p>The lightning flickered outside, sending stroboscopic patterns
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through the chink in the curtain and on its heels, the thunder
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growled like a hungry animal in the night.</p>
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<p>Her hands were shaking, held up rigid and hooked in front of her
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face. Her eyes were wide and staring in the dark, blind to the
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flashes of light, seeing only the images of the dreadful dream
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unreel in her mind. Trickles of sweat ran cool fingers down between
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her shoulderblades and her heart was beating so fast, so hard, it
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felt as if it would punch through her ribs.</p>
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<p>The dream was still running, re-running, playing the scenes back
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for her, and the eyes, poisonous yellow-orange in the dark, stared
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through her, drilled into her very <em>self</em>.</p>
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<p>Finally her lungs unclenched and the girl let out a moan of fear
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and anguish.</p>
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<p>It had been a nightmare, a terrible dream. Someplace dark, where
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the very air felt as if it had been compressed by weight and heat.
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A featureless plain of blackness, seen from above. She had been
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floating over the desolation, knowing without seeing, that this was
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no desert, that million upon million twisted and wizened and
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tormented things writhed far below, crowded so close together that
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they formed the surface. She could sense their suffering and their
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hate as she sped on, drawn forwards to the only feature, unseen in
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the distance, but sensed, somehow, the way it is in dreams, a
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looming foreboding, the certain prescience of the mindscape.</p>
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<p>She finally approached, silently through the oppressive ether, a
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pinnacle of rock soaring up from the flat, a jagged tooth of stone,
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riven with crevices and saw-toothed ridges, black as night. On the
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almost vertical sides, she sensed more of the creatures, climbing
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ever upwards, falling back to oblivion among the masses, heard, in
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her mind, their screams and shrieks of frustration and despair.</p>
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<p>She rose up the face of the rock spire until she came level with
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the spiked top, and there she saw the shadow.</p>
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<p>Blacker than black, deeper than night, it hunched, still as
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stone. It defied vision. There were no outlines to the thing which
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sat on the high vantage, yet her dream senses could perceive its
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malevolence. She tried to back away, but it drew her in towards it,
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an amorphous writhing shade within shadow. In the dream, she shook
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her head, denying its existence, tried to tell herself that this
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was a dream, but still its foul magnetism drew her on until she
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could almost have touched the slime-coated rock.</p>
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<p>It turned, though she saw no movement, only felt it. Two eyes
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opened, enormous and sickly yellow, completely round and
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featureless. A baleful light speared her, reached into her and
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touched her very self. She tried to cry, to twist away from the
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touch of corruption and disease, but it held her.</p>
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<p>Then the sound of thunder rolled over the plain. A green light
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flickered in the far horizon and the eyes closed.</p>
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<p>"<em>Now, little one,"</em> a voice like scraping rock whispered
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inside her, "<em>we are together.</em>"</p>
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<p>The shadow moved, a sensation of oily limbs, jagged joints, a
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spider-like, yet slithery motion, and the dark rose upwards from
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the rock towards a red-purple sky, changing to a sphere, fuzzing to
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a cloud. She was caught in the wake, dragged along in the
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turbulence. A crack appeared in the sky as she was blown
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through.</p>
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<p>And she was in a strange room.</p>
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<p>She was high, close to the ceiling, looking down on them as they
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sat around the table. The stone was moving, whirling faster and
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faster, jerking from one oddly-slanted letter to the next. It
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happened in a flick-flick stop motion sequence, out of synch. A man
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stood up, moved to the door. She saw, rather than felt, the black
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cold wind whirl around the room, rattling the paintings on the
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walls, the quaint glassware in the cabinet. Two women getting to
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their feet, backing away. The old woman, bowed over the back of the
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seat.</p>
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<p>All the time she felt the black presence of the thing that had
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dragged her from the hellscape through the crack in the sky. It was
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in the wind that shivered them all, it was in the stone. She saw
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it, a fuzzed and writhing cloud of darkness, narrowing down to a
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spinning cone and force its way into the old woman. She heard the
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grating tones as it spoke through her, sensed the sudden burgeon of
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fear in the women.</p>
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<p>On the table the stone blurred in its spin then flew off to
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shatter against the fireplace and she heard the guttural laugh as
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the shards fountained outwards.</p>
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<p><em>Run! Get away!</em></p>
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<p>She tried to call out to them, but she could make no sound. She
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was locked in the dream, powerless to escape. The door opened, the
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men spilled out, the women at their heels. One man sat still,
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unable to move.</p>
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<p>The old woman rose up from the chair, limbs twitching. The girl
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could see the black aura of the thing within and without her, heard
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its glut as it absorbed the fear and horror. Then the woman fell.
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The man now moving, strobe-effect jerks as the chair toppled. The
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terrible sound of broken bone and crushed flesh, and then, above it
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all, the shriek of mad laughter.</p>
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<p>She tried to pull away again, but the numb lethargy still held
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her. On the ground, far below, the woman's dead eye flicked open
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and glared at her from a mess of damage. The lips moved, just a
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twitch at first, as if the nerves were finding new pathways to
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travel.</p>
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<p>"<em>Now it begins,"</em> the grating voice said, so softly it
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was more menacing than the laughter.</p>
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<p>"<em>Wait and watch with me,"</em> it said.</p>
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<p>And she awoke sitting up in her own bed, shivering in the
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aftermath.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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