The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK ®. C.J. Henderson

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СКАЧАТЬ man had many such devices set about in the corners of his home and was not overly concerned by hearing one go off in the middle of the night. But, instead of the squeals such a sound usually brought, if they brought any noise at all, he heard instead a series of strange, unfathomable sounds, the curiousness of which forced him to leave his bed. Lighting his table lamp, he went out to examine his small home’s main room where he found the most curious scene.

      Claro described finding the trap dragged across the room from where it had been set all the way to the front door. He could tell this had happened easily enough because of the wet, sticky trail left from the trap’s original position to where Claro discovered it, smashed and ruined beneath his mail slot. He could only think that he had snared quite a large rodent, one of sufficient size and strength to move the trap, although wounded unto the point where it was bleeding profusely. This line of thinking was diminished, however, when he realized that the smearing crossing his floor was not made up of blood.

      Legrasse absently noted a faded line of coloration on the door, one leading from deep inside the large room into the foyer—indeed, directly up to the mail slot—which supported Claro’s story. The dead man’s words described the trail as a bluish-green, one with neither the smell nor taste of blood. He was confused by this, but with the simplicity of most swamp dwellers, soon forgot the incident, tired as he had been from the ordeal of collecting and salting down his windfall.

      The next night, however, he was again visited after dark, and the night after that, and the one after that. He lay in his bed on all three occasions, the covers pulled up and over his head, frightened to the point where he questioned even the need to breathe. Every day he set out more traps, but each morning he found fewer of them sprung. On all three nights, he listened intently as something, or some things, crawled and slithered throughout his simple home. Whether they were searching for something, or simply madly dancing, he had no idea, nor much inclination to find out.

      * * * *

      As Legrasse read on, fascinated, Galvez waited, balancing himself in various poses, using the cane from the umbrella stand to keep from toppling into the myriad traps. On the one hand, he was impatient to find the answer to the riddle of the dead man and to close out the case. On the other, he was more than willing to wait to see what his former commander could determine. Together, the two had seen some horrific and terrible things in the bayou land outside their city. Indeed, in Galvez’s mind, the mystery of Hector Claro could scarce compare to some of their previous exploits.

      “Better safe than sorry,” the lieutenant cautioned himself and continued to play with the cane, twirling it in one hand, studying its odd carvings, amusing himself in any way he could think of while he waited for Legrasse’s verdict.

      * * * *

      The inspector had almost forgotten Galvez, however, his full attention falling to each successive page of Claro’s diary. Legrasse had become engrossed with the man’s description of the fourth night of his home’s invasion and reread it simply to hear its words again within his head. That night, whatever had been searching about in the other rooms of his home, even under his own bed, found its way to what was on top of his bed.

      Claro wrote of a weight passing over the blanket he kept tight across his face. Anything with eyes would have seen his form beneath the covers, he reckoned, but whatever this was, this probing, single length, it merely poked and prodded and rolled, intent in its search, but making no discovery. At first.

      Claro’s words dropped icicles down the back of Legrasse’s shirt collar, making each vertebrae ache in turn as they uncomfortably made their way down his spine.

      It were a horrible feeling, not being able to see, not being able to breathe, just scared and waiting for the damn thing to go away. Just holding my breath and waiting and praying and none of it doing no good. No good at all.

      It just kept digging and scratching and tugging, like a big finger, but a stupid one. Like something that had never seen a bed or a blanket. I think how dumb it were was more frightening than anything else. Even a bear, or fox, or anything, anything that ever crawled up out of the swamp should have known what it had found. But this thing couldn’t tell it had found a man under a blanket. So it just kept poking and digging at me.

      And then, it found me. The crawling bastard thing finally found its way under the blanket and it slid under my leg and up over the other in a motion so fast I couldn’t react. But, as it started to circle under my leg, like to grab it, or squeeze it, my fear left me, or it filled me, whatever, I don’t know. I only know that was all I could stand.

      It was a madness that took me then. I rolled out of my bed screaming. In the darkness, I grabbed at the thing coiling around my legs, and I pulled it from me and smashed at it, beating it with my fists, beating it against the floor.

      With a lightning speed, it jerked free of my hold and retreated out of the room. I followed it, my hands grabbing for something to use as a weapon. I found a chair. I wasn’t thinking, didn’t care. I grabbed up the chair and ran to follow the thing, whatever it was, to break it, to kill it. Then, I got to the next room…and I had to stop.

      Legrasse read on, fascinated.

      Claro had stopped, for he had found his home filled with vast lengths of roping flesh, something like the tentacles of a squid, but longer, thinner, and possessed of individual skills no cephalopod imaginable had ever displayed. He stood frozen, terror gripping his every muscle, as he watched the roaming tendrils poke and pull and slither in the moonlight. Then the one he had just eluded found him again, and Claro beat at it with his chair until the seat had become splinters.

      Racing about madly, the man had smashed the tentacles, beat them with his fists, even bitten into one of them. Although the tendrils retreated in seconds in the face of his attack, still Claro was left drenched in sweat from his encounter.

      He spent the next day closing down the side of his home facing the swamp. It did no good. The next night the lengths returned, and again he was forced to do battle with the sucking, grasping coils. They came over the next two nights as well, and Claro began to take note of certain things. Each night the tentacles came earlier and stayed longer. They were beginning to be able to predict where he would be, what he would do. They were beginning to not fear him. Which is when he had decided to start setting the traps.

      * * * *

      Legrasse gave the book over to Galvez, telling him to read some of it while he thought about things for a moment. The Spaniard nodded, handing the inspector the cane he had been toying with so that he could hold the book in two hands. While Galvez started, Legrasse thought on what he had read.

      The book told of tentacles coming through the windows, slots, cracks, even his sink drain. Why the man stayed in his home, he did not explain. Nor did he explain why he did not at least leave at night, did not call the police, did not ask his neighbors for shelter or assistance.

      What could it have been, wondered Legrasse. Why was it? What did it want? Why did it come? Why?

      Maybe Claro was just too stubborn to admit defeat. Maybe he simply went insane, bought the traps and spread them out, relying on the only thing that had truly worked for him. The last entry he had made, sitting in his corner, disturbed Legrasse the most. Free, free at last.

      The inspector studied the cane in his hand as he tried to piece the sad occurrence into a whole. Certainly the storm had unleashed whatever had found Claro. Perhaps it was some long lost horror, sealed away within the fresh spring so recently uncovered.

      Legrasse stared at the corpse in the corner and wondered. Did the dead man know something that some outré thing wanted to know, something it did not СКАЧАТЬ