The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman Read Online Free

together into words, though,
huh?"
    She nodded. "Next letter."
    "'Y'."
    "Twenty-five."
    "'D'."
    "Four."
    "'I'."
    "Nine."
    "And 'A', which is one," he said. "So that
equals..."
    "Fifty-one," she said quickly. "That means
nothing I know of. If you add five books, it becomes
fifty-six."
    "Does that mean anything to you?" he said,
expecting the number fifty-six to have some profoundly evil
purpose.
    She shook her head. "Nope."
    "Okay," he said. He turned to put the book on
the table, but another book on the shelf caught his eye.
" A ."
    "What?"
    "There's a book by itself on the top shelf, just
called A ." He pulled it down and opened it. The pages were
blank. "There's nothing in it. It's like a Diary or something that
was never written in."
    "Let me see," she said and grabbed the small
book from his hand. She thumbed through it quickly. "I don't feel
anything." She thumbed through again. "Oh!"
    She folded the book open and handed it back to
Allan. There, tucked close to the binding and written so small it
was hardly a mark at all, was '-1'. "Minus one," he said.
    "Now it works," she said. "Fifty-five. Five
books, five letters. Written as '5' '5', is an occult
number ... five plus five is ten, fifty-five divided by five is
ten. Five times fifty-five is two-hundred and seventy-five; if
written as '2' '7' '5', two minus seven plus five is zero. Two
times seven is fourteen, fourteen times 5 is seventy. Subtract
fourteen and you have fifty-six. Minus one, fifty-five." She tossed
up her hands. "See? Very simple numerology."
    "I failed math," he said. "But, occult
number , let's work at that." He smiled. "What about 'L' through
'P'."
    "Seventy," she said. "Five times five times
five, minus 55."
    "So that verifies there are only five letters in
the spell? Should I write this stuff down so we can remember
it?"
    "I can remember every heartbeat I've had for a
hundred and forty years," she said.
    "We're all set, then," he said. "Let's look at
that big lock." He looked at his watch. "It's five o'clock."
     
    ****
     
    He hadn't meant to visit the basement at all on
this trip. Basements scared him, always had. There was another guy
at work, someone hired just for the jobs he didn't want to do, and
it was going to be his job to catalog the basement. But here he
was, standing in front of an ancient wooden door made from oak
planks, with a huge old brass lock securing it in its frame. The
basement itself was dark: dark and scary. But Izbet had conjured or
created several small floating balls of light and the main area
where they were standing was well lit. The dark corners, well, he
decided not to think about it.
    He held up the keyring. "Any idea which..."
    "That one," she said and touched a key with the
tip of her finger.
    He singled it out, approached the lock, and then
paused. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, what if there is
something locked up in there?"
    "You mean like a demon?" she said.
    "Yeah... oh." He put the key in the lock and
turned it. There was no blast of otherworldly fog or screams of
torment, so he pulled the heavy door open.
    Izbet made a few gestures with her hands and the
balls of light went through the door. Izbet followed. Allan
followed her.
    It was an old root cellar, made originally for
holding food before refrigeration was invented. Three walls were
pressed against the clay ground outside which regulated the
temperature, but also insulated it from outside forces.
    "This room is special," she said as she walked
around the small space. She was too short to find the cobwebs that
hung from the ceiling slats.
    "Great!" he said, wiping the webs off his face.
He looked around. "What's special about it?"
    "It..." she looked around. "It could actually hold a demon."
    "So, the old horror movies were right?" he said.
"I knew I should never go into basements!"
    She shrugged. "Guess so." She held the palms of
her hands toward each of the walls and seemed to be calculating
their strength. "The thing is, it would keep a