Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft Read Online Free Page B

butterflies. For some reason I decided that must be the grandson. “Mr. Carter.” I yelled, “I am looking for your grandfather.” He looked up and grinned at me, then waved his stick like a bishop blessing the faithful with his crozier.
    I hurried along the path. I slipped on a muddy patch and kept from falling by grabbing the rope like branches of willow. I struggled to regain both balance and dignity, and when I looked up the man had left. I went to where he was, and then followed the path into deeper woods where trees with real height stood, large-trunked live-oaks with Spanish moss beards. I couldn’t figure out where he had gone, and the sense of wildness bothered me. I am not given to fear generally, especially not on lightly overcast Monday mornings, but this place suddenly seemed very alien. It was not the glistening sundews or the brightly colored mushrooms. It was not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that was imagined. I found myself listening, but I couldn’t say for what. Maybe it would be better to meet Mr. Carter in the home, in his well-lit room at night.
    I returned to my silver PT Cruiser and drove away from the I Did It My Way retirement home.
    After an afternoon of semi-successful bookstore crawling, I felt foolish about my feelings in the bayou. I drove back to the home after catching a barbecue sandwich from a restaurant called The Pig Stand. I took my copy of The Moon Lily, and after a few seconds of deliberation my .45 as well. I didn’t know if my Texas concealed weapons permit worked in Louisiana, and I was ashamed to be afraid of a 107-year-old.
    The smell of piss and disinfectant seemed stronger by night. To my surprise, Kassandra was still behind the desk. She must have a crazy shift.
    She shook her head and pursed her lips. “My grandson told me you were getting Mary riled up. You don’t need to bother her. If you want to hang out with the Carters that’s your own fool business. Leave everybody else out of it.”
    “I am sorry if I upset the old lady. She was talking about blood.”
    “Old people talk about a lot of things; that’s because they’ve seen everything and done everything. You can go on back, he’s with his grandson now.” She said the last with a truly hateful smirk.
    It took me a few seconds to take in the scene before me.
    The man I had seen earlier today was tied to a gerry chair. His silver and black hair, reddened skin, and cauliflower nose would lead me to think he was an alcoholic in his seventies, but his eyes—his eyes were dead. They moved, but they had no light to them. No love, no joy, no anger, nothing. They seemed to suck in the light of the room. It almost seemed as if he had a shadow on his face. The walking-stick with its yellowed ivory handle lay against the bed, just out of his reach. The cane’s head was a thick disk showing what seemed to be a veiled man crawling through a geometrical figure. Its wood was dark and scratched up from a great deal of use. Sitting in a wooden chair, probably a dining room chair because of the elbow supports, was an older man with thinning silver hair and a turkey neck. He wore a faded pink Izod shirt and khaki pants jerked too far up on his frame, held by a brown belt that had a few new notches punched in it, probably by a pocket knife. He was reading from a yellowed paperback.
    “The King’s Chamber was not a tomb as modern Egyptologists tell us. Instead, it was a shrine to a headless demon, called in Arabic Yaji Ash-Shuthath , meaning ‘No Peace at the Gate.’ This all-seeing being is symbolized in Masonry as the All-Seeing Eye, but because of its gift of immortality it is likewise called Tawil-at’Umr, which means ‘Prolonged of Age.’ The Egyptians themselves called it Ur sutthoth, which means the ‘Primal Dazzler Time Reckoner.’ The shape-waves of the chamber were utilized by Aleister Crowley . . .”
    The man in the gerry chair interrupted him.
    “We