999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [306]
Hands shaking, Harlow drove home, careful to not speed or make a turn without signaling, obeying all traffic laws. He didn’t want to get stopped now. No, no. They might take the gun away.
Impatiently he dithered about until the cook and the housekeeper were gone, and then, his heart thudding, he sat at the kitchen table and loaded the Smith and Wesson, sliding the 240-grain hollow-points into the waiting chambers.
It seems only fitting that I kill this thing in the rec room. I mean, that’s where it took advantage of a brownout and killed my uncle when the relays released and the lights went out. Killed him in the night in darkness, just as I’m going to kill it.
Harlow picked up the night-vision goggles and slipped them on and adjusted them for fit, taking care not to accidentally flip on the amplifier switch.
It won’t do to drive the goggles into overload here in the light of day. Better to wait till the depths of the night. Yes, the depths of the night. That’s when I’ll do it. When darkness fills every nook and cranny of the house. Turnabout, fair play, and all of that.
Harlow tittered, his voice tight with fear, but then he clamped his lips tight shut to keep the secret within.
It was nearly mid of night when—gun in hand, night goggles riding on his forehead—Harlow walked away from the kitchen, turning on lights ahead, turning them off behind.
Don’t want lights on anywhere when I click that last switch and plunge everything into darkness.
His heart was hammering in dread.
But a loaded .44 magnum was gripped in his sweaty fist.
Finally he reached the recreation room.
Gasping for breath, he stepped about, turning off every light but one, as shadows crept inward and mustered all ‘round.
Slick with sweat, his mouth dry, Harlow wiped his palms on his denims, then cocked the .44.
With a trembling hand he reached for the last lamp … and hesitated.
Come on, Harlow. It’s you with the gun and the goggles. You can get this punk.
His lungs heaving, Harlow clicked off the last lamp.
Blackness pitched into the room.
Jesus Jesus, I can’t— The thing—
Biting back a cry, Harlow jerked the goggles down over his eyes and slapped on the night-vision power. The light amplifier bloomed on, and Harlow could see—
God I can see!
—in a limited cone of vision, the greenish images ghostly. But he could see.
With the cocked .44 thrust out before him, Harlow jerked his head this way and that, looking for, seeking … what? He did not know. Whatever it was. The thing.
“C-come on, asshole!” he cried, his voice high, strained. “M-motherfucker!”
Left, right, he swept his tunnel vision.
And then he knew—
My God, it’s behind me!
—and he jerked about to see—
Harlow reeled back, his bowels and bladder loosing, the gun falling from his hand to strike the floor, the thunderous explosion lost under terrified screams as he shrieked and shrieked and shrieked. …
When the taxi pulled away in the crisp October night, Gloria, twenty-two, picked up her cheap suitcase and followed the silver-haired man into the elegant manse. With a faint clicking throughout, light flooded the foyer and the rooms beyond, both upstairs and down. Maxon turned to the healthy young lady, a predatory grin on his cadaverous face, and he said, “Your great-uncle was a most peculiar man, Miss Willoughby, and you are the last in his line.”
William Peter Blatty
ELSEWHERE
Is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard of The Exorcist? Though an Oscar sits on Bill Blatty’s mantel for the screenplay to the movie version, it will always he the hook that stands out in my mind: without benefit of a screen, William Peter Blatty