Résumé With Monsters Read Online Free Page A
Author: William Browning Spencer
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Horror, American Fiction, 20th Century, Life on other planets, Erotic Fiction, Men, Fiction / Horror, Horror - General
with his hand, shoved his face into Philip's and kissed Philip on the lips.
Philip shouted, fell backward. The plastic tumbler bounced on the flagstones and ice leapt out.
Philip got up and ran. He heard Mr. Bluett behind him, shouting.
"It ain't no big deal!" Mr. Bluett was shouting. "It ain't anything to get exercised about!"
Philip reached his bike, jumped on it, and raced down the hill.
"So that's how your first job ended," Lily said.
"No," Philip said. "I worked for him the next summer too. I got twenty dollars every time I mowed his lawn."
"And did he make any more sexual advances?"
"No, not exactly. Sometimes he would ask me to get something out of the pool. I'd have to take off my clothes to go into the pool. I forget why, but you couldn't wear clothes in the pool."
"How did you feel about that?"
"He gave me thirty dollars on pool days."
"So how did you feel about it?"
"Creepy."
#
That night Philip dreamed he was underwater, down in the green shadow world of old man Bluett's swimming pool. He had gone in to recover a watch. The watch was a waterproof Timex and, if Philip wasn't mistaken, Bluett had been wearing it only twenty minutes earlier.
The cold water enclosed Philip's nakedness, cut out the hot, drumming day as death itself might, and plunged him into this dappled, chill world. The chlorine stung his eyes.
What if his mother were to march briskly, that very instant, through the Odells ' yard, across the street, down the little path between the Clarks and the Wardens, across another street and, moving faster now, down the new-mown hill to the swimming pool?
Philip would jump, dripping from the pool and his mother, her gray eyes flashing, would turn to old Bluett and demand an explanation and Bluett would mumble that it was no big deal, but he would not be able to meet her eyes and shame would descend on Philip like hard rain on a tin roof.
Philip concentrated on the thirty dollars. His eyes sought the watch.
He saw, for the first time, that the bottom of the pool was not concrete but a twisting lattice of pipe, pale white tubes that intertwined elaborately. As Philip drew closer, the pipes began to move, flowing like the bodies of thick serpents although never was a head revealed, nor a tail, and perhaps they did not crawl between and around each other but merely gave the illusion of doing so through a wavelike rippling of their flesh.
Philip knew it for what it was, this loathsome, monstrous knot of serpents: Cthulhu , bathed in eldritch green light, sprung from watery R'lyeh .
Philip, numb with revulsion and terror, swam closer yet, powered by the perverse will of the dream.
A hand reached out from between two tuber- like trunks, a white hand, gnarled, its nails bitten. Philip saw the truncated ring finger—cut long ago on a lathe—and tried to turn before he saw any more, but it was too late. His father's face, white and glistening, bloomed like a poisonous mushroom. His father's mouth opened in a scream, and Philip spied a ragged tongue, spotted with barnacles, and the mouth shaped words that were lost in the sound of vast machines laboring.
Philip fled to the surface, fighting the gravity of his fear.
The words his father had spoken followed Philip to the surface, and they broke in oily bubbles as Philip blinked at the sky.
His father's words burst upon Philip in a strangely dispassionate staccato: It's. A. Rigged. Game.
4.
Bingham was staring up at the stars when Philip walked outside on break. Way off in the distance, stuttering light inflated the clouds.
"You ever been struck by lightning?" Bingham asked. "No."
"Me neither," the older man said. "But I knew this guy, guy named Merl Botts . He was from upstate New York, used to drink with my uncle Hark. Anyway, Botts said he had been struck by lightning seventeen times. I figure he was telling the
Philip shouted, fell backward. The plastic tumbler bounced on the flagstones and ice leapt out.
Philip got up and ran. He heard Mr. Bluett behind him, shouting.
"It ain't no big deal!" Mr. Bluett was shouting. "It ain't anything to get exercised about!"
Philip reached his bike, jumped on it, and raced down the hill.
"So that's how your first job ended," Lily said.
"No," Philip said. "I worked for him the next summer too. I got twenty dollars every time I mowed his lawn."
"And did he make any more sexual advances?"
"No, not exactly. Sometimes he would ask me to get something out of the pool. I'd have to take off my clothes to go into the pool. I forget why, but you couldn't wear clothes in the pool."
"How did you feel about that?"
"He gave me thirty dollars on pool days."
"So how did you feel about it?"
"Creepy."
#
That night Philip dreamed he was underwater, down in the green shadow world of old man Bluett's swimming pool. He had gone in to recover a watch. The watch was a waterproof Timex and, if Philip wasn't mistaken, Bluett had been wearing it only twenty minutes earlier.
The cold water enclosed Philip's nakedness, cut out the hot, drumming day as death itself might, and plunged him into this dappled, chill world. The chlorine stung his eyes.
What if his mother were to march briskly, that very instant, through the Odells ' yard, across the street, down the little path between the Clarks and the Wardens, across another street and, moving faster now, down the new-mown hill to the swimming pool?
Philip would jump, dripping from the pool and his mother, her gray eyes flashing, would turn to old Bluett and demand an explanation and Bluett would mumble that it was no big deal, but he would not be able to meet her eyes and shame would descend on Philip like hard rain on a tin roof.
Philip concentrated on the thirty dollars. His eyes sought the watch.
He saw, for the first time, that the bottom of the pool was not concrete but a twisting lattice of pipe, pale white tubes that intertwined elaborately. As Philip drew closer, the pipes began to move, flowing like the bodies of thick serpents although never was a head revealed, nor a tail, and perhaps they did not crawl between and around each other but merely gave the illusion of doing so through a wavelike rippling of their flesh.
Philip knew it for what it was, this loathsome, monstrous knot of serpents: Cthulhu , bathed in eldritch green light, sprung from watery R'lyeh .
Philip, numb with revulsion and terror, swam closer yet, powered by the perverse will of the dream.
A hand reached out from between two tuber- like trunks, a white hand, gnarled, its nails bitten. Philip saw the truncated ring finger—cut long ago on a lathe—and tried to turn before he saw any more, but it was too late. His father's face, white and glistening, bloomed like a poisonous mushroom. His father's mouth opened in a scream, and Philip spied a ragged tongue, spotted with barnacles, and the mouth shaped words that were lost in the sound of vast machines laboring.
Philip fled to the surface, fighting the gravity of his fear.
The words his father had spoken followed Philip to the surface, and they broke in oily bubbles as Philip blinked at the sky.
His father's words burst upon Philip in a strangely dispassionate staccato: It's. A. Rigged. Game.
4.
Bingham was staring up at the stars when Philip walked outside on break. Way off in the distance, stuttering light inflated the clouds.
"You ever been struck by lightning?" Bingham asked. "No."
"Me neither," the older man said. "But I knew this guy, guy named Merl Botts . He was from upstate New York, used to drink with my uncle Hark. Anyway, Botts said he had been struck by lightning seventeen times. I figure he was telling the
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