"Brian Lumley - Titus Crow 1 - The Burrowers Beneath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

will! It is Shudde-M'ell, come for his spheres . . .
Paul, look at the manner of my death, for if you are reading this then I am
either dead or disappeared - which means the same thing. Read the enclosed
notes carefully, I beg you. I haven't the time to be more explicit, but these
notes of mine should be of some help. If you are only half so inquiring as I
believe you to be, you will surely soon come to recognize a fantastic horror
which, I repeat, the whole world must be made to believe in ... The ground is
really shaking now but, knowing that it is the end, I am steady in my horror .
. . Not that I expect my present calm state of mind to last. I think that by
the time they actually come for me my mind will have snapped completely. I can
imagine it now. The floor splintering, erupting, to admit them. Why! Even
thinking of it my senses recoil at the terror of the thought. There will be a
hideous smell, a slime, a chanting and gigantic writhing and . . . and then -
Unable to escape I await the thing. I am trapped by the same hypnotic power
that claimed the others at G'harne. What monstrous memories! How I awoke to
see my friends and companions sucked dry of their life's blood by wormy,
vampirish things from the cesspools of time! Gods of alien dimensions! I was
hypnotized then by this same terrible force, unable to move to the aid of my
friends or even to save myself!
Miraculously, with the passing of the moon behind some wisps of cloud, the
hynotic effect was broken. Then, screaming and sobbing, utterly broken,
temporarily out of my mind, I fled, hearing behind me the droning, demoniac
chanting of Shudde-M'ell and his hordes.
Not knowing that I did it, in my mindlessness I carried with me those
hell-spheres . . . Last night I dreamed of them. And in my dreams I saw again
the inscriptions on that stone box. Moreover, I could read them!
All the fears and ambitions of those hellish things were there to be read as
clearly as the headlines in a daily newspaper! 'Gods' they may or may not be
but one thing is sure: the greatest
setback to their plans for the conquest of Earth is their terribly long and
complicated reproductory cycle! Only a handful of young are born every
thousand years; but, considering how long they have been here, the time must
be drawing ever nearer when their numbers will be sufficient! Naturally, this
tedious buildup of their numbers makes them loath to lose even a single member
of their hideous spawn - and that is why they have tunnelled these many
thousands of miles, even under deep oceans, to retrieve the spheres!
I had wondered why they should be following me - and now I know. I also know
howl Can you not guess how they know where I am, Paul, or why they are coming?
Those spheres are like a beacon to them; a siren voice calling. And just as
any other parent - though more out of awful ambition, I fear, than any type of
emotion we could understand - they are merely answering the call of their
young!
But they are too late!
A few minutes ago, just before I began this letter, the things hatched! Who
would have guessed that they were eggs - or that the container I found them in
was an incubator? I can't blame myself for not knowing it; I even tried to
have the spheres X-rayed once, damn them, but they reflected the rays! And the
shells were so thick! Yet at the time of hatching those same shells just
splintered into tiny fragments. The creatures inside were no bigger than
walnuts. Taking into account the sheer size of an adult they must have a