The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

Read The Wanderer in Unknown Realms for Free Online

Book: Read The Wanderer in Unknown Realms for Free Online
Authors: John Connolly
flurry of movement came from the vicinity of the plug hole, and a form broke the surface. I had a brief impression of an armored body, pinkish-black in hue, with many, many legs. I caught a glimpse of pincers like those of an earwig, except larger and wickedly sharp, before the creature somehow forced itself into the plug hole and exited the tub, even though its body had seemed far too wide to be accommodated by such a constricted means of escape. Noises came from the pipes for a time, and then all was quiet.
    Unsurprisingly, I did not take my bath after all. Having immediately restored the plug to the plug hole, I did the same thing with every bath and sink I could find, more for some false peace of mind than out of any real hope that a plug of rubber and metal could stop such a creature from emerging again, should it choose to do so.
    I sat up in my bed, wondering. What could it be? I thought—some crustacean of the Broads, unfamiliar to me but a commonplace sight to those who lived in these parts? Had I mentioned it in the Maidensmere Inn, might the landlord have tipped a wink once again to his customers and announced that what I had seen was merely X , or Y , and that fried with some cream sauce, or boiled in a pot with a little white wine vinegar, it was actually most palatable? Somehow, I suspected not. My fingers tingled unpleasantly where they had touched the thing, and they looked red and irritated in the lamplight.
    Eventually I dozed. I dreamed of Pulteney’s tanks rolling ineffectually toward High Wood, great rumbling silhouettes moving through the darkness until picked out by the light of flares and the explosion of shell fire. Then the shape of them began to change, and they were no longer constructions of metal but living, breathing entities. They did not roll on heavy tracks but propelled themselves on short jointed legs. Turrets became heads, and gun barrels were transformed into strange, elongated limbs that spatpoison from orifices lined with curved teeth. The flares were bolts of lightning, and the landscape they illuminated was more terrible yet than the wasteland between the trenches, even as it seemed almost familiar to me. I picked out in the distance the ruins of a village and realized I was looking at the Norfolk Broads, and what was left of Maidensmere, the steeple of its sixteenth-century chapel still somehow intact amid the rubble. But it was another town, too, a place not far from High Wood, where bodies lay broken in the ruins, killed by shell fire: old men, women, little children. We were told that everyone had fled, but they had not.
    I woke with a start. It was still dark, and only the ticking of a clock disturbed the silence.
    But there was no clock in the room.
    I sat up. The sound was coming from the other side of the bedroom door, which I had closed—and, yes, I admit it, locked—before going to bed. As I listened, it became clear that it was more a clicking than a ticking. I lit my lamp and gripped the poker, kept close at hand for any such eventuality. I climbed from the bed and padded across the floor as softly as I could. The sound began to increase its tempo until, just as I reached the door, it stopped, and I heard what seemed to be footsteps moving swiftly away. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Before me stood only the empty hallway, illuminated as far as the stairs by my lamp. Beyond was darkness. I squinted into the gloom but could discern nothing.
    I looked at the door. The wood around the lock had been picked away, leaving it splintered and white, as though someone had been trying to expose its workings. I reached down and rubbed a finger against it. A splinter caught on my flesh, causing me to gasp. I took it between my teeth and pulled it loose, then spat it on the floor. A tiny jewel of blood rose from the wound.
    From the shadows there came the sound of sniffing.
    â€œWho’s there?” I said. “Who are you? Show yourself!”
    There was

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