The Lurking Fear | Page 8

the excavation that I could not tell how deeply I had dug
that other day. I likewise made a difficult trip to the distant hamlet
where the death-creature had been burnt, and was little repaid for my
trouble. In the ashes of the fateful cabin I found several bones, but
apparently none of the monster's. The squatters said the thing had had
only one victim; but in this I judged them inaccurate, since besides the
complete skull of a human being, there was another bony fragment
which seemed certainly to have belonged to a human skull at some time.
Though the rapid drop of the monster had been seen, no one could say
just what the creature was like; those who had glimpsed it called it
simply a devil. Examining the great tree where it had lurked, I could
discern no distinctive marks. I tried to find some trail into the black
forest, but on this occasion could not stand the sight of those morbidly
large boles, or of those vast serpent-like roots that twisted so
malevolently before they sank into the earth.
My next step was to reexamine with microscopic care the deserted
hamlet where death had come most abundantly, and where Arthur
Munroe had seen something he never lived to describe. Though my
vain previous searches had been exceedingly minute, I now had new
data to test; for my horrible grave-crawl convinced me that at least one
of the phases of the monstrosity had been an underground creature.
This time, on the 14th of November, my quest concerned itself mostly
with the slopes of Cone Mountain and Maple Hill where they overlook
the unfortunate hamlet, and I gave particular attention to the loose earth
of the landslide region on the latter eminence.

The afternoon of my search brought nothing to light, and dusk came as
I stood on Maple Hill looking down at the hamlet and across the valley
to Tempest Mountain. There had been a gorgeous sunset, and now the
moon came up, nearly full and shedding a silver flood over the plain,
the distant mountainside, and the curious low mounds that rose here
and there. It was a peaceful Arcadian scene, but knowing what it hid I
hated it. I hated the mocking moon, the hypocritical plain, the festering
mountain, and those sinister mounds. Everything seemed to me tainted
with a loathsome contagion, and inspired by a noxious alliance with
distorted hidden powers.
Presently, as I gazed abstractedly at the moonlit panorama, my eye
became attracted by something singular in the nature and arrangement
of a certain topographical element. Without having any exact
knowledge of geology, I had from the first been interested in the odd
mounds and hummocks of the region. I had noticed that they were
pretty widely distributed around Tempest Mountain, though less
numerous on the plain than near the hilltop itself, where prehistoric
glaciation had doubtless found feebler opposition to its striking and
fantastic caprices. Now, in the light of that low moon which cast long
weird shadows, it struck me forcibly that the various points and lines of
the mound system had a peculiar relation to the summit of Tempest
Mountain. That summit was undeniably a centre from which the lines
or rows of points radiated indefinitely and irregularly, as if the
unwholesome Martense mansion had thrown visible tentacles of terror.
The idea of such tentacles gave me an unexplained thrill, and I stopped
to analyse my reason for believing these mounds glacial phenomena.
The more I analysed the less I believed, and against my newly opened
mind there began to beat grotesque and horrible analogies based on
superficial aspects and upon my experience beneath the earth. Before I
knew it I was uttering frenzied and disjointed words to myself; "My
God!... Molehills... the damned place must be honeycombed... how
many... that night at the mansion... they took Bennett and Tobey first...
on each side of us..." Then I was digging frantically into the mound
which had stretched nearest me; digging desperately, shiveringly, but
almost jubilantly; digging and at last shrieking aloud with some

unplaced emotion as I came upon a tunnel or burrow just like the one
through which I had crawled on the other demoniac night.
After that I recall running, spade in hand; a hideous run across
moon-litten, mound-marked meadows and through diseased,
precipitous abysses of haunted hillside forest; leaping screaming,
panting, bounding toward the terrible Martense mansion. I recall
digging unreasonably in all parts of the brier-choked cellar; digging to
find the core and centre of that malignant universe of mounds. And
then I recall how I laughed when I stumbled on the passageway; the
hole at the base of the old chimney, where the thick weeds grew and
cast queer shadows in the light of the lone candle