Free New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird by Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Charles Stross, Cherie Priest, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Sarah Monette, Michael Marshall Smith, Paula Guran

and I mean around, really, because they’re both pretty big, when suddenly someone was looking at me.
    It was the girl, walking behind them. As I’m passing her, her head turns, and she looks right at me.
    I look away quickly, and then they’re gone.
    All I’m left with is an image of the girl’s face, of it slowly turning to look at me. To be honest, she was a bit of a shocker. Not scarred or nothing, just really big-faced. With them eyes look like they’re sticking out too far, make you look a bit simple.
    But she was young, and I think she smiled.
    I walked down to the corner, steady as you like. As I turned around it I glanced back, just quickly. I saw two things. I see the three of them are going into the house. They weren’t neighbors, after all. They’re the people from the actual house. The people with the jewelry. The people I’m going to be nicking from.
    The second thing I notice is that the streetlight we passed isn’t lit any more.
    I’m a bit unsettled, the next day, to be honest. Don’t know why. It isn’t like me. Normally I’m a pretty chilled bloke, take things as they come and all that. But I find myself in the pub at lunchtime, which I don’t usually do—not on a weekday, anyway, unless it’s a Bank Holiday—and by the afternoon I’m pretty lagered up. I sit by myself, in a table at the back, keep knocking them back. Clive pops in about three and I had a couple more with him, but it was quiet. I didn’t say much, and in the end he got up and started playing pool with some bloke. It was quite funny actually, some posh wanker in there by mistake, fancied playing for money. Clive reeled him in like a kipper.
    So I’m sitting there, thinking, trying to work out why I feel weird. Could be that it’s because I’ve seen the people I’m going to be nicking from? Usually it’s not that way. It’s just bits of gear, lying around in someone else’s house. They’re mine to do what I want with. All I see is how much they’re worth. Now I know that the jewelry is going to belong to that woman in the hat. And I know that Baz’s sister is watching a telly that belonged to the girl who looked at me. All right, so she was a minger, but it’s bad enough being ugly without people nicking your prize possession.
    That could be another thing, of course. She’d seen me. No reason for her to think some bloke in the street is the one who turned them over, but I don’t like it. Like I didn’t like Mr. Pzlowsky being in the Junction. You don’t want anyone to be able to make those connections.
    I’m thinking that’s it, just them having seen me, and I’m beginning to feel bit more relaxed. I’ve got another pint in front of me, and I’ve got my stone in my right hand. It’s snuggled in there, in my palm, fingers curled around it, and that’s helping too. It’s like worry beads, or something: I just feel better when it’s there.
    And then I realize that there’s something else on my mind. I want to find that jewelry. But I don’t necessarily want to hand it on.
    The Pole is still gagging for it, I know. He’s rung me twice, asking if I’ve got any more, and that tells me there’s serious money involved. But now I think about it properly, with my stone in my hand and no Baz sitting there next to me, jabbering on, I realize I want the stuff for myself. I didn’t actually handle it, the last time. Baz found it, kept it, sold it to the Pole.
    If a little bit of stone feels like this one does, though, what would the silver feel like? I don’t know—but I want to know.
    And that’s why, on the Saturday night, I went around there. Alone.
    I parked up at five, and walked past once an hour. I walked up, down, on both sides of the street. Unless someone’s sitting watching the whole time, I’m just another bloke. Or so I tell myself, anyway. The truth is that I’m just going to do it whatever.
    It’s a Saturday night. Very least, the young girl is going to go out. Maybe the mum and dad