Free Titus Crow [1] The Burrowers Beneath by Brian Lumley Page B

moment, all the evidence lies in favour of the very reverse!’
    ‘Exactly,’ Crow agreed. ‘These things are on the move, Henri, and who knows how many of their nests there may be, or where those nests are? We know there’s a burrow in the Midlands, at least I greatly suspect it, and another at Harden in the Northeast - but there could be dozens of others! Don’t forget Sir Amery’s words: “… he waits for the time when he can infest the entire world with his loathsomeness …” And for all we know this invasion of 1933
    may not have been the first! What of Sir Amery’s notes, those references to Hadrian’s Wall and Avebury? Yet more nests, Henri?’
    He paused, momentarily lost for words, I suspected.
    By then I was on my feet, pacing to and fro across that part of the floor Crow had cleared. And yet … Once more I found myself puzzled. Something Crow had said … My mind had not had time yet to adjust to the afternoon’s revelations.
    ‘Titus,’ I finally said, ‘what do you mean by “a Midlands nest”? I mean, I can see that there is some sort of horror at Harden, but what makes you think there may be one in the Midlands?’
    ‘Ah! I see that there’s a point you’ve missed,’ he told me. ‘But that’s understandable for you haven’t yet had all the facts. Now listen: Bentham took the eggs on the seventeenth of May, Henri, and later that same day, Coalville, two hundred miles away, suffered those linear shocks heading in a direction from south to north. I see it like this: a number of members of the Midlands nest had come up close to the surface - where the earth, not being so closely packed, is naturally easier for them to navigate
    - and had set off to investigate this disturbance of the nest at Harden. If you line up Harden and Coalville on a map
    - as I have done, again taking my lead from the Wendy-Smith document - you’ll find that they lie almost directly north and south! But all this in its turn tells us something else’ - he grew excited - ‘something I myself had missed until just now - there are no adults of the species “in residence”, as it were, at Harden! These four Harden eggs were to form the nucleus of a new conclave!’
    He let this last sink in, then continued: ‘Anyhow, this Coalville …
    expedition, if you like, arrived beneath Harden on or about the twenty-sixth of the month, causing that collapse of the mine which Bentham commented upon.
    There, discovering the eggs to be missing, “abducted”, I suppose you could say, the creatures picked up the mental trail towards Bentham’s place at Alston.’
    He paused here to sort out a newspaper cutting from a small pile on his desk and passed it across for my
    inspection. ‘As you can see, Henri, there were tremors at Stenhope, County Durham, on the twenty-eighth. Need I point out that Stenhope lies directly between Harden and Alston?’
    I flopped down again in my chair and helped myself liberally to Crow’s brandy.
    ‘Titus, it’s plain you can’t keep the eggs here!’ I told him. ‘Heavens, why even now - unseen, unheard, except perhaps as deep tremors on some meteorologist’s machinery - these underground octopuses, these subterranean vampires might be on their way here, burning their way through the bowels of the earth! You’ve put yourself in as much danger as Bentham before he sent you the eggs!’
    Then, suddenly, I had an idea. I leaned forward to thump the table. ‘The sea!’
    I cried.

    Crow appeared startled by my outburst. ‘Eh?’ he asked. ‘What do you mean, “the sea”, de Marigny?’
    ‘Why, that’s it!’ I slapped a clenched fist into the palm of my hand. ‘No need to destroy the eggs and risk the revenge of the adult creatures - simply take them out to sea and drop them overboard! Didn’t Sir Amery say that they fear water?’
    ‘It’s an idea,’ Crow slowly answered, ‘and yet - ‘
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Well, I had it in my mind to use the eggs differently, Henri. To use them more