Free Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois by Pierre V. Comtois, Charlie Krank, Nick Nacario Page A

solitary birds unable to sleep. Leaving her bed, she went to the open window and pressed her face close to the screen. Outside, all was quiet except for the soft susurration of the evening breeze among the forest trees. A few clouds, shining in the moonlight, scudded across a sky filled with stars and atop Sabbat Hill, there was once again the glow of light. Was it sounds from the kids partying on the hill that she heard? Glancing at the alarm clock she saw that was almost 3 a.m. — pretty late for teenagers to be out in the woods, guzzling beer.
    Turning back to the bed, her eyes fell on the binder she had left on her bedroom dresser. Suddenly curious, she picked it up and began thumbing through the pages. She was a little surprised to find that it was all handwritten, not printed from a machine, and each “chapter” had obviously been written by different hands. Unwilling to go so far as to turn on her bedroom lamp she brought the book to the window to read by moonlight, but soon realized the subject was incomprehensible: filled with such wild tales and conflicting facts as to be expected from primitive folklore. Who was this Nyarlathotep for instance? In some places it seemed to be a place and others a living being and in one place, it was actually identified as some kind of traveling showman! Then, like the better-known Atlantis, there were places of a frankly fabulous nature such as “the Plateaus of Leng and Sung,” “Sarkomand,” “Yuggoth” and “Kadath.” Why her uncle thought such a collection of fairy tales important enough to go to the lengths he did to get them, she couldn’t understand. If, of course, her suspicions had any validity. Well, it wouldn’t do any harm to cancel her uncle’s deal with Shuri’s people just in case. Certainly, she had no use for the book. Crawling back under the covers, she was soon asleep again. The glow in the hills subsided, soon to be replaced by the glow of morning.

    Darlene unlocked her bedroom door, which she had taken the precaution of latching the night before, and headed for the bathroom located on the ground floor of the house. She noticed Shuri’s room was empty, the bed neatly made, almost as if he hadn’t slept in it. A half-hour later, after returning to her room to complete her toilet, she descended the narrow stairwell at the back of the house to the kitchen. Shuri was there ahead of her, sipping tea at the table.
    “Good mornings, Miss,” he said, his face seeming puffier than it did the day before.
    “Good morning, Mr. Shuri,” Darlene replied, stepping off the final stair. “You’re up early.”
    “Was up before suns. Have taken walks in hills. Very beautiful countryside heres,” he gestured with his cup. “The tea Mr. Whitney left on stove is very good, will you joins me?”
    “Oh, Mr. Whitney is here already?” asked Darlene, taking a cup down from the cupboard.
    “Oh, yes. Was here early. Fix tea for Shuri. Said he had to go to markets to buy things for lunch.”
    Darlene poured the still-steaming tea into her cup and sat at the table across from her guest.
    “Mr. Shuri, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” she began, sipping at her tea. It had a peculiar aroma that smelled familiar and she wondered idly what kind of blend it was?
    “No needs for more talk,” said Shuri, looking all the more diminutive in slacks and shirt. His feet, unable to reach the floor from the chair he was sitting on, were shod incongruously in a pair of Addidas running shoes. “I brings book as promised, now receive what uncles traded for.”
    “Well, that’s just it,” said Darlene, with a sudden flash of what she could only describe as displacement; as if for a moment, time had stopped for her as the rest of the world continued to rush by. “My uncle has died and left me with all he owned, including the responsibility for whatever debts and obligations he made while living. Although I may be legally bound to pay some of them from his