The Encounter (opowiadanie)

No sooner had Barney entered his house than he heard a peculiar humming sound. He dashed for the upstairs and started looking for his daughter. He stood before the closed door to her room, asking Sheela if she was there. There was no answer so Barney came in and did not make out anything strange.

Then, Barney smelled a harsh stench of sulphur. He opened the window just to find out a bloody streak on the pane, which made him quiver with fear. ‘Where is my daughter?’ he murmured, dropping on the low bed. Breathing turbulently, Barney raised his eyes to the ceiling and a sudden chill came over his body. Attached to the ceiling by its tentacles, there was a greyish bulk straight above him. Before he knew it,  a creature lowered its tentacles, put him to its full of saliva mouth and devoured him.

An odour inside the monster was hard to stand. Barney discovered it was a yellow-coloured, oily secretion which gave off that odour. He felt entrails by his hand when all of a sudden he found out a piece of material and then… something resembling a human tibia. “The blood on the pane.. It might be Sheela!’ With the biggest disgust Barney grasped the bone and stuck it in the creature’s lungs. It gave a shriek and died.

Barney scrambled out of the bulk which had fallen down from the ceiling. The beast was dead, but the room still smelled of sulphur…