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you’re playing with them has any outcome aside from death
and madness, then you are sorely mistaken. You should
thank me for saving you from their awful schemes. Being
digested alive and woven into my web is a glorious end
compared to the bottomless hell they’d have flung you into.”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you,” I said, “I think I’ll
continue playing their game, shortly after I’ve done with
you, of course. But please, anything you can tell me—
anything at all—would be greatly appreciated.”
The beast chuckled, its mouths upturned in various
degrees of mirth. “You’re an amusing morsel, indeed! But
as much as I’ve enjoyed our time together, I must sleep and
regrow the mess you’ve made of one of my heads, to say
nothing of what those wicked blades of yours did to a number
of my legs. I recommend that you sleep as well, little gnat.
Dream wonderful dreams, for they will surely be your last
taste of happiness before horror everlasting becomes you.”
With that, the creature withdrew into a great pit that plunged
into darkness and stone.
I did exactly as the creature recommended. The silence—
completely relieved of the creature’s voice—combined with
darkness and sleep, would do much to restore me. However,
as I should have come to expect, sleep only brought new and
more glorious horrors.
With all that had happened, I had neglected to examine the
next name on my list—Garret House. The cocoon of darkness
and silence held me closer than the web of flesh ever could,
and within my slumber, I found myself inside the man’s
dream. As with my current waking reality, the dream was a
wonderland of un-fleshed things—a gallery not of webs, but
of carefully tailored skin-suits. I saw manikins made from
polished bone, endless rows of the wonderful things, each
one attired in a different fashion of stolen skin. On platforms
that rose high above them were beasts dressed in the skins of
men, and men clothed with the flesh of beasts. Lights carved
through the darkness above the fantastic amalgamations,
208 | Mark Anzalone