He had fled, stolen their plans, and disobeyed them. With his help, the Great Old One had expected to return to the world of man, to own it once again, but he had outsmarted them all, stopped them, or at least slowed them down.

He sucked in hot breaths, feeling the sweat pour down his body. He was nearly spent as he saw his target, a holy man leaving the mosque. Abdul put his head down and raced toward him. At the last second, he ripped the book from his robe, and jammed it into his hands. “Keep it safe, holy one. Mankind’s fate depends on it.”

He tore away and sprinted down a dark alley, but less than halfway to the end, the shape boiled up again, squeezing from the very cracks in the path and forming now into a shapeless mass of some viscous black substance, studded with disturbingly human eyes. Alhazred screamed: “Shoggoth!”

He looked high and higher as the thrashing tentacled mass grew. Lidless eyes swiveled toward him and a round sucking maw opened like a dark bottomless pit. He dropped his arms, surrendering. He was grabbed then, around the neck, the arms and waist, the black tendrils holding him tight, and sizzling and stinging like poisonous fire.

Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab, was lifted to the massive maw and jammed into that foul orifice. Mercifully, his mind left him completely as the jaws closed.

PART 1 – And The Earth Shall Fall

Chapter 1

Red Oak, Iowa

Big Bill Anderson sat in his favorite chair – red faux leather, soft, deep, and comfortably shaped by decades of sitting into a perfect reverse image of his ample butt. His chinos were pulled up a little high, and his blue checked lumber shirt was a tad tight across the gut, but at his age, he’d earned the right to get a little out of shape.

He turned the page of his paper, looking down the ads for pet adoption, scanning the older dogs: Labradors, terriers, schnauzers. Most had pictures beside them, and insanely happy, beseeching, or frightened faces stared back at him, all wanting new homes, just one more game of fetch with an attentive new owner, or to be far away from the guy who used beat the shit out of them.

He stopped at one, a shepherd, five years old, big guy with the tip of one ear missing, eyes that were clear and sharp with whip-smart intelligence – Rusty.

“I wish, boy.”

Bill had desperately wanted another dog ever since Bella had died ten years earlier. He felt that now he was retired, and had his days on his hands, he might be able to swing the old girl toward it one more time. He tore the page out and let it rest on the small side table beside a new cup of steaming tea.

The vacuum cleaner started in the other room, and he knew that Margaret would be pushing the infernal machine in under his feet any moment. He grimaced, imagining the rush of warm, stinking exhaust air, the roar of a jet engine, and her light smile revealing her perverse delight in either loud cleaning devices or another opportunity to simply bug him.