Them That Chase

Rex "It's a good thing we caught it when we did, while there's still time to do something about it." That was how Dr. Jones described the results of Rex's MRI scan. Worried about what Dr. Santorini might have cruelly forced him to do to his own brain, Rex wanted to be sure nothing had changed about him. But there it was, a nascent tumor in the center of his brain. Growing at a rapid clip. Full of unnatural vitality.   The MRI machine began to rumble. To shudder. To spit sparks.   Suddenly Rex was adrift in the primordial sea, the standing stones of Indian Rocks far across the water. The seaweed that wasn't seaweed ensnared him, tugging him towards the mountain that was his Mother. When he reached it, he melded with it and ceased to be Rex. He knew she was Shub-Niggurath, the source of all life. A source of great knowledge. An escape hatch from his mortality. Rex woke up on the floor in a pool of the extremely headless Dr. Jones's blood. Malachi Ash had giv...

Art by Dennis Detwiller. April 25 (con't) Driving back from the dive bar, Wren noticed something in the rearview mirror. A gray shape like a cloud blotting out the stars in the night sky... except the red glow around its edges meant it was way too close to her tail lights. She swerved and managed to avoid getting dive-bombed by the Chiropractor, luring it towards isolated roads outside town. Eventually it broke off, but Wren stopped and shouldered her rifle. BANG! It was near ly out of sight, flying straight up and getting smaller and smaller. But gray sludge fell, splattering against a nearby tree. Back at the motel, Wren and Malachi caught each other up. Devon Malouf's corpse had been dumped in a nearby salt marsh, but Dr. Santorini was dead too, and Rex was semi-conscious. They decided Rex would have to stay at the motel: admitting him to a hospital would raise risky questions, and they could keep Doug busy nursing him back to health. Rex would've exposed ...