Gramma

of her taken father is Hastur. His name is power in her ear, George -- tell her Lie down in the Name of Hastur -- tell her -- ''

The old, wrinkled hand tore the telephone from George's nerveless grip. There was a taut pop as the cord pulled out of the phone. George collapsed in the corner and Gramma bent down, a huge heap of flesh above him, blotting out the light.

George screamed: 'Lie down! Be still! Hastur's name! Hastur! Lie down! Be still!''

Her hands closed around his neck --

'You gotta do it! Aunt Flo said~you did! In my name! In your Father's name! Lie down! Be sti -- '

 -- and squeezed.

When the lights finally splashed into the driveway an hour later, George was sitting at the table in front of his unread history book. He got up and walked to the back door and opened it. To his left, the Princess phone hung in its cradle, its useless cord looped around it.

His mother came in, a leaf clinging to the collar of her coat. 'Such a wind,' she said. 'Was everything all -- George? George, what happened?'

The blood fell from Mom's face in a single, shocked rush, turning her a horrible clown-white.

'Gramma,' he said. 'Gramma died. Gramma died. Mommy.' And he began to cry.

She swept him into her arms and then staggered back against the wall, as if this act of hugging had robbed the last of her strength. 'Did... did anything happen?' she asked. 'George, did anything else happen?'

'The wind knocked a tree branch through her window,' George said.

She pushed him away, looked at his shocked, slack face for a moment, and then stumbled into Gramma's room. She was in there for perhaps four minutes. When she came back, she was holding a red tatter of cloth. It was a bit of George's shirt.

'I took this out of her hand,' Mom whispered.

'I don't want to talk about it,' George said. 'Call Aunt Flo, if you want. I'm tired. I want to go to bed.'

She made as if to stop him, but didn't. He went up to the room he shared with Buddy and opened the hot-air register so he could hear what his mother did next. She wasn't going to talk to Aunt Flo, not tonight, because the telephone cord had pulled out; not tomorrow, because shortly before Mom had come home, George had spoken a short series of words, some of them bastardized Latin, some only pre- Druidic grunts, and over two thousand miles away Aunt Flo had dropped dead of a massive brain hemorrhage. It was amazing how those words came back. How everything came back.

George undressed and lay down naked on his bed. He put his hands behind his head and looked up into the darkness. Slowly, slowly, a sunken and rather horrible grin surfaced on his face.

Things were going to be different around here from now on.

Very different.

Buddy, for instance. George could hardly wait until Buddy came home from the hospital and started in with the Spoon Torture of the Heathen Chinee or an Indian Rope Burn or something like that. George supposed he would have to let Buddy get away with it -- at least in the daytime, when people could see -- but when night came and they were alone in this room, in the dark, with the door closed...

George began to laugh soundlessly.

As Buddy always said, it was going to be a Classic.