The Call of Distant Shores by David Niall Wilson, Bob Eggleton Page A

stared.   There was no light on inside, and it was growing dark outside. The shadows inside had to be deeper still.
    Jasper shook his head and turned, walking deliberately to his truck.   He had no intention of going home, but he had him a plan, and it involved Bobby Lee watching him leave the parking lot, so he drove on out the feeder road and turned right on 17 toward Elizabeth City.   He figured it wouldn't take him more than five or six beers and a shot or two to be ready to come back.
     
    The hulking signs leading toward the world's largest cockroach loomed over the ditches and crossroads of Highway 17 as Jasper passed them, winding his way slowly back toward the stand, and the shed, and what lay within.   He had no intention of turning in the feeder road; that would be too obvious.   Jasper had been running his produce stand for a lot of years, and he knew more than one way in, and out.   He passed the main road and went about half a mile until a paved road bisected the highway.   It bore the same name as a thousand North Carolina roads, Dead End, but he paid that no mind, other than to hope it was just a name, and would not prove prophetic.
    The road wound back in a long lines of trees that bordered fields lined with even rows of cotton.   Jasper drove slowly and carefully, keeping his engine as quiet as possible.   He turned left onto a dirt track and followed the rutted, poorly kept road deeper into the trees.   The road grew progressively worse, and it wasn't long before he found a place to pull the truck in under the overhanging branches and off the road, and parked, popping the top on another beer as he stared off into the darkness across the cotton field.
    He could make out the imposing shadow of the impossibly tall shack from where he sat.   The odd shape of the building reminded him of a giant outhouse, and he chuckled, downing the beer in quick gulps and reaching for another.   Made sense, he reckoned, that a giant roach would end up in a giant outhouse.   He wondered why he'd never noticed it before.
    When the second beer had been sucked dry, he got out, tossed the can in the back of his truck, and stood, getting his bearings.   It was still a good quarter of a mile through the cotton to the shed, but as long as he was quiet, he was sure he could sneak up on the place.   He could just make out Bobby Lee's truck beside the shed, and there was a dim glow seeping out along the roof line, and near the bottom of the building.   Whatever it was Bobby Lee had going on in that place, it was going on now, and Jasper aimed to see it for himself.   If Bobby Lee was holding out on him, partying with twins and such, Jasper aimed to be part of that, too.   If it was something else ... he shivered deep inside.
    "Partners," he muttered to himself, "is partners."
    The moonlight was bright, bathing the back of the shed in cold, white illumination.   Though it was unseasonably warm, the closer Jasper came to the back of the building, the colder it grew.   By the time he broke free of the cotton and came out into the open and into the area Bobby Lee had raked clear that first day, his teeth were chattering, and he threw his nearly-empty beer can off behind him, curling his arms around his chest.
    "What the hell," he said to no one in particular.
    Moving quietly, he worked his way around the shed on the left side, hesitating as he drew near the corner.   He was walking close to the shed, and where his arm brushed close to the corrugated metal wall, something rippled over his skin.   There was a stench in the air, like rotted vegetation, or some sort of hot mud, but there was no heat.   Jasper's heart danced like a bug on a magnifying glass, and for a moment, with the blood rushing to his head, he thought he'd pass out.   Then he steadied himself, regretting instantly the contact with the building this required.   The walls vibrated, and the vibration translated to sound in his head.   The sound was a