chance, and a chance was all I wanted. I struggled on, and on, and then I felt myself 
rising, felt myself floating buoyantly upwards until the refracted criss-cross beams of 
flashlights penetrated the water and I rose from the surface with my lungs screaming for 
air, but safe.
    'Mason!' called Dan, and I wiped the water out of my eyes and saw him standing on 
that natural balcony, with Shelley beside him. Deputy Martino was there, too, and two 
more police officers, and a short man in white coveralls whom I recognised as Pete Lansky 
from Litchfield Quarries. I swam the last few strokes towards the balcony, and Dan knelt 
down and helped me clamber, shivering and dripping, from the lake.
    Dan was close to tears. He pressed his hand against his bald head, and said: 'I 
thought I'd lost you there. I really thought I'd lost you. What happened?'
    I gave a shivery smile. 'Nothing much. I'll tell you later. I just want to get out of 
here.'
    Dan said: 'We're going to dynamite the cavern. That's what Pete Lansky is doing down 
here. I went back and sent up a message to have them bring him along.'
    'You're going to dynamite it?' I asked him. 'What the hell good is that going to do? 
Dan, that thing is right in the next chamber of this water-system, and whatever you do 
it's going to come swimming through someplace and fix us for good.'
    Dan shook his head. 'I know that. Or at least 1 guessed it. That's why I called for 
Pete. You see, this cavern system isn't all flooded. As soon as you disappeared, I went 
looking for help, but I missed the tunnel entrance on my way back, and I went down 
another tunnel that leads to a deep cave just alongside this one. The only difference is, 
this cave was dry, and when I flashed my light down and took a look at it, it was.pretty 
clear that it led down to a whole new system of caves that are all dry, too.'
    Deputy Martino handed me his coat, and I hung it around my shoulders to keep me warm. 
All the same, my teeth were chattering like crazy, and I knew that I was going to have to 
find dry clothes and a stiff bourbon if I didn't want to go down with pneumonia.
    'So what?' I asked Dan. 'You've found a whole system of dry caves. So what?'
    Dan laid his hand on my shoulder. 'So we lay a charge just under the surface of the 
lake here, or rather Pete Lensky does, and we blow a hole clean through to the dry 
caverns. The water pours from the flooded caverns into the dry caverns, and we drain the 
whole structure down to a much lower level.'
    'Leaving Chulthe stranded again?'
    'That's right.'
    I ran my hand through my dripping, freezing hair. 'Dan,' I told him, 'you're worth 
something after all.'
    'I always knew you cared,' said Dan. 'Now pick up this cat of yours, and get back up 
the surface. Pete says it won't take more than ten minutes to fuse the charge, and then 
we're all getting the hell out of here for good.'
    I paused for a moment. I looked around the pillared cavern, at the dark lake waters 
into which so many people had been dragged. There wasn't any doubt at all that it was the 
vestibule of hell, the entrance to an ungodly world where men behaved like beasts, and 
beasts walked the earth like men. I shuddered, and then one of the officers led me away. 
Shelley followed behind, disdainful of my offer to pick him up. He didn't like getting 
wet, you understand.
    We squeezed our way back up the tunnel to the cave of albino bats, and there was a 
harness waiting for me. I buckled myself up, held Shelley firmly under my arm, and then 
tugged the rope to be hoisted up above the ground.
    It was still raining as the drilling rig lifted me out of the hole and up on to the 
Bodines' back yard again. The drilling crew were hunched under waterproof hats and coats, 
and the police were all wearing their raincapes. There was an intense smell of fresh air, 
and the arc-lights glared and sparkled in the wet, and not far away a cluster of police 
cars and ambulances were waiting, their beacons flashing red and blue in the darkness.
    I was helped to the side of the drill-shaft, and unbuckled from my harness. Two 
medics came across with a stretcher, and asked me how I was feeling. 'Sick,' I told them, 
'and tired.' One of them, his spectacles beaded with rain, gave me a miniature bottle of 
Yukon Jack, which I drank in one gulp. I coughed, and sat on the stretcher for a while, 
letting the rain sift down on to my head.
    After a moment or two, I was ready to go to the ambulance. I let them take off my wet 
clothes, and give me a shot of antibiotics in case any of my lacerations were infected. 
But I wouldn't let them drive me off to New Milford hospital until Dan and Deputy Martino 
were out of the hole, and I knew that the charge had gone off.
    The medics tried to talk to me, but I was beyond talking. I lay back in the ambulance 
wrapped in blankets, and all I could think about was that huge wrinkled black maggot, 
that devil-beast called Quithe, or Chulthe, or Satan. That thing that had left its 
horrifying mark so strongly on human life that, even after thousands of years, its memory 
had lingered. That thing that brought out man's most sadistic, lustful and 
self-destructive feelings. That thing of the dark, subterranean caves beneath 
Connecticut, which was determined to break loose.
    It was no wonder that there had been witch-trials in Massachusetts, with Chulthe 
sleeping in the water systems of New England. It was no wonder that Celtic fishermen had 
talked of Shellycoat, the crab-creature which lured seafaring men to their death. None of 
the stories and myths of evil spirits seeemed ridiculous now; none of the far-flung 
theories about gods from the stars. They had all originated from the beast-god Chulthe 
who had ruled Atlantis, the beast-god who wanted to rule again now. They were all true.
    I closed my eyes and I could see the devil's obscene illusions again. I could see 
women's thighs slippery with blood. I could see men's agonised faces as they deliberately 
mutilated themselves. I could see children crushed for the passing pleasure of strange 
creatures.
    Suddenly, a hand touched my face. I opened my eyes. It was Dan. His face was grimy, 
and he stank of caves and sweat, but he grinned, and said: 'We're almost ready. Pete's 
wiring up the detonator now. Will they let you out of here to watch?'
    The medics looked at each other, and pulled pessimistic faces. But I said quietly: 'I 
don't want to watch. Just do a good job, huh? Just empty that water out of those caves.'
    Pete Lansky appeared, and looked in at the tail of the ambulance. His woollen hat was 
sparkling with rain. 'How do you feel, Mason?' he asked. 'You look like you went to hell 
and back.'
    'You could say that, Lansky. When are you going to set off the dynamite?'
    'I'm off to do it right now. You just tell those medics to stay right here. You'll 
hear something like you never heard before.'
    'Okay, Lansky. You hear that, guys?'
    The medics shrugged, and nodded.
    We waited four or five minutes. Then we heard a shrill whistle blow, and some of the 
drill-rig crew came past us in the rain, back out of danger. Another whistle blew, twice, 
and we guessed that this meant Lansky was about to press down the plunger.
    Dan stayed by the ambulance. At first, there was nothing. But then we heard a deep, 
deep rumbling sound, which shook the ground under our feet. The rumbling was followed by 
a loud groaning rip, as the rock walls which divided the flooded caverns from the dry 
caverns were breached, and then the ground shook again as millions of gallons of water 
collapsed through the hole that Lansky's dynamite had blasted open, and cascaded down