262. DE MARIGNY'S CLOCK - A scratchboard drawing, size 8.5 x 11. It appears in the book, "The Compleat Crow," by Brian Lumley, published by Ganley in 1987.

According to evolutionists, life began on Earth beneath the sea, as micro undulating blobs. And while the Earth whirled its way around the Sun for millions of years, those tiny blobs stretched and wriggled into a variety of larger forms until some of them developed appendages that gave them the means to crawl out of the sea onto land.

And while Earth continued to orbit the Sun for more millions of years, those creatures continued struggling to adapt themselves to the dry land environment. All kinds of changes were attempted, resulting in a myriad of species; insects, snakes, frogs, birds, all kinds of animals including one with a larger brain capacity capable of walking upright. Mating, and mating, generation after generation . . . and that's how you and I got to be here.

But, not all of those early sea creatures made it to land, and though many of them developed into all kinds of fish species that roam the upper part of the oceans, some of them changed into creatures capable of going way down, into the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean. And we don't know about them . . .

We humans have ruled the Earth for a long time now, but we have failed our destiny, we have become killers, destroyers, ego-maniacs doomed to destroy ourselves. We are not the noble life-form for which the universe was created. Our time is up . . .

Down in the deepest region of the ocean floor, the unknown things are beginning to stir . . . they are rising . . . It is time for a change . . .