The Insufferable Salvation of Lawrence Talbot the Wolfman (1985)
First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
According to ritual the wolfman has just been shot with a silver bullet by the one who loved him, and whom he loved. He falls to the ground and a thick layer of autumn leaves absorbs much of the impact. The woman is still pointing the revolver—using both hands—when the others in the hunting party arrive, summoned by the gunshots they heard.
A tall man in a tweed sportcoat puts his arms around the woman. "Don't worry, he can't harm you anymore," the tall man says to her. But the wolfman never even touched the woman to begin with. Literally.
Lawrence Taylor was the human name of the wolfman. He was in his late thirties, unemployed (with prospects), and unmarried. While traveling through Eastern Europe, hiking about forests much of the time, he was attacked by a large wolf and bitten once or twice. After being examined by a doctor, he didn't give the incident a great deal of thought... until the following month, when he saw the full moon through the diamondpaned windows of an English country house where he was a guest.
He had fallen in love with the daughter of the man who owned the house, and he was secretly intending to ask her to marry him. But after the first full moon opened his eyes to what he had become, he knew his life was over. He was a murderer, however involuntarily. Before the next full moon he made the woman promise that if anything should happen to him, well, his one wish was to be interred in the mausoleum on the grounds of her father's estate. "I promise," she said solemnly, though she understood neither the promise itself, nor the solemnity with which she uttered it.
Lawrence Talbot wanted to know he would still be close to this woman after his death. But he never imagined that he would also be able to hear her voice, and other voices, while unfortunately being unable to respond.
"Aren't we supposed to cut out its heart now?" asked one of the men in the hunting party. (Well, so what if they do? He loved her with every part of himself and would still be capable of sensing her presence on the frequent visits she would undoubtedly make to the mausoleum.) "No, nothing to do with the heart," says another. "I think we're supposed to burn up the whole thing right away, and then scatter the ashes."
"Yes, that's quite true," adds the tall man. "But what do you say?" he asks the woman. She is weeping, "I don't know, I don't know. What does it matter anymore?" (No, it does! The promise, the promise!)
Some of the men complain about how hard it is to turn up decent tinder in a forest where it has rained so much that autumn. Every leaf, every twig they find seems to be slick and damp, as if each one has been stained with some beast's oily slobber.
The Interminable Residence of the Friends of the House of Usher (1985)
First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
A man of average height and features has just managed to escape the House of Usher only seconds before it collapses full force deep into the murky waters of the adjacent tarn. The man runs under a nearby tree, seeking refuge from the violent storm which began and consummated that evening's catastrophe. Once there, however, he looks up and notes that the tree is leafless. (Its limp branches are flowing freely in the wind and even its roots, unearthed, are waving around.)
The man of average height and features was spending a few days at the House of Usher at the invitation of a friend and former classmate, Roderick, who along with his twin sister, Madeline, owned the house and a fair amount of surrounding property, including a graveyard. Roderick immediately impressed his childhood friend as a very sick man. Only the softest sounds, the dimmest light, and a generally immobile routine could be tolerated by his morbidly keen senses and nervous system.
Still, the two friends managed to keep themselves entertained by reading rare books of occult lore, and sometimes Roderick would play, however quietly, unusual melodies on his guitar. Roderick also tries to explain some unusual theories which lately have obsessed his supersubtle mind, theories about his relationship to the house and to his twin sister. But at the time Roderick's friend doesn't really understand all this.
The visitor at the House of Usher is at first appalled by the desolate countryside, the unwholesome appearance of the tarn, and the shocking, if not dangerous, condition of the house itself. After a while, though, these striking abnormalities cease to affect him the way they once did. When Roderick announces that Madeline has died, he helps the bereaved brother inter the deceased twin without asking any questions. (She had a rosy flush on her face!) Life at the House of Usher is then carried on as usual by its two remaining residents. This state of affairs begins to decay when one night there's a storm which upsets Roderick to the point of hysteria. His housemate tries to calm him down by reading from a storybook. But Roderick is inconsolable and now claims that the two of them locked Madeline in the family crypt while she was still alive. His friend is unnerved by this outburst. He had no idea things were so bad. This was madness!
Even worse, Roderick is proved to be telling the truth when his sister staggers into the room, falls upon her twin, and they both end up as a lifeless heap on the floor. The man of average height and features barely manages to get out of the house before that too goes down. He stares at the empty lot where the House of Usher used to be, and then he turns away to seek a haven far removed from the site of this terrible ordeal.
But before he can take a single step he realizes that there is no longer anyplace he can go, no longer anyone who will have him. Oh, the books, the shadows, and the horrible entombment of that poor girl. How did he ever get into this one! While the Ushers were effortlessly delivered to their doom by the hereditary freaks and weaknesses of their family, he came to the house, and stayed, of his own free will, and by the same will, without asking a single question, he too must now be consumed by the tarn whose diseased waters await his embrace.
The Intolerable Lesson of the Phantom of the Opera (1985)
First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
The Phantom of the opera is a genius. Before he became the phantom of the opera he was a composer of only average talent, a talent that was taken advantage of by a greedy swindler who stole the young composer's music. He tried to get revenge on the villain, and in the process his face was severely disfigured by some chemicals which splashed into it and caught fire. Afterward he moved into the sewers directly beneath the opera house, and he also became a genius.
In the middle of the opera season the phantom kidnaps a rather mediocre soprano and devotes many weeks to training her voice down in the resonant caverns of the Paris sewer system. He tells the girl to sing from the heart, rapping his chest once or twice to make her aware she is singing from his heart too, and maybe other people's. This is the basic message of his instruction, though he still exasperates his student with hours and hours of scales, ear training, and so forth.
One day she gets fed up with all the agony this man is putting her through, and out of despair, not to mention curiosity, rips off the mask that hides his hideous face. She screams and faints. While she is passed out, the phantom takes this opportunity to return her to the upper world of the opera house. For whether she knows it or not, she is now a great singer.
When the girl regains consciousness from the terrible shock she experienced, her days with the phantom of the opera seem like no more than a vague dream. Later in the season she is starring in an opera and gives a brilliant performance, which the phantom watches from an empty box near the stage. Over and over he raps his chest with satisfaction and a sadness so personal and deep as to be incomprehensible to anyone but himself.
After the opera is finished and the star is taking her bows, the phantom notices that one of the heavy walkways above the stage is loose and about to come plummeting down right on his student's lovely head. He leaps onto the boards, pushes her out of the way, and is himself thoroug
hly crushed by the falling wreckage.
The phantom of the opera is bleeding freely and behind his mask his eyes are drowning. "Who's that?" someone asks the girl whom the phantom of the opera taught to sing so well. "I'm sure I don't know!" she answers as her strange and tormented teacher dies.
But her words do not contain a hint of the inexplicable emotion she feels. Only now will she really be able to sing from the heart. But she realizes there is no music on earth worthy of her voice, and later that night her monstrously heavy heart takes her to the bottom of the Seine. The phantom of the opera is a genius.
The Perilous Legacy of Emily St. Aubert, Inheritress of Udolpho (1985)
First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
Emily St. Aubert has had a very difficult life. When only a young woman she sees the death of both her parents: her mother, whom Emily finds out was not her real mother, and her wise father, whom Emily adored. "O Emily, O Emily," cries her boyfriend Valancourt when she is carted off by the menacing Montoni to the somewhat broken down but nonetheless imposing castle named Udolpho.
At Udolpho there are a multitude of secrets: secret passages, secret stairways, secret motives, secret murders, tracks of blood from secret persons, moans from secret chambers, from secret nightmares, Italian secrets, Italian love, Italian hate and revenge.
At one point Emily sees the wax replica of a corpse with a worm-eaten face which she takes to be real. And it might as well have been. Eventually Emily is rescued by Valancourt, delivered from Udolpho, and not long afterwards the pair are married. But complications arise.
Emily and Valancourt seem made for each other. Both have been through quite a lot but neither has been poisoned by their sorrow, their suffering, or by months spent deep in the midst of vice. Their simple, everyday natures remain unharmed and intact.
At night, however, Valancourt lies awake in bed, involuntarily eavesdropping on the things Emily unknowingly whispers in her sleep: secret things. After a few weeks of this, Valancourt is looking very haggard. In a matter of months he is hopelessly insane, and one day goes running off for parts unknown.
Emil now spends much of her time alone. To occupy herself she writes poems, as she has always done, atmospheric little pieces like "To Melancholy", "To the Bat", "To the Winds", and "Song of the Evening Hour."
Sometimes she cannot help asking herself if she was not deceived from the very start about the virtues of Valancourt. Why, he was no better nailed together than that crumbling old castle of Montoni's. That awful, terrible place.
What was its name again? Ah, yes...Udolpho.
The Premature Death of H.P. Lovecraft, Oldest Man in New England (1985)
First publication details unknown.
Also published in Crypt Of Cthulhu #68 (as part of 'Selections Of Lovecraft'), The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales.
This version taken from: The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, which differs only slightly from the Crypt Of Cthulhu version in that the numerals in the initial line are written as words; a reorganisation of the second paragraph which does nothing to alter the meaning; a similar reorganisation of the penultimate paragraph, and a different version of the final paragraph which retains its meaning but details of which are left to the reader to check, for fear of spoiling the narrative—see Selections Of Lovecraft for this version.
H.P. Lovecraft, the last great writer of supernatural horror tales, has just died of stomach cancer at the age of forty-six in a Providence, Rhode Island, hospital. He died alone and with no particular expression on his face. Upon the nightstand next to his bed are a few books and many handwritten pages in which Lovecraft recorded the sensations of his dying. (These notes are later lost, to the dismay of scholars.)
Two nurses come to look in on the gentleman in the private room and are the first to discover that he has, not unexpectedly, passed away. They have already seen death many times in their nursing careers, though they're still quite young, and neither is alarmed. They know nothing can be done for the dead man. One of them says: "Open a window, it's stuffy in here."
"Sure is," replies the other. A crisp mid-March breeze freshens the room.
"Well, there's no more that can be done for him," comments the first nurse. Then she asks: "Do you remember if he had a wife or anybody that visited him?" The other nurse shakes her head negatively, then adds: "Are you kidding! He's not exactly the husband type. I mean, just take a look at that face.'"
The first nurse nods positively. She makes a humorous remark about the deceased, and then both nurses leave the room smiling.
But apparently neither of them noticed the fantastic and frightening thing which occurred right before their eyes: H.P. Lovecraft, for only the shortest-lived moment, had ever so faintly smiled back at them.
The Scream: From 1800 to the Present (1985)
First published in Fantasy And Terror #7, 1985
Also published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
Near the close of the eighteenth century, William B. is approaching his destination of a saloon on Boston's waterfront. As he passes through a narrow alleyway someone jumps him from behind and wraps a length of thin but strong rope around his neck.
While he is being choked to death he looks up and can see the moon over the tall shops and houses lining the alley. He knows he is going to die and cannot believe the injustice of it on almost every level: that he should die before he'd had a drink that night, that he should die without realizing a single one of the marvelous dreams which had sustained his life in the first place.
In his final moments he would have settled for the small satisfaction of releasing a scream to relieve somewhat the purely physical anguish of being strangled to death. But his murderer, an expert waylayer, is pulling the rope too tight and not a sound is able to escape from William B.'s throat. Later that night a pack of huge wharf rats nibbles the body before it is discovered by some local prostitutes.
The spirits of murder victims are notorious avengers. They are well-known for lingering in the human world and "walking the earth" in search of their slayers. Suppose, however, the spirit has no idea what its murderer looks like? The spirit could haunt the scene of violence and perhaps nearby areas, hoping to pick up some gossip, a chance lead; but beyond this there isn't much that can be done.
The spirit has such a marvelous revenge planned: to let loose its terrible scream, now an instrument of supernatural ferocity and horror, into the face of its murderer, killing him in one of the worst ways imagineable. But the strangler is never found. Eventually the passing years exceed the longest possible human life span. The murderer has undoubtedly been dead for some time. And how many years still remain to the spirit, haunted by its unfulfilled quest for vengeance!
The spirit happens to settle in a secluded but very pleasant looking home, where undisturbed and undisturbing it watches the generations come and go. Always, though, the spirit feels the suppressed scream it carries inside and the hopelessness of finding someone for whom this scream of his would mean something.
The spirit has a lot of time to think and wonder why he has never met others in a state similar to his. This would be some compensation. But the idea, like the passing generations, comes and goes and is never pursued very diligently. His mind hasn't really been clear at all since those last lucid moments of dying.
Toward the end of the twentieth century the spirit begins paying midnight visits to a beautiful and apparently lonely girl who lives in the house of well-preserved seclusion. It seems she has fallen in love with the apparition that keeps her company in the dark hours of her solitude.
The spirit is now thankful for its fate, realizing that it is his anguished and imprisoned scream sustaining his presence. While he has the scream within him he can stay on earth and be seen. He now holds it inside like something extremely precious.
On
e night the spirit is keeping his appointment by the girl's bedside when he sees it's all been a mistake: the girl is neither lonely nor in love with him, though she is more beautiful than ever. And someone else is lying next to her in the bed.
This is both a torment and a relief for the spirit. Finally he has a reason to let go of his terrible scream, finally it will mean something. It would annihilate the both of them while they slept. "Did you hear something?" the man sleepily asks the girl. "Just barely," she replies with her eyes still closed. "Go back to sleep," whispers the man. "It was probably nothing."
And it was nothing. For the spirit now suffers the horrific revelation that after so many years the scream itself has died its own death, and has left him not only utterly alone, but also completely imperceptible behind his private wall of eternity.
The Superb Companion of Andre de V., Anti-Pygmalion (1985)
First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994
Tonight, as he stands smoking a cigarette and staring out his window upon a hazy avenue, M. Andre de V. has accomplished the supreme feat of the romantic dreamer. From only the slightest experience with a real woman—Mlle. LeMieux, the pursuit of whom would have been a futility—he has fashioned an ideal one of his imagination.
She is seated in a corner of the room: wise, beautiful, and content, she is the perfect complement to her creator's temper and the unflawed realization of his unspeakably complex prerequisites. He smiles at her and she smiles back, faultlessly reflecting both the kind and degree of sentiment in the original smile. This and similar experiments have helped M. Andre de V. pass a great deal of time recently.
The Collected Short Fiction Page 23