The Lurker at the Threshold: Posthumous Collaborations

by August Derleth

  “Mr. Stark?” I asked.

  “Storm ketched ye, eh?” he greeted me. “Come right in the haouse an’ dry off. Don’t reckon the rain’ll last long naow.”

  I followed him into the inner room from which he had started away, though not before he had carefully bolted and locked the door behind us, a procedure which touched me with a faint unease. He must have seen my look of inquiry, for, once he had set the lamp down on a thick book which lay on a round table in the center of the room to which he led me, he turned and said with a dry chuckle, “This be Wentworth’s day. I thought yew might be Nahum.”

  His chuckle deepened into the ghost of a laugh.

  “No, sir. My name is Fred Hadley. I’m from Boston.”

  “Ain’t never been ta Boston,” said Stark. “Never been as fur as Arkham, even. Got my farm work ta keep me ta home.”

  “I hope you don’t mind. I took the liberty of driving my car into your barn.”

  “The caows won’t mind.” He cackled with laughter at his little joke, for he knew full well that no cow was in the barn. “Wouldn’t drive one a them newfangled contraptions myself, but yew taown people are all alike. Got ta hev yer automobiles.”

  “I didn’t imagine I looked like a city slicker,” I said, in an attempt to meet his mood.

  “I kin tell a taown man right off—onct in a while we get one movin’ inta the deestrick but they move out suddent; guess they daon’t like it here. Ain’t never been ta no big taown; ain’t sure I want ta go.”

  He rambled on in this fashion for such an interminable time that I was able to look around me and make a kind of inventory of the room. In those years the time I did not spend on the road I put in at the warehouse in Boston, and there were few of us who could be counted better at inventory than myself; so it took me no time at all to see that Amos Stark’s living room was filled with all kinds of things that the antique collectors would pay well to get their hands on. There were pieces of furniture that went back close to two hundred years, if I were any judge, and fine bric-a-brac, whatnots, and some wonderful blown glass and Haviland china on the shelves and on the whatnots. And there were many of the old handiwork pieces of the New England farm of decades before—candle-snuffers, wooden-pegged cork inkwells, candle-molds, a book rest, a turkey-call of leather, pitchpine and tree gum, calabashes, samplers—so that it was plain to see that the house had stood there for many years.

  “Do you live alone, Mr. Stark?” I asked, when I could get a word in.

  “Naow I do, yes. Onct thar was Molly an’ Dewey. Abel went off when he war a boy, an’ Ella died with lung fever. I bin alone naow for nigh on ta seven years.”

  Even as he spoke, I observed about him a waiting, watchful air. He seemed constantly to be listening for some sound above the drumming of the rain. But there was none, save one small crepitant sound, where a mouse gnawed away somewhere in the old house—none but this and the ceaseless song of the rain.

  Still he listened, his head cocked a little, his eyes narrowed as if against the glow of the lamp, and his head agleam at the bald crown which was ringed round by a thin, straggly tonsure of white hair. He might have been eighty years old, he might have been only sixty with his narrow, reclusive way of life having prematurely aged him.

  “Ye war alaone on the road?” he asked suddenly.

  “Never met a soul this side of Dunwich. Seventeen miles, I figure.”

  “Give or take a half,” he agreed. Then he began to cackle and chuckle, as with an outburst of mirth that could no longer be held within. “This be Wentworth’s day. Nahum Wentworth.” His eyes narrowed again for a moment.

  “Yew been a salesman in these parts long naow? Yew must a knowed Nahum Wentworth?”

  “No, sir. I never knew him. I sell mostly in the towns. Just once in a while in the country.”

  “Might near everybody knowed Nahum,” he went on. “But thar weren’t none knowed him as well as I did. See that thar book?” He pointed to a well thumbed paper-covered book I could just make out in the ill-lit room. “That thar’s the Seventh Book a Moses—it’s got a sight more larnin’ in it than any other book I ever seen. That thar was Nahum’s book.”

  He chuckled at some memory. “Oh, that Nahum was a queer one, all right.

  But mean—an’ stingy, too. Don’t see as haow ye could miss knowin’ him.”

  I assured him I had never heard of Nahum Wentworth before, though I admitted privately to some curiosity about the object of my host’s preoccupation, insofar as he had been given to reading the Seventh Book of Moses, which was a kind of Bible for the supposed hexes, since it purported to offer all manner of spells, incantations, and charms to those readers who were gullible enough to believe in them. I saw, too, within the circle of lamplight, certain other books I recognized—a Bible, worn as much as the textbook of magic, a compendious edition of Cotton Mather’s works, and a bound volume of the Arkham Advertiser. Perhaps these, too, had once belonged to Nahum Wentworth.

  “I see ye lookin’ at his books,” said my host, as if he had indeed divined my thoughts. “He said as haow I could have ’em; so I took ’em. Good books, too.

  Only that I need glasses, I’d a read ’em. Yew’re welcome ta look at ’em, though.”

  I thanked him gravely and reminded him that he had been talking of Nahum Wentworth.

  “Oh, that Nahum!” he replied at once, renewing his chuckle. “I don’t reckon he’d a lent me all that money if he a knowed what was ta happen ta him. No, sir, I don’t reckon he would. An’ never ta take a note fer it, neither. Five thousand it was. An’ him tellin’ me he didn’t have no need fer a note or any kind of paper, so thar warn’t no proof I ever had the money off’n him, not a-tall, jest the two of us knowin’ it, and he settin’ a day five years after fer him ta come fer his money an’ his due. Five years, an’ this is the day, this is Wentworth’s day.”

  He paused and favored me with a sly glance out of eyes that were one and the same time dancing with suppressed mirth and dark with withheld fear. “Only he can’t come, because it warn’t no less’n two months after that day that he got shot out huntin’. Shotgun in the back o’ the head. Pure accident. O’ course, thar was them that said as haow I done it a-purpose, but I showed ’em haow ta shet up, ’cause I druv in ta Dunwich an’ went straight ta the bank an’ I made out my will so’s his daughter—that’s Miss Genie—was ta git all I die ownin’. Didn’ make no secret of it, either. Let ’em all know, so’s they could talk their fool heads off.”

  “And the loan?” I could not forebear asking.

  “The time ain’t up till midnight tonight.” He chuckled and cackled with laughter. “An’ it don’t seem like Nahum can keep his ’pointment, naow, does it?

  I figure, if he don’t come, it’s mine. An’ he can't come. An’ a good thing he can’t, ’cause I ain’t got it.”

  I did not ask about Wentworth’s daughter, and how she fared. To tell the truth, I was beginning to feel the strain of the day and evening’s drive through the downpour. And this must have been evident to my host, for he ceased talking and sat watching me, speaking again only after what seemed a long time.

  “Yew’re peaked lookin’. Yew tired?”

  “I guess I am. But I’ll be going as soon as the storm abates a little.”

  “Tell yew what. Thar’s no need a yew a-settin’ here listenin’ ta me jaw yew.

  I’ll get ye another lamp, an’ yew kin lie down on the couch inside the next room.

  If it stops rainin’, I’ll call ye.”

  “I’m not taking your bed, Mr. Stark?”

  “I set up late nights,” he said.

  But any protest I might have made would have been futile. He was already up and about, lighting another kerosene lamp, and in a few moments he was conducting me into the adjoining room and showing me the couch. On the way in, I picked up the Seventh Book of Moses, impelled by curiosity inspired by decades of hearing talk of the potent wonders between its covers; though he eyed me strangely, my h
ost made no objection, and returned to his wicker rocking chair in the next room again, leaving me to my own devices.

  Outside, the rain still came down in torrential gusts. I made myself comfortable on the couch, which was an old-fashioned leather-covered affair, with a high headrest, moved the lamp over close—for its light was very feeble— and commenced to read in the Seventh Book of Moses, which, I soon found, was a curious rigmarole of chants and incantations to such “princes” of the nether world as Aziel, Mephistopheles, Marbuel, Barbuel, Aniquel, and others. The incantations were of many kinds; some were designed to cure illness, others to grant wishes; some were meant for success in undertakings, others for vengeance upon one’s enemies. The reader was repeatedly warned in the text of how terrible some of the words were, so much so, that perhaps because of these adjurations, I was compelled to copy the worst of the incantations which caught my eye— Aila himel adonaij amara Zebaoth cadas yeseraije haralius—which was nothing less than an incantation for the assemblage of devils or spirits, or the raising of the dead.

  And, having copied it, I was not loath to say it aloud several times, not for a moment expecting anything untoward to take place. Nor did it. So I put the book aside and looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock. It seemed to me that the force of the rain had begun to diminish; it was no longer such a downpour; that lessening which always foretells the end of a rain storm within a reasonably short time had begun. Marking the appointments of the room well, so that I would not stumble over any object of furniture on my way back to the room where my host waited, I put out the light to rest a little while before taking to the road once more.

  But, tired as I was, I found it hard to compose myself.

  It was not alone that the couch on which I lay was hard and cold, but that the very atmosphere of the house seemed oppressive. Like its owner, it had about it a kind of resignation, an air of waiting for the inevitable, as if it, too, knew that sooner rather than later its weatherbeaten siding would buckle outward and its roof fall inward to bring an end to its increasingly precarious existence. But there was something more than this atmosphere of so many old houses which it possessed; it was a resignation tinged with apprehension—that same apprehension which had caused old Amos Stark to hesitate about answering my knock; and soon I caught myself listening, too, as Stark did, for more than the patter of the rain, steadily diminishing now, and the incessant gnawing of mice.

  My host did not sit still. Every little while he rose, and I could hear him shuffle from place to place; now it was the window, now the door; he went to try them, to make sure they were locked; then he came back and sat down again.

  Sometimes he muttered to himself; perhaps he had lived too long alone and had fallen into that common habit of isolated, reclusive people, of talking to himself.

  For the most part what he said was indistinguishable, almost inaudible, but on occasion some words came through, and it occurred to me that one of the things which occupied his thoughts was the amount of interest that would be due on the money he owed Nahum Wentworth, were it now collectible. “A hunderd an’ fifty dollars a year,” he kept saying. “Comes to seven-fifty”—said with something akin to awe. There was more of this, and there was something more which troubled me more than I cared to admit.

  Something the old man said was upsetting when pieced together; but he said none of it consecutively. “I fell,” he muttered, and there followed a sentence or two of inanities. “All they was to it.” And again many indistinguishable words.

  “Went off—quick-like.” Once more a round of meaningless or inaudible words.

  “Didn’t know ’twas aimed at Nahum.” Followed once again by indistinct mutterings. Perhaps the old man’s conscience troubled him. Certainly the brooding resignation of the house was enough to stir him to his darkest thoughts.

  Why had he not followed the other inhabitants of the stony valley to one of the settlements? What was there to prevent his going? He had said he was alone, and presumably he was alone in the world as well as in the house, for had he not willed his earthly possessions to Nahum Wentworth’s daughter?

  His slippers whispered along the floor, his fingers rustled papers.

  Outside the whippoorwills began to call, which was a sign that in some quarters the sky was beginning to clear; and soon there was a chorus of them fit to deafen a man. “Heer them whipperwills,” I heard my host mutter. “Callin’ fer a soul. Clem Whateley’s dyin’.” As the voice of the rain fell slowly away, the voices of the whippoorwills rose in volume, and soon I grew drowsy and dozed off.

  I come now to that part of my story which makes me doubt the evidence of my own senses, which, when I look back upon it now, seems impossible of occurrence. Indeed, many times now, with added years, I wonder whether I did not dream it all—yet I know it was not a dream, and I still have certain corroborating newspaper clippings to adduce in proof that mine was not a dream—clippings about Amos Stark, about his bequest to Genie Wentworth, — and, strangest of all—about a hellish molestation of a grave half forgotten on a hillside in that accursed valley.

  I had not been dozing long when I awoke. The rain had ceased, but the voices of the whippoorwills had moved closer to the house and were now in thunderous chorus. Some of the birds sat immediately under the window of the room in which I lay, and the roof of the shaky verandah must have been covered with the nocturnal creatures. I have no doubt that it was their clamor which had brought me out of the light sleep into which I had fallen. I lay for a few moments to collect myself, and then moved to rise, for, the rain having now come to an end, driving would be less hazardous, and my motor was in far less danger of going out on me.

  But just as I swung my feet to the floor, a knock fell upon the outer door.

  I sat motionless, making no sound—and no sound came from the adjoining room.

  The knock came again, more peremptorily this time.

  “Who be ye?” Stark called out.

  There was no reply.

  I saw the light move, and I heard Stark’s exclamation of triumph. “Past midnight!” He had looked at his clock, and at the same time I looked at my watch. His clock was ten minutes fast.

  He went to answer the door.

  I could tell that he set down the lamp in order to unlock the door. Whether he meant to take it up again, as he had done to peer at me, I could not say. I heard the door open—whether by his hand or by another’s.

  And then a terrible cry rang out, a cry of mingled rage and terror in Amos Stark’s voice. “No! No! Go back. I ain’t got it—ain’t got it, I tell yew. Go back!” He stumbled back and fell, and almost immediately after there came a horrible, choking cry, a sound of labored breathing, a gurgling gasp . . .

  I came to my feet and lurched through the doorway into that room—and then for one cataclysmic moment I was rooted to that spot, unable to move, to cry out, at the hideousness of what I saw. Amos Stark was spread on the floor on his back, and sitting astride him was a mouldering skeleton, its bony arms bowed above his throat, its fingers at his neck. And in the back of the skull, the shattered bones where a charge of shot had once gone through. This I saw in that one terrible moment—then, mercifully, I fainted.

  When I came to a few moments later, all was quiet in the room. The house was filled with the fresh musk of the rain, which came in through the open front door; outside, the whippoorwills still cried, and a wan moonlight lay on the ground like pale white wine. The lamp still burned in the hall, but my host was not in his chair.

  He lay where I had seen him, spread on the floor. My whole impulse was to escape that horrible scene as quickly as possible, but decency impelled me to pause at Amos Stark’s side, to make sure that he was beyond my help. It was that fateful pause which brought the crowning horror of all, that horror which sent me shrieking into the night to escape that hellish place as were all the demons of the nether regions at my heels. For, as I bent above Amos Stark, ascertaining that he was indeed dead, I saw sticking into the discolored flesh o
f his neck the whitened finger bones of a human skeleton, and, even as I looked upon them, the individual bones detached themselves, and went bounding away from the corpse, down the hall, and out into the night to rejoin that ghastly visitor who had come from the grave to keep his appointment with Amos Stark!

  THE SHUTTERED ROOM

  first published in The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces, August Derleth, Arkham House, 1959

  I

  AT DUSK, the wild, lonely country guarding the approaches to the village of Dunwich in north central Massachusetts seems more desolate and forbidding than it ever does by day. Twilight lends the barren fields and domed hills a strangeness that sets them apart from the country around that area; it brings to everything a kind of sentient, watchful animosity—to the ancient trees, to the brier-bordered stone walls pressing close upon the dusty road, to the low marshes with their myriads of fireflies and their incessantly calling whippoorwills vying with the muttering of frogs and the shrill songs of toads, to the sinuous windings of the upper reaches of the Miskatonic flowing among the dark hills seaward, all of which seem to close in upon the traveller as if intent upon holding him fast, beyond all escape.

  On his way to Dunwich, Abner Whateley felt all this again, as once in childhood he had felt it and run screaming in terror to beg his mother to take him away from Dunwich and Grandfather Luther Whateley. So many years ago! He had lost count of them. It was curious that the country should affect him so, pushing through all the years he had lived since then—the years at the Sorbonne, in Cairo, in London—pushing through all the learning he had assimilated since those early visits to grim old Grandfather Whateley in his ancient house attached to the mill along the Miskatonic, the country of his childhood, coming back now out of the mists of time as were it but yesterday that he had visited his kinfolk.

  They were all gone now—Mother, Grandfather Whateley, Aunt Sarey, whom he had never seen but only knew to be living somewhere in that old house—the loathsome cousin Wilbur and his terrible twin brother few had ever known before his frightful death on top of Sentinel Hill. But Dunwich, he saw as he drove through the cavernous covered bridge, had not changed; its main street lay under the looming mound of Round Mountain, its gambrel roofs as rotting as ever, its houses deserted, the only store still in the broken-steepled church, over everything the unmistakable aura of decay.