Gathered Dust and Others

by W. H. Pugmire

  Entering my home, I went to the library and found the collection of horror stories by the original Randolph Carter, The Attic Window and Others, the first edition of which had been published by private hands some few years after the author’s queer vanishing act in 1928. The book had caused a mild sensation due to hostile reviews, and a Carter cult had begun, centering primarily at Miskatonic University among the Bohemians who were attracted to weird fiction, the occult and other such manifestations of morbidity. The commotion attracted the attention of a New York publisher, and a new edition containing additional stories sold very well, which led to the republication of Carter’s novels, which were not as popular as his eerie early work. Settling into my cozy armchair, I cracked open the book and began to read, oblivious to the subtle keening of windsong that emanated from the nearby graveyard. Soon my eyes grew heavy, and my long day ended as I succumbed to slumber.

  II.

  It was a muted drumming that aroused me from the folds of dreaming that encased me like a filigree of spider web. Raising my hands, I pushed the debris of dream away and floated to my feet, watching as the book that had been on my lap drifted to the floor, where it lay open so as to reveal a curious symbol on its yellow leaf. I did not like the way that symbol oozed across the page, like a sentient spill of enchanted ink, and thus I reach down and closed the book, then took it up and pressed it to my breast as I listened again to the subterranean drumming. I followed the sound, which led me to the basement, a place I had not fully investigated on account of its damp chilliness, which I feared would trigger an asthma attack. I could not understand why the basement floor felt so soft beneath my feet. The rhythmic sensation of sound came from a small dark room, into which I drifted. A wrought iron sconce fastened to the wall held a squat black candle, and when I struck a match to its wick the room became subtly illuminated, enough so that I could see the panel in the wall that was slightly opened. I remembered reading in Elmer Harrod’s journal of his finding a secret passageway in some section of the house – this must be the place of which he wrote. Grasping the thick black candle, I removed it from its sconce and pushed the panel with my shoulder, then stepped into the earthen passageway thus revealed. A current of air pushed at me, on which I could smell a remnant of ancient death; and this was perplexing because when I came to the end of the passageway I found myself confronted with a wall of moist yet solid earth, with no openings where a breeze might filter through. There was another sconce on the wall before me, and so I placed the candle in it and examined the curious emblem that had been etched into the surface of the wall, the familiar sign. One hand still pressed the book to my chest, but now I opened it and examined the similar sign that had stained its page. Although the beating of muted drums had softened, I sensed that they sounded still, from some place beyond the wall before me. I lifted my hand and followed the symbol’s design with my finger, and as I did so the emblem in the book began to smoke. I shouted as the book crumbled into ash that sifted through my hand and drifted down, and then my blood froze as the heap of spilled ash began to rotate and rise until it formed a cowled figure that breathed upon me through a face that was hidden by its hood. A palsied hand arose and trembled before me, its fingers resembling bloated grave worms that seemed to hunger for my soul. One of those soft moist fingers pressed against my forehead and began to etch a symbol onto my flesh. I pushed away from the thing, against the wall of earth, that wall that took me within its substance as if it were a pit within cemetery sod. The cowled figured bent toward me as the pounding I had heard filled my head, the noise that I knew was the beating of my heart. A glimmer of candlelight caught the countenance within the hood, a face that was familiar; for I had seen its likeness in a photograph that had been attached to the tomb slab of Obediah Carter.

  III.

  I pushed the dream away and laughed as I stretched in the library armchair with Carter’s book of weird tales in my lap. The clock told me that it was mid-morning, and yet the muted light that sifted through the window was quite thick, so I got to my feet and went to open the front door, where I was confronted with a blanket of fog. Old Dethshill Cemetery was hidden from view, yet I could feel its palpable presence, and I could hear its subtle sounds, its never-ending stirrings and rustlings and whisperings. Perhaps a part of my mind was still lost in dreaming, or my horror writer’s imagination was working subconsciously – for some of the sounds I heard were surely imaginary. It amused me that I was becoming obsessed with the neighboring necropolis, and I wanted to visit it more often. There was only one thing within it that tainted my fondness for the place – that bleached emblem of my uncle’s lunacy and suicide. If that was removed, all would be well, and I could linger within the cemetery often and let it arouse my creativity, as it had inspired my dreaming. It was the thickness of the fog that coaxed me toward resolution. I went to the garden shed and found the can of petrol that was there, then slipping garden gloves over my hands I carried the can through the fog, over the low stone wall and into the cemetery. The atmosphere was thick with weird foreboding, which thrilled me. I wanted to remember the sensation so as to describe it in my next book, in which I would evoke the phantoms of this haunted place. It was funny, I felt as I tramped through the fog that I had entered yet another dream in which I floated past rotting slates of stone and tabletop tombs that invited one to stop, recline, and rest one’s mortal bones. “Perchance to dream,” I whispered, reflecting on Hamlet’s soliloquy regarding the dreams one might experience in death. I had a hunch that death was not the end of the soul, and Old Dethshill Cemetery seemed to somehow verify that intuition – for this was a place that lived with a sentience all its own, unearthly though it be.

  I moved through mauve fog until the monstrous tree stood before me. The fog contained a kind of brightness that illuminated every awful aspect of the fiendish thing on which my uncle had found extinction – the sickly hue of its pallid bark, the softness of that bark and the anomalous symbols carved thereon. Seeing those symbols inspired me to shudder, for they were too similar to something I seemed to half-remember from a recent dream. I did not like them, nor did I like the unnatural vines that issued out of the tree’s sinister branches – those creepy vines that, in this fog, resembled alien veins of something that might exist beneath the ocean’s depths. Utterly repulsed, I opened the can of gasoline and splashed its contents all over the monstrous tree, and then I removed my gloves and lit a long wooden match, which I tossed to the bleached thing which burst into flame. Billowing smoke was concealed by the thickness of fog, but the stench that issued from the burning thing was so vile and pungent that I was glad that I lived alone on that dead end street. Laughing like a lunatic, I spat at the flaming horror and fled.

  I stayed away from the cemetery for some time, slightly unnerved by my actions and not desirous to witness their effect. I had acted on impulse, and it now seemed a mad and careless performance. To take my mind off the matter, I plunged into the writing of a new book of short stories. A friend in New York who operated a small press devoted to weird fiction had expressed an interest in a collection of my tales, which he wanted to bring out as a limited edition hardcover. His books were beautifully produced and designed, and so the idea thrilled me and I began to write the first of five new stories that would see their first publication in this new collection. It was natural, I suppose, that the first tale on which I worked was set in Old Dethshill Cemetery, which I renamed. Writing about the place seemed to weave a kind of enchantment over me and made me want to visit the place again. Perhaps now that the devil tree had been destroyed I could enjoy the place without qualms. Taking a break from writing one day, I rose and went out the front door so as to stand on the porch and observe the neighboring graveyard, and I saw a familiar figure traipsing among the high grass. I watched him for a little while, and he suddenly turned to me and waved. I returned his salute but was grateful that he did not venture toward the house, for I was not in a social mood. But as I watched him I had decided to use R
andolph H. Carter as a character in my tale, turning him into a delirious fop whom I would call “Samuel,” a creature of curious heritage. This inspired a new direction for my story, in which I conjured forth some of Arkham’s whispered legends and history, and my imagination was so stimulated that this became the book’s lengthiest work. The writing of the book was pure joy, and I was amazed at how quickly the work poured from me. In no time at all, the book was a published reality, in a limited edition of three hundred illustrated copies, fifty of which were bought by a shop in Arkham that specialized in horror and fantasy, histories of witchcraft and so on. Invited to the shop to sit and sign my book for the students who seemed to be its chief audience, I went first to Elmer Harrod’s bedroom and found the vampire cloak that he had often donned before the television camera, and I used some of my inheritance left by my uncle to purchase a handsome tuxedo. On my way to the signing I stopped at a floral shop and bought a beautiful white rose to slip into my buttonhole, and it pleased me when the florist recognized me from a short article that had been written about my book in the local paper. The evening proved quite successful, many books were sold and signed, and I was happy. The event was reaching its conclusion when young Carter entered the shop and purchased a copy of my book. I smiled at him as I signed.

  “Inscribe, please – but not to me; sign it to Julia Warren. Are you done here? Let me take you out for a small meal, you must be famished.” I signed my signature and rose to take my leave, thanking the shop owner and congratulating her on the night’s success. Carter slipped the book into a shoulder bag and motioned me to follow him. I was surprised when we stepped outside to find a cab waiting for us in front of the store, and I followed Carter as he stepped inside the vehicle. How strangely he smiled at me as he removed a length of black cloth from his bag. “Indulge me, Hayward,” he sighed as he smoothed the cloth over his knee, “but I have a little adventure planned. No, don’t frown – you’ll enjoy this and be amused, I promise. I’m going to tie this cloth around your eyes, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when my mystery is revealed. It’s all linked to your book, you see, and to your outlandish use of my persona in that one story, which flattered as much as it insulted – do you really find me so frivolous? You barely know me! There, the cloth is secure. No peeking. You mentioned in that newspaper interview that you’ve not seen much of Arkham town – which is your own fault, since you insist on burying yourself in your outlandish house, glued to your keyboard. Tonight you will be acquainted with a lovely witch-town haunt. Lovely, I knew you’d be a sport.”

  “How do you know my name? I never told you.”

  “Oh, we know many secrets, dear boy.”

  “We?” I heard him snigger as he touched his shoulder to mine, and the peculiar odor of his tubes of hair wafted to me. I frowned and asked, “Is that your real hair, or is it a wig?”

  “Don’t be stupid. If it were a wig it would look more natural. Sit still, Hayward. Okay, cabbie, proceed.” The car began to move, and thus I sat blindfolded and just a bit bemused. My life had reached a point of rather tedious routine. I was a bookish introvert who relished silence and solitude. I had written my book because of my keen fondness for the weird fiction genre; that the possible popularity of my book would debauch my privacy was not something I had anticipated. A part of me welcomed this sudden misadventure with this perverse stranger who seemed to want to be my friend. I assured myself that I would be cautious in handling any threads of popularity that came my way – but then I laughed quietly at the idea of caution, for here I was in a taxi cab, blindfolded and off to some secret rendezvous!

  Carter, as we rode, was more talkative than usual, and I sensed that he was trying to distract my attention and thus disrupt any attempt to determine our direction. Smiling and silent, I listened to his babble, until at last the car stopped and I was guided (still blindfolded) onto a path of gravel. The cloth was loosened and I reached for it and removed it from before my eyes as the cab rushed from us; and although I had once more obtained sight, darkness was still my domain – for we stood in a slim alley between what looked like two antiquated warehouses, one of which had a steep and tilting flight of weathered wooden steps, to which I was led.

  “It can’t be safe, climbing those.”

  “As long as it’s not raining there is little danger. Hang on to the railing if you’re feeling cautious. I’ve climbed them often and they are perfectly secure despite their great age – but then the past is far more solid than this present plastic age, my dear.” We climbed the many steps to a small platform and Carter pushed open the door before us, allowing a variety of smells, among which was the odor of turpentine, to assail our nostrils. Entering a spacious candlelit chamber, I soon realized that I was in an artist’s studio, although one that looked as if it belonged to a distant era. Antique furnishings stood here and there, as did a number of ancient brass candelabras, on some few of which a number of candles furnished moving amber light. One entire wall was made of mirrors, and a curious concealed electric light effect made this wall appear to be composed of shimmering liquid, like some perpendicular pool in which one could watch wavering reflections. The strange young man tilted near to me and whispered, “This is one of my very special haunts.”

  I looked around at the various large canvases that leaned against walls or were propped on easels, and then I experienced a freezing of the blood as my eyes fell upon a life-size reproduction of the awful tree that had once stood in the neglected necropolis and on which my uncle had ended his life. I could not resist the compulsion to go to the enormous canvas and touch it, to study the structure of the outré tree, so perfectly replicated; and I felt a kind of sickness as I studied its sinister pale vines that seemed like the writhing veins of some unfathomable chimera. “It’s no longer there,” spoke a husky voice from one corner of the studio. “Someone has destroyed it, there’s just a pile of white ashes where it used to stand.” Turning to face the speaker, I confronted the small middle-aged woman who advanced through the flickering candlelight. Her gray hair was worn short, and her black clothes spotted with paint and other stains. “It was your relative who hanged himself from it, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.”

  “And you who destroyed it?”

  I turned to gaze at the painting again. “Yes.”

  Carter joined us, his expression dark. “This is Julia Morgan Warren, grandniece of Harley Warren, the friend of my ancestor. And this, dear Julia, is Hayward Phelps, author, haunter of graveyards – and avenger.” He reached into his shoulder bag and brought forth my book. “This is the collection of fantastic fiction that he has penned under the curious name of Deth Carter Hill – you really are obsessed with that place, aren’t you, old thing? I suppose I should be honored that my fabulous persona inspired the creation of your lead story’s main character. Of course, your fictive portrayal is an exaggeration although not quite a parody.” I could not help but laugh, for the absurdity of my being there and listening to such talk came to me. It was like having entered one of my own weird tales, and I liked it very much.

  The painter nodded her thanks for the book, wiping her hands on an old rag before taking it from her friend. “You wrote this in Elmer Harrod’s haunted house?”

  “Yes, which I inhabited eighteen months ago. It was bequeathed to me by my uncle, may he rest in peace. It’s really a remarkable place, containing as it does all of the belongings of the horror host. I’ve been visiting it since my teenage years, and it has never lost its allure. It never occurred to me that I would someday be able to live within its walls.”

  “Your uncle purchased it – from whom?”

  “I never knew. He never said. I tried to discover the circumstances, but apparently my uncle destroyed all papers concerning the transaction. All very mysterious. I’ve been unable to find any of Harrod’s relations, who might want to claim some of his library – some few of the books are quite rare and valuable. From all I’ve learned about Harrod, he never made any ment
ion of family, and none of his kindred ever came to call. He lived in a world of his making, alone mostly, although he did enjoy entertaining stay-over guests. Vincent Price stayed there one weekend. I think he and Harrod shared an interest in art.” As I spoke, I studied some of Miss Warren’s artistic tools which lay on a table near us. One item was especially attractive, and so I took it up to examine it.

  “Isn’t that lethal tool amazing,” Carter opined. “The handle is ivory, as you can see, with elegant decorative work in silver. Be cautious opening it, for the blade is very sharp. It was part of a Victorian mortuary kit that Julia purchased, and must have helped numberless corpses with their last shave.”

  “This may interest you,” spoke the painter, motioning that I should follow her to a large canvas on which she had painted the house I had inherited, catching to perfection the Gothic aura of the place. Yet she had enhanced its curious quality with clever touches, such as the way in which the trees she had painted contained a kind of sentience, or the way in which shadows seemed to peer from places in the stormy sky. “I was able to enter it just once, when I was young. Harrod held a party for budding young artists of the area – he did indeed have an interest in art. I confess I became obsessed with the house and its neighboring graveyard, both of which have become the repeated topics of my work. There is a strange appetite for works of the house among locals – strange because we find the place compelling and yet something about it disturbs us. Perhaps it’s that dead-end street and the fact that the other houses have been vacated, adding to the idea that the area is some kind of shunned locality. Haven’t you noticed it, how everything seems subtly tainted in the area, touched and twisted by some mysterious force? A force that attracts as much as it repulses?”