As a new feature, I will endeavor each Saturday to post a work of horror from its long past. Horror, as a recognized genre, has existed less than a century. Before that, it was known by several names or vague references, such asv”weird fiction” or “ghost stories” or “gothic tales”. Many tales from these earlier eras are forgotten, but many are still well-known, having withstood the test of time, because they contained some element(s) that made them worthy of being remembered. It is to our advantage to study these memorable works and to discern what it is about them that speaks to the human psyche so intensely that they are remembered. However, just because a work is not well-known today, does not mean it does not merit study. There are many tales that were popular or highly acclaimed in their time, that should be remembered today, but sadly are not. We can learn much from these as well.
My intent with this new, (hopefully) regular feature is to bring to the world’s attention once again, stories that warrant study and remembrance. Too often in our modern world we become so lost among fads, trends, sound bytes, and the often ill-advised advice of pundits and critics, that we lose sight of the entirety of our lives and of our art. As someone once said, “when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember your mission was to drain the swamp.” Maintaining a good, solid overview of one’s art is one means of maintaining a good, solid perspective, and probably the most basic overview is the historical perspective.
For these reasons, every Saturday I would like to bring you a story from horror’s long past, one that is worthy of study and remembrance. I shall try to keep them brief, but I will have to balance that with each one’s own merits. I hope you enjoy them all. This Saturday’s selection is:
The Damned Thing
by Ambrose Bierce
1898
(The Project Gutenberg Text)
Ambrose Bierce October 7, 1892
By THE light of a tallow candle, which had been placed on one end of a rough table, a man was reading something written in a book. It was an old account book, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently, very legible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flame of the candle to get a stronger light upon it. The shadow of the book would then throw into obscurity a half of the room, darkening a number of faces and figures; for besides the reader, eight other men were present. Seven of them sat against the rough log walls, silent and motionless, and, the room being small, not very far from the table. By extending an arm any one of them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was dead.
The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke; all seemed to be waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was without expectation. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness—the long, nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been but half heard when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was noted in that company; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle interest in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in every line of their rugged faces—obvious even in the dim light of the single candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity—farmers and woodmen.
The person reading was a trifle different; one would have said of him that he was of the world, worldly, albeit there was that in his attire which attested a certain fellowship with the organisms of his environment. His coat would hardly have passed muster in San Francisco: his footgear was not of urban origin, and the hat that lay by him on the floor (he was the only one uncovered) was such that if one had considered it as an article of mere personal adornment he would have missed its meaning. In countenance the man was rather prepossessing, with just a hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed or cultivated, as appropriate to one in authority. For he was a coroner. It was by virtue of his office that he had possession of the book in which he was reading; it had been found among the dead man’s effects—in his cabin, where the inquest was now taking place.
When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into his breast pocket. At that moment the door was pushed open and a young man entered. He, clearly, was not of mountain birth and breeding: he was clad as those who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from travel. He had, in fact, been riding hard to attend the inquest.
The coroner nodded; no one else greeted him.
“We have waited for you,” said the coroner. “It is necessary to have done with this business to-night.”
The young man smiled. “I am sorry to have kept you,” he said. “I went away, not to evade your summons, but to post to my newspaper an account of what I suppose I am called back to relate.”
The coroner smiled.
“The account that you posted to your newspaper,” he said, “differs probably from that which you will give here under oath.”
“That,” replied the other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, “is as you choose. I used manifold paper and have a copy of what I sent. It was not written as news, for it is incredible, but as fiction. It may go as a part of my testimony under oath.”
“But you say it is incredible.”
“That is nothing to you, sir, if I also swear that it is true.”
The coroner was apparently not greatly affected by the young man’s manifest resentment. He was silent for some moments, his eyes upon the floor. The men about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom withdrew their gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently the coroner lifted his eyes and said: “We will resume the inquest.”
The men removed their hats. The witness was sworn.
“What is your name?” the coroner asked.
“William Harker.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“You knew the deceased, Hugh Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“You were with him when he died?”
“Near him.”
“How did that happen—your presence, I mean?”
“I was visiting him at this place to shoot and fish. A part of my purpose, however, was to study him, and his odd, solitary way of life. He seemed a good model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write stories.”
“I sometimes read them.”
“Thank you.”
“Stories in general—not yours.”
Some of the jurors laughed. Against a sombre background humor shows high lights. Soldiers in the intervals of battle laugh easily, and a jest in the death chamber conquers by surprise.
“Relate the circumstances of this man’s death,” said the coroner. “You may use any notes or memoranda that you please.”
The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket he held it near the candle, and turning the leaves until he found the passage that he wanted, began to read.
II
“…The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking for quail, each with a shotgun, but we had only one dog. Morgan said that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and we crossed it by a trail through the chaparral. On the other side was comparatively level ground, thickly covered with wild oats. As we emerged from the chaparral, Morgan was but a few yards in advance. Suddenly, we heard, at a little distance to our right, and partly in front, a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could see were violently agitated.
“‘We’ve started a deer,’ said. ‘I wish we had brought a rifle.’
“Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated chaparral, said nothing, but had cocked both barrels of his gun, and was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited, which surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness, even in moments of sudden and imminent peril.
“‘O, come!’ I said. ‘You are not going to fill up a deer with quail-shot, are you?’
“Still he did not reply; but, catching a sight of his face as he turned it slightly toward me, I was struck by the pallor of it. Then I understood that we had serious business on hand, and my first conjecture was that we had ‘jumped’ a grizzly. I advanced to Morgan’s side, cocking my piece as I moved.
“The bushes were now quiet, and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as attentive to the place as before.
“‘What is it? What the devil is it?’ I asked.
“‘That Damned Thing!’ he replied, without turning his head. His voice was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly.
“I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, but pressed it down—crushed it so that it did not rise, and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.
“Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any sense of fear. I remember—and tell it here because, singularly enough, I recollected it then—that once, in looking carelessly out of an open window, I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the others, but, being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail, seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the herbage, and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbance were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened, and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass! Before the smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry—a scream like that of a wild animal—and, flinging his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke—some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with great force.
“Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse savage sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan’s retreat; and may heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand—at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blotted out—I can not otherwise express it—then a shifting of his position would bring it all into view again.
“All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always distinctly. During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I had never heard from the throat of man or brute!
“For a moment only I stood irresolute, then, throwing down my gun, I ran forward to my friend’s assistance. I had a vague belief that he was suffering from a fit or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach his side he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but, with a feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired, I now saw the same mysterious movement of the wild oats prolonging itself from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a wood. It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my eyes and look at my companion. He was dead.”
III
The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the dead man. Lifting an edge of the sheet he pulled it away, exposing the entire body, altogether naked and showing in the candle light a clay-like yellow. It had, however, broad maculations of bluish-black, obviously caused by extravasated blood from contusions. The chest and sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations; the skin was torn in strips and shreds.
The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk handkerchief, which had been passed under the chin and knotted on the top of the head. When the handkerchief was drawn away it exposed what had been the throat. Some of the jurors who had risen to get a better view repented their curiosity, and turned away their faces. Witness Harker went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick. Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man’s neck, the coroner stepped to an angle of the room, and from a pile of clothing produced one garment after another, each of which he held up a moment for inspection. All were torn, and stiff with blood. The jurors did not make a closer inspection. They seemed rather uninterested. They had, in truth, seen all this before; the only thing that was new to them being Harker’s testimony.
“Gentlemen,” the coroner said, “we have no more evidence, I think. Your duty has been already explained to you; if there is nothing you wish to ask you may go outside and consider your verdict.”
The foreman rose—a tall, bearded man of sixty, coarsely clad.
“I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner,” he said. “What asylum did this yer last witness escape from?”
“Mr. Harker,” said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, “from what asylum did you last escape?”
Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the seven jurors rose and solemnly filed out of the cabin.
“If you have done insulting me, sir,” said Harker, as soon as he and the officer were left alone with the dead man, “I suppose I am at liberty to go?”
“Yes.”
Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit of his profession was strong in him—stronger than his sense of personal dignity. He turned about and said:
“The book that you have there—I recognize it as Morgan’s diary. You seemed greatly interested in it; you read in it while I was testifying. May I see it? The public would like—”
“The book will cut no figure in this matter,” replied the official, slipping it into his coat pocket; “all the entries in it were made before the writer’s death.”
As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stood about the table on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet with sharp definition. The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from his breast pocket a pencil and scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the following verdict, which with various degrees of effort all signed:
“We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands of a mountain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, they had fits.”
IV
In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it not worth while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned can not be ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is torn away; the part of the entry remaining is as follows:
“… would run in a half circle, keeping his head turned always toward the centre and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but on returning to the house found no other alteration in his manner than what was obviously due to fear of punishment.
“Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some olfactory centre with images of the thing emitting them? . . .
“Sept 2.—Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest of the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappear—from left to right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the same time, but along the entire length of the ridge all that were within a degree or two of the crest were blotted out. It was as if something had passed along between me and them; but I could not see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its outline. Ugh! I don’t like this. . . .”
Several weeks’ entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the book.
“Sept. 27.—It has been about here again—I find evidences of its presence every day. I watched again all of last night in the same cover, gun in hand, double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleep—indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible, insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad; if they are fanciful I am mad already.
“Oct. 3.—I shall not go—it shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward….
“Oct. 5.—I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few weeks with me—he has a level head. I can judge from his manner if he thinks me mad.
“Oct. 7.—I have the solution of the problem; it came to me last night—suddenly, as by revelation. How simple—how terribly simple!
“There are sounds that we can not hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire treetop—the tops of several trees—and all in full song. Suddenly—in a moment—at absolutely the same instant—all spring into the air and fly away. How? They could not all see one another—whole treetops intervened. At no point could a leader have been visible to all. There must have been a signal of warning or command, high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed, too, the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but other birds—quail, for example, widely separated by bushes—even on opposite sides of a hill.
“It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between them, will sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of the organ.
“As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can detect the presence of what are known as ‘actinic’ rays. They represent colors—integral colors in the composition of light—which we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real ‘chromatic scale’ I am not mad; there are colors that we can not see.
“And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!”
I was surfing the Internet today, looking for a bit of modern horror to post on my blog, when I came across an article from Halloween, 2014, at The Guardian entitled “The internet’s spookiest tales: what’s your modern horror story?” It discusses Reddit’s NoSleep, which the author describes as “the site’s home for original horror fiction”. The first example they give of a spooky story at NoSleep is “My dead girlfriend keeps messaging me on Facebook” by natesw.
The story is worth a read, though it is what I would describe as low-intensity horror. What I find most fascinating about the story though is its use of interaction. It contains links to take you to copies of the conversation or of photos that are tagged by the author’s dead girlfriend. This is high-tech to an old fart like me, who still reads hardcopy editions of Poe’s works. To the millennial generation, this type of writing is probably beyond simple “second nature” and into the realm of intuitive.
I recommend checking out this story along with the others mentioned in the article and any others you can find at NoSleep. As for me, I think I will re-visit my Reddit account and see what opportunities await.
I am not going to attempt to copy and paste this story here, because it is too beautifully formatted in it original form. Follow the link to a short story by Neil Gaiman. Scott Meslow in his article “9 contemporary horror stories you can read right now” (which I recommend reading) at The Week says about it:
Neil Gaiman won a Hugo Award for this clever pastiche, which blends together the best of both H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes for a case about a mysterious and disturbing death in London. As a bonus, the PDF copy of the story available online is a winking mockup of a 1914 newspaper story, with era-appropriate “ads” to match.
“It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams.
“But I am woolgathering. Forgive me. I am not a literary man.
“I had been in need of lodgings. That was how I met him. I wanted someone to share the cost of rooms with me. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, in the chemical laboratories of St. Bart’s. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” that was what he said to me, and my mouth fell open and my eyes opened very wide…”
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “An Odd Trio.”
Here is Ben Huberman’s challenge for the day:
“Today, you can write about whatever you what — but your post must include, in whatever role you see fit, a cat, a bowl of soup, and a beach towel.”
Here is my response:
On a cold winter day in Santa Fe, Nikki and Jay lay sunning themselves in the buff on beach towels under their living room sun lamp.
“I don’t understand why you hate Mr. Mann so,” said Nikki. “He’s an awesome cat, clever and cuddly and cute with beautiful blue eyes.”
“He’s got an attitude problem,” said Jay. “He’s always looking at me as if he were plotting something against me.”
Telmo the cat by Luizmo
“There you go, hating on him again. You just enjoy being cruel sometimes. You always have some mean thing to say. I really hate that new one you’ve come up with.”
“You mean ‘there’s got to be a better use for cats than violin strings’?
“That’s it. Sometimes you can be a real bastard. By the way, where is Mr. Mann? I haven’t seen him since I got home from work.”
“He’s around someplace. The little bastard has been under my nose all day.” Jay reached behind him, picked up a thermos, and poured its hot contents into a small bowl they were sharing. “How about some more soup? I spent a lot of the day making it just for you.”
“Yes, please. It’s delicious. It shows that you put a lot of time and care into it.” Nikki took the bowl and sipped. “What did you call this? Cocoa van?”
“No, it’s not coq au vin. We had that last week.” He could not repress a smile. “This is chat au vin.”
Nikki took another sip and then held her nose close to the soup and sniffed. She reveled in its aroma. “Chat au vin? You’ll have to teach me French some day.”
Jay took the bowl gently from her hand and set it aside. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “First, I have some other French stuff I would like to teach you.”
He wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed her long and deep, delighting in the taste of cat upon her lips and tongue.
What can you write in response to Ben’s challenge of the day?
Writing at Starbuck’s in Farmington, circa October 12, 2015.
Here’s a link to an neat, entertaining article on Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency about some good, sound,basic advice on how to write anything better. I recommend printing these out and sticking them on your refrigerator, stapling them to your forehead, or tattooing them to your forearm.
Writing at Hasting’s Hardback Café in Farmington, NM, late evening of October 16, 2015 (self-portrait)
I would like to establish a writers’ circle for the Farmington, New Mexico area, including San Juan County, and anyone from the Four Corners area. I will he hosting a meeting on November 19 at 7:00 p.m. at the Farmington Hastings’ Hardback Cafe to establish how many people are interested. Everyone is welcome to attend. The mission of the Writers Circle will be to promote Farmington area writers of any genre and skill level, to advise each other on being published, and to establish useful contacts within the regional and national literary communities. If anyone in the Farmington/Four Corners has an interest, please contact me via this website by commenting below.
Follow the link to Horroraddicts.net for an interesting perspective on the dark side of fairytales and how they continue to exist in today’s dark literature, using Japan’s Hell Girl as a prime example.
I find this a fascinating article with a lot of excellent points, however there is one point that seems a bit superficial:
“Stories like this have taught us how to treat each other for centuries, but they have also taught us some very dangerous ideas:
The evil always get their comeuppance.
Wait long enough (or suffer bad enough) and your prince will come.
There are secret pots of gold or riches granted you when you out-smart evil beings.
Well…as we know living in the real world is not so easy…”
While these are the obvious lessons that fairy tales instill in children, and we, as adults, know the world is not so easy, it is important to look at their origins in history. Fairy tales arose a few centuries ago when survival was much more difficult than today. Medicine was primitive. Laws were essentially the will of the emperor/king/local despot or the accepted religion (e.g. the Inquisition) enforced by his soldiers or officials. No professional organizations or entities existed to investigate even the most mundane crimes, or if they did, the investigators were rank amateurs or hobbyists by today’s standards. No organizations existed to ensure the quality of food or of water or the safe disposal of wastes. Duels and violent, personal retribution for offenses were not uncommon. Life was often, as someone once said, “brutal, nasty, and short”.
In this type of environment, fairy tales gave hope to children and adults alike that they could survive the trials, tribulations, and horrors that existed beyond their doorstep and that some form of justice was woven into the ethereal fabric of the universe, that would right the wrongs they experienced or saw being done to others.
Today, the need to believe in fairy tales no longer exists, though it, no doubt, does among the very young and, by our modern standards, the very desperate. The ancient fairy tales have not changed, though the times and environment have. New ones have arisen reflecting the mentality, for better or worse, of our modern world.
In this fun, engaging article from Horror Novel Reviews, Ramsey Campbell lists thirteen thrilling novels from the last fifty years that should be on any horror enthusiast’s list of novels to read.
“Even as Starbucks switches to its Red Cup holiday menu and the radio plays Christmas music, Halloween tugs at the coattails of my subconscious. To honor our dearly departed All Hallows’ Eve, here are four pieces about witchcraft in the United States and abroad.” –Emily Perper in the Longreads article.
Follow the link to read two stories and two articles on the historical basis of our society’s concept of witches and witchcrafts re-posted through Longreads. While you are there, like Emily’s article for doing a great job in selecting pieces.
In this article from mentalfloss.com Stacy Conradt tells us about ten renown figures from literature and history who had brief, quirky flings with the horror genre. Some of these you would probably never suspect of even hearing about the horror genre. One aspect that may be of interest to writers of horror is the minimal experience each author had with horror before dreaming up the concept for his/her foray into the genre.
Follow the link above to the David J. Sharp article from Horrorunderground.org.
Romulus, MI (October 20, 2015) – Michigan-based Synapse Films, one of the most acclaimed and longest-lasting independent DVD and Blu-ray labels in the home video industry, is pleased to announce their new association with the innovative NYC-based streaming service VHX.TV, to now bring a selection of some of Synapse’s most popular films to the service for both streaming and download. [From the article].
I am looking for holiday-themed flash horror for the holiday season. If you have a work of horror or a horror-related article suitable for publication on a specific holiday (whether it be Veterans’ Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, President’s Day, Boxing Day, Australia Day, or any other officially recognized holiday) please feel free to submit it. Please be sure to adhere to my Submissions Guidelines.
Source: Monica J. O’Rourke and Wrath James White ‘Poisoning Eros’ Review
Source: November: Dark Fairytales
Source: Ramsey Campbell’s ‘Thirteen Novels on the Edge of Horror’
Source: Reading List: The Witching Hour
Here are four stories from Longreads about the scariest weekend of the year to read while getting over your candy hangovers.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 