"Dig Me No Grave"

 by Robert E. Howard 

originally published Weird Tales, February 1937

It's a dark and stormy night - and Kirowan is being woken up by his buddy Conrad, who needs him to come to the house of a mutual acquaintance, John Grimlan.  Exactly why Conrad needs Kirowan for this (emotional support? Heavy lifting?) Exactly why Kirowan doesn't do what I would do and say "wha-fuck ... call me in the morning..." and go back to bed is a little fuzzy but maybe things were different in the 30's.  

Things get even fuzzier since via their conversation Grimlan was a major creep and apparently had been really old for a hundred years or something.  In any case he had earlier given Conrad a sealed envelope with instructions as to what to do after he died (immediately after I guess).  But this very night he had begged Conrad to burn the envelope and dismember his body(!!!!), neither of which Conrad did, instead letting Grimlan suffer through his last moments writhing in agony.  I mean, what kind of true friend would decline to dismember your body after you die?  Yeesh, how our morality has fallen.  

(Or perhaps Kirowan was just pissed, since only a few nights before Grimlan had gone off on a condescending tirade about how he didn't know shit about the occult or anything else, didn't know of the winds that blew from Yuggoth or the actual title of the first 1977 Star Wars film)

Down at Gimlan's place, there's no electricity, but Kirowan left Gimlan's bod laid out on a table in the library with seven black candles burning (but he still didn't dismember him!).  But he left him wearing bedroom slippers, though uncovered.  Now he's covered with an ornate robe, the slippers are gone, and the candles are lit.  And a mysterious "Oriental" is lurking in the corner.  He confesses to lighting the candles, covering Grimlan's body, and taking the slippers (the bastard!)

The envelope is opened and Kirowan reads the text, which includes a pledge of Grimlan's soul to Malik Tous, an evil Asian deity.  As Kirowan reads, the candles go out, one by one.   As he finishes, the last candles snuffs, and the house is plunged into darkness.  They hear a terrible scream.  Conrad manage to find and light another candle.  Grimlan's bod and the mysterious visitor are gone.  The men smell smoke, and realizing the house is on fire, flee.  After escaping the house, they look back, and see the place engulfed in flames, a dark, winged figure rising from the smoke, clutching what appears to be a man's body in its talons...

I actually first encountered this one in a fairly faithful adaptation in a Marvel comic, and it stayed with me.  It's not a great story but it is a very good one.  Mainly because its full of dark, spooky, claustrophobic atmosphere.  It just works.  Howard's strength as a writer was to make you feel it, and he does here - you're in that room, the candles burning, the sinister incantation being read.

Amazingly, given I've read this a bunch of times since the 80's, and the comics version many more (and since the 70's), and I just now figured out that the "mysterious Oriental" was actually Malik Tous!  DUH!!