"The Moon Lens" -

By Ramsey Campbell

Originally published The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Arkham House, 1964 

Dr. James Linwood is farting around his Mercy Hill Hospital office at midnight, apparently not quite sure what to do with himself, since he clearly has no life.  He decides it will be fun to work on the speech he's going to be giving at a convention soon, advocating for what we now call "physician-assissted suicide", when there's a knock at the door.

His visitor is bundled-up like The Elephant Man and has a simple request - he wants Doc Linwood to kill him.  Well, needless to say the Doc isn't so keen on that idea and insteads triest to talk to him.  

Well, it seems his visitor aka Roy Leakey had a bad experience not long ago.  He got caught in Goatswood, a shithole town in the middle of nowhere, when the next train out was cancelled.  So he took a room at a hotel for the night.  He didn't like the town much - everyone wore baggy clothes and gloves and had faces like goats.  Not to mention his hotel room had a framed photo of a weird-ass monster in it!  Oh and there's a weird pylon in the center of town with a lens and mirrors on the top which no one would explain to him.

Anyway as the sun went down, townsfolk started milling around in the street, and Leakey found himself locked in his room, while a voice from the other side of the locked door lectured him on goat-related arcana.  The folks in the street started chanting and generally weirding out, and finally a beam of moonlight from the lens to a nearby hill caused a door to open in said hill, and a weird-ass monster - yes, the same one as in the photo, emerged and started heading straight for the hotel!  Leakey tried to escape but fell right into the weirdie's "grasp", and carried into the hillside, whence he managed to make his escape.  And it changed him.  In some way he can't describe.  But Doc Linwood's seen it all, and urges Leakey to let him examine him.  

Wel, oops!  Cuz moments later a colleague comes to chat with him, just in time to see someone fleeing the room - someone with a birdlike claw instead of a hand - and finds Doc Linwood insane and screaming on the floor.

This pretty minor, pulpy Campbell and the abrupt shift into flashback is jarring and doesn't really come off.  But like most of the stories in this collection there are hints of the writer Campbell will become, here in particular in the sinister town who's unfriendly and plain weird inhabitants are delineated by the narrator's small observations.  

"The Render of the Veils"

by Ramsey Campbell

Originally published The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Arkham House, 1964 

Kevin Gillson is catching a cab to Brichester on a dark and stormy night when another passenger shows up, and Gillson offers to share his ride.

Gillson pulls out a paperback he just picked up about witchcraft, so the extra passenger, who turns out to be Henry Fisher, and it seems Mssr Fisher has some experience witch witchcraft.  Real witchcraft, not these silly kids running around naked in pentagrams.  Oh yeah, sez Gillson?  It turns out he's looked through The Necronomicon, but Fisher sez fuck that shit, The Revelations of Glaaki is the Real Deal.  And y'know, he's gonna do a ritual tonight that will reveal the True Nature of Reality, something they've also been discussing, and would Gillson like to accompany him?

Well, like a proper practical, clear-headed modern guy, Gillson sez Hell Yeah!  and the next thing they're off to Fisher's place.

One wonders what the cab driver made of that whole conversation...

Back at Fisher's place he's got a weird-ass sculpture in the middle of the room that Gillman can't quite wrap his head around; it seems to even change shape and size at random.  Fisher explains that it's an image of Daoloth, The Render of the Veils, who they'll be inviting over this very night to show them the True Nature of Reality.  Should be a fun evening!

So they do the ritual (recorded on an audio tape for good measure).  And it works - perhaps too well - after becoming aware of presences in the room (one of them draws blood from Gillson's mouth - blech!), things get truly weird.  And when the lights go out, things get weird.  And apparently weirder when they go back on.  The coppers find Gillson murdered and Fisher having tossed himself out a window to his death.

 This isn't any great work but it does have some areas of interest, particularly in that it's Campbell's fisrt published attempt to stop imitating Lovecraft and find his own voice.  It's written in clear, straightforward unadorned prose with some hints of Campbell's later style sprinkled in.  It also pushes a more metaphysical slant than your typical Lovecraft pastiche - the seeking of mystical knowledge verus the usual Lovecraftian motivations.  Even if the end circles back to standard pulp horror.

 

"The Nameless Offspring"

by Clark Ashton Smith

 originally published Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, June 1932 

30 years ago Lady Agatha Tremoth pulled a Madeline Usher.  It seems she suffered from catalepsy but this time she was really a goner.  So her hubby John stuck her in the family tomb.  Oops!  A short time later she was wide awake and screaming.  And somehow had gotten the heavy coffin lid off of her, a neat trick since she was skinny and frail ... hmmm.  Anyway she kept claiming to have woken up to find something white and inhuman staring her in the face.  Well no one takes that too seriously.  But nine months later she dies giving birth to something distinctly not human.  And Sir John, so the story goes, locked it away in an iron-barred room in his manor and became a complete recluse.

Lo these 30 years later Henry Chaldane, son of Arthur, an old school friend of Sir John's, is making a motorcycle tour through England and gets caught in a pea-soup fog.  Stopping for directions and/or help, he comes across - surprise!  Tremoth Manor.  Henry is welcomed by Harper, Sir John's one remaining servant, and Sir John himself, who insists he spend the night, even though he must forgive the inhospitable nature of his house.  While being led to his room, Henry passes the infamous locked door, and hears something inside cut loose with a horrible scream. 

Henry spends a pretty sleepless night, listening to the thing in the locked room clawing at the walls.  He's also troubled by the fact that he saw Harper carrying what appeared to be putrescent meat up to feed it.  And by Sir John letting out with a loud groan during the wee hours.

Well Harper wakes Henry up late the next morning.  It seems Sir John snuffed it during the night.  He left some very specific instructions that he be cremated on a funeral pyre on the estate.  And Harper is to watch over him until that time.  So Henry volunteers to head into town and scare up some help for tomorrow.

Back at the manor, Harper asks Henry to sit up with him next to Sir John's corpse, to which he reluctanrly agrees.  But that thing is clawing at the wall again and before you can say "Abdul Alhzared" it's torn its way in - he gets only a glimpse of something white with canine fangs and clawed hands that goes on all fours - and then it's on Sir John, getting shot in the process and knocking over candles, thus starting a blaze.  So Henry gets Harper out and the two follow the clawed footprints from the house to the family crypt, wherein they lost track of whatever it was.

Man this thing's gothic with a capital "G".  And a lot of fun.  A very dark old house Poe mystery with a does of Lovecraftian ghoul-grue thrown in for good measure.  Hardly a classic but like I said, a lot of fun.

"Bells of Horror"

by Henry Kuttner 

Originally published  Strange Stories, April 1939  

Ross is the secretary of the California Historical Society, and he gets an excited call one day from the society prez, Arthur Todd.  It seems they've found the long-missing bells of Mission San Xavier stuffed away in a cave.  

But these bells have a funky backstory.  It seems they were cast with the help of some native american magic, courtesy of the Mutsune tribe, and it is warned if the bells are rung it will bring "the terror of the night".  Well, fuck these native superstitions.  And fuck the fact that the local Mexicans won't get get the third bell out of the cave.   Will Ross come and help?  Sure!

But Ross finds a local Mexican kid who will give him directions but not guide him.  The kid's scared.  So Ross has to hike most of the way.  Along the trail he encounters a big toad that's somehow managed to knock one of its own eyes out on a rock.  Suddenly Ross is rubbing his own burning eyes way too hard.  

Ross arrives at the cabin just in time for a workman who's apparently gouged out his own eyes to come running out screaming and die in front of Arthur and Denton, Arthur's #2 guy.  It seems everyone's having trouble with their eyes burning so bad it's driving them insane.  They've also found a cylinder with a parchement inside.  It's a signed account by Junipero Serra requestin the bells be sent to Rome, noting that when they were rung, a demon called Zu-che-quon was released and caused all kinds of trouble.  They head out to the cave only to find Sarto, the guy they left in charge has hung the bells by a rope from some trees.  Startled by their arrival he drops the rope and gets his head bashed in by one of the falling bells.

Back in civilization the bells are scheduled to be hung.  Denton has found some correspondences to the bell legends in The Book of Iod.  But c'mon, no one believes this superstitious crap, right?  All the same, its getting really cold out.  And there's an earthquake.  But none of this will stop the bells being hung at San Xavier!

The bells are rung - and everything plunges into darkness.  And another quake.  Everyone starts to freak out.  Denton leads Ross into the museum, but a voice in his head is urging him to put out his eyes and the burning sensation is overwhelming.  Then Denton's trying to put his eyes out.  Suddenly the shaking lessens and the darkness begins to lift.  One of the bells has been silenced.

But, the curse of Zu-Che-Quon is not so easily dismissed.  Not long after, Denton is found dead with his eyes gouged out.

This is an average pulp horror story with some decidedly unpleasant elements.  Nothing special but by now Kuttner had left imitation behind and had his own voice and interests.

"The Room in the Castle"

by Ramsey Campbell     

Originally published The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Arkham House, 1964

Parry is on a mission of mercy for his Buddy Scott, to look up some totally boring historical info at the British Museum.  Since he has to wait for his books and Harry Potter hasn't been invented yet, he decides to kill some time browsing their copy of The Necronomicon.

Well after freaking himself out a bit, he gets the books he came there for and starts making his notes.  But he begins to notice some stuff in the local legends that recalls some of the things he'd been reading earlier.  Specifically a centuries-old account of a haunted area of the woods near Brichester, where weird drumming and cries and roars are heard, and one local yokel apparently fell under the spell of a one-eyed puple people eater.  Allegedly a Sir Gilbert Morley, who was prone to "dark practices" came and took purple people eater away.

Along the way to Scott's place, he discovers a lot of the yokels still believe in something called "The Toad of Berkley", an evil thingie which was kept at bay by star-shaped symbols - not The Cross.  How very odd!

 Well back at Scott's he talks about how he'd like to check out Morley's castle, which is supposed to be in the vicinity.  Scott encourages him not to do so, saying that these old legends are not to be so easily dismissed and there is something up there.  Parry rudely ridicules him and the next day he's off to the castle, to which Scott has begrudgingly given him directions.

Most of its crumbled but he does find his way into the dungeons, where he finds a cube covered in black crud, which he wipes off to discover a bunch of symbols like the ones he found in The Necronomicon.  

But oops!  By picking up that cube he broke the enchantment keeping the thing Morley trapped in the dungeons - Byatis - the serpent-bearded (so named cuz he's got a face full of tentacles), who starts poking out his tentacles trying to grab Parry, who wisely gets his ass out of there, realizing that Morley had stuck Byatis under the castle wherein he/it had grown so huge he couldn't get out!

Pretty slight stuff from Campbell, an amalgam of Lovecraft pastiche, "The Shunned House" and a bit of M.R. James thrown in for good measure.  The James touch is the best part of it and what just slightly elevates this one above the completely banal.  Campbell was an amateur who would become a professional and Derleth saw that.  Nonetheless this is probably the least of the stories in this early Campbell collection.

"The Hunt"

By Henry Kuttner

 Originally published Strange Stories, June 1939  

Alvin Doyle, a crooked little creep, has sought out his cousin Will Benson, with the intent of bumping him off.  It seems Benson is heir to a fortune, and Alvin is the next in line.  If Benson goes...

Well fortunately (sorta) Will Benson is a froot loop who lives in an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere and spends all his time studying creepy old occult books and trying to conjure up spooks.  And Alvin arrives, with a gun in his pants, just in time to help out Will in the process of calling up Iod, Hunter of Souls.

Well they go through the process until Alvin sees an opportunity and shoots Will, steals a bunch of stuff, messes things up so it looks like burglars broke in, and takes off, dreaming of his big fat inheritance to come.

Buuut, he gets so tired he pulls over and falls asleep in his car.  And dreams he's back in the cabin, having just killed Will, and a glowing green shape and some black, ropy thing are coming toward him.

He tries to run away and finds himself in an alien world, of crystalline shapes, and then another, a forest of living plants, and then a coliseum full of monsters, then a planet of black goop, then a planet of hard earth, then ice or glass, and finally an alien city full of monstrosities.  All the time pursued by the glowing shape.

He wakes up in his car.  Momentarily relieved, unti he sees the glow is still after him, and now he's definitely not dreaming.  He gets a good look at the glowing shape, which is so horrible it takes Kuttner three adjective-laden paragraphs to not actually describe it.  In any case it sucks Alvin's soul out, which leaves his body lifeless but his consciousness still in it.  Which means he gets to experience being found, pronounced dead, and buried.

Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

This isn't a bad story but its a bit slight.  It's as much as crime story as it is supernatural horror, and written as such, which makes it kind of an odd and interesting hybrid.  There's not a lot to it and Kuttner was still finding his legs with handling some of the more Lovecraft-y touches, but it's a fun read.

"The Invaders"

By Henry Kuttner  

Originally published 

Strange Stories, February 1939   

Michael Hayward is a writer.  Actually he's a riff off H.P. Lovecraft himself.  His friend Gene, a reporter and a mutual friend have come to visit him at his cottage near Santa Barbara.  And man are the seagull's noisy.  

Well the visit gets weird as Hayward is really agitated, and says he's being attacked.  Things get weirder when Gene grabs what he thinks is a weird vine outside the window and it pulls itself away from him.  It seems Hayward's place has been under siege by these things, which hang out and screetch like weird birds, and look like - well, I dunno, Kuttner describes them as obnoxious and gross beach ball monsters.  He confesses he thinks he attracted these things via his use of a drug that allows him to vividly re-experience past lives, including pre-human lives, and that its the events that he experienced under the influence that allowed him to come up with his stories.

He also tells Bill and Gene its not safe to leave.  

Well the beach balls lay siege to the house, freaking everyone out and eventually chomping down Bill before Hayward remembers an incantation that sends them back.  Then he tosses the drug into the sea.

(which doesn't sound like such a great plan)

This is a lively and entertaining little tale but Kuttner doesn't quite get the tension of the men hiding in a house under siege by alien beasties.  Also said beasties come off more comical than scary the way Kuttner describes them.  Not bad though.