"The Lurker At The Threshold"

by August Derleth
originally published Arkham House, 1945



In 1921, Ambrose Dewart takes inheritance of a property near Arkham; an old house with some heavy, overgrown woods surrounding it and, nearby, a stone tower on a small island in the middle of a dried-up stream.  The place has been abandoned for a century or more, since the owner, Alijah Billington, took his son Laban and split for England, where he faded into obscurity.

The house is old but grand.  It has a two-story high study, with a large window of multicolored glass set in high in one wall.

Among other things, Dewart's inheritance of the property includes instructions passed down from Alijah not to do anything to change the window.  He is also not to stop water running around the island with the tower (too late!), "molest the tower"(?!!) "entreat of the stones" (??) "open the door which leads to strange time and place" (???).

Dewart finds the area strange, and learns of some dark secrets in the Billington past.  Between Laban's diary (kept when he was 9, 10, and 11 years old, prior to his permanent vacation in England), papers found in the house and investigations in the Arkham newspaper's archives, Dewart learns that:

• Sometime during the Colonial era, a Richard Billington, who apparently founded the property, set up "a great Ring of Stones" where he said "Prayers to ye Devil" and "sung certain Rites of Magick abominable by Scripture". After a series of mysterious deaths were linked to him, he disappeared, and was said by the local Indians to have been "eat up by what he had call'd out of ye Sky."  
• Richard B seems to have had some truck with a Wampanaugh indian named Misquamacus.
•  Alijah Billington, who inherited the estate, also was accused of practicing sorcery - an accusation he fervently denied, and which led to a feud with the Rev. Ward Phillips, author of  Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-English Canaan, which, among other things, repeats the story and accusations against Richard B.  This feud ends when another accuser, John Druven, ends up dead - mutilated!
• Thaumaturgical Prodigies relates an encounter with a bat-like monster, related to the case of Richard B.
• Alijah also kept a Native American servant named Quamis, who seems to have been up to some Nyarlathotep-related funny business.
• Over the years, particularly during the witchcraft accusations, horrible sounds have been heard coming from the woods at night, and sometimes it gives off an eerie glow.  The worst of these cease after Alijah leaves, but the area is still extremely noisy at night due to an unusually large population of whippoorwhills and frogs, and enough fireflies to make the place still glow in the dark.

Ambrose explores the property.  He finds it at times oppressive and unsettling.  He explores the remains of the tower, and discovers it lines up perfectly with the house, and the colored glass window.  He drives into Dunwich, where he finds the locals inbred, ignorant, and weirdly ugly.  They also seem to be slightly afraid of him when they learn who he is, and who is descended from.  Some inquiries about the local Native American tribes leads him to a very old woman named Bishop, who seems a little off, but also wise.  She tells him Alijah had knowledge of "Magick and Elder rote", and "them from outside", of rituals with screaming and hellish music, and something Alijah could call and send, something that's waiting to get back in "so It can come out an' go among the hills agin".  Finally unnerved, Dewart takes his leave. As he goes, he hears the old woman chanting, her chant including the names of Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth.

One night, Dewart awakes, and, wandering the house, seems to see faces and flowing shapes in the colored-glass window.  Climbing up to look through it, he thinks he sees something flying around the tower in the distance.  Soon after a mutilated body turns up in the area, apparently having been dropped from the sky.

Going through some family papers belonging to his parents, Dewarts finds some letters from a Jonathan Bishop to Alijah.  These letters describe a late-night encounter with an encounter with a dark-winged, tentacled thing which Biship managed to (barely) contain and control with magic, and which claimed to be from Kadath, and several other such encounters and rituals involving Cthulhoid monsters.  It is clear that Bishop saw Alijah as some kind of mentor in some particularly dark and Mythos-y magic.

Dewart begins to have strange dreams about the tower and the woods.  He finds evidence these may not have been dreams.  Another mutilated body turns up.  A frightened Dewart summons his cousin, Stephen Bates, from Boston.  But he has some misgivings about doing so, for reasons even he's unsure of.


Stephen arrives from Boston.  He finds Dewart's behavior odd - at times welcoming, at times clearly un-welcoming.  The house itself radiates oppression and evil.  He catches Dewart apparently sleepwalking - in a white robe.  He also catches Dewart in trance-like states at night, babbling various Cthuloid things.  The police are coming around asking questions - it seems the strange noises have started again.  Stephen talks to an old correspondent in Arkham, Dr. Seneca Lapham, and studies Dewart's found papers, thus beginning to put together the story of Alijah and Richard Billington.  One evening while reading through the occult books (one of which is transcriptions of sections of the Necronomicon), he sees a weird, tentacled face in the multipaned window.  When he looks through it for more careful observation, he sees a scene of another world, and bat-winged and tentacled monstrosities approaching.

Stephen and Dewart check out the tower again.  It seems to affect Dewart strangely.  That night he goes out again.  The next morning Stephen finds the prints of an enormous, weird animal in the snow.  Stephen stops in town and talks to Mrs. Bishop, who has more cryptic references to "the Master" and Things From Outside. The frogs make abnormal amounts of noise (Stephen has the superhuman ability to identify each species by their call, even among the din of their noise).  Dewart continues to act strangely, and after one night at the tower, returns, with company.  An indian named Quamis...

Stephen, now being a bit freaked out, visits Dr. Lapham again and lays all of the paperwork and a written account of his experiences since coming out to Dewart's new (old) pad.  Lapham's assistant, Winfield Phillips, who now takes over as narrator, thinks Stephen's a crank.  But Dr. Lapham isn't so sure.  He explains the entire Cthulhu Mythos (Derleth version) to Phillips - over the course of six tiresome pages.

He also puts together the painfully obvious puzzle pieces Stephen and Dewart never managed to - Richard apparently had considerable truck with the Mythos-ers.  So much that he became not only a powerful wizard, but something of a Great Old One himself.  He summoned Something from Outside which he could (mostly) control.  Having passed into some other state, he influenced the mind of his descendant, Alijah, to follow in his footsteps.  Alijah released the thing from Outside, but, realizing he could not adequately control it, sealed it behind the door (as best he could) and fled.  His peculiar instructions were intended to ensure that said door remained shut.  Dewart, now also under the influence of Richard, has now opened that door again.   

Having finally shut his trap, Lapham soon learns that Stephen has disappeared.  Oops!  Lapham and Winfield head out to the stone tower that night, and, catching Dewart and Quamis in the act, put an end to it - that is, they shoot Dewart and Quamis (Quamis basically disintegrates when shot, being as he's been dead for a long time, or something)(Dewart leaves a body behind, which doesn't seem to be much of an inconvenience to Lapham and Winfield, somehow).  They seal off the gate - and just in time - as Winfield reveals in a long italicized paragraph, Dewart had been seconds away from unleashing Yog-Sothoth upon the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lurker At the Threshold is the first of the Derleth's "posthumous collaborations", incorporating text from three unfinished fragments HPL had left around, with the plot being pretty much Derleth's, inspired by the fragments.  It is also far and away the best.  In fact, Lurker, I have to say, is surprisingly good - this time around.  Unfortunately it also ends up a big fizzle in the final third.  Allow me to elaborate.

First, I'm not a big fan of the "collaborations".  I'm less troubled over the credit/byline issue that infuriates so many Lovecraft fans - my real problem is that the bulk of the 16 stories are either not-very-good or outright bad (although several of them are entertaining enough if not taken too seriously). 

Second, re-reading Lurker for this blog marks my third go-round.  In fact I have a vivid and fond memory of starting it in English class, after finals, my sophomore years in high school.  I gave it a second go in the early 90's, and now this.  And, frankly, except for the portions from Laban's diary, almost nothing about the novel had stayed with me in any way.  This read was almost like encountering it for the first time and, frankly, it's been a pleasure.  One of the reasons I've written such a detailed synopsis is to help me remember the book for future reference.

The novel is divided almost neatly into thirds. The first portion, "Billington's Wood" is as effective a Lovecraftian tale as I've read.  Not only is is suspenseful, spooky and even gripping in the same way as the best Lovecraft stories, it reads like Lovecraft - so much so that for years it was thought that HPL himself actually had written this first third.  It turns out that was not the case - it was almost entirely written by Derleth.  It's full of eerie moments - the mounting mystery of the house, the stone tower and Richard/Alijah Billington (even though the nature of the mystery is pretty obvious long before the second part of the novel,  to cut A.D. a little slack, it can be assumed that his likely readers might not have the weight of 65+ years of Cthulhu Mythos cliches on their shoulders at the time of Lurker's publication); the meeting with Mrs. Bishop, in which the tropes of the mythos actually manage to take on the resonance and chill they deserve, and several other strong moments.  Even Joshi admits that Lurker "begins well".

The second section, Stephen Bates' manuscript, is oddly different in tone.  This reads more like Derleth imitating Lovecraft, than like HPL hisself.  And while it's entertaining in a spooky way, it's less imaginative.  I would call it a transitional section - fair enough.

Which makes part three - Winfield Phillips' story, frustrating and doubly disappointing.  This section reads like BAD Derleth.  Winfield comes off as a twit.  Lapham as a tiresome bore (though not as insufferable as Lumely's similar Titus Crow).  Laundry lists of Mytho-y names, and lists of Mythos-y book titles, comparisons to other ancient religions, a long section on Charles Fort(!!) - all of this goes on for most of this sections 40+ pages.  

Then comes an all-too-hurried wrap-up.  Lapham and Winfield seem never to be in any danger as they interrupt the black ceremony, and Lapham's whole plan goes off without a hitch.  The (presumably) law-abiding Miskatonic prof and his secretary seem laughably blase about gunning down Dewart (as opposed to removing him forcefully from the house and grounds and trying to save him - though perhaps Derleth means to suggest that it's too late for that - I'm not clear).  Afterwards, they bury the body, noting that people will just figure Dewart's disappearance was in line with the other recent disappearances.  Like I said, I guess Aug never watched CSI or Law and Order.

Also humorous is the fact that, having been witness to the sight of Yoggie hisself trying to ooze through a hole in reality, Lapham and Winfield still have the organization and composure to quickly and efficiently bury Dewart, seal the gate, pack their stuff and take off.

All of this goes a long way towards refreshing my memory as to why I had so little memory of the events of Lurker - cuz after a great buildup, it runs out of gas real fast.  But damn - it really is a great buildup.

rated slightly higher because the first third is so strong, and slightly lower because the last third is so weak