The Ghostwritings, Vol. 3 by H.P. Lovecraft

Book Details

The Ghostwritings, Vol. 3 – H.P. Lovecraft was a “revisionist” i.e. editor and ghostwriter for several other writers during his lifetime. This volume of his ghostwriting centers on his work done for Zealia Bishop.

The Curse of Yig (1929)
A blood-chilling rattlesnake story—a thrilling weird tale of Indian superstition and American pioneers

Medusa’s Coil (1930)
A powerful and compelling tale of brooding horror that deepens and broadens to the final catastrophe

The Mound (1930)
Darkness and Gold … and a Timeless Underworld
A shuddery tale of a world so devilish and old that men refused to even speak of it.
A seven chapter novella.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is probably the most influential horror writer of all time. A large number of horror writers, both his contemporaries and modern writers acknowledge his fundamental influence.

Files:

1. Lovecraft-GhostwritingsVol3.epub

Excerpt: Medusa’s Coil

THE drive toward Cape Girardeau had been through unfamiliar country, and as the late afternoon light grew golden and half dream-like I realized that I must have directions if I expected to reach the town before night. I did not care to be wandering about these bleak southern Missouri lowlands after dark, for roads were poor and the November cold rather formidable in an open roadster. Black clouds, too, were massing on the horizon; so I looked about among the long gray and blue shadows that streaked the flat, brownish fields, hoping to glimpse some house where I might get the needed information.

It was a lonely and deserted country, but at last I spied a roof among a clump of trees near the small river on my right; perhaps a full half-mile from the road, and probably reachable by some path or drive upon which I would presently come. In the absence of any nearer dwelling, I resolved to try my luck there; and was glad when the bushes by the roadside revealed the ruin of a carved stone gateway, covered with dry, dead vines and choked with undergrowth which explained why I had not been able to trace the path across the fields in my first distant view. I saw that I could not drive the car in; so I parked it very carefully near the gate—where a thick evergreen would shield it in case of rain—and got out for the long walk to the house.

Traversing that brush-grown path in the gathering twilight I was conscious of a distinct sense of foreboding, probably induced by the air of sinister decay hovering about the gate and the former driveway. From the carvings on the old stone pillars I inferred that this place was once an estate of manorial dignity; and I could clearly see that the driveway had originally boasted guardian lines of linden trees, some of which had died, while others had lost their special identity among the wild scrub growths of the region.

As I plowed onward, cockleburrs and stickers clung to my clothes, and I began to wonder whether the place could be inhabited after all. Was I tramping on a vain errand? For a moment I was tempted to go back and try some farm farther along the road, when a view of the house ahead aroused my curiosity and stimulated my venturesome spirit.

There was something provocatively fascinating in the tree-girt, decrepit pile before me, for it spoke of the graces and spaciousness of a bygone era and a far more southerly environment. It was a typical wooden plantation house of the classic, early Nineteenth Century pattern, with two and a half stories and a great Ionic portico whose pillars reached up as far as the attic and supported a triangular pediment. Its state of decay was extreme and obvious: one of the vast columns having rotted and fallen to the ground, while the upper piazza or balcony had sagged dangerously low. Other buildings, I judged, had formerly stood near it.

As I mounted the broad stone steps to the low porch and the carved and four-lighted doorway I felt distinctly nervous, and started to light a cigarette —desisting when I saw how dry and inflammable everything about me was. Though now convinced that the house was deserted, I nevertheless hesitated to violate its dignity without knocking; so I tugged at the rusty iron knocker until I could get it to move, and finally set up a cautious rapping which seemed to make the whole place shake and rattle. There was no response; yet once more I plied the cumbrous, creaking device, as much to dispel the sense of unholy silence and solitude as to arouse any possible occupant of the ruin.

Somewhere near the river I heard the mournful note of a dove, and it seemed as if the coursing water itself were faintly audible. Half in a dream, I seized and rattled the ancient latch, and finally gave the great six-paneled door a frank trying. It was unlocked, as I could see in a moment; and though it stuck and grated on its hinges I began to push it open, stepping through it into a vast shadowy hall as I did so.

But the moment I took this step I regretted it. It was not that a legion of specters confronted me in that dim and dusty hall with the ghostly Empire furniture, but that I knew at once that the place was not deserted after all. There was a creaking on the great curved staircase, and the sound of faltering footsteps slowly descending. Then I saw a tall, bent figure silhouetted for an instant against the great Palladian window on the landing.

MY FIRST terror was soon over, and as the figure descended the final flight I was ready to greet the householder whose privacy I had invaded. In the semi-darkness I could see him reach into his pocket for a match. There came a flare as he lighted a small kerosene lamp which stood on a rickety console table near the foot of the stairs. The feeble glow revealed the stooping figure of a very tall, emaciated old man, disordered in dress and unshaven as to face, yet for all that with the bearing and expression of a gentleman.

I did not wait for him to speak, but at once began to explain my presence.

“You’ll pardon my coming in like this, but when my knocking didn’t raise anybody I concluded that no one lived here. I wanted to know the shortest road to Cape Girardeau. I wanted to get there before dark, but now, of course—”

As I paused, the man spoke, in exactly the cultivated tone I had expected, and with a mellow accent as unmistakably Southern as the house he inhabited.

“Rather, you must pardon me for not answering your knock more promptly. I live in a very retired way, and am not usually expecting visitors. At first I thought you were a mere curiosity-seeker. When you knocked again I started to answer, but I am not well and have to move very slowly, owing to spinal neuritis—very troublesome case.

“As for your getting to town before dark—you can’t do that. The road you are on isn’t the best or shortest way. What you must do is to take the first real road to your left after you leave the gate. There are three or four cart-paths you can ignore, but you can’t mistake the real road because of the large willow tree on the right just opposite it.

“When once you’ve turned, keep on past two roads and turn to the right along the third. After that—”

Perplexed by these elaborate directions, confusing indeed to a total stranger, I could not help interrupting.

“Please, how can I follow all these clues in pitch-darkness, without ever having been near here before, and with only an indifferent pair of headlights to tell me what is and what isn’t a road? Besides, I think it’s going to storm pretty soon, and my car is an open one. It looks as if I were in a bad fix if I want to get to Cape Girardeau tonight. The fact is, I don’t think I’d better try. I don’t like to impose, but in view of the circumstances, do you suppose you could put me up for the night? I won’t be any trouble. Just let me have a corner to sleep in till daylight, and I’m all right. I can leave the car in the road where it is; wet weather won’t hurt it.”

As I made my sudden request I could see the old man’s face lose its former expression of quiet resignation and take on an odd, surprised look.

“Sleep here?”

He seemed so astonished at my request that I repeated it.

“Yes, why not? I assure you I won’t be any trouble. What else can I do? I’m a stranger hereabouts, these roads are a labyrinth in the dark, and I’ll wager it’ll be raining torrents inside of an hour—”

This time it was my host’s turn to interrupt, and as he did so I could feel a peculiar quality in his deep, musical voice.

“A stranger—of course you must be, else you wouldn’t think of sleeping here; wouldn’t think of coming here at all. People don’t come here nowadays.”

He paused, and my desire to stay was increased a thousandfold by the sense of mystery his laconic words seemed to evoke. There was something queer about this place, and the pervasive musty smell seemed to cloak a thousand secrets. Again I noticed the extreme decrepitude of everything about me; manifest even in the feeble rays of the single small lamp. I felt woefully chilly, and saw with regret that no heating seemed to be provided; yet so great was my curiosity that I still wished most ardently to stay and learn something of the recluse and his dismal abode.

“You may stay if you really wish to; you can come to no harm that I know of. Others claim there are certain peculiarly undesirable influences here. As for me, I stay because I have to.”

Excerpt From: H.P. Lovecraft. “The Ghostwritings, Vol. 3.”