The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection (Xist Classics)

by H. P. Lovecraft

  By this time I was certainly mad, for I called out to it, “Moore, Moore, for God’s sake, what do you want?” When I did so, the creature suddenly ceased its circling, flew toward me, and made a low, graceful dip in the air, somehow suggestive of a bow. Then it flew back to the book. At least, I seemed to see it do all this—though I am trusting my senses no longer.

  And then the worst thing happened. I had left my door open, hoping the monster would leave if I could not catch it; but about 11:30 I shut the door, concluding it had gone. Then I settled down to read. Just at noon I felt a tickling on the back of my neck, but when I put my hand up nothing was there. In a moment I felt the tickling again—and before I could move, that nameless spawn of hell sailed into view from behind, did another of those mocking, graceful dips in the air, and flew out through the keyhole—which I had never dreamed was large enough to allow its passage.

  That the thing had touched me, I could not doubt. It had touched me without injuring me—and then I remembered in a sudden cold fright that Moore had been bitten on the back of the neck at noon. No invasion since then—but I have stuffed all the keyholes with paper and shall have a folded paper ready for use whenever I open the door to leave or enter.

  Jan. 20—I cannot yet believe fully in the supernatural, yet I fear none the less that I am lost. The business is too much for me. Just before noon today that devil appeared outside the window and repeated its beating operations; but this time in series of three. When I went to the window it flew off out of sight. I still have resolution enough to take one more defensive step. Removing both window-screens, I coated them with my sticky preparation—the one I used in the inkwell—outside and inside, and set them back in place. If that creature attempts another tattoo, it will be its last!

  Rest of the day in peace. Can I weather this experience without becoming a maniac?

  Jan. 21—On board train for Bloemfontein.

  I am routed. The thing is winning. It has a diabolic intelligence against which all my devices are powerless. It appeared outside the window this morning, but did not touch the sticky screen. Instead, it sheered off without lighting and began buzzing around in circles—two at a time, followed by a pause in the air. After several of these performances it flew off out of sight over the roofs of the city. My nerves are just about at the breaking-point, for these suggestions of numbers are capable of a hideous interpretation. Monday the thing dwelt on the figure five; Tuesday it was four; Wednesday it was three; and now today it is two. Five, four, three, two—what can this be save some monstrous and unthinkable counting-off of days? For what purpose, only the evil powers of the universe can know. I spent all the afternoon packing and arranging about my trunks, and now I have taken the night express for Bloemfontein. Flight may be useless, but what else can one do?

  Jan. 22—Settled at the Orange Hotel, Bloemfontein—a comfortable and excellent place—but the horror followed me. I had shut all the doors and windows, stopped all the keyholes, looked for any possible chinks, and pulled down all the shades—but just before noon I heard a dull tap on one of the window-screens. I waited—and after a long pause another tap came. A second pause, and still another single tap. Raising the shade, I saw that accursed fly, as I had expected. It described one large, slow circle in the air, and then flew out of sight. I was left as weak as a rag, and had to rest on the couch. One! This was clearly the burden of the monster’s present message. One tap, one circle. Did this mean one more day for me before some unthinkable doom? Ought I to flee again, or entrench myself here by sealing up the room?

  After an hour’s rest I felt able to act, and ordered a large reserve supply of canned and packaged food—also linen and towels—sent in. Tomorrow I shall not under any circumstances open any crevice of door or window. When the food and linen came the black looked at me queerly, but I no longer care how eccentric—or insane—I may appear. I am hounded by powers worse than the ridicule of mankind. Having received my supplies, I went over every square millimeter of the walls, and stopped up every microscopic opening I could find. At last I feel able to get real sleep.

  [Handwriting here becomes irregular, nervous, and very difficult to decipher.]

  Jan. 23—It is just before noon, and I feel that something very terrible is about to happen. Didn’t sleep as late as I expected, even though I got almost no sleep on the train the night before. Up early, and have had trouble getting concentrated on anything—reading or writing. That slow, deliberate counting-off of days is too much for me. I don’t know which has gone wild—Nature or my head. Until about eleven I did very little except walk up and down the room.

  Then I heard a rustle among the food packages brought in yesterday, and that daemoniac fly crawled out before my eyes. I grabbed something flat and made passes at the thing despite my panic fear, but with no more effect than usual. As I advanced, that blue-winged horror retreated as usual to the table where I had piled my books, and lit for a second on Moore’s Diptera of Central and Southern Africa. Then as I followed, it flew over to the mantel clock and lit on the dial near the figure 12. Before I could think up another move it had begun to crawl around the dial very slowly and deliberately—in the direction of the hands. It passed under the minute hand, curved down and up, passed under the hour hand, and finally came to a stop exactly at the figure 12. As it hovered there it fluttered its wings with a buzzing noise.

  Is this a portent of some sort? I am getting as superstitious as the blacks. The hour is now a little after eleven. Is twelve the end? I have just one last resort, brought to my mind through utter desperation. Wish I had thought of it before. Recalling that my medicine case contains both of the substances necessary to generate chlorine gas, I have resolved to fill the room with that lethal vapour—asphyxiating the fly while protecting myself with an ammonia-sealed handkerchief tied over my face. Fortunately I have a good supply of ammonia. This crude mask will probably neutralise the acrid chlorine fumes till the insect is dead—or at least helpless enough to crush. But I must be quick. How can I be sure that the thing will not suddenly dart for me before my preparations are complete? I ought not to be stopping to write in this journal.

  Later—Both chemicals—hydrochloric acid and manganese dioxide—on the table all ready to mix. I’ve tied the handkerchief over my nose and mouth, and have a bottle of ammonia ready to keep it soaked until the chlorine is gone. Have battened down both windows. But I don’t like the actions of that hybrid daemon. It stays on the clock, but is very slowly crawling around backward from the 12 mark to meet the gradually advancing minute-hand.

  Is this to be my last entry in this journal? It would be useless to try to deny what I suspect. Too often a grain of incredible truth lurks behind the wildest and most fantastic of legends. Is the personality of Henry Moore trying to get at me through this blue-winged devil? Is this the fly that bit him, and that in consequence absorbed his consciousness when he died? If so, and if it bites me, will my own personality displace Moore’s and enter that buzzing body when I die of the bite later on? Perhaps, though, I need not die even if it gets me. There is always a chance with tryparsamide. And I regret nothing. Moore had to die, be the outcome what it will.

  Slightly later.

  The fly has paused on the clock-dial near the 45-minute mark. It is now 11:30. I am saturating the handkerchief over my face with ammonia, and keeping the bottle handy for further applications. This will be the final entry before I mix the acid and manganese and liberate the chlorine. I ought not to be losing time, but it steadies me to get things down on paper. But for this record, I’d have lost all my reason long ago. The fly seems to be getting restless, and the minute-hand is approaching it. Now for the chlorine. . . .

  [End of the journal]

  On Sunday, Jan. 24, 1932, after repeated knocking had failed to gain any response from the eccentric man in Room 303 of the Orange Hotel, a black attendant entered with a pass key and at once fled shrieking downstairs to tell the clerk what he had found. The clerk, after notifying the poli
ce, summoned the manager; and the latter accompanied Constable De Witt, Coroner Bogaert, and Dr. Van Keulen to the fatal room.

  The occupant lay dead on the floor—his face upward, and bound with a handkerchief which smelled strongly of ammonia. Under this covering the features shewed an expression of stark, utter fear which transmitted itself to the observers On the back of the neck Dr. Van Keulen found a virulent insect bite—dark red, with a purple ring around it—which suggested a tsetse-fly or something less innocuous. An examination indicated that death must be due to heart-failure induced by sheer fright rather than to the bite—though a subsequent autopsy indicated that the germ of trypanosomiasis had been introduced into the system.

  On the table were several objects—a worn leather blank-book containing the journal just described, a pen, writing-pad, and open inkwell, a doctor’s medicine case with the initials “T. S.” marked in gold, bottles of ammonia and hydrochloric acid, and a tumbler about a quarter full of black manganese dioxide. The ammonia bottle demanded a second look because something besides the fluid seemed to be in it. Looking closer, Coroner Bogaert saw that the alien occupant was a fly.

  It seemed to be some sort of hybrid with vague tsetse affiliations, but its wings—shewing faintly blue despite the action of the strong ammonia—were a complete puzzle. Something about it waked a faint memory of newspaper reading in Dr. Van Keulen—a memory which the journal was soon to confirm. Its lower parts seemed to have been stained with ink, so thoroughly that even the ammonia had not bleached them. Possibly it had fallen at one time into the inkwell, though the wings were untouched. But how had it managed to fall into the narrow-necked ammonia bottle? It was as if the creature had deliberately crawled in and committed suicide!

  But the strangest thing of all was what Constable De Witt noticed on the smooth white ceiling overhead as his eyes roved about curiously. At his cry the other three followed his gaze—even Dr. Van Keulen, who had for some time been thumbing through the worn leather book with an expression of mixed horror, fascination, and incredulity. The thing on the ceiling was a series of shaky, straggling ink-tracks, such as might have been made by the crawling of some ink-drenched insect. At once everyone thought of the stains on the fly so oddly found in the ammonia bottle.

  But these were no ordinary ink-tracks. Even a first glance revealed something hauntingly familiar about them, and closer inspection brought gasps of startled wonder from all four observers. Coroner Bogaert instinctively looked around the room to see if there were any conceivable instrument or arrangement of piled-up furniture which could make it possible for those straggling marks to have been drawn by human agency. Finding nothing of the sort, he resumed his curious and almost awestruck upward glance.

  For beyond a doubt these inky smudges formed definite letters of the alphabet—letters coherently arranged in English words. The doctor was the first to make them out clearly, and the others listened breathlessly as he recited the insane-sounding message so incredibly scrawled in a place no human hand could reach:

  “SEE MY JOURNAL—IT GOT ME FIRST—I DIED—THEN I SAW I WAS IN IT—THE BLACKS ARE RIGHT—STRANGE POWERS IN NATURE—NOW I WILL DROWN WHAT IS LEFT—”

  Presently, amidst the puzzled hush that followed, Dr. Van Keulen commenced reading aloud from the worn leather journal.

  Poetry An American to Mother England

  conquering

  Mother! by thy mighty hand

  Was carv’d from savage wilds my native land:

  Thy matchless sons the firm foundation laid;

  Thy matchless arts the nascent nation made:

  By thy just laws the young republic grew,

  And thro’ thy greatness, kindred greatness knew:

  What man that springs from thy untainted line

  But sees Columbia’s virtues all as thine?

  Whilst nameless multitudes upon our shore

  From the dim corners of creation pour,

  Whilst mongrel slaves crawl hither to partake

  Of Saxon liberty they could not make,

  From such an alien crew in grief I turn,

  And for the mother’s voice of Britain burn.

  England! Can aught remove the cherish’d chain

  That binds my spirit to thy blest domain?

  Can Revolution’s bitter precepts sway

  The soul that must the ties of race obey?

  Create a new Columbia if ye will;

  The flesh that forms me is Britannic still!

  Hail! oaken shades, and meads of dewy green,

  So oft in sleep, yet ne’er in waking seen.

  Peal out, ye ancient chimes, from vine-clad tow’r

  Where pray’d my fathers in a vanish’d hour:

  What countless years of rev’rence can ye claim

  From bygone worshippers that bore my name!

  Their forms are crumbling in the vaults around,

  Whilst I, across the sea, but dream the sound.

  Return, Sweet Vision! Let me glimpse again

  The stone-built abbey, rising o’er the plain;

  The neighb’ring village with its sun-show’r’d square;

  The shaded mill-stream, and the forest fair,

  The hedge-lin’d lane, that leads to rustic cot

  Where sweet contentment is the peasant’s lot;

  The mystic grove, by Druid wraiths possess’d,

  The flow’ring fields, with fairy-castles blest:

  And the old manor-house, sedate and dark,

  Set in the shadows of the wooded park.

  Can this be dreaming? Must my eyelids close

  That I may catch the fragrance of the rose?

  Is it in fancy that the midnight vale

  Thrills with the warblings of the nightingale?

  A golden moon bewitching radiance yields,

  And England’s fairies trip o’er England’s fields.

  England! Old England! in my love for thee

  No dream is mine, but blessed memory;

  Such haunting images and hidden fires

  Course with the bounding blood of British sires:

  From British bodies, minds, and souls I come,

  And from them draw the vision of their home.

  Awake, Columbia! scorn the vulgar age

  That bids thee slight thy lordly heritage.

  Let not the wide Atlantic’s wildest wave

  Burst the blest bonds that fav’ring Nature gave:

  Connecting surges ’twixt the nations run,

  Our Saxon souls dissolving into one!

  The Ancient Track

  There was no hand to hold me back

  That night I found the ancient track

  Over the hill, and strained to see

  The fields that teased my memory.

  This tree, that wall—I knew them well,

  And all the roofs and orchards fell

  Familiarly upon my mind

  As from a past not far behind.

  I knew what shadows would be cast

  When the late moon came up at last

  From back of Zaman’s Hill, and how

  The vale would shine three hours from now.

  And when the path grew steep and high,

  And seemed to end against the sky,

  I had no fear of what might rest

  Beyond that silhouetted crest.

  Straight on I walked, while all the night

  Grew pale with phosphorescent light,

  And wall and farmhouse gable glowed

  Unearthly by the climbing road.

  There was the milestone that I knew—

  “Two miles to Dunwich”—now the view

  Of distant spire and roofs would dawn

  With ten more upward paces gone. . . .

  There was no hand to hold me back

  That night I found the ancient track,

  And reached the crest to see outspread

  A valley of the lost and dead:

  And over Zaman’s Hill the horn

  Of a mal
ignant moon was born,

  To light the weeds and vines that grew

  On ruined walls I never knew.

  The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,

  And unknown waters spewed a fog

  Whose curling talons mocked the thought

  That I had ever known this spot.

  Too well I saw from the mad scene

  That my loved past had never been—

  Nor was I now upon the trail

  Descending to that long-dead vale.

  Around was fog—ahead, the spray

  Of star-streams in the Milky Way. . . .

  There was no hand to hold me back

  That night I found the ancient track.

  Arcadia

  By Head Balledup

  O give me the life of the village,

  Uninhibited, free, and sweet;

  The place where the arts all flourish,

  Grove Court and Christopher Street.

  I am sick of the old conventions,

  And critics who will not praise,

  So sing ho for the open spaces,

  And aesthetes with kindly ways.

  Here every bard is a genius,

  And artists are Raphaels,

  And above the roofs of Patchin Place

  The Muse of Talent dwells.

  Astrophobos

  In the midnight heavens burning

  Thro’ ethereal deeps afar,

  Once I watch’d with restless yearning

  An alluring, aureate star;

  Ev’ry eye aloft returning,

  Gleaming nigh the Arctic car.

  Mystic waves of beauty blended

  With the gorgeous golden rays;

  Phantasies of bliss descended

  In a myrrh’d Elysian haze;

  And in lyre-born chords extended

  Harmonies of Lydian lays.

  There (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,

  Where the free and blessed dwell,

  And each moment bears a treasure

  Freighted with a lotus-spell,