He didn’t hear or see me until I had leaped forward to swing that gate shut upon him and snap the lock. The most horrible part of it was that his chant didn’t even stop as he rushed at me, clawing, with a whitish sort of foam around his mouth. He crashed into the gate, tugged furiously at it… and then his chant turned into a sickening gurgle of terror as he quite suddenly realized what was going to happen. He sank down just within the tunnel, groveling in stark fear. I think his mind snapped, for soon his cries reverted again to an incoherent gibberish, like the memory of a horrible language long dead.
I waited there until I was very sure I heard—coming swiftly nearer down the tunnel—that surging primordial horror.
I have destroyed, of course, the book which Bruce was reading on that last night. And I, myself, may someday forget most of those excerpts at which I glanced. But never the one which read: “…whomsoever be attracted unto Them (by ye nefarious ynfluence wych They project when invoked), doth remain forever a part of Them, nott dead, but new and oddly bodied, instructing ye very grounds…”
I have said it was ten seconds that were ten eternities, there in the darkness of that passage, but my mind was numbed then. It is the horrible remembering later…
If there be gods, I pray to them to set my brain at rest. And as surely as there be things of evil, I pray to them to let me forget. But neither prayer is answered, so I must still remember that writhing, surging thing of iridescent evil, all shapes and yet shapeless… that primal, quasi-amorphous thing that moved as worms move… that sightless mass, not complete of itself, but with the power to draw men to it.
That much I could forget. That much would not make me dream, or wake up screaming with an awful fear of the dark.
But those dim faces that peered from out of it; that were now eternally part of it, still horribly alive and wide-eyed with the terrible anguish of knowing… those human faces that could not speak, could only implore in silent agony that I destroy them and this thing that should not be… those distorted faces enmeshed and enfolded in the confluent parts of that blasphemous thing, those faces among which I saw, dimly but surely, that of my friend, Bruce Tarleton…
OUT OF THE JAR
BY CHARLES R. TANNER
WE ALL HAVE FRIENDS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE STUFFED INTO a jar… don’t deny it… it has been that way since time began… So be a little careful next time you pick up a little jar at the knickknack counter at your hospital bazaar… be sure it’s empty…
I am presenting here, at the insistence of my friend, James Francis Denning, an account of an event or series of events which, he says, occurred to him during the late summer and early fall of 1940. I do so, not because I concur in the hope which Denning has that it may arouse serious investigation of the phenomena he claims took place, but merely that a statement of those phenomena may be placed on record, as a case history for future students of occult phenomena or—psychology. Personally, I am still unpersuaded under which head this narration should be placed.
Were my mind one of those which accepts witches, vampires and werewolves in the general scheme of things, I would not doubt for a moment the truth of Denning’s tale, for certainly the man believes it himself; and his lack of imagination and matter-of-fact mode of living up until the time of the occurrence speak strongly in his favor. And then too, there is the mental breakdown of the brilliant young Edward Barnes Halpin, as added evidence. This young student of occult history and the vague lesser known cults and religions was a fairly close acquaintance of Denning’s for years, and it was at Denning’s home that he suffered the stroke which made him the listless, stricken thing that he is today. That much is fact and can be attested to by any number of people. As to Denning’s explanation, I can only say that it deserves a thorough investigation. If there is any truth in it at all, the truth should certainly be verified and recorded. And so, to the story.
* * *
It began, Denning says, in the summer of last year, when he attended a sale disposing of the stock of one of those little secondhand stores that call themselves antique shops and are known to most people as junk shops. There was the usual hodge-podge of Indian curios, glassware, Victorian furniture and old books; and Denning attended it as he did every event of this kind, allowing himself to indulge in the single vice which he had—that of filling his home with a stock of cheap and useless curios from all parts of the world.
At this particular sale he emerged triumphantly with a carved elephant tusk, an Alaskan medicine man’s mask and—an earthenware jar. This jar was a rather ordinary thing, round-bodied, with a very short cylindrical neck and with a glazed band around its center, blue glaze, with curious angular characters in yellow that even the rather illiterate Denning could see bore a certain relation to Greek characters. The auctioneer called it very old, said it was Syriac or Samaritan and called attention to the seal which was affixed to the lid. This lid was of earthenware similar to the jar and was set in the mouth after the manner of a cork and a filling of what seemed to be hard-baked clay sealed it in. And on this baked clay, or whatever it was, had been stamped a peculiar design—two triangles interwoven to form a six-pointed star, with three unknown characters in the center. Although the auctioneer was as ignorant as Denning as to the real significance of this seal, he made a mystery of it and Denning was hooked. He bought the thing and brought it home, where it found a place, in spite of his wife’s objections, on the mantle in the living room.
And there it rested, in a questionable obscurity, for a matter of four or five months. I say questionable obscurity, for as near as I can gather it was the bone of contention, during most of that time, between Denning and his wife. It was but natural, I think, that this estimable lady should object to having the best room in their little home filled with what were to her a mass of useless objects. Yet nothing was done about it. In the light of Denning’s story of subsequent events, it seems almost incredible that that frightful thing could sit there, day after day, in that commonplace living room, being taken down and dusted now and then, and carelessly placed back.
Yet such was the case, and such remained the case until the first visit of young Halpin. This young man was an acquaintance of Denning’s of long standing, and their friendship had been slowly ripening during the last year, owing to the fact that Halpin was able to add much to Denning’s knowledge of the curios which he accumulated. Both of them worked for the same company and seeing each other every day, it was not unusual that they had become quite friendly in spite of the fact that neither had ever visited the other’s home. But Denning’s description of certain carvings on the elephant’s tusk which he had bought interested young Halpin sufficiently to cause him to pay a visit to Denning’s home to make a personal examination of the tusk.
Halpin, at this time, was still under thirty, yet he had become already a recognized authority in this country of that queer borderland of mystic occult study that Churchward, Fort, Lovecraft and the Miskatonic school represent. His articles on some of the obscure chapters of d’Erlette’s Cultes des Goules has been accepted favorably by American occult students, as well as his translations of the hitherto expurgated sections of the Gaelic Leabhar Mor Dubh. In all, he was a most promising student and one in whom the traits of what now seem to have been incipient dementia praecox were conspicuous by their absence. Indeed, one of his strongest characteristics, Denning tells me, was a pronounced interest in almost everything about him.