Off Topic: A Story Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft...

[Norrin_Radd]

I read my first H. P. Lovecraft story last week... Re-Animator. It's great stuff and I love the style of writing. It inspired my to come up with a story of my own told in the Lovecraft style. If you haven't read Re-Animator, read it first! It'll only get you in the mood for more creepy stories.

 

Here's the first installment...

 

 

On the evening of August 16th, 1893, the 8 o'clock train arrived in Baltimore. There was nothing of discerable import to the arrival, or even historical significance, save for the fact that it carried a certain passenger -- one Dr. Elias Goddard -- whose arrival would mark the beginning of one of the darkest periods in that fair city's history.

 

The doctor had been practicing medicine in Chicago, but had mysteriously decided to uproot his practice and move east -- the only reason he would state when pressed for one was that the winters were too harsh. Having kept up correspondence with a friend and fellow classmate from medical school, the doctor quickly found himself plenty of work at his collegue's medical practice. His main qualification being that he was willing to handle the patients that his fellow doctor did not particularly care to associate with -- chiefly those of ethnic or foreign lineage. By making use of himself in handling this overflow, Dr. Goddard soon had an income similar to that which he had left behind in Chicago. However, he grew tired of living in an urban hotel six blocks east of the office. The noise of his neighboring occupants and the din of traffic on the street below made studying his medical journals or getting a full night's sleep difficult. Thus motivated, he set about finding a house of his own in one of the quiet surrounding neighborhoods, away from the tumult of the city.

 

Ever-ready to exploit an opportunity, the good doctor saw one in the visage of one of his few prosperous patients -- a Mr. Oswald Lewis, who chose to see Dr. Goddard over his associate because the former had successfully treated one of his employees for pnuemonia and of whom Mr. Lewis was unusually fond. As fate would have it, Mr. Lewis was a widower without children and, thus, unencumbered by marital or familial obligations had thrown all of his energies into building up his merchant business -- and who also happened to dwell alone in a large house some 20 blocks east of downtown. When this same Mr. Lewis fell ill that winter, his physician made plans to relieve him of this earthly debt -- as well as his house. Through casual conversations with the merchant, he had learned that he had no use for lawyers having had unpleasant dealings with them in the past regarding a business dispute and had not made up any will. As such, the doctor knew that any property he had would be deemed the property of the city and auctioned off at an estate auction should Mr. Lewis die unexpectedly. It was thus a relatively simple matter to treat the patients illness in a manner which would produce the desired outcome for the doctor. The esteemed Mr. Lewis passed on the evening of December 4th. And there was a resulting auction of his residence the following month. Having only three thousand dollars in savings, the doctor did his best to disuade any potential bidders by posting several large signs on the property stating that there was some concern that the flu virus that claimed it's previous owners life may still be present at the location and be of danger to anyone who came into contact with it. The doctor had a representative of the bank tender his winning bid of $2400 at the rather poorly-attended auction.

 

Having procured suitable residence, the doctor set a new plan into action -- one for which he required some measure of assistance to prepare for. The cellar would need to be altered to render it apposite for his needs. The doctor would need to secure cheap labor that would work in private at his residence. He needed to find someone who would work for room and board and keep quiet about the work being done. Looking over the records of his medical practice, he saw that there were a couple of patients who might fit this bill but he decided against it and attempted to find a person who was completely unrelated to him and his activities. He took to spending his evenings in the bars and taverns of the city's waterfront area searching for the ideal applicant to offer the position to -- that being someone with a strong back and a weak will and someone who was alone in the world with no friends or family to inquire about his whereabouts and goingson. After a few weeks of searching, the doctor found his man. He was an unemployed Italian bricklayer whose family were still back in Italy. Only he and his brother had ventured to America looking for work and the brother had died in an industrial accident only a few years after having settled in Baltimore. Over drinks, the doctor stated that he was looking for someone to fix up his cellar and was offering free room and board in return. The bricklayer accepted the job on-the-spot believing himself to have gotten the better of the deal. That very night, he packed up his belongings from the ramshackle waterfront hotel where he had been sharing a room with three others and moved into the smallest of the upstairs bedrooms in the doctor's house, which was palatial by comparison.

 

The work went on for some months as the bricklayer was in no hurry for it to be finished and provide the with doctor no further reason to furnish him with room and board gratis. It was only when the doctor casually assured him that there was more work to be done on the house above-ground after the cellar's completion that the speed of the work improved somewhat. Although, the man's predilection for strong drink at all hours may have had as much to do with the indolent pace of the construction as any act of deliberation on the workman's part.

 

Then one evening when the job was done to the doctor's satisfaction, he invited his boarder to join him for a sumptious dinner. He offered a toast on the successful completion of the project and encouraged his guest to embibe generously of his fine liqour recently procured at great cost from a local vintner. But having gone about this task with too great a furvor, the bricklayer fell unconscious and lay sprawling on the doctor's oak floor after an hour's time. Far from being appalled at this odius display, the doctor knew full-well of his fellow inhabitant's inebriative tendencies and set about putting a previously-conceived plan into effect -- removing him with some effort from the dining room floor and carrying his unresponsive houseguest down into the cellar. Laying him inside one of the very rooms the laborer had just finished building under the pretense that it was to be used as wine storage, the doctor took up the laborer's tools and began to brick up the small space. Entombing him with the half-full bottle of spirits still in hand that had rendered him prey to the doctor's coldly-calculated plan. He awoke some time later in the cold, dark space -- realizing to his terror that he was entomed within the cellar room of his own design and construction. Gripped with a pallid fear he cried out the tormented scream of the damned -- but to no effect. The house's large surrounding plot of land and the doctor's lack of sociality with his neighbors insured that no one would come within hearing distance of his sepulcher. He lived on that way for a whole week thanks in part to the bottle of spirits that had been responsible for his interment. But due also to the good doctor's seeming lack of expertise with the mortar trowel which left small holes in the brick wall through which some stale air flowed to keep the doomed man clinging to life and a hope that would not be fulfilled -- and without which it could be said his hellish torment would have been mercifully shortened. Whether this oversight was accidental or intentional on the doctor's part cannot be determined but only hinted at by what horrors these same brick cellar walls were to become witness to in the succeeding months. The ill-fated captive alternated between states of rage when he would attempt to break out of his stony prison, and misery and despair during which he would confess his sins to God and pray for salvation. Yet at the end, he did not call upon God but instead muttered a Sicilian curse asking that he might be granted revenge. The reason for the man's early demise speaks to the purpose for which the doctor had the secret chambers built -- one which necessacitated his complete silence. As to the tortuous manner of the bricklayer's death, that speaks of the sheer cruelty of the doctor.

 

On the eighth day of his boarder's interment, the good doctor -- reasonably certain that the man had succumbed finally -- ventured down into the cellar and began to make preparations for the use for which it had been designed. A use so ghastly that only one with darkest understanding of what man is capable of could fathom.

[rob_react]

H. P. Lovecraft

 

[october]

The doctor had been practicing medicine in Chicago, but had mysteriously decided to uproot his practice and move east -- the only reason he would state when pressed for one was that the winters were too harsh.

 

I can relate. Stupid 6 month Chicago winters!

[Norrin_Radd]

Should I bother to continue?

[Jayman]

I read my first H. P. Lovecraft story last week...

 

What took you so freakin' long???

Lovecraft is classic material, all stories surrounding the Necronomicon are just great reads.

"At the Mountains of Madness" should be next on your list!

 

PS: Read some Edgar Allen Poe also!

 

PPS: Yea, keep writing!

[Moondog]

My favorite HPL story: Beyond the Wall of Sleep.

 

Simply unbelieveable. He transports you to another plain of existence and you actually believe you are there. It's where the geniuses go...

[precodekeith]

Shadow Over Innsmouth!