Post by Calenture on Mar 1, 2009 18:03:50 GMT
The Plague of the Living Dead ed. by Kurt Singer
First published 1968; Sphere edition 1970
The Plague of the Living Dead by A Hyatt Verrill: Dr Farnham claims to have created a formula which stops the ageing process. When news of this gets out, he becomes an object of ridicule and journeys to the South American island of Abilone, with a few human test subjects, to continue his researches in secret. A variation in the formula produces a drug which not only stops ageing but restores life to the dead; more than that, it renders the resurrected being immortal and invulnerable. Somehow Farnham has succeeded in replicating that ability of lower life forms, like worms, to remain alive even when cut in pieces.
Inevitably Farnham longs to try out his formula on human subjects, and finally gets the chance when a volcano destroys several villages upon the island. Restoring life to the victims, Farnham finds he has created a tribe of insane and invulnerable cannibalistic beasts, who tear each other apart and feast upon the dead. Their ability to join severed parts of their bodies at will results in horrific and wonderfully imagined freaks. The end of the story, with Farnham financing excavations under the living dead with the intention of blowing them so far into orbit that their immortal atomised bodies will never come down is as enjoyable as it's totally bonkers.
The Mask by Robert W Chambers: Boris Yvrain is a sculptor of genius, whose favourite model is his wife Genevieve. Yvrain's other interest, chemistry, leads him to the development of a liquid which turns to stone any living thing immersed in it. His friend Alec is proud of Boris's skill as a sculptor, and has openly acknowledged his love for Genevieve. All three friends know that Boris is unlikely to produce any work of art which will match his Madonna, modelled upon Genevieve, which had been the sensation of last year's salon. There is simply not the time. So how will he maintain his reputation?
The Affair at 7 Rue De M--- by John Steinbeck: Steinbeck reveals how his strict injunction to his young son John not to chew gum while he's at work writing, is one which his son has always respected; and this happy state continues until one day his work is interrupted by his son's chewing. The boy informs him he's not chewing the gum, on the contrary the gum is chewing him. Once he has established the veracity of this astonishing statement, the narrator attempts to rid the house of the gum - which, however, returns over and over, to his consternation and his son's terror. Brilliantly funny spoof of the Beast With Five Fingers-type horror story.
Under the Hau Tree by Katherine Yates: The man demands to know when the woman took this photograph, and what is the name of the young couple in the picture. The woman cannot remember. Is it important? The man enquires at the hotel, but nobody there can remember the couple's name, either. It's all very strange, it was not so long, after all, since they were here, staying.
The woman in the photograph wears clothes which date from twenty years before, though this is assuredly a recent picture; there are some curious spots on the shoulder of her dress... they remember how agitated she had become trying to remove them. And at last the man tells the woman about a long-ago engagement between his aunt and uncle, who were determined not to marry until they had earned enough money to travel around the world on their honeymoon. Haunting and chilling.
The Strange Ride of Morobie Jukes by Rudyard Kipling: Jukes had a bit of a fever on him, which was surely why he had saddled up his pony, taken a lance and tried to impale the dog whose howling was keeping him from rest. But the pony takes its head and he rides out into the desert, then is abruptly precipitated into a crater whose floor is riddled with strange holes. Three sides of the crater are of unclimbable sand, like the walls of an ant-lion trap; the fourth side is open to a river. But when he attempts to escape along the shore, he is fired upon. Then he finds he is not alone in the crater. By unfortunate chance he has been thrown into that place where the Hindus put their 'living-dead', those who suffer catalepsy or some similar disorder, then before cremation prove 'too lively' to be dead.
The Abyss by Robert A W Lowndes: This one gets off to a brilliant start with a group of students staging a car wreck on a hillside to dispose of Graf Norden's body. Norden's eyes will not close, he seems to be staring at some unseen thing, his body is entirely drained of blood without a single wound, and his flesh is covered with luminous markings and designs that shift and change.
The rest of the story is a flashback leading up to this point, telling how Norden is a student of the occult with a particular interest in a volume called The Song of Yste. Obviously it's all very Lovecraftian. A difference of opinion within the body of students leads to a challenge and an experiment in hypnosis, in which the subjects, apparently walking a narrow line in the pattern of a carpet, believe themselves to be crossing an impossibly huge abyss peopled with creatures from another dimension. Very vivid stuff, this.
Fever Dream by Ray Bradbury: Charles is fifteen and confined to bed with a fever. He is worried because his right hand no longer belongs to him. His parents and the doctor reassure him that it's only a fever dream, but Charles is unconvinced; and soon he has the sense that the possession is spreading. A very creepy one from Bradbury at his best.
Spawn of the Green Abyss by C Hall Thompson: Dr James Arkwright goes to Kalesmouth for a rest cure. Kalesmouth is a sprinkling of cottages, a general store and, the only real house there, Heath House, home to Lazarus Heath and his daughter Cassandra. Heath House occupies the extreme point of a promontory; and nearby, in a small cove shadowed by the house, Lazarus has had built a weird sacrificial altar with tall pillars.
Arkwright is summoned to Heath House by Cassandra in the middle of a wild night, to find the whole house reeking of the sea. In time Lazarus dies and Arkwright and Cassandra marry. Cassandra elicits a promise from Arkwright that he will not look in the library where her father had worked. He promises; but naturally in the end, he does...and finds Lazarus Heath's journal, which tells a bizarre tale of Heath's boat being wrecked on an uncharted island and hints at his involvement with a Lovecraftian undersea race in a great subaquatic abyss and his mating with the queen of the race. He has been found years after the sinking of his ship, on an uncharted island, alone except for his baby Cassandra.
Cassandra at last recognizes her origin, and lives in dread of the time when she will be reclaimed by the other race. A bit on the long side, this novella does all the same nicely complement other stories in this collection, notably the Lowndes tale, and the atmosphere is marvellous; only the ending is a bit over-predictable, leaving us as usual with the puzzle of how the hell anyone human could ever mate with something like that! A good collection, with a strong identity.