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As fans of horror-fantasy fiction, all
of us are called on from time to time to swallow greater or lesser
implausibilities. After all, why quibble if Wilmarth can quote verbatim entire
letters from memory in "The Whisperer in Darkness"? Even gross
physiological impossibilities such as the "change" undergone by the
Innsmouth folk from mammals to amphibians can be swept under the rug with only a
wink. And the chances of Wilbur Whateley's ever finding clothes that fit? What
the heck! But at some point we really have to draw the line. And what more
needful place than at a particular device for ending stories? We refer, of
course, to those which break off in mid-scream with the narrator's grisly doom.
There is nothing untoward about such a device per se, but these narrators
seem to be as addicted to writing as we are to reading. They perish pen-in-hand,
their death-rattle committed to paper.
A few examples will demonstrate how
horror shades unwittingly into humor:
The end is near. I hear a noise at
the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not
find me. God, that hand! The window! The window! (H. P. Lovecraft,
"Dagon".)
Not long to go now; even the stone
walls shudder to the monstrous weight pressing upon them --- The window!
--- Merciful God, that FACE! Can anything that lives be so huge --- (Lin
Carter, "The Dreams in the House of Weir".)
But now --- something --- Great God!
Wings! What beings sit the window! lä! lä! Hastur fhtagn! . . .
(August Derleth, "The House on Curwen Street".)
It is as if the walls of the house
fell away, as if the street too were gone, and a fog --- something in that
watery fog, like a giant frog with tentacles --- like a --- Great God! What
horror! lä! lä! Hastur! (August Derleth, "The Watcher from the
Sky".)
Black marks two feet wide, but they
aren't justmarks. What they really are is fingerprints! The door is
busting o----- (Robert Bloch, "Notebook Found in a Deserted House".)
. . . too late --- cannot help self
--- black paws materialize --- am dragged away toward the cellar. . . . (H. P.
Lovecraft, "The Diary of Alonzo Typer".)
Are we supposed to imagine poor Typer
writing this onto the floorboards he is being dragged across? No, because
according to the story's "frame", the narrative is all contained in
his diary. And this is the problem with all these story-endings. They are part
of written documents. And even if someone were writing when some horror
came upon him, he would drop quill or Bic long before these narrators do.
The silliest of the bunch, and
therefore the best example, is the ending of Frank Belknap Long's "The
Hounds of Tindalos":
God, they are breaking through! They
are breaking through! Smoke is pouring from the corners of the wall. Their
tongues --- ahhh ---
Ahhh indeed.
There is really quite a simple
expedient available to any writer who still wishes to use this hackneyed device.
So far as we can tell, August Derleth is among the few to use it, in a scene
from "The Shuttered Room": "Oh, that hand! That turr'ble arm!
Gawd! That face! . . ." What is the difference? This frightened voice is
being heard over the phone. The poor devil is calling for help, but it is too
late. Now how much imagination could this have taken? Not much, actually, since
Derleth stole the scene wholesale from Lovecraft's "The Dunwich
Horror": "Those who took down their receivers heard a fright-mad voice
shriek out, 'Help, oh, my Gawd! . . .'" A telephone is not even the only
way to present this; there are always tape recorders and dictaphones. It can't
be that difficult to work them into the narrative. From now on, let's hope that
horror-fantasy writers will show a little more . . . but wait! Good God! What's
that coming out of the garbage disposal --- eeeeyahh! glub, glub. . . .
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