The Horror at Martin's Beach

(Original title “The Invisible Monster”)

by Sonia Greene

I have never heard an even approximately adequate explanation of the horror at Martin's Beach. Despite the large number of witnesses, no two accounts agree; and the testimony taken by local authorities contains the most amazing discrepancies. 

 

Perhaps this haziness is natural in view of the unheard-of character of the horror itself, the almost paralytic terror of all who saw it, and the efforts made by the fashionable Wavecrest Inn to hush it up after the publicity created by Prof. Ahon's article "Are Hypnotic Powers Confined to Recognized Humanity?" 
 
Against all these obstacles I am striving to present a coherent version; for I beheld the hideous occurrence, and believe it should be known in view of the appalling possibilities it suggests. Martin's Beach is once more popular as a watering-place, but I shudder when I think of it. Indeed, I cannot look at the ocean at all now without shuddering. 
 
Fate is not always without a sense of drama and climax, hence the terrible happening of August 8, 1922, swiftly followed a period of minor and agreeably wonder-fraught excitement at Martin's Beach. On May 17 the crew of the fishing smack Alma of Gloucester, under Capt. James P. Orne, killed, after a battle of nearly forty hours, a marine monster whose size and aspect produced the greatest possible stir in scientific circles and caused certain Boston naturalists to take every precaution for its taxidermic preservation. 
 
The object was some fifty feet in length, of roughly cylindrical shape, and about ten feet in diameter. It was unmistakably a gilled fish in its major affiliations; but with certain curious modifications such as rudimentary forelegs and six-toed feet in place of pectoral fins, which prompted the widest speculation. Its extraordinary mouth, its thick and scaly hide, and its single, deep-set eye were wonders scarcely less remarkable than its colossal dimensions; and when the naturalists pronounced it an infant organism, which could not have been hatched more than a few days, public interest mounted to extraordinary heights. 
 
Capt. Orne, with typical Yankee shrewdness, obtained a vessel large enough to hold the object in its hull, and arranged for the exhibition of his prize. With judicious carpentry he prepared what amounted to an excellent marine museum, and, sailing south to the wealthy resort district of Martin's Beach, anchored at the hotel wharf and reaped a harvest of admission fees. 
 
The intrinsic marvelousness of the object, and the importance which it clearly bore in the minds of many scientific visitors from near and far, combined to make it the season's sensation. That it was absolutely unique—unique to a scientifically revolutionary degree—was well understood. The naturalists had shown plainly that it radically differed from the similarly immense fish caught off the Florida coast; that, while it was obviously an inhabitant of almost incredible depths, perhaps thousands of feet, its brain and principal organs indicated a development startlingly vast, and out of all proportion to anything hitherto associated with the fish tribe. 
 
On the morning of July 20 the sensation was increased by the loss of the vessel and its strange treasure. In the storm of the preceding night it had broken from its moorings and vanished forever from the sight of man, carrying with it the guard who had slept aboard despite the threatening weather. Capt. Orne, backed by extensive scientific interests and aided by large numbers of fishing boats from Gloucester, made a thorough and exhaustive searching cruise, but with no result other than the prompting of interest and conversation. By August 7 hope was abandoned, and Capt. Orne had returned to the Wavecrest Inn to wind up his business affairs at Martin's Beach and confer with certain of the scientific men who remained there. The horror came on August 8.

It was in the twilight, when grey sea-birds hovered low near the shore and a rising moon began to make a glittering path across the waters. The scene is important to remember, for every impression counts. On the beach were several strollers and a few late bathers; stragglers from the distant cottage colony that rose modestly on a green hill to the north, or from the adjacent cliff-perched Inn whose imposing towers proclaimed its allegiance to wealth and grandeur. 
 
Well within viewing distance was another set of spectators, the loungers on the Inn's high-ceiled and lantern-lighted veranda, who appeared to be enjoying the dance music from the sumptuous ballroom inside. 
These spectators, who included Capt. Orne and his group of scientific confreres, joined the beach group before the horror progressed far; as did many more from the Inn. Certainly there was no lack of witnesses, confused though their stories be with fear and doubt of what they saw. 
 
There is no exact record of the time the thing began, although a majority say that the fairly round moon was "about a foot" above the low-lying vapors of the horizon. They mention the moon because what they saw seemed subtly connected with it—a sort of stealthy, deliberate, menacing ripple which rolled in from the far skyline along the shimmering lane of reflected moonbeams, yet which seemed to subside before it reached the shore. 
 
Many did not notice this ripple until reminded by later events; but it seems to have been very marked, differing in height and motion from the normal waves around it. Some called it cunning and calculating. And as it died away craftily by the black reefs afar out, there suddenly came belching up out of the glitter-streaked brine a cry of death; a scream of anguish and despair that moved pity even while it mocked it. 
 
First to respond to the cry were the two life guards then on duty; sturdy fellows in white bathing attire, with their calling proclaimed in large red letters across their chests. Accustomed as they were to rescue work, and to the screams of the drowning, they could find nothing familiar in the unearthly ululation; yet with a trained sense of duty they ignored the strangeness and proceeded to follow their usual course. 
 
Hastily seizing an air-cushion, which with its attached coil of rope lay always at hand, one of them ran swiftly along the shore to the scene of the gathering crowd; whence, after whirling it about to gain momentum, he flung the hollow disc far out in the direction from which the sound had come. As the cushion disappeared in the waves, the crowd curiously awaited a sight of the hapless being whose distress had been so great; eager to see the rescue made by the massive rope. 
 
But that rescue was soon acknowledged to be no swift and easy matter; for, pull as they might on the rope, the two muscular guards could not move the object at the other end. Instead, they found that object pulling with equal or even greater force in the very opposite direction, till in a few seconds they were dragged off their feet and into the water by the strange power which had seized on the proffered life-preserver. 
 
One of them, recovering himself, called immediately for help from the crowd on the shore, to whom he flung the remaining coil of rope; and in a moment the guards were seconded by all the hardier men, among whom Capt. Orne was foremost. More than a dozen strong hands were now tugging desperately at the stout line, yet wholly without avail. 
 
Hard as they tugged, the strange force at the other end tugged harder; and since neither side relaxed for an instant, the rope became rigid as steel with the enormous strain. The struggling participants, as well as the spectators, were by this time consumed with curiosity as to the nature of the force in the sea. The idea of a drowning man had long been dismissed; and hints of whales, submarines, monsters, and demons now passed freely around. Where humanity had first led the rescuers, wonder kept them at their task; and they hauled with a grim determination to uncover the mystery. 
 
It being decided at last that a whale must have swallowed the air-cushion, Capt. Orne, as a natural leader, shouted to those on shore that a boat must be obtained in order to approach, harpoon, and land the unseen leviathan. Several men at once prepared to scatter in quest of a suitable craft, while others came to supplant the captain at the straining rope, since his place was logically with whatever boat party might be formed. His own idea of the situation was very broad, and by no means limited to whales, since he had to do with a monster so much stranger. He wondered what might be the acts and manifestations of an adult of the species of which the fifty-foot creature had been the merest infant. 
 
And now there developed with appalling suddenness the crucial fact which changed the entire scene from one of wonder to one of horror, and dazed with fright the assembled band of toilers and onlookers. Capt. Orne, turning to leave his post at the rope, found his hands held in their place with unaccountable strength; and in a moment he realized that he was unable to let go of the rope. His plight was instantly divined, and as each companion tested his own situation the same condition was encountered. The fact could not be denied—every struggler was irresistibly held in some mysterious bondage to the hempen line which was slowly, hideously, and relentlessly pulling them out to sea. 
 
Speechless horror ensued; a horror in which the spectators were petrified to utter inaction and mental chaos. Their complete demoralization is reflected in the conflicting accounts they give, and the sheepish excuses they offer for their seemingly callous inertia. I was one of them, and know. 
 
Even the strugglers, after a few frantic screams and futile groans, succumbed to the paralyzing influence and kept silent and fatalistic in the face of unknown powers. There they stood in the pallid moonlight, blindly pulling against a spectral doom and swaying monotonously backward and forward as the water rose first to their knees, then to their hips. The moon went partly under a cloud, and in the half-light the line of swaying men resembled some sinister and gigantic centipede, writhing in the clutch of a terrible creeping death. 
 
Harder and harder grew the rope, as the tug in both directions increased, and the strands swelled with the undisturbed soaking of the rising waves. Slowly the tide advanced, till the sands so lately peopled by laughing children and whispering lovers were now swallowed by the inexorable flow. The herd of panic-stricken watchers surged blindly backward as the water crept above their feet, while the frightful line of strugglers swayed hideously on, half submerged, and now at a substantial distance from their audience. Silence was complete. 
 
The crowd, having gained a huddling-place beyond reach of the tide, stared in mute fascination; without offering a word of advice or encouragement, or attempting any kind of assistance. There was in the air a nightmare fear of impending evils such as the world had never before known. 
 
Minutes seemed lengthened into hours, and still that human snake of swaying torsos was seen above the fast rising tide. Rhythmically it undulated; slowly, horribly, with the seal of doom upon it. Thicker clouds now passed over the ascending moon, and the glittering path on the waters faded nearly out. 
 
Very dimly writhed the serpentine line of nodding heads, with now and then the livid face of a backward-glancing victim gleaming pale in the darkness. Faster and faster gathered the clouds, till at length their angry rifts shot down sharp tongues of febrile flame. Thunders rolled, softly at first, yet soon increasing to a deafening, maddening intensity. Then came a culminating crash—a shock whose reverberations seemed to shake land and sea alike—and on its heels a cloudburst whose drenching violence overpowered the darkened world as if the heavens themselves had opened to pour forth a vindictive torrent. 
 
The spectators, instinctively acting despite the absence of conscious and coherent thought, now retreated up the cliff steps to the hotel veranda. Rumors had reached the guests inside, so that the refugees found a state of terror nearly equal to their own. I think a few frightened words were uttered, but cannot be sure. 
 
Some, who were staying at the Inn, retired in terror to their rooms; while others remained to watch the fast sinking victims as the line of bobbing heads showed above the mounting waves in the fitful lightning flashes. I recall thinking of those heads, and the bulging eyes they must contain; eyes that might well reflect all the fright, panic, and delirium of a malignant universe—all the sorrow, sin, and misery, blasted hopes and unfulfilled desires, fear, loathing and anguish of the ages since time's beginning; eyes alight with all the soul-racking pain of eternally blazing infernos. 
 
And as I gazed out beyond the heads, my fancy conjured up still another eye; a single eye, equally alight, yet with a purpose so revolting to my brain that the vision soon passed. Held in the clutches of an unknown vise, the line of the damned dragged on; their silent screams and unuttered prayers known only to the demons of the black waves and the night-wind. 
 
There now burst from the infuriate sky such a mad cataclysm of satanic sound that even the former crash seemed dwarfed. Amidst a blinding glare of descending fire the voice of heaven resounded with the blasphemies of hell, and the mingled agony of all the lost reverberated in one apocalyptic, planet-rending peal of Cyclopean din. It was the end of the storm, for with uncanny suddenness the rain ceased and the moon once more cast her pallid beams on a strangely quieted sea. 
 
There was no line of bobbing heads now. The waters were calm and deserted, and broken only by the fading ripples of what seemed to be a whirlpool far out in the path of the moonlight whence the strange cry had first come. But as I looked along that treacherous lane of silvery sheen, with fancy fevered and senses overwrought, there trickled upon my ears from some abysmal sunken waste the faint and sinister echoes of a laugh. 

 

4 O'Clock

by Sonia Greene

About two in the morning I knew it was coming. The great black silences of night's depth told me, and a monstrous cricket, chirping with a persistence too hideous to be unmeaning, made it certain. It is to be at four o'clock—at four in the dusk before dawn, just as he said it would be. I had not fully believed it previously, because the prophecies of vindictive madmen are seldom to be taken with seriousness. Besides, I was not justly to be blamed for what had befallen him at four o'clock on that other morning; that terrible morning whose memory will never leave me. And when, at length, he had died and was buried in the ancient cemetery just across the road from my east windows, I was certain that his curse could not harm me. Had I not seen his lifeless clay securely pinned down by huge shovelfuls of mold? Might I not feel assured that his crumbling bones would be powerless to bring me the doom at a day and an hour so precisely stated? Such, indeed, had been my thoughts until this shocking night itself; this night of incredible chaos, of shattered certainties, and of nameless portents. 

 

I had retired early, hoping fatuously to snatch a few hours of sleep despite the prophecy which haunted me. Now that the time was so close at hand, I found it harder and harder to dismiss the vague fears which had always lain beneath my conscious thoughts. As the cooling sheets soothed my fevered body, I could find nothing to soothe my still more fevered mind; but lay tossing and uneasily awake, trying first one position and then another in a desperate effort to banish with slumber that one damnably insistent notion—that it is to occur at four o'clock.

Was this frightful unrest due to my surroundings; to the fateful locality in which I was sojourning after so many years? Why, I now asked myself bitterly, had I permitted circumstance to place me on this night of all nights, in that well-remembered house and that well-remembered room whose east windows overlook the lonely road and the ancient country cemetery beyond? In my mind’s eye every detail of that unpretentious necropolis rose before me—its white fence, its ghost-like granite shafts, and the hovering auras of those on whom the worms fed. Finally the force of the conception led my vision to depths more remote and more forbidden, and I saw under the neglected grass the silent shapes of the things from which the auras came - the calm sleepers, the rotting things, the things which had twisted frantically in their coffins before sleep came, and the peaceful bones in every stage of disintegration from the complete and coherent skeleton to the huddled handful of dust. Most of all I envied the dust. Then new terror came as my fancy encountered his grave. Into that sepulcher I dared not let my thought stray, and I should have screamed had not something forestalled the malign power that pulled my mental sight. That something was a sudden gust of wind, sprung from nowhere amidst the calm night, which unfastened the shutter of the nearest window, throwing it back with a shivery slam and uncovering to my actual waking glance the antique cemetery itself, brooding spectrally beneath an early morning moon. 

 

I speak of this gust as something merciful, yet know now that it was only transiently and mockingly so. For no sooner had my eyes compassed the moonlight scene than I became aware of a fresh omen, this time too unmistakable to be classed as an empty phantasm, which arose from among the gleaming tombs across the road. Having glanced with instinctive apprehension toward the spot where he lay moldering—a spot cut off from my gaze by the window-frame—I perceived with trepidation the approach of an indescribable something which flowed menacingly from that very direction; a vague, vaporous, formless mass of grayish- white substance or spirit, dull and tenuous as yet, but every moment increasing in awesome and cataclysmic potentiality. Try as I might to dismiss it as a natural meteorological phenomenon, its fearsomely portentous and deliberate character grew upon me amidst new thrills of horror and apprehension; so that I was scarcely unprepared for the definitely purposeful and malevolent culmination which soon occurred. That culmination, bringing with it a hideous symbolic foreshadowing of the end, was equally simple and threatening. The vapor each moment thickened and piled up, assuming at last a half tangible aspect; while the surface toward me gradually became circular in outline, and markedly concave; as it slowly ceased its advance and stood spectrally at the end of the road. And as it stood there, faintly quivering in the damp night air under that unwholesome moon, I saw that its aspect was that of the pallid and gigantic dial of a distorted clock. 

 

Hideous events now followed in demoniac succession. There took shape in the lower right-hand part of the vaporous dial a black and formidable creature, shapeless and only half seen, yet having four prominent claws which reached out greedily at me—claws redolent of noxious fatality in their very contour and location; since they formed too plainly the dreaded outlines, and filled too unmistakably the exact position, of the numeral IV on the quivering dial of doom. Presently the monstrosity stepped or wriggled out of the concave surface of the dial, and began to approach me by some unexplained kind of locomotion. The four talons, long, thin, and straight, were now seen to be tipped by disgusting, thread-like tentacles, each with a vile intelligence of its own, which groped about incessantly, slowly at first, but gradually increasing in velocity until I was nearly driven mad by the sheer dizziness of their motion. And as a crowning horror I began to hear all the subtle and cryptic noises that pierced the intensified night silence; a thousand-fold magnified, and in one voice reminding me of the abhorred hour of four. In vain I tried to pull up the coverlet to shut them out; in vain I tried to drown them with my screams. I was mute and paralyzed, yet agonizingly aware of every unnatural sight and sound in that devastating, moon-cursed stillness. Once I managed to get my head beneath the covers—once when the cricket's shrieking of that hideous phrase, four-o’clock, seemed about to shatter my brain—but that only aggravated the terror, making the roars of that detestable creature strike me like the blows of a titanic sledgehammer. 

 

And now, as I withdrew my tortured head from its fruitless protection, I found augmented diabolism to harass my eyes. Upon the newly painted wall of my apartment, as if called forth by the tentacled monster from the tomb, there danced mockingly before me a myriad company of beings, black, grey, and white, such as only the fancy of the god-stricken might visualize. Some were of infinitesimal smallness; others covered vast areas. In minor details each had a grotesque and horrible individuality, in general outlines they all conformed to the same nightmare pattern despite their vastly varied size. Again I tried to shut out the abnormalities of the night, but vainly as before. The dancing things on the wall waxed and waned in magnitude, approaching and receding as they trod their morbid and menacing measure. And the aspect of each was that of some demon clock-face with one sinister hour always figured thereon - the dreaded, the doom-delivering hour of four. 

 

Baffled in every attempt to shake off the circling and relentless delirium, I glanced once more toward the unshuttered window and beheld again the monster which had come from the grave. Horrible it had been before; indescribable it had now become. The creature, formerly of indeterminate substance, was now formed of red and malignant fire; and waved repulsively its four tentacled claws - unspeakable tongues of living flame. It stared and stared at me out of the blackness; sneeringly, mockingly; now advancing, now retiring. Then, in the tenebrous silence, those four writhing talons of fire beckoned invitingly to their demoniacally dancing counterparts on the walls, and seemed to beat time rhythmically to the shocking saraband till the world was one ghoulishly gyrating vortex of leaping, prancing, gliding, leering, taunting, threatening four o’clocks. 

 

Somewhere, beginning afar off and advancing slowly over the sphinx like sea and the febrile marshes, I heard the early morning wind come soughing; faintly at first, then louder and louder until its unceasing burden flowed as a deluge of whirring, buzzing cacophony bringing always the hideous threat, ‘four o’clock, four o’clock, FOUR O’CLOCK.’ Monotonously it grew from a whimper to a deafening roar, as of a giant cataract, but finally reached a climax and began to subside. As it receded into the distance it left upon my sensitive ears such a vibration as is left by the passing of a swift and ponderous railway train; this, and a stark dread whose intensity gave it something of the tranquility of resignation. 

 

The end is near. All sound and vision have become one vast chaotic maelstrom of lethal, clamorous menace, wherein are fused all the ghastly and unhallowed four o’clocks which have existed since immemorial time began, and all which will exist in eternities to come. The flaming monster is advancing closely now, its charnel tentacles brushing my face and its talons curving hungrily as they grope toward my throat. At last I can see its face through the churning and phosphorescent vapors of the graveyard air, and with devastating pangs I realize that it is in essence an awful, colossal, gargoyle-like caricature of his face—the face of him from whose uneasy grave it has issued. Now I know that my doom is indeed sealed; that the wild threats of the madman were in truth the demon maledictions of a potent fiend, and that my innocence will prove no protection against the malign volition which craves a causeless vengeance. He is determined to pay me with interest for what he suffered at that spectral hour; determined to drag me out of the world into realms which only the mad and the devil-ridden know. 

 

And as amidst the seething of hell’s flames and the tumult of the damned those fiery claws point murderously at my throat, I hear upon the mantel the faint whirring sound of a timepiece; the whirring which tells me that it is about to strike the hour whose name now flows incessantly from the death-like and cavernous throat of the rattling, jeering, croaking grave-monster before me—the accursed, the infernal hour of four o’clock. 

 

Getting to Know Them: H. P. Lovecraft

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Recently, I have begun reading biographical sketches of the masters of horror fiction. (Should you care to join me in this interesting and entertaining pastime, Ranker provides a good list of such authors.)

I read, most recently, about H. P. Lovecraft.

During a period of poverty, he subsisted on nothing more than a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and a can of beans.

Throughout his life, he corresponded with a good many people, including writers he mentored through his letters, whose ranks include August Derleth, Donald Wandrei (The Web of Easter Island), and Robert Bloch (Psycho).

As a child, he believed that the gods of ancient Greek mythology were real, while the Judaeo-Christian God was merely a myth (S. T. Joshi, I Am Providence), and he later turned to astrology as his guiding light. Once interested in anatomy (as well as chemistry), his passion for the former ended when he encountered the puzzling topic of the human reproductive system (Joshi).

Throughout his early years, he suffered several bouts of depression and “nervous breakdowns.” Perhaps he feared suffering the same fate as his father Winfield Scott Lovecraft, who was institutionalized when Lovecraft was a youth; it seems that Winfield had been given to doing and saying strange things” prior to his commitment (Joshi).

He married Sonia Greene, whose work as a milliner earned her a good income. After two years, their childless relationship ended, when they separated. Lovecraft's assurance that they were divorced allowed Sonia to marry again, but she discovered, later, that she was, in fact, still married to Lovecraft and, as a result, was guilty of bigamy.

Greene wrote the short stories “The Horror at Martin's Beach” and “4O'Clock.”

He was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Oswald Spengler, Robert W. Chambers, Lord Dunsany, and Algernon Blackwood.

According to a variety of critics, his fiction is replete with such themes as forbidden knowledge, otherworldly influences, innate depravity, the rule of fate, threats to civilization, white supremacy, the potentially negative effects of scientism, an emphasis on polytheism, “cosmic indifference,” superstition, and an imaginary and recurrent geography unique to his fiction. He has been criticized for racism, homophobia, misogyny, and parochialism. His writing is not highly regarded by literary critics, although Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Bentley Little, Joe R. Lansdale, Alan Moore, F. Paul Wilson, William S. Burroughs, Neil Gaiman, and others name Lovecraft as a major influence on their own conceptions of horror fiction and their own writing.

Although he lived forever on the brink of absolute poverty, Lovecraft's cosmicism has influenced horror fiction.

Writing Monsters: A Review: Part 2

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

In Writing Monsters, Philip Athans offers a number of definitions, his own and those of others, to suggest that the concept is fluid and open, at least to some extent, to individual writers' interpretation:

A monster is something alive and uniquely strange that we instinctively fear.—Alan Dean Foster

[A monster is] inhuman, it's animate, and it wants to destroy you. Many monsters are supernatural or [act] outside the norms of nature in some way, but that's not always necessary.—Richard Baker

A monster is something that is frightening because it is inhuman . . . . It may be incomprehensible.—Martin J. Dougherty

A monster is a species that is neither a part of the civilization of sentient people [n]or among the ranks of mundane flora and fauna,” and a monster is “scary.”—Philip Athans

Later, Athans, who often exemplifies the concept by reference to such animals as slugs, sharks, and lobsters describes them as as-yet-undiscovered animals.

He also suggests that the effect of monsters can be heightened by relating them to fears or phobias common, if not universal, to human beings, such as arachnophobia (fear of spiders), social phobia (fear of a hostile audience), pteromerhanophobia (fear of flying), agoraphobia (fear of the inability to escape), claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces), acrophobia (the fear of heights), emetophobia (the fear of vomit or of vomiting), carcinophobia (the fear of cancer), astraphobia (the fear of thunder and lightning), and taphophobia (the fear of being burned alive).

Athans points out that readers know only as much about a story's monster or monsters as the author allows, and , as long as the writer is consistent with how the monster's characteristics, abilities, and behavior, readers will accept its existence within the story. It is best not to divulge too much information about the monster, he suggests, as readers will tend to “fill in the blanks” with their own ideas about the monster.

Typically, monsters, have a number of qualities, Athans says, among which are that they are frightening, mysterious, violent, predatory, amoral or immoral, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and terrifying in their appearance. Monsters usually isolate their prey, often defy humans' attempts to use technology against them, undergo some type of physical transformation, do not think like people (if they think at all), may be more intelligent than the average person, and are purposeful (they perform a task). Most monsters have otherworldly origins; they may come from outer space or hell. Others result from scientific experiments gone awry or from such natural processes as mutations of diseased states. They may come from underground, underwater, or other remote places.

Monsters may also be metaphorical. They can represent “ideas, feelings, dangers,” states of existence, the effects of bullying or greed, or any number of other real behaviors, conditions, or situations. Although Athans doesn't discuss Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this context, fans of the show are likely to know that its creator frequently made the series' monsters the metaphorical reflections of real-world problems. In the episode “Beer Bad,” for example Buffy Summers adopts the crude, almost animal-level behavior of a woman after she drinks enchanted beer. Her state of drunkenness is a metaphor for her uncivilized conduct. Likewise, in “Out of Sight,Out of Mind,” a high school student who is ignored by her peers actually becomes invisible, her invisibility a metaphor for her being neglected and unheeded. In the same way, Athans says, Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb. He is born of a test involving an underwater nuclear detonation, and he terrifies Japanese cities with his devastating radioactive breath.

Monsters introduce and sustain conflict throughout the story, but they also help characterize the human characters, showing them as tenacious, loyal, trustworthy, and as having the capacities to forgive and to join forces against a common threat. At the same time, they may exhibit self-centeredness, a capacity for exploitation, and vindictiveness.

It is important, Athans says, to provide monsters with an offense, a defense, and a “utility.” By “utility,” he means a signature behavior, such as the Blair Witch's “marking her territory [with bizarre] “stick figures” or vampires' needing to be invited into one's home.

With monsters, size is not important, as long as the monsters are frightening and have monstrous qualities and abilities.

Monsters must have a weakness or two so the human characters can kill or otherwise neutralize it. For example, vampires suck blood, can “live” for centuries, are extraordinarily strong, can turn into bats and fly, have hypnotic power, and can even levitate, but they can't abide crucifixes, sunlight, mirrors, or holy water; they have to be invited into one's home; and they can killed by being drowned or decapitated or by having a wooden stake driven through their hearts. When a monster is familiar to readers, writers must “tweak the trope,” Athans observes. An example he doesn't offer makes the point: Stephen King makes a crucifix's effect on his vampires depend on the faith of the character who wields it.

Athans suggests horror writers use the first-person or the limited third-person point of view.

Descriptions of the monster should involve as many of the five sense as possible. Readers respond best to horror stories that have visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory appeal. Only near the end of the story should the monster be fully revealed; until then, writers should rely on the other senses, providing only snapshots, instead of more detailed, glimpses of the monster so that it remains mysterious and terrifying. What a monster looks like, smells like, and feels like are often interrelated, Athans points out: “a slimy monster” is apt to “be shiny, to be heard slithering along, and to leave a trail of slime,” signs that warn people “not to touch the slimy thing.”

Use short sentences to increase pace and to suggest terror and hyperventilation, he suggests, and long sentences to reflect a character's breathlessness.

Athans also has a tip concerning the omnipresent cell phone. Isolate characters, and then banish their phones. They could have dead batteries, succumb to poor reception, get broken, or be left behind on purpose.

On Amazon, Writing Monsters has generated eighteen review. The lowest, two stars, found it a good basic guide for beginning writers, but not the manual the reviewer was seeking; he wanted a book that would guide him through the process of creating bigger (and badder?) monsters, rather than one that walks him through the process for creating them to :”exist at all.” The review is more about the reviewer's interests, unfortunately, than it is about the book that Athans actually wrote.

A middle-of the road, three-star, review found the book to generic, “a victim of its own wide-spectrum approach” that ended up being more about “how to write speculative fiction” than a “specialized work” concerned with monster-making. Perhaps this reviewer wanted less context and more hands-on material.

A five-star review reads:

Enjoyed this immensely. Great insights into the subject of monsters in fiction, their roles, suggestions on monster design, how to handle strengths vs. weaknesses, etc. I dislike zombies as monster du jure [sic] but I benefitted [sic] from the observations offered by the author who visualizes zombies as a force-of-nature, like Godzilla, with the real conflict of a zombie story between the people involved. Monsters, of course, figure into horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Notwithstanding frequent references to science fiction monsters, I believe science fiction requires some more in-depth examination of creature creation than this book can provide, [sic] however useful it may be, especially when aliens are involved. That's just a whole separate topic.. [sic] But an excellent book, [sic] I can't recommend it enough.

How would I rate Writing Monsters? It's an interesting, well-written book that offers food for thought in the creation and deployment of monsters. Perhaps a few writing exercises, at the end of each chapter, would have improved the work, but, overall, the author provides much for monster-makers to consider, the approach is easy to understand, and the book supplies solid tips. The final chapter reprints a short story, “The Unnamed,” by H. P. Lovecraft, whom Athans admires. Athans annotates the story, but his annotations do not zero in on the techniques of horror that Lovecraft uses in any detailed or comprehensive manner. This is an example of the overall criticism I have of the book: it offers a lot, but it lacks focus and detail, so it is more a survey than an analysis of monster-making. It deserves a place on one's bookshelf, as a basic guide or a series of reminders, which, unless we're Stephen King, we can all use from time to time.

"Writing Monsters": A Book Review

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Philip Athans's 210-page Writing Monsters offers some good tips on creating such monsters as inhabit fantasy worlds and horror domains.

He lays the foundation for most of his book early on, with "The Monster Creation Form," a tool that helps writers plan their monsters as they consider such questions as:

• What's it called?
• What does it eat, and how does it eat?
• How does it move?
• What does it look like? (Overall form, head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, limbs)
• How big is it?
• What covers its body, and what color is it?
• How smart is it?
• What motivates it?
• What scares it?
• What hurts it?
• What senses does it possess?
• In what way is it better or more powerful than the average person?
• In what way is it weaker than the average person?

The remaining chapters of his book flesh out these considerations.

 

Philip Athans

The tips are practical, as how-to tips should be. Athans's own advice, observations, and insights are sprinkled among his tips, as are recommendations by other fantasy and horror writers. Lynn Abbey, for example, echoes Edgar Allan Poe's advice, in "The Philosophy of Composition," that writers plot their stories backward: "Start with the monster's fall," she suggests, "then dismantle the characters' knowledge and preparation, then construct the plot details that allow the characters to pick up the pieces they're going to need" to neutralize the monster. 

 

Lynn Abbey

Athans recommends that, as a rule, writers avoid supplying exact measurements of a monster's size. Instead, authors should provide such information indirectly, through comparisons or dialogue. If a monster is "twice as tall as the king's watchtower," the reader can learn that the tower is twenty stories tall by having earlier observed the king as he climbed "twenty flights of stairs" to its top. Likewise, a writer can give readers an idea as to a monster's weight by having it fall through a rooftop before a character observes, "that roof can hold three thousand pounds."

 

Edgar Allan Poe

He suggests that writers reveal their monsters slowly, in a piecemeal fashion, in three phases, "The First Encounter," "The Growing Threat," and "The Tipping Point." The first and third will offer brief glimpses of the monster or perhaps only its effects—the "aftermath" of its visits—whereas the second phase will provide details about the beast, showing its killings of several characters, inept or inconclusive attempts to neutralize the monster, some :misdirection" (e. g., in Jaws, "a shark" is killed, but not "the shark" [emphasis added]). Only toward the end of phase three should the monster be revealed fully, in all his, her, or its glory. (The Tipping Point occurs, Athans says, as the heroes, armed with knowledge about the monster. its qualities, and its behavior, take charge of the situation and seek to kill or otherwise neutralize it.

 

H. P. Lovecraft

Athans illustrates his tips with excerpts of novels and short stories, especially those of Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft, respectively.

He has other tips that are likely to be helpful to writers interested in creating monstrous monsters. We'll take a look at them in the second installment of this review.

H. P. Lovecraft: An Overview of His Work

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Leslie S. Klinger, in editing The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, provides an account of the development of the so-called “CthulhuMythos,” citing some of the specific short stories and the single novel by Lovecraft that furnished the hints, bits, and pieces that would become the basis of what another writer, August Derleth, transformed into Lovecraft's supposed mythology. This essay is based on Klinger's analysis and his insights into this topic, as set forward in the “Introduction” of his annotation of Lovecraft's work. Unless stated otherwise, the direct quotations are of Klinger. (Words in bold blue font are defined or discussed in more detail at the end of this essay.)

Derleth, not Lovecraft, is responsible for the idea that Lovecraft meant “to create a permanent or unchanging pantheon.” Actually, as stated, Lovecraft preferred his work to represent an “'open source' universe” that others interested in his work could visit. At most, Lovecraft referred only to an “Arkham cycle,” without identifying which of his stories comprised this group of tales. However, Derleth imagined that he saw, in Lovecraft's fiction, “a fixed framework,” based on the idea that earth had once been home to an ancient alien race who were prepared to repossess it. Lovecraft's supposed “Mythos” is really a creation of Derleth, who invented it in the stories that he, Derleth, wrote as addenda to Lovecraft's canon.

For Lovecraft, the universe is indifferent to human existence and to human aspirations. Rather than offering his readers reassurance as to their place in the cosmos, Lovecraft's fiction suggests that it is up to each individual to make his or her own way in the universe. Critics have labeled Lovecraft's position “cosmicism.”

Klinger identifies these narratives (all of which are short stories except for the novel At the Mountains of Madness) as providing the hints, bits, and pieces of what Derleth claims is Lovecraft's “Cthulhu Mythos.”

“Dagon” is “the earliest [of Lovecraft's stories] to contain any elements of . . . the Cthulhu Mythos”: “truly ancient beings, experiences and sensations that cannot be processed by human brains, and a deep sense of doom.” 

“Nyarlathotep” introduces a “persona” who reappears “in future versions of the Cthulhu Mythos.” 

“The Nameless City” introduces Lovecraft's mythology, such as it is, describing “an elder race and a civilization predating humans” and making references to the mysterious Necronomicon, though not by name). 

“TheHound” specifically names Alhazred's Necronomicon.

In “The Festival,” Lovecraft “revisits the true horror of 'Dagon'—the narrator's discovery that there are things still present on this planet that began before human history.” 

“TheCall of Cthulhu” offers Lovecraft's “first comprehensive view of his cosmicism as it [“The Call of Cthulhu”] expands on 'Dagon.'” 

“Buildingon 'The Call of Cthulhu,'” “The Dunwich Horror” provides an extended excerpt from the Necronomicon.” 

“TheWhisperer in the Darkness” gives an account, in some detail, of the origin and history of the Outer Ones, the alien race mentioned in Lovecraft's earlier story, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” 

Atthe Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft's only novel, mentions several themes and elements related to the Arkham cycle and to the Cthulhu Mythos, including the Shining Trapezohedron, Arkham's Miskatonic University, artifacts of a pre-human civilization (the “Elder Things”), and shoggoths (biologically engineered slaves who may have been the ancestors of all life on Earth). (This note is not based on TheAnnotated H. P. Lovecraft). 

“TheShadow over Innsmouth” is set in the New England village that is home to the alien race known as the Deep Ones.

In “The Dreams in the Witch House,” Lovecraft mentions the Old Ones and “tries to imagine the fourth dimension.” 

“The Thing on the Doorstep” recounts personality transference through “dark magic invoking Lovecraft's Cthulhian deities.”

The end of “The Shadow Out of Time” confirms humanity's “relatively minor role on the cosmic scale.”

In addition to providing “the history of an ancient cult,” “TheHunter of the Dark” adds “an element of cosmicism” while hinting that “an extraterrestrial stone [called] the Shining Trapezohedron” may be “a window on all time and space.”

Cthulhu Mythos: “Term coined by August Derleth, biographer and editor of H. P. Lovecraft, writer of supernatural fiction. The term denotes the mythology invented by Lovecraft for a group of horror stories. According to Derleth, Lovecraft once told him, 'All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on the outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again' (“Cthulhu Mythos” in Encyclopedia.com). Note: Leslie states that Derleth invented this quotation; Lovecraft himself never made this statement. 

Arkham Cycle: Although Lovecraft never identified the stories he referred to collectively as the “Arkham cycle,” Leslie states that the 22 Lovecraft stories that he, Leslie, includes in The Annotated H. P. Lovecraftcomprise the group that Lovecraft described as the “Arkham cycle”: “Dagon,” “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” “Nyarlathotep,” “The Picture in the House,” “Herbert West: Reanimator,” “The Nameless City,” “The Hound,” “The Festival,” “The Unnamable,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Silver Key,” “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Thing on the Doorstep,” “The Shadow Out of Time,” “The Haunter of the Dark.” 

Cosmicism: “Cosmicism sees the human race and all its 'civilization' as senseless against the backdrop of Deep Time . . . . Cosmicism says that beyond the 'reality' defined by our five-senses, human norms are not normal . . . . [Cosmicism views] the Universe is a cold, uncaring place,” i. e., as indifferent to humanity and its affairs. 

Necronomicon: Invented by Lovecraft, the Necronomicon does not exist except in the pages of his fiction. In his work, the Necronomicon is “a tome filled with secrets and rituals that can drive a reader to the brink of insanity. . . . Lovecraft mentions the book in 18 of his stories, more than any other mystical book (real or otherwise) that he references. Many fans of the mythos think of the 'Necronomicon' [sic] as the Bible of Lovecraft's pantheon. . . . the author of the book was the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, who perished in A.D. 738 after being eaten by one or more invisible monsters. . . . Alhazred mostly wrote about a race of extraterrestrial creatures with cosmic powers. He calls them the Old Ones,” one of whom was Yog-Sothoth; a distant relative of theirs is Cthulhu.” In short, “the book is a fictional history about our world and the creatures that eons ago ruled the Earth and other realms.” 

Outer Ones: The Outer Ones are a group of Cthulhu Mythos deities invented by August Derlerth. They are ruled by Azathoth. 

Deep Ones: “The Deep Ones are a race of intelligent ocean-dwelling creatures, approximately human-shaped but with a fishy, froggy appearance. They regularly mate with humans along the coast, creating societies of hybrids.”

Cthulhian deities: The Cthulhuian deities are comprised of the Outer Gods, the Great Old Ones, the Great Ones, and the Elder Gods. 

Shining Trapezohedron: A stone able to summon a dreaded being from deepest time and space. Once ensconced in a temple, it was thrown, in “The Hunter in theDark,” into the Narragansett Bay. The Trapezohedron is also featured in Lovecraft's “The Whisperer in Darkness,” his novel Atthe Mountains of Madness, and his tale “The Outsider.”

H. P. Lovecraft's Concept of Horror

Copyright 218 by Gary L. Pullman

In The AnnotatedH. P. Lovecraft, editor Leslie S. Klinger presents H. P. Lovecraft's account of his concept of the modern horror story. In such fiction, Lovecraft believed that neither a story's characters nor its plot (the two elements identified by Aristotle as being the most important components of drama and, by extension, narrative fiction) was the most significant or defining attribute of this type of fiction. Instead, supernatural (or, we might add today, paranormal) “phenomena are more important in conveying what is to be conveyed,” which is the thrill of “some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law” by which readers enjoy “an imaginative escape from palling reality." 

Mundane life, he implies, has the effect of dulling the senses, but a story's presentation of supernatural phenomena awaken them, seeming to heighten reality and to give presence to a world wherein ordinary existence is so taken for granted as to be virtually unnoticed. Therefore, “phenomena rather than persons are the logical “heroes” of weird fiction.

If the description of such phenomena are necessary to horror stories, so are “original” horrors, Lovecraft argues, as “the use of common myths and legends [are] a weakening influence.” (Pointing at “Morella” or “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe might disagree, suggesting that it is the novel approach one adopts in using such materials that gives one's work originality.)

(Click to enlarge.)

Although Lovecraft's fiction was not initially well received by writers and critics, more recent authors, if not critics, have welcomed his work. According to Stephen King, Lovecraft's writings have influenced such diverse authors as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, William Hope Hodgson, Fritz Leiber, Jr., Harlan Ellison, Jonathan Kellerman, Peter Straub, Charles Willeford, Poppy Z. Brite, James Chumley, John D. MacDonald, Michael Chabon, Ramsey Campbell, Joyce Carol Oates, Kingsley Amis, Neil Gaiman, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams—and “this is just where the list starts, mind you,” King claims.

The Horror of the Incongruous

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

When something is deemed incongruous, it is (if not amusing) often horrifying. We are not shocked or appalled by the sight of a centaur, a mermaid, a minotaur, or a satyr, largely because, although grotesque, they have become familiar to us. However, the dog with the human head that appears briefly in the remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a truly horrifying image. We’ve never been confronted with such a sight; consequently, we are shocked and repulsed by the sight of the canine body with the human head--and face. At one time, of course, the centaur, the mermaid, the minotaur, and the satyr were, likewise, horrifying creatures.

That which we deem to be unseemly, indecorous, unsuitable, inappropriate, or incongruous, we consider unfitting--but unfit for what? For our neat existential categories, in which all things must be either mineral, plant, or animal. In a world in which a plant must be a plant and an animal must be an animal, there’s no room for a Swamp-Thing. In a world in which an animal must be an animal and a human being must be a human being, there’s no place for a dog with a human head. We want our categories neat and tight. When they’re not, we react with shock and revulsion, with fear and trembling, preparing to fight or to take flight. Often, when we are in the presence of the incongruous, we are in the presence of the horrible, the terrible, the disgusting, and the fearsome.

There are many such intersections. Adolescents intersect childhood and adulthood. If they are female, they intersect girlhood and womanhood; if male, boyhood and manhood. As anyone who’s survived this period knows, adolescence--the teenage years--is fraught with horror. Many horror films capitalize on teen angst, setting their stories in high schools. Another intersection (point of incongruity) is that of the animal-human, as we have seen, which gives rise not only to the fantastic half-animal, half-human creatures of ancient mythology, Greek, Egyptian, and otherwise, but also to such horror staples as werewolves. Once-beautiful, disfigured women intersect beauty and ugliness. Cripples, especially amputees, intersect wholeness and injury, just as victims of plagues intersect health and sickness. Ghosts and other revenants, including vampires and zombies, intersect the worlds of the living and the dead. Seemingly normal men, such as Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, or John Wayne Gacy, like Norman Bates, intersect sanity and madness.

Like Bifrost, the rainbow Bridge of Norse mythology, such points of incongruity unite two worlds, or polar opposites. One is normal or acceptable; the other is abnormal or improper. Unlike Bifrost, however, these points of intersection are themselves considered undesirable, repelling rather than attracting travelers. Why? They upset the applecart. They blur the categories we’ve established that divide and subdivide our world and our experience, thereby calling into question our understanding of both our environment and ourselves--in short, nature itself. If we don’t know as much as we thought we knew about the universe, maybe we don’t really comprehend it at all. If there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in our “philosophy,” as Hamlet tells Horatio, perhaps the cosmos is an alien place. It may indifferent to human beings and their fate, as H. P. Lovecraft suggests, or it may even be hostile to us, as H. G. Wells and others have implied.

If we understand the universe, we are at home in it. If we don’t understand it, we are less at home in it. Maybe we are not at all at home in it. It’s hard to feel at ease and comfortable when one is always looking over one’s shoulder for a lamia or an alien life form that might not be recognizable to us as intelligent, or even as alive--until it’s too late. That’s the horror of the incongruous, of that which doesn’t quite fit our view of things, our understanding of how things are and are ‘sposed to be.