Christine Campbell Thomson (ed.) - More Not At Night (Arrow, 1961, 1963)
Harold Ward - The Closed Door
Mortimer Levitan - The Third Thumbprint
Romeo Poole - The Death Crescents Of Koti
Will Smith & R. J. Robbins - Swamp Horror
Oscar Cook - Golden Lilies
Jessie D. Kerruish - The Seven Locked Room
Loretta G. Burroughs - Creeping Fingers
Flavia Richardson - Out Of The Earth
B. W. Sliney - The Man Who Was Saved
Hester Holland - Dorner Cordainthus
Robert E. Howard - Rogues In The House
David H. Keller - The Thing In The Cellar
Oswell Blakeston - The Crack
Archie Binns - The Last Trip
Christine Campbell Thomson makes another selection from the world-famous Not At Night series that has sold a quarter of a million copies.
Bat-men, giant leeches, a thing from the sea, a man-eating prehistoric plant and more - to haunt the reader into the small hours.While not quite as knicker-gripping and downright wild as the first Arrow selection - but then, what is? - this is still just about as 'must have' as it gets! What a top (uncredited) cover for starters! And where else will you find a character with a name anything like as wondrous as Ah Fook?
includes;
Romeo Poole - The Death Crescents Of Koti: South Pacific. Polynesians destroy a spindling race who live under a volcano on the island of Koti. Generations later, the menfolk of the Savaloos people are being systematically picked off by "a devil in a long flying coat" which leaves three crescent-shaped indentations on its victims who seldom survive the night. White men to the rescue yet again. This time it's Dr. Seego and his three companions who come up with a serum before nipping off to the caves for a scrap with the human bats.
Will Smith & R. J. Robbins - Swamp Horror: The narrator's father has gone missing in mysterious circumstances so he moves back home to the farm to investigate. Exploring Marvin's Swamp the following day, he discovers the corpse of his father - and those of several animals - lying in and around Dead River, entirely drained of blood. The loathsome creatures responsible soon reveal themselves: "Great, fat overgrown leeches; spawned of the filth and grown here to this morbid size by centuries of breeding and interbreeding in the lushness. Oh, the horror that swept me!"
Oscar Cook - Golden Lilies: Magistrate Chan Ah Fook must find the perpetrator of an infamous murder - the old nail-hammered-into-the-back-of-the-neck favourite - or forfeit his own life. On the advice of his beautiful wife, Lee Min Yen, who is"possessed of golden lilies incomparable in the vast domain of China", he has the corpse brought to the courthouse. Sure enough, the dead man's widow breaks down and confesses her guilt and Ah Fook is saved.
Ten months later, Ah Fook is wondering how his wife could have known what to do? Time to exhume her first husband ...
Harold Ward - The Closed Door: Lucinda Marsh poisons her despised, bullying husband, Obie, then strangles him with a sheet, but not before he's delivered his chilling curse: "I'll come back from th' grave, you hussy!" He does.
Hester Holland - Dorner Cordainthus: Another demon flower story, this one set in Surrey. Palaeobotanist Dormer patiently cultivates the maggot-like seed he's brought back from his travels in Gondwana Land. The thing rapidly grows into a many-tentacled, carnivorous monstrosity that crushes and devours every living thing that strays too close.
Mortimer Levitan - The Third Thumb-Print: "My system enables you to tell whether a man is a criminal merely by measuring and classifying his thumb-print."
Prof. Sanders has spent the past twenty years working on a fool-proof method for identifying murderers. Hateful of press-intrusion, his single confidante throughout has been young Guy Steel. Steel gives him five random thumb-prints and asks him to spot the murderer. One of them is Sanders' own and it denounces him as a killer in waiting. Steel picks the wrong moment to confess that he's a journalist ...
Archie Binns - The Last Trip: "I would have died long ago if it hadn't been for her. I was blown up and shot to pieces ... they brought back what was left of me, and put me away. I waited my chance until tonight, when I came to find you!"
The late bus from Pacific Street to Lewis. Butler is first irked then increasingly terrified as the journey proceeds in sombre silence, save for the mantra "Driver, I want to get off here" when one of the passengers wants to disembark. Eventually, there is only one man left, who pulls a gun, introduces himself as Death and says he wants to go to Woodland Cemetery.
Essentially a precursor of
Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors' framing story, this would have made for a great EC strip.
B. W. Sliney - The Man Who Was Saved: The seven man schooner
The Scudder is becalmed for days in the middle of the ocean. One evening, the crew are intrigued by some unseen thing that causes a great disturbance in the water. They realise they're in trouble when it sucks down a huge whale, reducing it to a bloody pulp. The monster - "a horrible mess of pulsating green matter" - attacks
The Scudder, oozing across the deck and decimating the crew.
The single survivor is picked up by
The Pacific Belle where his story is met with a certain amount of incredulity, although some of the men mutter darkly that there are such things. And then they run across the stranded schooner ...
Flavia Richardson - Out Of The Earth: Gloucestershire. Anthony and Sylvia Wayre are attacked by an elemental at their new cottage, A greenish gas seeps under the door and takes the form of a man who gives off a dreadful, fetid stench. When it looms up and threatens to engulf them, Anthony snatches the crucifix from his swooning wife's neck and fends it off. Their home was built on a Roman settlement.
David H. Keller - The Thing In The Cellar: From the age of three months, young Tommy Tucker has been terrified of the cellar. His parents take him to see Dr. Hawthorne who learns that the child's fear is rooted in his belief that there's something lurking down there. Hawthorne advises the Tuckers as to what they should do to disillusion the boy of his ridiculous fancy.
Oswell Blakestone - The Crack: The narrator has hideous dreams involving a weird antique dealer and his horrific statuettes of animals writhing in torment. It transpires that, at an unspecified date, such events did take place when Chiffonier, the proprietor of 'Ye Olde Yew Tree Antique Shoppe', was "detected in a particularly repellent crime" and absconded, leaving a pig, mutilated and masked to resemble himself (!) to be hung in his place.
Three years pass before the narrator encounters the reincarnation of Chiffonier, a stage illusionist. During his performance, the magician suffers a brain seizure, runs one female assistant through with swords and sets about sawing a second in half.
Loretta G. Burrough - Creeping Fingers: The hotel is full save for the rarely used room 317. The manager advises Kent that it is perhaps not in his interest to use the bath as "people don't like it". Kent pays no heed and is nearly drowned when a ghost tries to reenact its crime of three years ago ...
