Christine Campbell Thomson (ed.) - Not At Night: Tales That Freeze The Blood (Arrow 1960, 1962)
Christine Campbell Thomson - Introduction
Mary Elizabeth Counselman - The Accursed Isle
Victor Roman - Four Wooden Stakes
Galen C. Colin - Teeth
R. Anthony - The Witch-Baiter
Flavia Richardson - Pussy
Zelia Brown Reed - The Curse Of Yig
Guy Preston - The Way He Died
H. Warner Munn - The Chain
Bassett Morgan - Island Of Doom
Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked
Arthur Woodward - Lord Of The Talking Heads
Hester Holland - The Scream
Romeo Poole - A Hand From The Deep
Edmond Hamilton - Pygmy IslandThese stories are as creepy as anything that came from the pen of Bram Stoker or Edgar Allan Poe. Vampires, screams in the night, blood on the stairs, head-shrinkers, Chinese tortures, amputations, stakes - they are all here!First of three Arrow reprints from the brilliant
Not At Night series (1926-37) and, to my mind, the one that best conveys the sheer off the wall weirdness of this ridiculously entertaining series.
Mary E. Counselman - The Accursed Isle: When their boat goes down, seven Americans with little in common are washed up on a desert island. On their first night, the watch is savagely killed, someone or something tearing out his throat. As their number is whittled down, it becomes apparent that one of them is the killer although, as Dr. Kenshaw points out, it's likely that the man responsible is unaware of his actions. Eventually only two of the seven remain alive, the doctor and family man Landers, each of them tortured by the possibility that it is they who harbour cannibalistic urges. A ship approaches the island ...
Victor Roman - Four Wooden Stakes: Holroyd Estate, Charing. Remson Holroyd's grandfather, father and two brothers have all died within the past five years. Prior to his death, Grand-pops had spent time in South America where he was attacked by a huge bloodsucking bat and in his will he requested that a crypt be built on the estate and his body interred therein. Narrator Jack has just solved a case that baffled "the police and two of the best detective agencies in the city", but even he is stumped to begin with. Once he gets going, however, there's no stopping him: "Remson, what we are up against is a vampire" he explains, after they've watched a shrouded figure return to the vault. "I noticed you had an old edition of the Encyclopedia on your shelf. If you bring me volume XXIV I'll be able to explain more fully the meaning of the word."
Galen C. Colin - Teeth: Hai Waku, China. American Peter Vermain makes the fatal error of being caught holding hands with Ti Ling, the beautiful daughter of Professor Ling Fu. He is slipped a drug which paralyzes ever muscle but - crucially - leaves him entirely conscious of all that is going on around him and capable of feeling pain. The sadistic Chinese then sets his dental students loose on the 'white devil' ...
R. Anthony - The Witch-Baiter: Justice Mynheer van Ragevoort tries and condemns 'witches' with commendable impartiality: one a confession has been tortured from them, they're hung and quartered in keeping with the law.
Comes the night when he's blindfolded and bundled from his home by the men of the village to preside over the trial of 'the witch of witches'.
Having passed sentence, he's again abducted, this time by members of the
Vehmgericht, a secret society who've decided that his insane reign of terror must be curtailed. He's given an extended session in the dungeon, and then released to discover his latest victim ..
Flavia Richardson (Christine Campbell Thomson) - Pussy: Godfrey Ellington buys a little green cat figure in a shop off the British Museum. His own puss, Simpkins, has an aversion to it from the first - as well it might. The ikon is the earthly receptacle of Bubastis. It doesn't stay small for long ...
Zealia Brown Reed - The Curse Of Yig: Oklahoma, 1925. An ethnologists' researches into snake lore amongst the Native Americans leads him to Guthrie Asylum where Dr. McNeill introduces him to a casualty of the curse of Yig. McNeill then relates the tragic history of settlers Walker and Audrey Davis, whose anxieties over her wiping out a nest of baby rattlers culminate in madness, manslaughter and monster births. A pulp classic with a killer ending, reputedly revised by H. P. Lovecraft.
Guy Preston - The Way He Died: "No wonder none but zany's and Lunnon-folk come nigh the place - 'tis unholy!".
The Firs has stood empty for thirty years, ever since the sadist, Mr. Grace, hung himself in despair when his plaything, Gregory Whitstable, was inconsiderate enough to die and the torture chamber, just after Grace had taken a red hot poker to him.
On the night of the anniversary, Londoner Arthur Morley is drinking in the next village at
The Belhampton Arms. Learning from the landlord that the place has a reputation for being haunted, he agrees to spend the night there. Mr. Grace and his victim reenact their final moments for his benefit ...
H. Warner Munn - The Chain: The unnamed victim wakes to find himself in the rat-infested oubliette of Rutzau Castle. The man who stands atop the pit is his cousin, Franz. Evidently Franz has found out just who caused the 'accident' that left him a cripple, and who has been sleeping with his fair wife, Olga. He lowers a chain, and beckons to his captive to climb ...
Bassett Morgan - Island Of Doom: On a remote tropical island, Bill Evans carries out his pioneering research in the field of brain surgery with only wife Nell, two Chinese assistants and a tame orang-utang, Willie, for company. "Think if we could take human wrecks and use the best bits! That's what my surgery is for", he explains to Mansey, the fellow who periodically visits the island to deliver the surgeon's supplies. Mansey admires the crocodiles with the brains of hens and the fly trap orchids - "cultivated and bred for size and ferocity" - fed by Willie with lumps of pig meat. Most of all, though, he admires Nell.
Bill Evans' neglected but loving wife has another admirer, Dink Forster, Bill's fellow surgeon, whom she jilted, and when he arrives at the island to assist in his rival's experiments, it is with malice aforethought. Forster takes advantage of Nell's brief sojourn to Australia (where she's gone to have a baby) to operate on her husband, transplanting Willie's brain into his head and vice versa. As he crows to the horrified Mansey: "He'll have time to think of the Hell I've endured thinking of Nell with him. Only with Nell and me the separation was geographical. With Nell and Bill it's biological!"
Mansey is clubbed unconscious and strapped down for brain surgery, but the orang-utang with Bill's brain rescues him, slashes Forster to pieces and then throws himself into the midst of the monstrous vampire flowers.
Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked: Borneo: Glister, a white man, seduces a native girl, Jebee, who is already married to the God Maboga (or rather, his earthly receptacle, a big jug). When the crops fail, her people blame their woes on the scandalous affair, and a penitent Jebee returns to the village. Glister blows his brains out.
To appease their God, the natives dig up Glister's body and abduct his son, whose head they intend adding to their impressive collection of trophies. Only district officers Dennis and Wakely can save him.
A very busy story with Glister's ghost thrown in for good measure, it doesn't really measure up to the stories featuring the delightfully ghoulish Warwick. Dennis also features in
Si Urag Of The Tale.
Arthur Woodward - Lord Of The Talking Heads: At the museum of Indian and African artefact's, Benson, the prematurely aged night-watchman, visits the curator with a bundle he wants kept on display in a sealed case, and his dreadful story of how he came to obtain it.
Two years earlier, Benson had been treasure-hunting in Ecuador when his guide betrayed him to the Jibaro tribe, "uncivilised brothers who make it a national pastime to remove people's heads and convert them into household ornaments". It transpires that their leader talks like something out of
The Black And White Minstrels Show, hates honkeys and wants one as his slave.
"Git down on yoh knees, white trash. Git down on yoh knees and crawl heah and kiss mah feet."
What was there to do? A bloodthirsty, traitorous Indian behind me, a mad coon in front of me, ready to blow my guts out. I did what you'd have done, brother. I crawled.There is a plus side. Benson learns the secrets of head-shrinking and imprisoning souls by sealing the lips, all of which will come in handy later. Several poles are already decorated with same, and "the Big Smoke" warns Benson that, ultimately, there's one with his name on it. The worst of it is, the leader is a voodoo adept and can read minds.
"Thinkin' uh leaving me, wuz yoh? Jus' try it, white trash! Yuh haid will look purty fine up dar among dose fine gemmemun. Yassuh, soon's yoh daid I'm gonna sew yoh soul inside yoh head and keep yoh to help me lak I does dem other white folks. Yassuh, dyin' won't let yoh go. I keeps yoh atter you-all am daid. Oooee, I got power, I'se got conjure medicine ..."Obviously, Benson turns the tables - otherwise he'd not be a night-watchman at the museum, right? - so you've probably guessed what's inside the bundle. But that's just the beginning of his worries ...
Lord Of The Talking Heads was Woodward's solitary contribution to
Weird Tales (December, 1931). It was later reprinted in the May 1954 issue.
Hester Holland - The Scream: A terrible cry emanates from one of the upstairs rooms at 'The Elms', the new retirement home of Colonel George Dawson and his wife, Ellen, on the outskirts of Guildmore. they learn that the house has "been sold and let and sold again on account of the scream" and yet there's no dark deed in The Elms' brief history to account for it. The curmudgeonly Colonel doesn't believe in the supernatural and grows steadily more insane as he attempts to penetrate the mystery.
Filmed for the TV series
Douglas Fairbanks jnr. Presents ... in 1953 with the host and Constance Cummings taking the lead roles.
Romeo Poole - A Hand From The Deep: Simon Glaze is the only survivor of a fire at Dr. Whitby's place, an institution which has been the subject of several disturbing rumours. Glaze lost an arm in an accident and Whitby treated him with one of his serums free of charge. There are side effects. Glaze forever wants to take a bath and curls up in a ball whenever he feels threatened. "He is now coming more and more every day to resemble a gigantic shellfish, in both body and mind ..." Yes, Glaze is fast mutating into ... a human lobster!
Edmond Hamilton - Pygmy Island: Russell is washed up on an island off the Carolina coast after his boat capsizes. He is met on the shore by a man who introduces himself as Dr. James Garland of the Northern University Research Centre, whose team are conducting their research on the otherwise deserted island. After taking refreshments, the exhausted Russell falls asleep ... and awakens in a glass case with the gigantic face of Dr. Garland gloating down at him - the botanist has injected him with the "size-decreasing compound", just as he has his five colleagues!
Spear fights with rats and all the usual
Incredible Shrinking Man fun and games ensue as the pygmy six try to commandeer the test-tube containing the drug that will restore them to their full height.
