Horror Stories- Aug/Sept 1937

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Wayne Rogers- Beast-Women Stalk At Night: Gordon Thayer and his wife Dorothy head to Windover in Western Massachusetts to visit her institutionalized sister Meredith. Along for the ride: Stuart Hurley, attorney and former suitor to Meredith who took it like a good sport when Meredith chose wealthy Earl Richmond.Sadly, Meredith has been institutionalized following her apparent beliefs that she’s a cat, and the subsequent murder of a caged bird sealed the deal.

By EXTRAORDINARY coincidence, Meredith’s uncle is Dr. Melvin Oliphant, formerly eminent brain specialist, now disgraced version of same. His sanitarium in Windover was the centerpiece of the town economy, but it all went south when local patient Henrietta Dunham was subjected to an unauthorized surgery that left her an incurable maniac. Oliphant’s assistant Conklin was found responsible and incarcerated, but Oliphant is still under a cloud and the sanitarium and the town have suffered.

Outside of town, the trio come across an odd shape darting from the road and, nearby, the mutilated corpse of a dog. Dorothy thinks she saw a woman running away, but the men persuade her that it must have been a wild cat. Arriving at the asylum, they find Oliphant to be very shady indeed…






This is a real ripper to start the issue off, with absurd amounts of naked girls simmering in feline sexuality (it should surprise no one that the cause of the feline-canthropy makes the mere sensation of clothing on these girls INTOLERABLE and so they shred it off at the first opportunity). The Scooby-Doo ending is not at all a cheat since it’s exactly what we’ve been told is going on the whole time, which is nice.

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Russell Gray - Venus of Laughing Death: Epistolary story. Narrator is a playwright of no little acclaim, and is currently working on his next one (he’s a little behind). This means a retreat to an isolated cabin away from Broadway actress wife Celine. Skinny dipping in the creek one day, he encounters a beautiful maiden who had the same idea. Later on, he mentions it to a garrulous local reporter. Turns out the girl is a local legend—when her father refused to let her be with her lover, she drowned herself in the creek and now her naked specter pops around. Not only that—but the last inhabitant of the cabin was a poet of little significance who became obsessed with the ghost and wasted away.



Back at the cabin, narrator finds himself going to see the maiden again and again. Meanwhile, Celine gets suspicious when her letters get no reply, so she drives down herself to see what’s wrong.



The ending is obvious, especially when this issue’s ToC blurb gives it away, and this is a pretty slight story. Still it’s compelling enough for the length, and for once it we have a story that actually is thoroughly supernatural (there’s theoretically a mundane explanation, especially given the unreliable narrator, but it seems unlikely).

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John H Knox - Blood for the Cavern Dwellers: Somewhere in the Southwest, near the Mexican border. The Torrey and Eden families have a feud: The narrator's grandfather, Jared Torrey, was murdered by Griff Eden, so the narrator's father, as well as his Uncle Ausban, chased Griff and his wife into the mountains. Eventually they returned with their young daughter Clavel and an ancient Indian servant named Otome. The narrator recalls how Clavel used to show him the scars and scratches on her legs "from where the grey man pinched her in the dark". Recently, in El Paso, the two encountered each other again--during a blackout, Clavel ran into the narrator, terrified of the dark, and revealed a welter of scars as well as a chain around her waist!

Meanwhile, the Edens and Torreys are at it again--Hurn Eden discovered a fantastic cave system that puts Carlsbad Caverns to shame, and has been developing it--they have elevators, a cafeteria, and tour groups down there. They also have the deep underground laboratory of Dr. Badenbrock, who is researching what effects the development of life outside the reach of cosmic rays may have. Uncle Ausban is suing the Edens--some of the caves run under Torrey land. As Ausban, the narrator, and young Lucia Torrey go underground--the narrator, an eye doctor, has been promised some interesting experiments by Dr. Badenbrock--Clavel and her latest beau head down with the group as well. Maybe this suitor won't die horribly when the lights go out the way Clavel's other boyfriends have?


It's no "Mole-Men" but this is an engaging story with some good shudder moments. 

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EG Morris - A Monster Seeks My Heart: New York. Chemist Jack is at Coney Island with his business partner George's heretofore unmentioned (but quite lovely) sister Marion. She drags him to the freak show, where a hideous, pin-headed dwarf spots Jack and blows kisses at him. On the subway back to Manhattan, Jack notices something is following him. Turns out, the freak has preceded him to his apartment and jabs him with a syringe. . .

Absolutely no points for guessing who's behind all this. About a third of the story is the "here's what the plan was all along" monologue, although in this case it's not the villain delivering it but a benevolent freak. Minor consolation provided by the assurance that Marion has "firm young breasts."

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George Edson - Disturb Not the Dead: Fighting Jim Kimball, the reformist mayor of Fairville, is determined to build a hydroelectric plant and break the monopoly of the Northern Electric Company and their political stooge, Sam Rosan. Unfortunately, there's a cemetery in the way, and the mandatory coffin-moves are controversial enough among the living. . .could the dead also be involved? 

Well, someone is, because the city is suddenly struck with an onslaught of rapes and murders by apparent walking corpses and skeletons. Eminently sensible hero Tom (betrothed of the mayor's daughter Joan) doesn't believe in spooks, and sets out to expose the Northern Electric racket and save Joan's sister Beulah from being ravished and killed. 

He succeeds at one of these tasks.

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William G. Bogart - Fresh Corpses on Consignment: Jim Stark and co-pilot/sweetheart Ann are flying a medical relief mission to a flood stricken town in Kentucky. They arrive to a deserted airfield and find themselves abducted by backwoods yokels, led by a funeral director, who are involved in a gory plot to smuggle stolen gold intended for Fort Knox out of the country in human remains. A bunch of National Guardsmen who have been turned into mindless fiends are also involved.


Sounds much, much better than it is. Am beginning to suspect that shudder pulps paradoxically work better in longer form, where there's more time for insanity to develop. 

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Wyatt Blassingame - Marriage Made In Hell: Another Blassingame drudge fest of feverishly guilty narrator who sent a ship to sea where it promptly caught on fire and killed a husband on his wedding night. Narrator becomes involved with the widow, to the dismay of the deceased. However, his self-sacrifice to save his new love impresses the ghost enough to, well, give up the ghost.

Points for having another supernatural story where something supernatural actually happens, but I'm quickly learning Blassingame is not one of my favorite practitioners of the shudder pulp. 

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Henry Treat Sperry - Satan's Charm School: 

"I had been appointed to the chair of psychology at Mount Birnham only over the determined opposition of the older members of the board of directors. They insisted that I was too young to teach in a finishing school for young girls. When I came upon Ramona Thesselay dancing nude in a moon-bathed forest clearing, one night, I realized that there was justice in their objection."

Now THAT'S how you begin a story!

Unfortunately, it peaks there. Our narrator is torn between two of his students--provocative, lustful Ramona Thesselay and virginal blonde Helen Carrolton. Ramona manages to seduce him once but when he begs off, citing Helen, she tells him to go to the forest clearing of the introduction at midnight. There, he sees Helen among a dozen naked girls, dancing and drinking in ancient pagan rites. One of them, Maria Davis, tries to flee, and her mangled body is found the next day. Then, Helen disappears. . .

An amazing beginning followed by an extremely perfunctory and rushed ending.