Robert Bloch - Bogey Men

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Robert Bloch - Bogey Men (Pyramid, March 1963)

John Schoenherr

A Matter Of Life
Broomstick Ride
The Man Who Collected Poe
The Thinking Cap
The Ghost Writer
The Model Wife
The Skull Of The Marquis De Sade
Memo To A Movie Maker
The Shoes
The Man Who Murdered Tomorrow

Sam Moskowitz - Afterword: Psycho-logical Bloch

Blurb:

QUIZ FOR BOGEY MEN

Who was writing new stories signed 'Edgar A. Poe'?

What did the mysterious thin man sell, door to door?

Why would a man cut his throat, smiling cheerfully?

When will the world come to an end?

Where was the strange planet of sorcery and death?

The answers are inside ... in this superb collection of stories by one of the modern masters of horror and the supernatural

Includes:

The Man Who Collected Poe: As was his grandfather, Launcelot Canning is the greatest living authority on Edgar Allan Poe. He lives alone (or does he?) in a Maryland approximation of the House of Usher, surrounded by his beloved first editions, impossibly rare manuscripts and all the Poe memorabilia he and his ancestor have collected down the years. Lancelot has even starved himself to affect his hero's consumptive look. In short, he has taken his hobby way beyond the point of obsession. And hidden away from public view is his most treasured possession of all ....

The Skull Of The Marquis De Sade: Christopher Maitland, a collector of morbid artifacts, is offered the skull of the divine Marquis for a knock-down £500 by down at heel Wapping-based dealer Marco who confesses he wants shot of it as the relic is playing on his mind. Maitland decides to sleep on it and, after a restless night in which he dreams vividly of being tortured by the Inquisition, consults his friend and fellow collector, Sir Fitzhugh Kilroy who once owned the skull and advises Maitland against making the purchase. "I'm not trying to frighten you, my friend. But I know the history of that skull. During the last hundred years it has passed through the hands of many men. Some of them were collectors, and sane. Others were perverted members of secret cults - worshippers of pain, devotees of Black Magic. Men have died to gain that grisly relic, and other men have been - sacrificed to it."

Despite telling Sir Fitzhugh that he's decided to give the skull a miss, Maitland calls on Marco at his Soho flat (Soho is, apparently a district of Wapping in this story) and finds him dead on his bed with a torn throat. Obviously, Marco's police dog must have contracted rabies or something because there's no sign of any break-in. Maitland shoots the dog and heads off home with his prize ....

Model Wife: Haiti. The civilised, voluptuous Elise gives up a promising career to marry Josef, a Port Au Prince pauper with a talent for painting and sculpture. Josef takes a job at a department store to provide for his wife, but Elise falls for the wealthy M. Charnet and these two set off together to begin a new life in Paris. So Josef creates a mannequin in wax, bearing the face and figure of his wife and stands it in the window of the store. The sun beats down ....

Memo To A Movie Maker: Bloch is approached to adapt Huckleberry Finn, the King James Bible and a biography of Lincoln for the silver screen. He suggests improvements to make them more palatable for the day's cinema goers ...

The Man Who Murdered Tomorrow: Bloch visits an old school friend at his place of work. The friend is a US General who's duty it is to press the button in the event of nuclear war. Conversation turns to Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Cleveland Torso killer - all the 'great' symbolic murderers whose crimes have signalled the end of an era. It is clear that the General is fast losing his mind ...

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Uncredited illustration, A Matter Of Life, Keyhole Mystery, June 1960.

A Matter Of Life: 'Mr. Swift' (aka 'Mr. Quick', 'Mr. Fast', etc) is a traveling salesman, dispensing free samples of his miracle window cleaner to hand-picked female customers. The cleaner, he explains, contains an untraceable chemical poison. His daily round done, it's time to pay a visit to each the women's' intended victims and offer to sell them an antidote, just as you suspected he would somewhere around page 4.

This next is the reason i dragged Bogey Men down from the shelf as it's featured in Margaret L Carter's Demon Lovers. As erotic horror stories go, it's the tamest of the tame, and those who've read John Collier's The Lady On The Grey will know what's coming. Other than The Man Who Collected Poe and Skull Of The Marquis de Sade, the best thing about this collection to date is Sam Moskowitz's informative afterword on Bloch's early career.

The Thinking Cap: "He couldn't rest because he couldn't write, and then he drank because he couldn't rest, and when he drank he couldn't write, either. Not writing led to drinking which led to not writing which led to - looking like a corpse."

Such is the dilemma facing author Barnaby Codd whose long term writers block is destroying him until he comes away from one of Hank Olcott's parties having somehow pulled the beautiful, flame-haired Cleo Fane. After a night of love-making, Cleo explains that she has the answer to his problem and produces a Buck Rogers helmet with two antennae on its sides. Codd reluctantly dons the helmet and finds himself transported to a green planet where earthlings from the future have just landed their rocket. When the horrible adventure ends, on reawakening he types it up as his first ever science fiction story. It sells.

Thanks to the helmet he writes a successful Psycho-like horror short, The Ragged Edge, before effortlessly bashing out a best-selling romantic blockbuster. All is going well but he's still not happy. What has happened to Cleo? Is he capable of writing without the help of the ridiculous headgear? Psychiatrist Dr. Fine puts some silly idea in his head about making a stand, going against the madwoman's warning that he must never remove the helmet mid-dream and damn the supposedly appalling consequences!