Michel Parry - The Hounds Of Hell

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Michel Parry (ed.) - The Hounds Of Hell (Gollancz, 1974: Arrow, 1975)

Introduction - Michel Parry

H. P. Lovecraft - The Hound
Ambrose Bierce - Staley Flemming’s Hallucination
Ivan Turgenev - The Dog
Agatha Christie - The Hound Of Death
Manly Wade Wellman - Dead Dog
Catherine Crowe - The Dutch Officer’s Story
Guy de Maupassant - Vendetta
Theo Gift - Dog Or Demon?
Saki - Louis
Fritz Leiber - The Howling Tower
Feodor Sologub - The White Dog
William Faulkner - The Hound
Ray Bradbury - The Emissary
Robert Bloch - The Hound Of Pedro
Ramsey Campbell - The Whining
Dion Fortune - The Death Hound

Blurb:
Prepare to meet... The HOUNDS OF HELL

Piercing, coal-red eyes. Claws and teeth stained with blood. Jaws that slaver at the prospect of a fresh victim.

Buried deep within our unconscious, the savage, primordial image of the Dog-Beast still holds the power to haunt and terrify. Here, from the pens of some of the greatest horror writers of all time, are sixteen nightmare tales to remind you why.

H. P. Lovecraft - The Hound: As far as i'm aware, The Hound is usually lumped in with H.P.L.'s "lesser" works, but it's his early, pre-Mythos horror for it's own sake Gothic melodramas like the screaming mad Herbert West - Re-animator never fail to cheer me up.

The narrator and St. John, “wearied by the commonplace of a prosaic world where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grew stale”, enthusiastically launch themselves into a new career - as grave robbers. They set up a secret underground museum where they can gloat over their hideous finds and savour the rank stench of corruption undisturbed. Learning of a fellow ghoul five centuries buried in a Dutch churchyard, they resolve to dig him up and get their hands on the powerful amulet he stole - “the ghastly soul symbol of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng.” Within a week of their triumphant return to England they hear scratching at their windows, a faint baying as first heard when they exhumed the tomb-looter and the flapping of hordes of bat-wings. Whatever it is that seeks them attacks St. John and reduces him to a mangled corpse. The terrified narrator realises his only hope is to return the amulet …..

Ambrose Bierce - Staley Fleming’s Hallucination: Each night since his return from abroad, Fleming has been visited in his bedroom by a spectral Newfoundland. From his patient's description of the black beast, Dr. Halderman recognises it as that which belonged to Fleming's enemy, Atwell Barton, stabbed to death in the woods three years ago. No-one was ever charged with his murder though, as Halderman recalls it, people had their "theories", perhaps arrived at on the basis that Fleming upped and moved to Europe shortly afterward.

Halderman agrees to stop the night to make sure no harm befalls him ....

Guy De Maupassant - Vendetta: When her son is murdered, the widow Saverini swears vengeance. But how can an old woman and a gaunt sheepdog overcome a robust young killer? It’s amazing what you can do with some bales of straw, your husband’s old clothes and a string of black pudding.

Saki - Louis: Whenever Strudwarden suggests an excursion that doesn't fit in with her plans, wife Lena falls back on the same infuriating excuse - Louis, her little brown doggie, is a poor traveller and were she to abandon him for a moment he'd "die". The odd thing is, in Strudwarden's recollection, Lena has never previously shown the slightest fondness for animals. Elsie, his somewhat macabre sister, advises him to send the pampered beast to its maker, but how? "It would be too suspicious if we invented a Suffragette raid and pretended they invaded her boudoir and threw a brick at him." So Elsie - she really has a flair for this kind of thing, bless her! - suggests an improvised gas chamber ....

Dion Fortune - The Death Hound: Billy Martin, is a young man with a heart condition who believes himself pursued by a ferocious phantom hound: it's presence is so real that its all he can do to resist running from it - but he knows that could prove fatal in his poor condition. The beast persecutes him almost relentlessly: his only hours of grace are late on Fridays - and that's the night the Black Lodge hold their meetings!

Dr. Taverner correctly deduces that Martin has made an enemy of a Black Lodge member as "this is a clear case of mental assassination" and, when it transpires that Martin has a rival for the affections of pretty Miss Hallom, Taverner is able to rattle off the diabolist's details immediately: "Anthony Mortimer .... Grand Master of the Lodge of Set the Destroyer. Knocks, two, three, two, password 'Jackal'. When Billy is almost killed fleeing from the death hound across the moor, Taverner decides it's time the creature was returned to it's master.

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Robert Bloch - The Hound Of Pedro: Pedro Dominguez and his men ride into Sonora and hitch up outside the mission house. The terrifying Pedro humbly requests of the padre that he immediately pronounce the prayer for the dead. 'Who for?', wonders the good father. Ask a stupid question ....

After the ensuing butchery, Pedro, his huge black devil dog, and trusted sidekick Abouri, a Moorish wizard, commandeer the convent. Those of the local Yakuis tribe who survived the conflict are set to mining gold, while their women become his to abuse. The young maidens he 'invites' to join him at the mission house are never seen again. When ten young braves dare remonstrate with him, they are buried to their necks in the sand for he and his men to bowl at with huge wooden balls ....

Meanwhile, Don Manuel Digron and his troops arrive at the canyon. The Holy Inquisition have shown a great interest in Pedro ever since he fled their clutches and escaped to Mexico. Learning from the Yakuis that this night Pedro and Abouri have repaired to their subterranean temple where they intend to sacrifice a virgin to the Devil, Digron prepares a surprise attack ....

Devil Worship, lycanthrope, demonology, a severed head or two (it's a Robert Bloch story, after all) and some no-nonsense, Ripper-style tearing apart of a human body - all present and correct in this unashamedly gung-ho pulp romp. And the ending reads like a Spaghetti Hammer Horror.

Ramsey Campbell - The Whining: Bentinck, a Radio Merseyside broadcaster struggling to edit an interview with a slippery Councillor, invites a starved stray dog into his flat from snowbound Princes Park. The destructive dog soon makes a nuisance of itself, getting him into trouble with his landlord over its constant whining, and Bentinck doesn't like the way it sidles into bed with him, proudly showing off its erection. But only after he eventually loses control and kills it with an axe does he learn just how possessive his four-legged friend can be.

Feodor Sologub - The White Dog: The bullying Alexandra Ivanovna constantly harangues Tanechna, the youngest seamstress at the workshop, until the new girl can suffer her in silence no longer. You are a dog, Tanechna tells her, not only that, but "the most detestable of dogs, a poodle". Ivanovna, incensed, threatens to tear every hair from Tanechna's head but is soon put in her place by her supervisor. After her outburst, Ivanovna begins acting .... strangely, as do all around her. Each of her acquaintances seem to have taken the form of the animal they most represent in their behavior. As white dogs were viewed with superstitious dread in pre-revolutionary Russia, her own manifestation is especially unfortunate ...

[oatcakeredux]

Ray Bradbury - The Emissary

"Dog was a Bad Dog, digging where he shouldn't."

A much-anthologised story, this one, but no less superb for that. Everybody knows it, in all likelihood, but its denouement remains supremely shuddery, and Bradbury - as in such other classic short stories of his as The October Game - proves himself the master of the killer closing line...

"Toddy had company."

[morganscorpion]

Some excellent stories in this anthology, and a few that made me go "meh". Of course I preferred the Lovecraft to all the others, but Bradbury and Campbell did well too.

It's a shame that the dog on the cover looked more silly than scary. Indeed, at first glance I thought it was a cat.