Weinberg & Co - 100 Tiny Tales of Terror

[dem bones]

Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg [eds.] - 100 Tiny Tales of Terror (Barnes & Noble 1996)

Cheryl Knippenburg

Stefan Dziemianowicz - Introduction

J. U. Giesy - Ashes of Circumstance
Manly Wade Wellman - At the Bend of the Trail
William Fryer Harvey - August Heat
Ramsey Campbell - Beside the Seaside
David Drake - Best of Luck
Ambrose Bierce - The Boarded Window
Joe R. Lansdale - Boo, Yourself
Kirk Mashburn - The Broken Thread
E. F. Benson - The Bus-Conductor
Dennis Etchison - The Chill
F. Paul Wilson - The Cleaning Machine
Richard Middleton - The Coffin Merchant
Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner
Frank Belknap Long - The Desert Lich
J. Sheridan Le Fanu - Dickon the Devil
F. Marion Crawford - The Doll’s Ghost
Nancy A. Collins - The Dreamclown
Fred Chappell - Ember
Maurice Level - The Empty House
Clark Ashton Smith - The Epiphany of Death
Ingulphus - The Everlasting Club
William F. Nolan - Fair Trade
Lucy Taylor - The Family Underwater
Guy de Maupassant - Fear
Theodore Sturgeon - Fluffy
Poppy Z. Brite - Footprints in the Water
Stefan Grabinski - The Frenzied Farmhouse
William F. Nolan - Gobble, Gobble!
William Browning Spencer - Graven Images
Thomas Ligotti - The Greater Festival of Masks
Willis Knapp Jones - The Green Scarab
Donald Edward Keyhoe - The Grim Passenger
Nancy Holder - Have You Seen Me?
Richard T. Chizmar - Heroes
David B. Silva - The Hollow
Mary Elizabeth Counselman - The House of Shadows
Ralph Adams Cram - In Kropfsberg Keep
Howard Wandrei - In the Triangle
H. P. Lovecraft - In the Vault
Seabury Quinn - Itself
Darrell Schweitzer - Jason, Come Home
Frank Belknap Long - Johnny on the Spot
Brian Stableford - Justice
Grace M. Campbell - The Law of the Hills
William R. Stotler & D. E. LeRoss - Letter from Will Stotler, Dated October 32nd As Received by D. E. LeRoss
Melanie Tem - Lightning Rod
David Langford - The Lions in the Desert
Les Daniels - The Little Green Ones
Barry Pain - Miracles
Edgar Allan Poe - Morella
Nicholas Royle - Moving Out
Anthony Boucher - Mr. Lupescu
Thomas Wiloch - Mr. Templeton’s Toyshop
August Derleth - Mrs. Bentley’s Daughter
Tina L. Jens - Mrs. Edmonds’ Pantry
Saki - The Music on the Hill
Edith Nesbit - The Mystery of the Semi-Detached
Clark Ashton Smith - The Ninth Skeleton
Henry S. Whitehead - No Eye-Witnesses
Ramsey Campbell - Old Clothes
Donald R. Burleson - One-Night Strand
T. E. D. Klein - One Size Eats All: A Campfire Tale for Children
W. C. Morrow - An Original Revenge
H. P. Lovecraft - The Outsider
Howard Wandrei - Over Time’s Threshold
Robert Peery - The Palace of the Dead
Brian Hodge - Past Tense
Douglas Clegg - People Who Love Life
Carl Jacobi - Phantom Brass
Eric Frank Russell - The Ponderer
Steve Rasnic Tem - Preparations for the Game
Robert Barr - Purification
Bernard Capes - A Queer Cicerone
Donald A. Wollheim - The Rag Thing
E. Hoffmann Price - The Rajah’s Gift
Richard Laymon - Roadside Pickup
Fritz Leiber - Schizo Jimmie
Karl Edward Wagner - Shrapnel
John Shirley - Silent Crickets
Hugh B. Cave - The Skeptic
Gertrude Atherton - The Striding Place
E. Hoffmann Price - The Sultan’s Jest
Theodore Sturgeon - Talent
Leigh Brackett - The Tapestry Gate
Kim Newman - The Terminus
Fitz-James O’Brien - A Terrible Night
Louise Van De Verg - The Three
Mary Elizabeth Counselman - The Three Marked Pennies
W. W. Jacobs - The Three Sisters
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Tom Toothacre’s Ghost Story
Norman Partridge - Tombstone Moon
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam - A Torture by Hope
M. R. James - Two Doctors
John Bender - The Visitor
Joel Lane - Wave Scars
Vernon Lee - A Wedding Chest
Chet Williamson - What Can a Child Do?
Hugh B. Cave - What Say the Frogs Now, Jenny?
August Derleth - Wild Grapes
Vincent O’Sullivan - Will

Andrew Brosnatch

Frank Belknap Long - The Desert Lich: (Weird Tales, Nov 1924). A Necrophilic Tale. As punishment for selling him a wife who proves unfaithful, the disgrunted customer abandons the trader at the bottom of a desert sepulchre with the corpse of the errant bride ...
Mischievous black comedy, possibly written to cash in on any controversy surrounding the previous issue's publication of C.M. Eddy's The Loved Dead?

Clark Ashton Smith - The Ninth Skeleton: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1928). A bizarre and fantastic tale, about the procession of nine grisly skeletons that horrified the dreamy lover. His tryst with fiancée Guinevere turns to terror when, inexplicably, Herbert finds himself stranded among seventeen skeletons in a pop-up ancient graveyard.

Seabury Quinn - Itself: Weird Tales, Sept. 1925). The Banshee Moved the Tortoise-Shell Comb As a Sign of Death. A playful table-tipping session disturbs an old world fairy who delivers her warning via an item of "feminine frippery." Dr. Appelgate initially laughs off Pat O'Loughlin's ludicrous fears, but the patient is adamant he will die before the night is through.

References "Costello's funeral establishment."

J. U. Giesy - Ashes of Circumstance: Weird Tales, Sept. 1925). The Cold Ashes of a Cigar Spelled Sudden Death for Two. Jean Armand is fiercely possessive of his wife. Now he believes she is carrying on with his best friend there is but one course of action.

Henry S. Whitehead - No Eye-Witnesses: (Weird Tales, Aug. 1932). Everard Simon had a weird experience in Flatbush when his shoes were caked with blood and forest mold from the slaying of Jerry the Wolf. A fugitive gangster has inside information on the recent outbreak of lycanthrope in Brooklyn. Also appears in 1994's 100 Wild Little Weird Tales

Howard Wandrei - In The Triangle: (Weird Tales, Jan 1934). A brief, strange tale about a weird beast and an old man in gray. Arnold ill-advisedly rushes to the rescue of a white-haired chap held helpless in the fangs of a monstrous hybrid creature.

Donald Edward Keyhoe - The Grim Passenger: (Weird Tales, April 1925). Was the Steamship Titanic Destroyed by an Egyptian Curse?. "Probably not" is the answer to that one, but a nifty four pager regardless. As recently encountered on Mummy in Horror & Supernatural thread.

[dem bones]

Andrew Brosnatch

E. Hoffmann Price - The Rajah's Gift: Weird Tales, Jan. 1925). Oriental Tale - One Crowded House of Glorious Life. In return for thwarting an assassination attempt, the Rajah promises to grant Zaid his heart's desire. Zaid confides that this past twenty years he has dreamt of riding in royal state through the streets of Lacrai-Kai, though he knows such sacrilege must cost him his life. Unable to entice the poor fool with women and jewels, the Rajah reluctantly complies with his wishes.

Louise Van De Verg - The Three: (Weird Tales, Feb 1929). A ghostly fog shut out the memory of the man and woman, but it all came back with crushing clearness - too late!. The frightened lovers have but the vaguest recollection of that night's terrible events until they arrive at the widow's house. It was better not knowing.

Kirk Mashburn - The Broken Thread: (Weird Tales, May 1932). A grim story of an unspeakable horror, a tale of crystal-gazing and an eery murder, by the author of "Placide's Wife." When his friend and fellow oil tycoon, John Clayton, falls for a spiritualist medium, Madame Zara, the narrator loudly denounces her a phoney. The fiery Zara is not one to take an insult lying down and volunteers a demonstration of her powers - with disastrous consequences for them all.

[cauldronbrewer]

Feb 16, 2019 17:30:08 GMT dem bones said:

Howard Wandrei - In The Triangle: (Weird Tales, Jan 1934). A brief, strange tale about a weird beast and an old man in gray. Arnold ill-advisedly rushes to the rescue of a white-haired chap held helpless in the fangs of a monstrous hybrid creature.

I recall this one and "Over Time's Threshold" (another of H. Wandrei's early Weird Tales entries included in 100 Tiny Tales of Terror) as being real head-scratchers.

[dem bones]

Quindaro

Grace M. Campbell - The Law Of The Hills: (Weird Tales, Aug. 1930). A tragic, tender tale of the slim white shape that ran with the wolf-pack over the snow. An act of martyrdom. Hilde, the Norwegian lycanthrope, rescues her husband from a pack of timber wolves.

Theodore Sturgeon - Fluffy: (Weird Tales, March 1947). Don't make enemies with a cat. Why? Well, try it and find out! Rotten scheming feline wanting rid of it's owner, manipulates petty criminal to bump her off.

William F. Nolan - Gobble, Gobble!: (Weird Tales, Winter 1990). An alien organism which becomes who or what it eats.

Mary Elizabeth Counselman - The House of Shadows : (Weird Tales, Apr. 1933). A strange little story, about a family whose images would not reflect in the mirror. The tragic Allison family of Oak Grove are a hospitable, non-malevolent class of spook.

Anthony Boucher - Mr. Lupescu: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1945). ... and that itch comes from Stardust you run into up in the Milky Way (eh?). Little Bobby's official imaginary friend sees off a pretender.

[dem bones]

A pair of Sac Prairie tales.

August Derleth - Mrs. Bentley’s Daughter: (Weird Tales, Oct. 1930). A brief, tender little story about the child who was seated precariously on the curb of the well. Inevitable fate of disobedient little Dorothy. Slight even by filler standards.

August Derleth - Wild Grapes: (Weird Tales, July 1934). A strange story about the white cloud that hangs over the unmarked grave of a murdered man Luke Adams kills his Uncle Rasla to gain sole possession of the farm. His fatal mistake is to plant wild grape vine on the vengeful victim's grave.

Manly Wade Wellman - At the Bend of the Trail: (Weird Tales, Oct. 1934). A brief story of Africa and a weird vegetable monstrosity that fought two explorers in the jungle. Bruce Armstrong, rash young English upper class twit, laughs off native belief in evil spirits, comes under attack from homicidal tree.

E. Hoffmann Price - The Sultan's Jest: Weird Tales, Sept. 1925). Strange Was the Sultan's Whim, but Stranger the Whim of Amru. The old torture fiend devises "amusing" punishment for his harem favourite, Dhivalani, and her lover, El Idrisi. What a "father of many pigs" he turned out to be.

[dem bones]

Robert Peery - The Palace Of The Dead; (Weird Tales, Oct. 1929). A brutal killing in the passion of battle has its aftermath in an eery obsession. A morbid painting and a war crime committed in a moment of panic convince Gale Parmenter that we are the eternally damned playthings of cruel Gods. He's right. From the author of When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead (WT, June, 1929/ 100 Wild Little Tales). Quite the proverbial little ray of sunshine was Mr. Peery.

Willis Knapp Jones - The Green Scarab: (Weird Tales, Aug. 1925). Peculiar Experience of a Painter and an Egyptian Mummy. A struggling artist's visit to museum next door brings him face to face with the mystery subject of his current portrait. Not sure its the high water mark of mummy lit., but, as with The Grim Passenger, I find it endearing.

Almost there with the Weird Tales content. H. P. Lovecraft's Poe tribute The Outsider (April 1926) reads like 'Confessions of the Monster of Glamis' - strikes me that way, anyhow. We've met Mary E. Counselman's likewise brilliant The Three Marked Pennies (Aug. 1934) on the Derleth - The Night Side thread among others.

[dem bones]

Feb 18, 2019 1:54:41 GMT cauldronbrewer said:

Feb 16, 2019 17:30:08 GMT dem bones said:

Howard Wandrei - In The Triangle: (Weird Tales, Jan 1934). A brief, strange tale about a weird beast and an old man in gray. Arnold ill-advisedly rushes to the rescue of a white-haired chap held helpless in the fangs of a monstrous hybrid creature.

I recall this one and "Over Time's Threshold" (another of H. Wandrei's early Weird Tales entries included in 100 Tiny Tales of Terror) as being real head-scratchers.

Howard Wandrei - Over Time’s Threshold: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1932). A weird story of the fourth dimension - a tale of speeding years and an eery experiment in Professor Capal's laboratory. Psychic investigators visit the home laboratory of Professor Kapel, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. It soon becomes apparent that Kapel outsmarted himself with this latest "scientifically malodorous" experiment, a renegade time machine. I prefer In The Triangle to Grace Campbell's sympathetic werewolf story, but found this one a struggle.

Eric Frank Russell - The Ponderer : (Weird Tales, Nov. 1948). They said strange things about the Ponderer, but nothing so strange as the ultimate truth. An enormous rock formation in the shape of a ruminating man is shunned by all save hapless Jose the peasant, who builds a shack in it's shadow. After centuries of petrification, "the Ponderer" awakens.

Found the following much more to my liking;

Ramsey Campbell - Old Clothes; (Charles L. Grant [ed.], Midnight, 1985). Removal men clear the attic of a recently deceased spiritualist medium. Eric borrows the dead woman's raincoat to wear home. Unfortunately, the crumpled garment is lethally haunted by an evil spirit which continues to fill the pockets with gifts plundered from graveyards. A pickpocket among a crowd of football fans inadvertently takes the curse upon himself.

T. E. D. Klein - One Size Eats All: A Campfire Tale for Children; (Outside Kids, Summer 1993). A hiking trip up Wendigo Mountain. Andy regrets his choice of sleeping bag.

[dem bones]

M. Isip

Frank Belknap Long - Johnny on the Spot: (Unknown, Dec. 1939). He was mentioned in connection with every murder in the city. Death spends a night on the pull at the dance hall.

Richard T. Chizmar - Heroes: (Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg [eds.], Predators, 1993). Infamous old Count travels to America on errand of mercy.

Donald A. Wollheim - The Rag Thing : (MF&SF, Oct. 1951) Night of the homicidal duster. Also appears in 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories

F. Paul Wilson - The Cleaning Machine : (Startling Mystery Stories #18, March 1971). Where can the residents of an apartment block have disappeared to? All footprints lead to a damp patch on the boiler room floor.

[dem bones]

Next batch. Got off on all five, Boo, Yourself and Talent particularly so.

Theodore Sturgeon - Talent: (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Sept. 1953). Exterminating pests was Jokey's speciality - and he was 100% efficient at it! It is imperative that little Joachim be kept sweet around the clock as he can do anything he turns his twisted little mind to. Having rashly lets slip her fear of stag-beetles, eight-year-old Precious makes matters worse by calling 'Jokey' a "stinker" ...

Fritz Leiber - Schizo Jimmie : (The Saint Detective Magazine, Feb 1960). Those who get too close to Jimmie Walsh wind up incurably alcoholic, hopelessly insane or dead by their own hand. The narrator takes it upon himself to rid the world of his dangerous pal. He eventually succeeds, only to discover that Jimmie's condition was contagious.

Joe R. Lansdale - Boo, Yourself: (Whispers, Oct. 1987). "If I can't have your loving face, no-one will." Why would a hot babe like Bessie Williams fall for a spectacularly ugly sixty-eight year old upholsterer whose warty nose is a legend in several counties? A rumoured $100, 000 inheritance has plenty to do with it, but some months into their marriage, Bessie has yet to see any of Bob Randiki's cash. And then Josh Stark, handsome ladies man, hits town. Bob ain't fussed that Bessie only married him for the money, but her infidelity unleashes his inner Ed Gein ....

Karl Edward Wagner - Shrapnel: (Charles L. Grant [ed] Night Visions 2, 1985). Poetic justice in a junkyard. Lawyer Harmon, seeking a fender to fit his beloved 1970 Cyclone Spoiler, encounters ex-client Cranshawe whom he successfully defended against a drink driving charge following a collision in which a teenage girl was killed and her date paralysed for life. Cranshawe was, of course, guilty as sin, and Harmon is not proud to have won the case.

A strangely familiar face in greasy overalls approaches from the direction of the crusher. He's got a toolbox and he's gonna use it ....

Richard Laymon - Roadside Pickup: (EQMM, Dec. 1974). Maggie was murdered on this desolate stretch of road when her car broke down. They never caught the sicko responsible. Now Colleen offers herself as bait ....

[dem bones]

David Drake - Best Of Luck: (Gerald W. Page [ed.] Year’s Best Horror Stories VI, 1978). Hemmed in by Viet Cong, last thing the depleted Dog Troop need is for Captain Warden to turn loopy. Good thing for Curtis he kept that lucky silver dollar.

Nancy A. Collins - The Dreamclown: (The Horror Show, Fall 1983). Five-year-old Jere loses big brother to a supernatural, child-stealing Pierrot.

Lucy Taylor - The Family Underwater: (Close to the Bone, 1993). Everyday tale of domestic abuse in house flooded floor to ceiling on permanent basis. Teenage Aqua-girl eventually cuts loose from ghastly parents, finds soul mate.

The Victorian's remain dependably vile.

Left J. Gulich: Right Hal Hurst:

Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner: (The Idler, March, 1893). When his daughter bemoans the inelegance of boys attending the local dance hall, Herr Geibel, the greatest toy-maker Furtwangen has ever known, invents the answer to her prayers. Lieutenant Fritz, the mechanical dancing partner. But the waltzing automaton has but one defect - as young Annette learns at cost of her life.

Guy de Maupassant - Fear: (1882). A man who has faced death on numerous occasions, but only twice has he experienced fear; as a witness to unnerving phenomena in the African desert; as a guest at the home of a farmer and his family who believe themselves haunted by the poacher he killed two years ago to the night. "It's something horrible, an atrocious sensation, a sort of decomposition of the soul, a terrible spasm of brain and heart, the very memory of which brings a shudder of anguish." In neither instance was he in the slightest danger, and yet he would rather stand before a firing squad than face a third run in with - FEAR.

[dem bones]

Clark Ashton Smith - The Epiphany of Death: (The Fantasy Fan, July 1934). Tomerton maintains that life and death [are] not "the fixed conditions people believe[d] them to be." To prove his point, the cadaverous recluse invites Theolus, a fellow oddball, to accompany him to the family vault at a certain hour. "Dedicated to the memory of H. P. Lovecraft," as you'll realise from opening paragraph.

Thomas Wiloch - Mr. Templeton’s Toyshop: (David D. Deyo, Jr., All the Devils Are Here, 1986). Nine delightfully ghoulish vignettes recounting the gory deaths of those luckless souls who frequent it. Satan as ultra-sadistic craftsman. The version which appears in Jessica Amanda Salmonson's Tales By Moonlight II includes additional episode, The Aquarium.

Hugh B. Cave - The Skeptic: The Urbanite #3 1993). Cynical young hack Delora Moffit secures an interview with 78-year-old professional psychic, Judith Blaine. Better for Ms. Moffit she accepts that the old girl and her familiar are for real, or she'll not live to see her premeditated hatchet job in print.

John Shirley - Silent Crickets: (Fantastic, Apr. 1975). The primary works of surrealist art are accurate depictions of our coming conquerors from the fourth dimension. Buckley, a museum curator who suspects the truth, is menaced by the original for duChamp's Nude descending a staircase.

Bernard Capes - A Queer Cicerone: (The Fabulists, 1915). The wicked Lord steps out from his portrait to conduct a tour around the Somerset family castle, exposing the guide book's biography section as entirely fraudulent. The long line of sainted Somerset's were all unscrupulous as himself.

John Bender - The Visitor : (Dime Mystery Magazine, June 1948). A short stay as a tenant at Ms. Mulvaney's boarding house works wonders for the health of pale, cadaverous Miss Jula de Mise. The same cannot be said of the resident sex pest, Mr. Greck, or his mangy cat. On this evidence, Dime Mystery sure toned down its act when the rival shudder pulp's went under.

[dem bones]

Gertrude Atherton - The Striding Place: (The Speaker, June 20, 1896: Richard Dalby [ed.] The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories , 1988). Weigall's valiant rescue of his best friend from the River Wharfe may not be the success it first appears ....

Hugh B. Cave - What Say the Frogs Now, Jenny?: (Stuart David Schiff [ed.], Whispers IV, 1983). When boorish trucker Willard Allison drives Jennifer Forrest off the road, the young waitress retaliates by spiking his coffee. Her snidey trick has the direst consequences for both parties.

H. P. Lovecraft - In The Vault: (The Tryout, Nov. 1925). George Birch, Peck Valley's go-to undertaker is locked in the vault overnight. He stacks coffins one atop the other with a view to climbing to freedom but, unfortunately the uppermost houses the carcass of old Aspath Sawyer, a singularly vindictive character with “a tenacious memory for wrongs real or fancied”. The less than diligent Birch has given him just cause for retribution …

Donald R. Burleson - One-Night Strand: (Four Shadowings, 1994). Eric can't sleep due to the antics of the couple in the room next door who are evidently engaged in a bondage session. And what's with the multiple pairs of high-heels he watched them lugging inside earlier? Eric slips outside of the hotel on the off-chance they've not shut the window blind. He's in luck!

Vincent O'Sullivan - Will: (The Green Window, 1899). Man who willed his wife to death through sheer hatred is tormented to the grave by an enormous black beetle.

E. Nesbit - The Mystery of the Semi-Detached: ( Grim Tales, 1893). A City banker endures convincing, extremely gory premonition of murder - the victim, his fiancée. Small wonder her family and "every reasonable person consulted" is set against their marriage.

[dem bones]

Hannes Bok

Leigh Brackett - The Tapestry Gate: (Strange Stories, August 1940). Mortal greed was the force that drew souls into the Devil's cloth of horror and wove a gruesome pattern of fearsome doom!. Reluctantly purchased at auction by Dick Stratton on wife Jane's insistence, a hideous 2ft square tapestry weaved from human hair. Jane reckons it will impress the hell out of her competitive "friends." A shoe shine boy urges Dick to burn the thing - it's a "Devil's joke rag" - a soul-trap used by conjure folk to ensnare an enemy. "If there's hate in your house, it works." Stratton detests his wife ...

Chet Williamson - What Can a Child Do: (Weird Tales, Spring 1988). Linda's new place is haunted by the ghost of Timothy Bradley, four years old when his serial abuser father beat him to death as mother looked on. Linda, herself a victim of domestic violence, believes the ghost child is crying out for compassion. She's wrong.

Maurice Level - The Empty House: (Hearst’s International Magazine, Sept. 1920). A jumpy armed burglar is ransacking a rich old man's place when he realises that he's not alone after all ...

M R James - Two Doctors: (A Thin Ghost & Others, 1919). Pieced together from pages found in a discarded ledger. A convoluted terror in the bedroom entry. Islington, 1718. The small community is not big enough for two medical practices. Dr Abell, a practitioner of the black arts, animates a pillow and bedlinen robbed from a crypt to destroy Dr Quinn, whom he insists is poaching his patients.

[dem bones]

Stefan Grabinski - The Frenzied Farmhouse: (Robert M. Price [ed.], Crypt of Cthulhu #66, 1989: trans. by Miroslaw Lipinski). A young father of two young children takes a short lease on an abandoned farmhouse shunned by villagers as a place of evil. A growing obsession with a stain on the wall ultimately drives him to murder those nearest at hand.

William F. Nolan - Fair Trade: (Stuart David Schiff [ed], Whispers IV, 1983). Cemetery Ridge, Calders Hill, Virginia. A mudslide during a rainstorm frees a horribly decomposed suicide from his grave. Lafe Pritchard can't sleep proper until he's settled with his heartless brother. Very Tales from the Crypt.

Carl Jacobi - Phantom Brass: (Railroad Stories, Aug. 1934: Revelations in Black, 1945). A forest fire sweeps through the valley, engulfing Flume Station, killing the young operator, a believer in the afterlife. The dead man telegraphs a warning to his colleague at Rock River that the bridge is ablaze, preventing a greater disaster. Spiritualism isn't rubbish.

Fitz-James O’Brien - A Terrible Night: (Harper’s, Oct. 1856). New York, somewhere in the vicinity of Eckford Lake. Hopelessly lost in the forest, narrator Charley and brother-in-law Dick beg shelter for the night from "the most villainous looking man I ever beheld." Surely they will be murdered in their beds? A similar set-up — and miserable outcome — to Gerald Kersh's much later The Conquering Worm.