MOH #3 (Feb. 1964)

[demonik]

Magazine Of Horror #3 (Health Knowledge Inc., Feb., 1964)

David H. Keller - The Seeds Of Death
Janet Hirsch - The Seeking Thing
H. G. Wells - A Vision Of Judgement
Arthur J. Burks - The Place Of The Pythons
Ambrose Bierce - One Summer Night
S. Baring-Gould - Jean Bouchon
Rachel Cosgrave Payes - The Door
Mary Wilkins-Freeman - Luella Miller
H. S. W. Chibbett - They That Wait
Robert W. Chambers - The Repairer Of Reputations


David H. Keller - The Seeds Of Death: The Duke of Mercia, down on his luck, agrees to investigate a series of disappearances around the Andoran castle of Lady Helen. A demon flower tale which makes fine use of gothic paraphernalia and also scores by having the bad guy - or girl - come out on top.

Janet Hirsch - The Seeking Thing: Driving along a country road, Paul Allenby hits a crumpled shape. Fearing the worst he gets out of the car and is relieved to discover that it was only a battered up burlap bag. As he pulls away, it attaches itself to the bottom of his vehicle and when he arrives home Allenby notices a wide, ugly scratch extending from fingertip to wrist. By the following day this has become a bloodless brown stain fast climbing his arm and giving off a putrid stench. What is he turning into?

Arthur J. Burks - Place Of The Pythons: Effective jungle tale of witchcraft in the Phillipines. "And you shall go down to the place of the pythons for your sins!" declares the wispy-haired hag, and the narrator, a petty criminal, is transformed into a were-snake. "The place was crowded with natives and they were talking, madly, all at once, of a great python which had been seen the night before. The monstrous creature, they said, was twenty feet long, and he had entered the Negrito village, to which the natives had returned the day just previous, and had killed the chief terribly. From there he had come to the tindahan, and everyone had fled, save only a white man too drunk to move. In all the country about, I was the only white man! ... My mind groped for an answer for I knew I had not been drunk. Besides, the wispy haired keeper of the tindahan was leering at me, and her baleful old eyes were alight with dreadful knowledge. I saw where they were peering ... "

Rachel Cosgrave Payes - The Door: The locals are baffled when the silent workmen erect a doorway "in the middle of nothing." John, the first person to pick it's burglar-proof lock, steps through it ...

Sabine Baring-Gould - Jean Bouchon: The spectre of a French waiter who helped himself to the tips. When his grave is disturbed the coffin is discovered to be filled with coins. These are spent on commissioning an extremely flattering statue to the pilfering Bouchon. Certainly doesn't qualify as "horror", but an effective gentle ghost story.

Ambrose Bierce - One Summer Night: Henry Armstrong is a victim of premature burial. Lucky for him, within hours of being planted in the soil, two medical students hire big negro Jess the cemetery caretaker to dig him up to furnish their dissecting table. On second thoughts, maybe "lucky" isn't the right word ...

Not At Night content:
David H. Keller - The Seeds Of Death

Contenders:
Arthur J. Burks - The Place Of The Pythons

[Calenture]

Re-reading Bierce recently I was made uncomfortably aware of the complexity of his language - and sometimes also his stories' structure. I have to work a little harder to read him; and I wondered if I'd become used to simpler reading recently. But it was rewarding reading.

I still haven't tracked down One Summer Night, but there are a lot of books it might be hiding in yet.

I wonder if Lowndes used The Boarded Window...

[demonik]

I don't think he did, offhand. Once I've polished off putting up the rest of the contents, I'll put together an index - that should keep me off the streets for a month or so - but I'm pretty certain Lowdnes favoured Bierce's short-shorts, quite possibly because they're ideal if your magazine is all but finished but you've two pages to fill. One Summer Night, a masterpiece of economic writing, has probably served the same purpose for several editors.