Mythos and Horror Stories

only for a moment; I cannot be certain. But I heard them breathe. Indescribably for a moment I felt their breath upon my face. They turned toward me and I fled screaming. In a single moment I fled screaming through time. I fled down quintillions of years.

'But they scented me. Men awake in them cosmic hungers. We have escaped, momentarily, from the foulness that rings them round. They thirst for that in us which is clean, which emerged from the deed without stain. There is a part of us which did not partake in the deed, and that they hate. But do not imagine that they are literally, prosaically evil. They are beyond good and evil as we know it. They are that which in the beginning fell away from cleanliness. Through the deed they became bodies of death, receptacles of all foulness. But they are not evil in our sense because in the spheres through which they move there is no thought, no moral, no right or wrong as we understand it. There is merely the pure and the foul. The foul expresses itself through angles; the pure through curves. Man, the pure part of him, is descended from a curve. Do not laugh. I mean that literally.'

I rose and searched for my hat. 'I'm dreadfully sorry for you, Chalmers,' I said, as I walked toward the door. 'But I don't intend to stay and listen to such gibberish. I'll send my physician to see you. He's an elderly, kindly chap, and he won't be offended if you tell him to go to the devil. But I hope you'll respect his advice. A week's rest in a good sanitarium should benefit you immeasurably.'

I heard him laughing as I descended the stairs, but his laughter was so utterly mirthless that it moved me to tears.

II

When Chalmers phoned the following morning my first impulse was to hang up the receiver immediately.

His request was so unusual and his voice was so wildly hysterical that I feared any further association with him would result in the impairment of my own sanity. But I could not doubt the genuineness of his misery, and when he broke down completely and I heard him sobbing over the wire, I decided to comply with his request.

'Very well,' I said. 'I will come over immediately and bring the plaster.'

En route to Chalmers's home I stopped at a hardware store and purchased twenty pounds of plaster of Paris. When I entered my friend's room he was crouching by the window watching the opposite wall out of eyes that were feverish with fright. When he saw me he rose and seized the parcel containing the plaster with an avidity that amazed and horrified me. He had extruded all the furniture, and the room presented a desolate appearance.

'It is just conceivable that we can thwart them!' he exclaimed. 'But we must work rapidly. Frank, there is a stepladder in the hall. Bring it here immediately. And then fetch a pail of water.'

'What for?' I murmured.

He turned sharply and there was a flush on his face. 'To mix the plaster, you fool!' he cried. 'To mix the plaster that will save our bodies and souls from a contamination unmentionable. To mix the plaster that will save the world from-Frank, they must be kept out!'

'Who?' I murmured.

'The Hounds of Tindalos!' he muttered. 'They can only reach us through angles. We must eliminate all angles from this room. I shall plaster up all the corners, all the crevices. We must make this room resemble the interior of a sphere.'

I knew that it would have been useless to argue with him. I fetched the stepladder, Chalmers mixed the plaster, and for three hours we labored. We filled in the four corners of the wall and the intersections of the floor and wall and the wall and ceiling, and we rounded the sharp angles of the window-seat.

'I shall remain in this room until they return in time,' he affirmed when our task was completed. 'When they discover that the scent leads through curves they will return. They will return ravenous and snarling and unsatisfied to the foulness that was in the beginning, before time, beyond space.'

He nodded graciously and lit a cigarette. 'It was good of you to help,' he said.

'Will you not see a physician, Chalmers?' I pleaded.

'Perhaps-tomorrow,' he murmured. 'But now I must watch and wait.'

'Wait for what?' I urged.

Chalmers smiled wanly. 'I know that you think me insane,' he said. 'You have a shrewd but prosaic mind, and you cannot conceive of an entity that does not depend for its existence on force and matter.

But did it ever occur to you, my friend, that force and matter are merely the barriers to perception imposed by time and space? When one knows, as I do, that time and space are identical and that they are both deceptive because they are merely imperfect manifestations of a higher reality, one no longer seeks in the visible world for an explanation of the mystery and terror of being.'

I rose and walked toward the door.

'Forgive me,' he cried. 'I did not mean to offend you. You have a superlative intellect, but I–I have a superhuman one. It is only natural that I should be aware of your limitations.'

'Phone if you need me,' I said, and descended the stairs two steps at a time. 'I'll send my physician over at once,' I muttered, to myself. 'He's a hopeless maniac, and heaven knows what will happen if someone doesn't take charge of him immediately.'

III

The following is a condensation of two announcements which appeared in the Partridgeville Gazette for July 3, 1928:

Earthquake Shakes Financial District

At 2 o'clock this morning an earth tremor of unusual severity broke several plate-glass windows in Central Square and completely disorganized the electric and street railway systems. The tremor was felt in the outlying districts, and the steeple of the First Baptist Church on Angell Hill (designed by Christopher Wren in 1717) was entirely demolished. Firemen are now attempting to put out a blaze which threatens to destroy the Partridgeville Glue Works. An investigation is promised by the mayor, and an immediate attempt will be made to fix responsibility for this disastrous occurrence.

OCCULT WRITER MURDERED BY UNKNOWN GUEST

Horrible Crime in Central Square

Mystery Surrounds Death of Halpin Chalmers

At 9 A.M. today the body of Halpin Chalmers, author and journalist, was found in an empty room above the jewelry store of Smithwick and Isaacs, 24 Central Square. The coroner's investigation revealed that the room had been rented furnished to Mr. Chalmers on May 1, and that he had himself disposed of the furniture a fortnight ago. Chalmers was the author of several recondite themes, and a member of the Bibliographic Guild. He formerly resided in Brooklyn, New York.

At 7 A.M., Mr. L. E. Hancock, who occupies the apartment opposite Chalmers's room in the Smithwick and Isaacs establishment, smelt a peculiar odor when he opened his door to take in his cat and the morning edition of the Partridgeville Gazette. The odor he describes as extremely acrid and nauseous, and he affirms that it was so strong in the vicinity of Chalmers's room that he was obliged to hold his nose when he approached that section of the hall.

He was about to return to his own apartment when it occurred to him that Chalmers might have accidentally forgotten to turn off the gas in his kitchenette. Becoming considerably alarmed at the thought, he decided to investigate, and when repeated tappings on Chalmers's door brought no response he notified the superintendent. The latter opened the door by means of a pass key, and the two men quickly made their way into Chalmers's room. The room was utterly destitute of furniture, and Hancock asserts that when he first glanced at the floor his heart went cold within him, and that the superintendent, without saying a word, walked to the open window and stared at the building opposite for fully five minutes.

Chalmers lay stretched upon his back in the center of the roo. He was starkly nude, and his chest and arms were covered with a peculiar bluish pus or ichor. His head lay grotesquely upon his chest. It had been completely severed from his body, and the features were twisted and town and horribly mangled.

Nowhere was there a trace of blood.

The room presented a most astonishing appearance. The intersections of the walls, celing, and floor had