For we saw their idol! Not an idol of wood, or stone, or of any clean, normal thing. It was a heaped-up grave! Massive, twenty feet long and half as high, it was covered with rotting bones and limbs of trees. The earth, piled there in the gruesome mound, shivered and heaved as from some foul life within. Then, half buried in filth, we saw the headstone — itself a rotting board, leaning askew in its shallow setting. And on it was carved only the line The House of the Worm.
The house of the worm! A heaped-up grave. And the cult of blackness and death had sought to make of the world one foul grave, and to cover even that with a shroud of darkness!
With a shriek of rage I stamped my foot upon the earth piled there. The crust was thin, so thin that it broke through, and nearly precipitated me headlong into the pit itself; only a violent wrench backward prevented me from falling into the pitching mass of — worms! White, wriggling, the things squirmed there under our blood-red, flaring light, writhed with agony in the exquisite torture brought to them by the presence of cleansing flame. The house of the worm, indeed….
Sick with loathing, we worked madly. The roar of the alien forest had risen to a howl — an eldritch gibber which sang in our ears and drew at our brains as we toiled. We lit more torches, bathed our hands in the flame, and then, in defiance of the malign will, we demolished the quivering heap of earth which had mocked the form of a grave. We carried barrel after barrel of fuel, and poured it upon the squirming things, which were already spreading out, rolling like an ocean of filth at our very feet. And then, forgetting the machine which was to take us to safety, I hurled the box of black powder upon them, watched it sink through the mass until out of sight, then applied the torch. And fled.
“Art! The tractor — the rest of the oil we need to light our way out ”
I laughed insanely, and ran on.
A hundred yards away, we stopped and watched the spectacle. The flames, leaping fifty feet into the air, illuminated the forest around us, pushed back the thick unnatural gloom into the heavy darkness behind us. Unseen voices that howled madly and mouthed hysterical gibberish tore at our very souls in their wild pleading; so tangible were they that we felt them pull at our bodies, sway them back and forth with the unholy dance of the rocking trees. From the pit of foulness where the flames danced brightest, a dense cloud of yellow smoke arose; a vast frying sound shrilled through the wood, was echoed back upon us by the blackness around. The tractor was enveloped in flames, the last barrel of oil spouting fire. And then
There came a deep, heavy-throated roar; the pulpy ground beneath our feet waved and shook; the roaring flames, impelled by an irresistible force beneath them, rose simultaneously into the air, curved out in long sweeping parabolas of lurid flame, and scattered over the moaning forest floor. The powder!
The house of the worm was destroyed; and simultaneously with its destruction the howling voices around us died into a heavy- throated whisper of silence. The black mist of darkness above and about shook for a moment like a sable silk, caught gropingly at us, then rolled back over the ruined trees and revealed — the sun!
The sun, bright in all his noonday glory, burst out full above us, warming our hearts with a golden glow.
“See, Art!” my companion whispered, “the forest is burning! There is nothing now to stop it, and everything will be destroyed.”
It was true. From a thousand tiny places flames were rising and spreading, sending queer little creepers of flame to explore for further progress. The fire, scattered by the explosion, was taking root.
We turned, we walked swiftly into the breath of the warm south wind which swept down upon us; we left the growing fire at our backs and moved on. A half-hour later, after we had covered some two miles of fallen forest and odorous wasteland, we paused to look back. The fire had spread over the full width of the valley, and was roaring northward. I thought of the fifty refugees who had fled — also to the north.
“Poor devils!” I said. “But no doubt they are already dead; they could not endure for long the brightness of the sun.”
And so ends our story of what is perhaps the greatest single menace that has ever threatened mankind. Science pondered, but could make nothing of it; in fact, it was long before we could evolve an explanation satisfactory even to ourselves.
We had searched vainly through every known reference book on the occult, when an old magazine suddenly gave us the clue: it recalled to our minds a half-forgotten conversation which has been reproduced at the beginning of this narrative.
In some strange way, this Cult of the Worm must have organized for the worship of death, and established their headquarters there in the valley. They built the huge grave as a shrine, and by the overconcentration of worship of their fanatical minds, caused a physical manifestation to appear within it as the real result of their thought. And what suggestion of death could be more forceful than its eternal accompaniment — the worms of death and the bacteria of decay? Perhaps their task was lessened by the fact that death is always a reality, and does not need so great a concentration of will to produce.
At any rate, from that beginning, that center, they radiated thought-waves strong enough to bring their influence over the region where they were active; and as they grew stronger and stronger, and as their minds grew more and more powerful through the fierce mental concentration, they spread out, and even destroyed light itself. Perhaps they received many recruits, also, to strengthen their ranks, as we ourselves nearly succumbed; perhaps, too, the land once conquered was watched over by spirits invoked to their control, so that no further strength on their part was required to maintain it. That would explain the weird noises heard from all parts of the forest, which persisted even after the worshippers themselves had fled.
And as to their final destruction, I quote a line from the old volume where we first read of the theory: “If this be true, the only way to destroy it is to cease to believe.” When the mock grave, their great fetish, was destroyed, the central bonds which held their system together were broken. And when the worshippers themselves perished in the flames, all possibility of a recurrence of the terror died with them.
This is our explanation, and our belief. But Fred and I do not wish to engage in scientific debate; we only wish an opportunity to forget the chaotic experience which has so disrupted our lives. Reward? We had our reward in the destruction of the vile thing we fought; yet to that satisfaction an appreciative world has added its wealth and its favor. These things we are thankful for and enjoy; what man does not? But we feel that not in adulation nor yet in pleasure lies our ultimate recovery. We must work, must forget the experience only by assiduous toil; we are stamping the horror, if not from our minds, at least from our immediate consciousness. In time, perhaps….
And yet we can not entirely forget. Only this morning, while walking in the fields, I came across the dead carcass of a wild beast lying in a furrow; and in its thin, decaying body was another life — a nauseous, alien life of putrescence and decay.
Spawn of the Green Abyss
C. HALL THOMPSON
I am not writing this to save my life. When I have set down, in the sanity of plain English, the strange story of Heath House, this manuscript will be sealed in an envelope, to be opened only after my execution. Perhaps then the accounts that have filled the papers during my imprisonment and trial will be more easily understood. Today, in his effective baritone, the attorney-for-the-State told a mixed jury: “This man, Doctor James Arkwright, is the cold-blooded murderer of his wife, Cassandra, and her unborn child. You have seen the evidence, ladies and gentlemen; you have seen the murder gun. The State and the voice of the dead woman demand that this killer pay the extreme penalty.” It was a very forceful plea; I could not have asked better. You see, I want to die. That is why this will not be read until the prison medic has pronounced me dead of a broken neck. If it were read while I lived, I might never be granted the release, the nothingness of immediate death; instead, I should spend endless, remembering years in the State Asylum for the Criminally Insane.