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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5c67a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68236 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68236) diff --git a/old/68236-0.txt b/old/68236-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ca3e993..0000000 --- a/old/68236-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1508 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The colour out of space, by H. P. -Lovecraft - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The colour out of space - -Author: H. P. Lovecraft - -Release Date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68236] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE *** - - - - - - THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE - - By H. P. Lovecraft - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Amazing Stories September 1927. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - _Here is a totally different story that we can - highly recommend to you. We could wax rhapsodical - in our praise, as the story is one of the finest - pieces of literature it has been our good fortune to - read. The theme is original, and yet fantastic - enough to make it rise head and shoulders above - many contemporary scientifiction stories. You will - not regret having read this marvellous tale._ - - -West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep -woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the -trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without -ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there -are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding -eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but -these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled -sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. - -The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. -French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles -have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen -or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The -place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at -night. It must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old Ammi -Pierce has never told them of anything he recalls from the strange -days. Ammi, whose head has been a little queer for years, is the only -one who still remains, or who ever talks of the strange days; and he -dares to do this because his house is so near the open fields and the -travelled roads around Arkham. - -There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ran -straight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use it -and a new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of the -old one can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness, -and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are -flooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and -the blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface will -mirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strange -days will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore of -old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth. - -When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoir -they told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, and -because that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought the -evil must be something which grandmas had whispered to children -through centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very odd -and theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore of -a Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens and -slopes for myself, and ceased to wonder at anything besides its own -elder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always -there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for -any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim -alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and -mattings of infinite years of decay. - -In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were -little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing, -sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney -or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild -things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of -restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, -as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did -not wonder that the foreigners would not stay, for this was no region -to sleep in. It was too much like a landscape of Salvator Rosa; too -much like some forbidden woodcut in a tale of terror. - -But even all this was not so bad as the blasted heath. I knew it the -moment I came upon it at the bottom of a spacious valley; for no other -name could fit such thing, or any other thing fit such a name. It -was as if the poet had coined the phrase from having seen this one -particular region. It must, I thought as I viewed it, be the outcome -of a fire; but why had nothing new ever grown over those five acres of -grey desolation that sprawled open to the sky like a great spot eaten -by acid in the woods and fields? It lay largely to the north of the -ancient road line, but encroached a little on the other side. I felt -an odd reluctance about approaching, and did so at last only because -my business took me through and past it. There was no vegetation of -any kind on that broad expanse, but only a fine grey dust or ash which -no wind seemed ever to blow about. The trees near it were sickly -and stunted, and many dead trunks stood or lay rotting at the rim. -As I walked hurriedly by I saw the tumbled bricks and stones of an -old chimney and cellar on my right, and the yawning black maw of an -abandoned well whose stagnant vapours played strange tricks with the -hues of the sunlight. Even the long, dark woodland climb beyond seemed -welcome in contrast, and I marvelled no more at the frightened whispers -of Arkham people. There had been no house or ruin near; even in the -old days the place must have been lonely and remote. And at twilight, -dreading to repass that ominous spot, I walked circuitously back to the -town by the curving road on the south. I vaguely wished some clouds -would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had -crept into my soul. - -In the evening I asked old people in Arkham about the blasted heath, -and what was meant by that phrase "strange days" which so many -evasively muttered. I could not, however, get any good answers, except -that all the mystery was much more recent than I had dreamed. It was -not a matter of old legendry at all, but something within the lifetime -of those who spoke. It had happened in the 'eighties, and a family had -disappeared or was killed. Speakers would not be exact; and because -they all told me to pay no attention to old Ammi Pierce's crazy tales, -I sought him out the next morning, having heard that he lived alone in -the ancient tottering cottage where the trees first begin to get very -thick. It was a fearsomely ancient place, and had begun to exude the -faint miasmal odour which clings about houses that have stood too long. -Only with persistent knocking could I rouse the aged man, and when he -shuffled timidly to the door I could tell he was not glad to see me. He -was not so feeble as I had expected; but his eyes drooped in a curious -way, and his unkempt clothing and white beard made him seem very worn -and dismal. - -Not knowing just how he could best be launched on his tales, I feigned -a matter of business; told him of my surveying, and asked vague -questions about the district. He was far brighter and more educated -than I had been led to think, and before I knew it had grasped quite -as much of the subject as any man I had talked with in Arkham. He was -not like other rustics I had known in the sections where reservoirs -were to be. From him there were no protests at the miles of old wood -and farmland to be blotted out, though perhaps there would have been -had not his home lain outside the bounds of the future lake. Relief -was all that he showed; relief at the doom of the dark ancient valleys -through which he had roamed all his life. They were better under water -now--better under water since the strange days. And with this opening -his husky voice sank low, while his body leaned forward and his right -forefinger began to point shakily and impressively. - - * * * * * - -It was then that I heard the story, and as the rambling voice scraped -and whispered on I shivered again and again despite the summer day. -Often I had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific -points which he knew only by a fading parrot memory of professors' -talk, or bridge over gaps, where his sense of logic and continuity -broke down. When he was done I did not wonder that his mind had snapped -a trifle, or that the folk of Arkham would not speak much of the -blasted heath. I hurried back before sunset to my hotel, unwilling to -have the stars come out above me in the open; and the next day returned -to Boston to give up my position. I could not go into that dim chaos -of old forest and slope again, or face another time that grey blasted -heath where the black well yawned deep beside the tumbled bricks and -stones. The reservoir will soon be built now, and all those elder -secrets will lie safe forever under watery fathoms. But even then I do -not believe I would like to visit that country by night--at least not -when the sinister stars are out; and nothing could bribe me to drink -the new city water of Arkham. - -It all began, old Ammi said, with the meteorite. Before that time there -had been no wild legends at all since the witch trials, and even then -these western woods were not feared half so much as the small island -in the Miskatonic where the devil held court beside a curious stone -altar older than the Indians. These were not haunted woods, and their -fantastic dusk was never terrible till the strange days. Then there -had come that white noontide cloud, that string of explosions in the -air, and that pillar of smoke from the valley far in the wood. And by -night all Arkham had heard of the great rock that fell out of the sky -and bedded itself in the ground beside the well at the Nahum Gardner -place. That was the house which had stood where the blasted heath was -to come--the trim white Nahum Gardner house amidst its fertile gardens -and orchards. - -Nahum had come to town to tell people about the stone, and had dropped -in at Ammi Pierce's on the way. Ammi was forty then, and all the queer -things were fixed very strongly in his mind. He and his wife had gone -with the three professors from Miskatonic University who hastened out -the next morning to see the weird visitor from unknown stellar space, -and had wondered why Nahum had called it so large the day before. It -had shrunk, Nahum said as he pointed out the big brownish mound above -the ripped earth and charred grass near the archaic well-sweep in his -front yard; but the wise men answered that stones do not shrink. Its -heat lingered persistently, and Nahum declared it had glowed faintly in -the night. The professors tried it with a geologist's hammer and found -it was oddly soft. It was, in truth, so soft as to be almost plastic; -and they gouged rather than chipped a specimen to take back to the -college for testing. They took it in an old pail borrowed from Nahum's -kitchen, for even the small piece refused to grow cool. On the trip -back they stopped at Ammi's to rest, and seemed thoughtful when Mrs. -Pierce remarked that the fragment was growing smaller and burning the -bottom of the pail. Truly, it was not large, but perhaps they had taken -less than they thought. - -The day after that--all this was in June of '82--the professors had -trooped out again in a great excitement. As they passed Ammi's they -told him what queer things the specimen had done, and how it had -faded wholly away when they put it in a glass beaker. The beaker had -gone, too, and the wise men talked of the strange stone's affinity -for silicon. It had acted quite unbelievably in that well-ordered -laboratory; doing nothing at all and showing no occluded gases when -heated on charcoal, being wholly negative in the borax bead, and soon -proving itself absolutely non-volatile at any producible temperature, -including that of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. On an anvil it appeared -highly malleable, and in the dark its luminosity was very marked. -Stubbornly refusing to grow cool, it soon had the college in a state -of real excitement; and when upon heating before the spectroscope it -displayed shining bands unlike any known colours of the normal spectrum -there was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical -properties, and other things which puzzled men of science are wont to -say when faced by the unknown. - -Hot as it was, they tested it in a crucible with all the proper -reagents. Water did nothing. Hydrochloric acid was the same. Nitric -acid and even aqua regia merely hissed and spattered against its torrid -invulnerability. Ammi had difficulty in recalling all these things, but -recognized some solvents as I mentioned them in the usual order of use. -There were ammonia and caustic soda, alcohol and ether, nauseous carbon -disulphide and a dozen others; but although the weight grew steadily -less as time passed, and the fragment seemed to be slightly cooling, -there was no change in the solvents to show that they had attacked -the substance at all. It was a metal, though, beyond a doubt. It was -magnetic, for one thing; and after its immersion in the acid solvents -there seemed to be faint traces of the Widmänstätten figures found -on meteoric iron. When the cooling had grown very considerable, the -testing was carried on in glass; and it was in a glass beaker that they -left all the chips made of the original fragment during the work. The -next morning both chips and beaker were gone without trace, and only a -charred spot marked the place on the wooden shelf where they had been. - -All this the professors told Ammi as they paused at his door, and -once more he went with them to see the stony messenger from the -stars, though this time his wife did not accompany him. It had now -most certainly shrunk, and even the sober professors could not doubt -the truth of what they saw. All around the dwindling brown lump near -the well was a vacant space, except where the earth had caved in; -and whereas it had been a good seven feet across the day before, it -was now scarcely five. It was still hot, and the sages studied its -surface curiously as they detached another and larger piece with hammer -and chisel. They gouged deeply this time, and as they pried away -the smaller mass they saw that the core of the thing was not quite -homogeneous. - - * * * * * - -They had uncovered what seemed to be the side of a large coloured -globule embedded in the substance. The colour, which resembled some -of the bands in the meteor's strange spectrum, was almost impossible -to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it colour at -all. Its texture was glossy, and upon tapping it appeared to promise -both brittleness and hollowness. One of the professors gave it a smart -blow with a hammer, and it burst with a nervous little pop. Nothing was -emitted, and all trace of the thing vanished with the puncturing. It -left behind a hollow spherical space about three inches across, and all -thought it probable that others would be discovered as the enclosing -substance wasted away. - -Conjecture was vain; so after a futile attempt to find additional -globules by drilling, the seekers left again with their new -specimen--which proved, however, as baffling in the laboratory as -its predecessor. Aside from being almost plastic, having heat, -magnetism, and slight luminosity, cooling slightly in powerful acids, -possessing an unknown spectrum, wasting away in air, and attacking -silicon compounds with mutual destruction as a result, it presented -no identifying features whatsoever; and at the end of the tests the -college scientists were forced to own that they could not place it. It -was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as -such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws. - -That night there was a thunderstorm, and when the professors went out -to Nahum's the next day they met with a bitter disappointment. The -stone, magnetic as it had been, must have had some peculiar electrical -property; for it had "drawn the lightning," as Nahum said, with a -singular persistence. Six times within an hour the farmer saw the -lightning strike the furrow in the front yard, and when the storm was -over nothing remained but a ragged pit by the ancient well-sweep, -half-chocked with caved-in earth. Digging had borne no fruit, and the -scientists verified the fact of the utter vanishment. The failure was -total; so that nothing was left to do but go back to the laboratory and -test again the disappearing fragment left carefully cased in lead. That -fragment lasted a week, at the end of which nothing of value had been -learned of it. When it had gone, no residue was left behind, and in -time the professors felt scarcely sure they had indeed seen with waking -eyes that cryptic vestige of the fathomless gulfs outside; that lone, -weird message from other universes and other realms of matter, force, -and entity. - -As was natural, the Arkham papers made much of the incident with its -collegiate sponsoring, and sent reporters to talk with Nahum Gardner -and his family. At least one Boston daily also sent a scribe, and Nahum -quickly became a kind of local celebrity. He was a lean, genial person -of about fifty, living with his wife and three sons on the pleasant -farmstead in the valley. He and Ammi exchanged visits frequently, as -did their wives; and Ammi had nothing but praise for him after all -these years. He seemed slightly proud of the notice his place had -attracted, and talked often of the meteorite in the succeeding weeks. -That July and August were hot; and Nahum worked hard at his haying in -the ten-acre pasture across Chapman's Brook; his rattling wain wearing -deep ruts in the shadowy lanes between. The labour tired him more than -it had in other years, and he felt that age was beginning to tell on -him. - -Then fell the time of fruit and harvest. The pears and apples slowly -ripened, and Nahum vowed that his orchards were prospering as never -before. The fruit was growing to phenomenal size and unwonted gloss, -and in such abundance that extra barrels were ordered to handle the -future crop. But with the ripening came sore disappointment, for of all -that gorgeous array of specious lusciousness not one single jot was -fit to eat. Into the fine flavour of the pears and apples had crept -a stealthy bitterness and sickishness, so that even the smallest of -bites induced a lasting disgust. It was the same with the melons and -tomatoes, and Nahum sadly saw that his entire crop was lost. Quick to -connect events, he declared that the meteorite had poisoned the soil, -and thanked Heaven that most of the other crops were in the upland lot -along the road. - - * * * * * - -Winter came early, and was very cold. Ammi saw Nahum less often than -usual, and observed that he had begun to look worried. The rest of his -family too, seemed to have grown taciturn; and were far from steady -in their churchgoing or their attendance at the various social events -of the countryside. For this reserve or melancholy no cause could be -found, though all the household confessed now and then to poorer health -and a feeling of vague disquiet. Nahum himself gave the most definite -statement of anyone when he said he was disturbed about certain -footprints in the snow. They were the usual winter prints of red -squirrels, white rabbits, and foxes, but the brooding farmer professed -to see something not quite right about their nature and arrangement. -He was never specific, but appeared to think that they were not as -characteristic of the anatomy and habits of squirrels and rabbits and -foxes as they ought to be. Ammi listened without interest to this talk -until one night when he drove past Nahum's house in his sleigh on the -way back from Clark's Corners. There had been a moon, and a rabbit had -run across the road; and the leaps of that rabbit were longer than -either Ammi or his horse liked. The latter, indeed, had almost run away -when brought up by a firm rein. Thereafter Ammi gave Nahum's tales -more respect, and wondered why the Gardner dogs seemed so cowed and -quivering every morning. They had, it developed, nearly lost the spirit -to bark. - -In February the McGregor boys from Meadow Hill were out shooting -woodchucks, and not far from the Gardner place bagged a very peculiar -specimen. The proportions of its body seemed slightly altered in a -queer way impossible to describe, while its face had taken on an -expression which no one ever saw in a woodchuck before. The boys were -genuinely frightened, and threw the thing away at once, so that only -their grotesque tales of it ever reached the people of the countryside. -But the shying of horses near Nahum's house had now become an -acknowledged thing, and all the basis for a cycle of whispered legend -was fast taking form. - -People vowed that the snow melted faster around Nahum's than it did -anywhere else, and early in March there was an awed discussion in -Potter's general store at Clark's Corners. Stephen Rice had driven past -Gardner's in the morning, and had noticed the skunk-cabbages coming -up through the mud by the woods across the road. Never were things of -such size seen before, and they held strange colours that could not -be put into any words. Their shapes were monstrous, and the horse had -snorted at an odour which struck Stephen as wholly unprecedented. That -afternoon several persons drove past to see the abnormal growth, and -all agreed that plants of that kind ought never to sprout in a healthy -world. The bad fruit of the fall before was freely mentioned, and it -went from mouth to mouth that there was poison in Nahum's ground. Of -course it was the meteorite; and remembering how strange the men from -the college had found that stone to be, several farmers spoke about the -matter to them. - -One day they paid Nahum a visit; but having no love of wild tales and -folklore were very conservative in what they inferred. The plants were -certainly odd, but all skunk-cabbages are more or less odd in shape -and hue. Perhaps some mineral element from the stone had entered the -soil, but it would soon be washed away. And as for the footprints and -frightened horses--of course this was mere country talk which such -a phenomenon as the aerolite would be certain to start. There was -really nothing for serious men to do in cases of wild gossip, for -superstitious rustics will say and believe anything. And so all through -the strange days the professors stayed away in contempt. Only one -of them, when given two phials of dust for analysis in a police job -over a year and a half later, recalled that the queer colour of that -skunk-cabbage had been very like one of the anomalous bands of light -shown by the meteor fragment in the college spectroscope, and like the -brittle globule found imbedded in the stone from the abyss. The samples -in this analysis case gave the same odd bands at first, though later -they lost the property. - -The trees budded prematurely around Nahum's, and at night they swayed -ominously in the wind. Nahum's second son Thaddeus, a lad of fifteen, -swore that they swayed also when there was no wind; but even the -gossips would not credit this. Certainly, however, restlessness was -in the air. The entire Gardner family developed the habit of stealthy -listening, though not for any sound which they could consciously -name. The listening was, indeed, rather a product of moments when -consciousness seemed half to slip away. Unfortunately such moments -increased week by week, till it became common speech that "something -was wrong with all Nahum's folks." When the early saxifrage came out it -had another strange colour; not quite like that of the skunk-cabbage, -but plainly related and equally unknown to anyone who saw it. Nahum -took some blossoms to Arkham and showed them to the editor of the -_Gazette_, but that dignitary did no more than write a humorous article -about them, in which the dark fears of rustics were held up to polite -ridicule. It was a mistake of Nahum's to tell a stolid city man about -the way the great, overgrown mourning-cloak butterflies behaved in -connection with these saxifrages. - -April brought a kind of madness to the country folk, and began that -disuse of the road past Nahum's which led to its ultimate abandonment. -It was next the vegetation. All the orchard trees blossomed forth in -strange colours, and through the stony soil of the yard and adjacent -pasturage there sprang up a bizarre growth which only a botanist could -connect with the proper flora of the region. No sane wholesome colours -were anywhere to be seen except in the green grass and leafage; but -everywhere were those hectic and prismatic variants of some diseased, -underlying primary tone without a place among the known tints of earth. -The "Dutchman's breeches" became a thing of sinister menace, and the -bloodroots grew insolent in their chromatic perversion. Ammi and the -Gardners thought that most of the colours had a sort of haunting -familiarity, and decided that they reminded one of the brittle globule -in the meteor. Nahum ploughed and sowed the ten-acre pasture and the -upland lot, but did nothing with the land around the house. He knew it -would be of no use, and hoped that the summer's strange growths would -draw all the poison from the soil. He was prepared for almost anything -now, and had grown used to the sense of something near him waiting -to be heard. The shunning of his house by neighbours told on him, of -course; but it told on his wife more. The boys were better off, being -at school each day; but they could not help being frightened by the -gossip. Thaddeus, an especially sensitive youth, suffered the most. - - * * * * * - -In May the insects came, and Nahum's place became a nightmare of -buzzing and crawling. Most of the creatures seemed not quite usual in -their aspects and motions, and their nocturnal habits contradicted all -former experience. The Gardners took to watching at night--watching in -all directions at random for something they could not tell what. It was -then that they all owned that Thaddeus had been right about the trees. -Mrs. Gardner was the next to see it from the window as she watched the -swollen boughs of a maple against a moonlit sky. The boughs surely -moved, and there was no wind. It must be the sap. Strangeness had come -into everything growing now. Yet it was none of Nahum's family at all -who made the next discovery. Familiarity had dulled them, and what they -could not see was glimpsed by a timid windmill salesman from Bolton who -drove by one night in ignorance of the country legends. What he told in -Arkham was given a short paragraph in the _Gazette_; and it was there -that all the farmers, Nahum included, saw it first. The night had been -dark and the buggy-lamps faint, but around a farm in the valley which -everyone knew from the account must be Nahum's, the darkness had been -less thick. A dim though distinct luminosity seemed to inhere in all -the vegetation, grass, leaves, and blossoms alike, while at one moment -a detached piece of the phosphorescence appeared to stir furtively in -the yard near the barn. - -The grass had so far seemed untouched, and the cows were freely -pastured in the lot near the house, but toward the end of May the milk -began to be bad. Then Nahum had the cows driven to the uplands, after -which this trouble ceased. Not long after this the change in grass and -leaves became apparent to the eye. All the verdure was going grey, -and was developing a highly singular quality of brittleness. Ammi -was now the only person who ever visited the place, and his visits -were becoming fewer and fewer. When school closed the Gardners were -virtually cut off from the world, and sometimes let Ammi do their -errands in town. They were failing curiously both physically and -mentally, and no one was surprised when the news of Mrs. Gardner's -madness stole around. - -It happened in June, about the anniversary of the meteor's fall, and -the poor woman screamed about things in the air which she could not -describe. In her raving there was not a single specific noun, but -only verbs and pronouns. Things moved and changed and fluttered, and -ears tingled to impulses which were not wholly sounds. Something -was taken away--she was being drained of something--something was -fastening itself on her that ought not to be--someone must make it -keep off--nothing was ever still in the night--the walls and windows -shifted. Nahum did not send her to the county asylum, but let her -wander about the house as long as she was harmless to herself and -others. Even when her expression changed he did nothing. But when the -boys grew afraid of her, and Thaddeus nearly fainted at the way she -made faces at him, he decided to keep her locked in the attic. By July -she had ceased to speak and crawled on all fours, and before that month -was over Nahum got the mad notion that she was slightly luminous in the -dark, as he now clearly saw was the case with the nearby vegetation. - -It was a little before this that the horses had stampeded. Something -had aroused them in the night, and their neighing and kicking in their -stalls had been terrible. There seemed virtually nothing to do to calm -them, and when Nahum opened the stable door they all bolted out like -frightened woodland deer. It took a week to track all four, and when -found they were seen to be quite useless and unmanageable. Something -had snapped in their brains, and each one had to be shot for its own -good. Nahum borrowed a horse from Ammi for his haying, but found it -would not approach the barn. It shied, balked, and whinnied, and in -the end he could do nothing but drive it into the yard while the men -used their own strength to get the heavy wagon near enough the hayloft -for convenient pitching. And all the while the vegetation was turning -grey and brittle. Even the flowers whose hues had been so strange -were graying now, and the fruit was coming out grey and dwarfed and -tasteless. The asters and goldenrod bloomed grey and distorted, and -the roses and zinnias and hollyhocks in the front yard were such -blasphemous-looking things that Nahum's oldest boy Zenas cut them down. -The strangely puffed insects died about that time, even the bees that -had left their hives and taken to the woods. - -By September all the vegetation was fast crumbling to a greyish -powder, and Nahum feared that the trees would die before the poison -was out of the soil. His wife now had spells of terrific screaming, -and he and the boys were in a constant state of nervous tension. -They shunned people now, and when school opened the boys did not go. -But it was Ammi, on one of his rare visits, who first realized that -the well water was no longer good. It had an evil taste that was not -exactly fetid nor exactly salty, and Ammi advised his friend to dig -another well on higher ground to use till the soil was good again. -Nahum, however, ignored the warning, for he had by that time become -calloused to strange and unpleasant things. He and the boys continued -to use the tainted supply, drinking it as listlessly and mechanically -as they ate their meagre and ill-cooked meals and did their thankless -and monotonous chores through the aimless days. There was something of -stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another -world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom. - -Thaddeus went mad in September after a visit to the well. He had gone -with a pail and had come back empty-handed, shrieking and waving his -arms, and sometimes lapsing into an inane titter or a whisper about -"the moving colours down there." Two in one family was pretty bad, -but Nahum was very brave about it. He let the boy run about for a -week until he began stumbling and hurting himself, and then he shut -him in an attic room across the hall from his mother's. The way they -screamed at each other from behind their locked doors was very -terrible, especially to little Merwin, who fancied they talked in some -terrible language that was not of earth. Merwin was getting frightfully -imaginative, and his restlessness was worse after the shutting away of -the brother who had been his greatest playmate. - -Almost at the same time the mortality among the livestock commenced. -Poultry turned greyish and died very quickly, their meat being found -dry and noisome upon cutting. Hogs grew inordinately fat, then suddenly -began to undergo loathsome changes which no one could explain. Their -meat was of course useless, and Nahum was at his wit's end. No rural -veterinary would approach his place, and the city veterinary from -Arkham was openly baffled. The swine began growing grey and brittle -and falling to pieces before they died, and their eyes and muzzles -developed singular alterations. It was very inexplicable, for they had -never been fed from the tainted vegetation. Then something struck the -cows. Certain areas or sometimes the whole body would be uncannily -shrivelled or compressed, and atrocious collapses or disintegrations -were common. In the last stages--and death was always the result--there -would be a greying and turning brittle like that which beset the hogs. -There could be no question of poison, for all the cases occurred in a -locked and undisturbed barn. No bites of prowling things could have -brought the virus, for what live beast of earth can pass through solid -obstacles? It must be only natural disease--yet what disease could -wreak such results was beyond any mind's guessing. When the harvest -came there was not an animal surviving on the place, for the stock -and poultry were dead and the dogs had run away. These dogs, three -in number, had all vanished one night and were never heard of again. -The five cats had left some time before, but their going was scarcely -noticed since there now seemed to be no mice, and only Mrs. Gardner had -made pets of the graceful felines. - - * * * * * - -On the nineteenth of October Nahum staggered into Ammi's house with -hideous news. The death had come to poor Thaddeus in his attic room, -and it had come in a way which could not be told. Nahum had dug a grave -in the railed family plot behind the farm, and had put therein what -he found. There could have been nothing from outside, for the small -barred window and locked door were intact; but it was much as it had -been in the barn. Ammi and his wife consoled the stricken man as best -they could, but shuddered as they did so. Stark terror seemed to cling -round the Gardners and all they touched, and the very presence of one -in the house was a breath from regions unnamed and unnameable. Ammi -accompanied Nahum home with the greatest reluctance, and did what he -might to calm the hysterical sobbing of little Merwin. Zenas needed no -calming. He had come of late to do nothing but stare into space and -obey what his father told him; and Ammi thought that his fate was very -merciful. Now and then Merwin's screams were answered faintly from the -attic, and in response to an inquiring look Nahum said that his wife -was getting very feeble. When night approached, Ammi managed to get -away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the -faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have -swayed without wind. It was really lucky for Ammi that he was not more -imaginative. Even as things were, his mind was bent ever so slightly; -but had he been able to connect and reflect upon all the portents -around him he must inevitably have turned a total maniac. In the -twilight he hastened home, the screams of the mad woman and the nervous -child ringing horrible in his ears. - -Three days later Nahum burst into Ammi's kitchen in the early morning, -and in the absence of his host stammered out a desperate tale once -more, while Mrs. Pierce listened in a clutching fright. It was little -Merwin this time. He was gone. He had gone out late at night with a -lantern and pail for water, and had never come back. He'd been going -to pieces for days, and hardly knew what he was about. Screamed at -everything. There had been a frantic shriek from the yard then, but -before the father could get to the door the boy was gone. There was no -glow from the lantern he had taken, and of the child himself no trace. -At the time Nahum thought the lantern and pail were gone too; but when -dawn came, and the man had plodded back from his all-night search of -the woods and fields, he had found some very curious things near the -well. There was a crushed and apparently somewhat melted mass of iron -which had certainly been the lantern; while a bent pail and twisted -iron hoops beside it, both half-fused, seemed to hint at the remnants -of the pail. That was all. Nahum was past imagining, Mrs. Pierce was -blank, and Ammi, when he had reached home and heard the tale, could -give no guess. Merwin was gone, and there would be no use in telling -the people around, who shunned all Gardners now. No use, either, in -telling the city people at Arkham who laughed at everything. Thad was -gone, and now Merwin was gone. Something was creeping and creeping and -waiting to be seen and heard. Nahum would go soon, and he wanted Ammi -to look after his wife and Zenas if they survived him. It must all be a -judgment of some sort; though he could not fancy what for, since he had -always walked uprightly in the Lord's ways so far as he knew. - -For over two weeks Ammi saw nothing of Nahum; and then, worried about -what might have happened, he overcame his fears and paid the Gardner -place a visit. There was no smoke from the great chimney, and for a -moment the visitor was apprehensive of the worst. The aspect of the -whole farm was shocking--greyish withered grass and leaves on the -ground, vines falling in brittle wreckage from archaic walls and -gables, and great bare trees clawing up at the grey November sky with -a studied malevolence which Ammi could not but feel had come from some -subtle change in the tilt of the branches. But Nahum was alive, after -all. He was weak, and lying in a couch in the low-ceiled kitchen, -but perfectly conscious and able to give simple orders to Zenas. The -room was deadly cold; and as Ammi visibly shivered, the host shouted -huskily to Zenas for more wood. Wood, indeed, was sorely needed; since -the cavernous fireplace was unlit and empty, with a cloud of soot -blowing about in the chill wind that came down the chimney. Presently -Nahum asked him if the extra wood had made him any more comfortable, -and then Ammi saw what had happened. The stoutest cord had broken at -last, and the hapless farmer's mind was proof against more sorrow. - -Questioning tactfully, Ammi could get no clear data at all about the -missing Zenas. "In the well--he lives in the well--" was all that the -clouded father would say. Then there flashed across the visitor's mind -a sudden thought of the mad wife, and he changed his line of inquiry. -"Nabby? Why, here she is!" was the surprised response of poor Nahum, -and Ammi soon saw that he must search for himself. Leaving the harmless -babbler on the couch, he took the keys from their nail beside the door -and climbed the creaking stairs to the attic. It was very close and -noisome up there, and no sound could be heard from any direction. Of -the four doors in sight, only one was locked, and on this he tried -various keys on the ring he had taken. The third key proved the right -one, and after some fumbling Ammi threw open the low white door. - -It was quite dark inside, for the window was small and half-obscured -by the crude wooden bars; and Ammi could see nothing at all on the -wide-planked floor. The stench was beyond enduring, and before -proceeding further he had to retreat to another room and return -with his lungs filled with breathable air. When he did enter he saw -something dark in the corner, and upon seeing it more clearly he -screamed outright. While he screamed he thought a momentary cloud -eclipsed the window, and a second later he felt himself brushed as if -by some hateful current of vapour. Strange colours danced before his -eyes; and had not a present horror numbed him he would have thought of -the globule in the meteor that the geologist's hammer had shattered, -and of the morbid vegetation that had sprouted in the spring. As it -was he thought only of the blasphemous monstrosity which confronted -him, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young -Thaddeus and the livestock. But the terrible thing about the horror was -that it very slowly and perceptibly moved as it continued to crumble. - - * * * * * - -Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape -in the corners does not re-appear in his tale as a moving object. -There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common -humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law. I gathered that no -moving thing was left in that attic room, and that to leave anything -capable of motion there would have been a deed so monstrous as to damn -any accountable being to eternal torment. Anyone but a stolid farmer -would have fainted or gone mad, but Ammi walked conscious through that -low doorway and locked the accursed secret behind him. There would be -Nahum to deal with now; he must be fed and tended, and removed to some -place where he could be cared for. - -Commencing his descent of the dark stairs, Ammi heard a thud below him. -He even thought a scream had been suddenly choked off, and recalled -nervously the clammy vapour which had brushed by him in that frightful -room above. What presence had his cry and entry started up? Halted by -some vague fear, he heard still further sounds below. Indubitably there -was a sort of heavy dragging, and a most detestably sticky noise as -of some fiendish and unclean species of suction. With an associative -sense goaded to feverish heights, he thought unaccountably of what he -had seen upstairs. Good God! What eldritch dream-world was this into -which he had blundered? He dared move neither backward nor forward, but -stood there trembling at the black curve of the boxed-in staircase. -Every trifle of the scene burned itself into his brain. The sounds, the -sense of dread expectancy, the darkness, the steepness of the narrow -steps--and merciful Heaven!--the faint but unmistakable luminosity of -all the woodwork in sight; steps, sides, exposed laths, and beams alike. - -Then there burst forth a frantic whinny from Ammi's horse outside, -followed at once by a clatter which told of a frenzied runaway. In -another moment horse and buggy had gone beyond earshot, leaving the -frightened man on the dark stairs to guess what had sent them. But that -was not all. There had been another sound out there. A sort of liquid -splash--water--it must have been the well. He had left Hero untied -near it, and a buggy-wheel must have brushed the coping and knocked in -a stone. And still the pale phosphorescense glowed in that detestably -ancient woodwork. God! how old the house was! Most of it built before -1700. - -A feeble scratching on the floor downstairs now sounded distinctly, and -Ammi's grip tightened on a heavy stick he had picked up in the attic -for some purpose. Slowly nerving himself, he finished his descent and -walked boldly toward the kitchen. But he did not complete the walk, -because what he sought was no longer there. It had come to meet him, -and it was still alive after a fashion. Whether it had crawled or -whether it had been dragged by any external forces, Ammi could not -say; but the death had been at it. Everything had happened in the last -half-hour, but collapse, greying, and disintegration were already far -advanced. There was a horrible brittleness, and dry fragments were -scaling off. Ammi could not touch it, but looked horrifiedly into the -distorted parody that had been a face. "What was it, Nahum--what -was it?" He whispered, and the cleft, bulging lips were just able to -crackle out a final answer. - -"Nothin' ... nothin' ... the colour ... it burns ... cold an' wet, but -it burns ... it lived in the well.... I seen it ... a kind o' smoke ... -jest like the flowers last spring ... the well shone at night.... Thad -an' Merwin an' Zenas ... everything alive ... suckin' the life out of -everything ... in that stone ... it must o' come in that stone ... -pizened the whole place ... dun't know what it wants ... that round -thing them men from the college dug outen the stone ... they smashed -it ... it was that same colour ... jest the same, like the flowers an' -plants ... must a' ben more of 'em ... seeds ... seeds ... they -growed ... I seen it the fust time this week ... must a' got strong -on Zenas ... he was a big boy, full o' life ... it beats down your -mind an' then gits ye ... burns ye up ... in the well water ... you -was right about that ... evil water ... Zenas never come back from the -well ... can't git away ... draws ye ... ye know summ'at's comin', but -'tain't no use ... I seen it time an' agin Zenas was took ... whar's -Nabby, Ammi? ... my head's no good ... dun't know how long sence I fed -her ... it'll git her ef we ain't keerful ... jest a colour ... her -face is gittin' to hev that colour sometimes towards night ... an' it -burns an' sucks ... it come from some place whar things ain't as they -is here ... one o' them professors said so ... he was right ... look -out, Ammi, it'll do suthin' more ... sucks the life out...." - -But that was all. That which spoke could speak no more because it had -completely caved in. Ammi laid a red checked tablecloth over what was -left and reeled out the back door into the fields. He climbed the slope -to the ten-acre pasture and stumbled home by the north road and the -woods. He could not pass that well from which his horses had run away. -He had looked at it through the window, and had seen that no stone -was missing from the rim. Then the lurching buggy had not dislodged -anything after all--the splash had been something else--something which -went into the well after it had done with poor Nahum.... - -When Ammi reached his house the horses and buggy had arrived before -him and thrown his wife into fits of anxiety. Reassuring her without -explanations, he set out at once for Arkham and notified the -authorities that the Gardner family was no more. He indulged in no -details, but merely told of the deaths of Nahum and Nabby, that of -Thaddeus being already known, and mentioned that the cause seemed to -be the same strange ailment which had killed the livestock. He also -stated that Merwin and Zenas had disappeared. There was considerable -questioning at the police station, and in the end Ammi was compelled -to take three officers to the Gardner farm, together with the coroner, -the medical examiner, and the veterinary who had treated the diseased -animals. He went much against his will, for the afternoon was advancing -and he feared the fall of night over that accursed place, but it was -some comfort to have so many people with him. - -The six men drove out in a democrat-wagon, following Ammi's buggy, and -arrived at the pest-ridden farmhouse about four o'clock. Used as the -officers were to gruesome experiences, not one remained unmoved at -what was found in the attic and under the red checked tablecloth on -the floor below. The whole aspect of the farm with its grey desolation -was terrible enough, but those two crumbling objects were beyond all -bounds. No one could look long at them, and even the medical examiner -admitted that there was very little to examine. Specimens could be -analysed, of course, so he busied himself in obtaining them--and here -it develops that a very puzzling aftermath occurred at the college -laboratory where the two phials of dust were finally taken. Under the -spectroscope both samples gave off an unknown spectrum, in which many -of the baffling bands were precisely like those which the strange -meteor had yielded in the previous year. The property of emitting this -spectrum vanished in a month, the dust thereafter consisting mainly of -alkaline phosphates and carbonates. - - * * * * * - -Ammi would not have told the men about the well if he had thought they -meant to do anything then and there. It was getting toward sunset, and -he was anxious to be away. But he could not help glancing nervously -at the stony curb by the great sweep, and when a detective questioned -him he admitted that Nahum had feared something down there--so much so -that he had never even thought of searching it for Merwin or Zenas. -After that nothing would do but that they empty and explore the well -immediately, so Ammi had to wait trembling while pail after pail of -rank water was hauled up and splashed on the soaking ground outside. -The men sniffed in disgust at the fluid, and toward the last held their -noses against the foetor they were uncovering. It was not so long a -job as they had feared it would be, since the water was phenomenally -low. There is no need to speak too exactly of what they found. Merwin -and Zenas were both there, in part, though the vestiges were mainly -skeletal. There were also a small deer and a large dog in about the -same state, and a number of bones of smaller animals. The ooze and -slime at the bottom seemed inexplicably porous and bubbling, and a man -who descended on hand-holds with a long pole found that he could sink -the wooden shaft to any depth in the mud of the floor without meeting -any solid obstruction. - -Twilight had now fallen, and lanterns were brought from the house. -Then, when it was seen that nothing further could be gained from the -well, everyone went indoors and conferred in the ancient sitting-room -while the intermittent light of a spectral half-moon played wanly on -the grey desolation outside. The men were frankly nonplussed by the -entire case, and could find no convincing common element to link the -strange vegetable conditions, the unknown disease of livestock and -humans, and the unaccountable deaths of Merwin and Zenas in the tainted -well. They had heard the common country talk, it is true; but could not -believe that anything contrary to natural law had occurred. No doubt -the meteor had poisoned the soil, but the illness of person and animals -who had eaten nothing grown in that soil was another matter. Was it the -well water? Very possibly. It might be a good idea to analyse it. But -what peculiar madness could have made both boys jump into the well? -Their deeds were so similar--and the fragments showed that they had -both suffered from the grey brittle death. Why was everything so grey -and brittle? - -It was the coroner, seated near a window overlooking the yard, who -first noticed the glow about the well. Night had fully set in, and all -the abhorrent grounds seemed faintly luminous with more than the fitful -moonbeams; but this new glow was something definite and distinct, and -appeared to shoot up from the black pit like a softened ray from a -searchlight, giving dull reflections in the little ground pools where -the water had been emptied. It had a very queer colour, and as all the -men clustered round the window Ammi gave a violent start. For this -strange beam of ghastly miasma was to him of no unfamiliar hue. He had -seen that colour before, and feared to think what it might mean. He -had seen it in the nasty brittle globule in that aerolite two summers -ago, had seen it in the crazy vegetation of the springtime, and had -thought he had seen it for an instant that very morning against the -small barred window of that terrible attic room where nameless things -had happened. It had flashed there a second, and a clammy and hateful -current of vapour had brushed past him--and then poor Nahum had been -taken by something of that colour. He had said so at the last--said it -was like the globule and the plants. After that had come the runaway -in the yard and the splash in the well--and now that well was belching -forth to the night a pale insidious beam of the same demoniac tint. - -It does credit to the alertness of Ammi's mind that he puzzled even -at that tense moment over a point which was essentially scientific. -He could not but wonder at his gleaning of the same impression from -a vapour glimpsed in the daytime, against a window opening in the -morning sky, and from a nocturnal exhalation seen as a phosphorescent -mist against the black and blasted landscape. It wasn't right--it was -against Nature--and he thought of those terrible last words of his -stricken friend, "It come from some place whar things ain't as they is -here ... one o' them professors said so...." - -All three horses outside, tied to a pair of shrivelled saplings by -the road, were now neighing and pawing frantically. The wagon driver -started for the door to do something, but Ammi laid a shaky hand on his -shoulder. "Dun't go out thar," he whispered. "They's more to this nor -what we know. Nahum said somethin' lived in the well that sucks your -life out. He said it must be some'at growed from a round ball like one -we all seen in the meteor stone that fell a year ago June. Sucks an' -burns, he said, an' is jest a cloud of colour like that light out thar -now, that ye can hardly see an' can't tell what it is. Nahum thought it -feeds on everything livin' an' gits stronger all the time. He said he -seen it this last week. It must be somethin' from away off in the sky -like the men from the college last year says the meteor stone was. The -way it's made an' the way it works ain't like no way o' God's world. -It's some'at from beyond." - -So the men paused indecisively as the light from the well grew stronger -and the hitched horses pawed and whinnied in increasing frenzy. It was -truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house -itself, four monstrous sets of fragments--two from the house and two -from the well--in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and -unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front. Ammi had restrained -the driver on impulse, forgetting how uninjured he himself was after -the clammy brushing of that coloured vapour in the attic room, but -perhaps it is just as well that he acted as he did. No one will ever -know what was abroad that night; and though the blasphemy from beyond -had not so far hurt any human of unweakened mind, there is no telling -what it might not have done at that last moment, and with its seemingly -increased strength and the special signs of purpose it was soon to -display beneath the half-clouded moonlit sky. - - * * * * * - -All at once one of the detectives at the window gave a short, sharp -gasp. The others looked at him, and then quickly followed his own -gaze upward to the point at which its idle straying had been suddenly -arrested. There was no need for words. What had been disputed in -country gossip was disputable no longer, and it is because of the -thing which every man of that party agreed in whispering later on, -that strange days are never talked about in Arkham. It is necessary to -premise that there was no wind at that hour of the evening. One did -arise not long afterward, but there was absolutely none then. Even -the dry tips of the lingering hedge-mustard, grey and blighted, and -the fringe on the roof of the standing democrat-wagon were unstirred. -And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all -the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and -spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the -moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked -by some allied and bodiless line of linkage with sub-terrene horrors -writhing and struggling below the black roots. - -Not a man breathed for several seconds. Then a cloud of darker depth -passed over the moon, and the silhouette of clutching branches faded -out momentarily. At this there was a general cry; muffled with awe, -but husky and almost identical from every throat. For the terror had -not faded with the silhouette, and in a fearsome instant of deeper -darkness the watchers saw wriggling at the treetop height a thousand -tiny points of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like -the fire of St. Elmo or the flames that come down on the apostles' -heads at Pentecost. It was a monstrous constellation of unnatural -light, like a glutted swarm of corpse-fed fireflies dancing hellish -sarabands over an accursed marsh; and its colour was that same nameless -intrusion which Ammi had come to recognise and dread. All the while -the shaft of phosphorescence from the well was getting brighter and -brighter, bringing to the minds of the huddled men, a sense of doom and -abnormality which far outraced any image their conscious minds could -form. It was no longer _shining_ out; it was _pouring_ out; and as the -shapeless stream of unplaceable colour left the well it seemed to flow -directly into the sky. - -[Illustration: ... and in the fearsome instant of deeper darkness, the -watchers saw wriggling at that treetop height, a thousand tiny points -of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like the fire -of St. Elmo ... and all the while the shaft of phosphorescence from -the well was getting brighter and brighter and bringing to the minds -of the huddled men, a sense of doom and abnormality.... It was no -longer shining out; it was pouring out; and as the shapeless stream of -unplaceable colour left the well, it seemed to flow directly into the -sky.] - -The veterinary shivered, and walked to the front door to drop the heavy -extra bar across it. Ammi shook no less, and had to tug and point for -lack of a controllable voice when he wished to draw notice to the -growing luminosity of the trees. The neighing and stamping of the -horses had become utterly frightful, but not a soul of that group in -the old house would have ventured forth for any earthly reward. With -the moments the shining of the trees increased, while their restless -branches seemed to strain more and more toward verticality. The wood -of the well-sweep was shining now, and presently a policeman dumbly -pointed to some wooden sheds and beehives near the stone wall on the -west. They were commencing to shine, too, though the tethered vehicles -of the visitors seemed so far unaffected. Then there was a wild -commotion and clopping in the road, and as Ammi quenched the lamp for -better seeing they realized that the span of frantic grays had broken -their sapling and run off with the democrat-wagon. - -The shock served to loosen several tongues, and embarrassed whispers -were exchanged. "It spreads on everything organic that's been around -here," muttered the medical examiner. No one replied, but the man who -had been in the well gave a hint that his long pole must have stirred -up something intangible. "It was awful," he added. "There was no bottom -at all. Just ooze and bubbles and the feeling of something lurking -under there." Ammi's horse still pawed and screamed deafeningly in -the road outside, and nearly drowned its owner's faint quaver as he -mumbled his formless reflections. "It come from that stone--it growed -down thar--it got everything livin'--it fed itself on 'em, mind and -body--Thad an' Merwin, Zenas an' Nabby--Nahum was the last--they all -drunk the water--it got strong on 'em--it come from beyond, whar things -ain't like they be here--now it's goin' home--" - -At this point, as the column of unknown colour flared suddenly stronger -and began to weave itself into fantastic suggestions of shape which -each spectator later described differently, there came from poor -tethered Hero such a sound as no man before or since ever heard from -a horse. Every person in that low-pitched sitting-room stopped his -ears, and Ammi turned away from the window in horror and nausea. Words -could not convey it--when Ammi looked out again the hapless beast lay -huddled inert on the moonlit ground between the splintered shafts of -the buggy. That was the last of Hero till they buried him next day. -But the present was no time to mourn, for almost at this instant a -detective silently called attention to something terrible in the very -room with them. In the absence of the lamplight it was clear that a -faint phosphorescence had begun to pervade the entire apartment. It -glowed on the broad-planked floor where the rag carpet left it bare, -and shimmered over the sashes of the small-paned windows. It ran up -and down the exposed corner-posts, coruscated about the shelf and -mantel, and infected the very doors and furniture. Each minute saw it -strengthen, and at last it was very plain that healthy living things -must leave that house. - -Ammi showed them the back door and the path up through the fields to -the ten-acre pasture. They walked and stumbled as in a dream, and did -not dare look back till they were far away on the high ground. They -were glad of the path, for they could not have gone the front way, by -that well. It was bad enough passing the glowing barn and sheds, and -those shining orchard trees with their gnarled, fiendish contours; but -thank Heaven the branches did their worst twisting high up. The moon -went under some very black clouds as they crossed the rustic bridge -over Chapman's Brook, and it was blind groping from there to the open -meadows. - - * * * * * - -When they looked back toward the valley and the distant Gardner place -at the bottom they saw a fearsome sight. All the farm was shining -with the hideous unknown blend of colour; trees, buildings, and even -such grass and herbage as had not been wholly changed to lethal grey -brittleness. The boughs were all straining skyward, tipped with tongues -of foul flame, and lambent tricklings of the same monstrous fire were -creeping about the ridgepoles of the house, barn and sheds. It was a -scene from a vision of Fuseli, and over all the rest reigned that riot -of luminous amorphousness, that alien and undimensioned rainbow of -cryptic poison from the well--seething, feeling, lapping, reaching, -scintillating, straining, and malignly bubbling in its cosmic and -unrecognizable chromaticism. - -Then without warning the hideous thing shot vertically up toward the -sky like a rocket or meteor, leaving behind no trail and disappearing -through a round and curiously regular hole in the clouds before any -man could gasp or cry out. No watcher can ever forget that sight, and -Ammi stared blankly at the stars of Cygnus, Deneb twinkling above the -others, where the unknown colour had melted into the Milky Way. But his -gaze was the next moment called swiftly to earth by the crackling in -the valley. It was just that. Only a wooden ripping and crackling, and -not an explosion, as so many others of the party vowed. Yet the outcome -was the same, for in one feverish kaleidoscopic instant there burst up -from that doomed and accursed farm a gleamingly eruptive cataclysm of -unnatural sparks and substance; blurring the glance of the few who saw -it, and sending forth to the zenith a bombarding cloudburst of such -coloured and fantastic fragments as our universe must needs disown. -Through quickly re-closing vapours they followed the great morbidity -that had vanished, and in another second they had vanished too. Behind -and below was only a darkness to which the men dared not return, and -all about was a mounting wind which seemed to sweep down in black, -frore gusts from interstellar space. It shrieked and howled, and lashed -the fields and distorted woods in a mad cosmic frenzy, till soon the -trembling party realized it would be no use waiting for the moon to -show what was left down there at Nahum's. - -Too awed even to hint theories, the seven shaking men trudged back -toward Arkham by the north road. Ammi was worse than his fellows, -and begged them to see him inside his own kitchen, instead of -keeping straight on to town. He did not wish to cross the blighted, -wind-whipped woods alone to his home on the main road. For he had had -an added shock that the others were spared, and was crushed for ever -with a brooding fear he dared not even mention for many years to come. -As the rest of the watchers on that tempestuous hill had stolidly set -their faces toward the road, Ammi had looked back an instant at the -shadowed valley of desolation so lately sheltering his ill-starred -friend. And from that stricken, far-away spot he had seen something -feebly rise, only to sink down again upon the place from which the -great shapeless horror had shot into the sky. It was just a colour--but -not any colour of our earth or heavens. And because Ammi recognized -that colour, and knew that this last faint remnant must still lurk down -there in the well, he has never been quite right since. - -Ammi would never go near the place again. It is forty-four years now -since the horror happened, but he has never been there, and will be -glad when the new reservoir blots it out. I shall be glad, too, for I -do not like the way the sunlight changed colour around the mouth of -that abandoned well I passed. I hope the water will always be very -deep--but even so, I shall never drink it. I do not think I shall visit -the Arkham country hereafter. Three of the men who had been with Ammi -returned the next morning to see the ruins by daylight, but there were -not any real ruins. Only the bricks of the chimney, the stones of the -cellar, some mineral and metallic litter here and there, and the rim -of that nefandous well. Save for Ammi's dead horse, which they towed -away and buried, and the buggy which they shortly returned to him, -everything that had ever been living had gone. Five eldritch acres of -dusty grey desert remained, nor has anything ever grown there since. -To this day it sprawls open to the sky like a great spot eaten by acid -in the woods and fields, and the few who have ever dared glimpse it in -spite of the rural tales have named it "the blasted heath." - - * * * * * - -The rural tales are queer. They might be even queerer if city men -and college chemists could be interested enough to analyze the water -from that disused well, or the grey dust that no wind seems ever to -disperse. Botanists, too, ought to study the stunted flora on the -borders of that spot, for they might shed light on the country notion -that the blight is spreading--little by little, perhaps an inch a year. -People say the colour of the neighboring herbage is not quite right -in the spring, and that wild things leave queer prints in the light -winter snow. Snow never seems quite so heavy on the blasted heath as -it is elsewhere. Horses--the few that are left in this motor age--grow -skittish in the silent valley; and hunters cannot depend on their dogs -too near the splotch of greyish dust. - -They say the mental influences are very bad, too; numbers went queer in -the years after Nahum's taking, and always they lacked the power to get -away. Then the stronger-minded folk all left the region, and only the -foreigners tried to live in the crumbling old homesteads. They could -not stay, though; and one sometimes wonders what insight beyond ours -their wild, weird stories of whispered magic have given them. Their -dreams at night, they protest, are very horrible in that grotesque -country; and surely the very look of the dark realm is enough to stir -a morbid fancy. No traveler has ever escaped a sense of strangeness in -those deep ravines, and artists shiver as they paint thick woods whose -mystery is as much of the spirits as of the eye. I myself am curious -about the sensation I derived from my one lone walk before Ammi told -me his tale. When twilight came I had vaguely wished some clouds would -gather, for odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept -into my soul. - -Do not ask me for my opinion. I do not know--that is all. There was no -one but Ammi to question; for Arkham people will not talk about the -strange days, and all three professors who saw the aerolite and its -coloured globule are dead. There were other globules--depend upon that. -One must have fed itself and escaped, and probably there was another -which was too late. No doubt it is still down the well--I know there -was something wrong with the sunlight I saw above that miasmal brink. -The rustics say the blight creeps an inch a year, so perhaps there is -a kind of growth or nourishment even now. But whatever demon hatchling -is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly -spread. Is it fastened to the roots of those trees that claw the air? -One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move -as they ought not to do at night. - -What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing -Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed laws that -are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as -shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. -This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our -astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour -out of space--a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity -beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns -the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open -before our frenzied eyes. - -I doubt very much if Ammi consciously lied to me, and I do not think -his tale was all a freak of madness as the townsfolk had forewarned. -Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, -and something terrible--though I know not in what proportion--still -remains. I shall be glad to see the water come. Meanwhile I hope -nothing will happen to Ammi. He saw so much of the thing--and its -influence was so insidious. Why has he never been able to move away? -How clearly he recalled those dying words of Nahum's--"can't git -away--draws ye--ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use--" Ammi is -such a good old man--when the reservoir gang gets to work I must write -the chief engineer to keep a sharp watch on him. I would hate to think -of him as the grey, twisted, brittle monstrosity which persists more -and more in troubling my sleep. - - - THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Lovecraft. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.caption p -{ - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; - margin: 0.25em 0; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .67em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The colour out of space, by H. P. Lovecraft</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The colour out of space</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: H. P. Lovecraft</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68236]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE</h1> - -<h2>By H. P. Lovecraft</h2> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Amazing Stories September 1927.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -<p><i>Here is a totally different story that we can<br /> -highly recommend to you. We could wax rhapsodical<br /> -in our praise, as the story is one of the finest<br /> -pieces of literature it has been our good fortune to<br /> -read. The theme is original, and yet fantastic<br /> -enough to make it rise head and shoulders above<br /> -many contemporary scientifiction stories. You will<br /> -not regret having read this marvellous tale.</i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep -woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the -trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without -ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there -are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding -eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but -these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled -sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.</p> - -<p>The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. -French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles -have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen -or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The -place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at -night. It must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old Ammi -Pierce has never told them of anything he recalls from the strange -days. Ammi, whose head has been a little queer for years, is the only -one who still remains, or who ever talks of the strange days; and he -dares to do this because his house is so near the open fields and the -travelled roads around Arkham.</p> - -<p>There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ran -straight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use it -and a new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of the -old one can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness, -and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are -flooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and -the blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface will -mirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strange -days will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore of -old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth.</p> - -<p>When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoir -they told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, and -because that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought the -evil must be something which grandmas had whispered to children -through centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very odd -and theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore of -a Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens and -slopes for myself, and ceased to wonder at anything besides its own -elder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always -there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for -any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim -alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and -mattings of infinite years of decay.</p> - -<p>In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were -little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing, -sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney -or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild -things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of -restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, -as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did -not wonder that the foreigners would not stay, for this was no region -to sleep in. It was too much like a landscape of Salvator Rosa; too -much like some forbidden woodcut in a tale of terror.</p> - -<p>But even all this was not so bad as the blasted heath. I knew it the -moment I came upon it at the bottom of a spacious valley; for no other -name could fit such thing, or any other thing fit such a name. It -was as if the poet had coined the phrase from having seen this one -particular region. It must, I thought as I viewed it, be the outcome -of a fire; but why had nothing new ever grown over those five acres of -grey desolation that sprawled open to the sky like a great spot eaten -by acid in the woods and fields? It lay largely to the north of the -ancient road line, but encroached a little on the other side. I felt -an odd reluctance about approaching, and did so at last only because -my business took me through and past it. There was no vegetation of -any kind on that broad expanse, but only a fine grey dust or ash which -no wind seemed ever to blow about. The trees near it were sickly -and stunted, and many dead trunks stood or lay rotting at the rim. -As I walked hurriedly by I saw the tumbled bricks and stones of an -old chimney and cellar on my right, and the yawning black maw of an -abandoned well whose stagnant vapours played strange tricks with the -hues of the sunlight. Even the long, dark woodland climb beyond seemed -welcome in contrast, and I marvelled no more at the frightened whispers -of Arkham people. There had been no house or ruin near; even in the -old days the place must have been lonely and remote. And at twilight, -dreading to repass that ominous spot, I walked circuitously back to the -town by the curving road on the south. I vaguely wished some clouds -would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had -crept into my soul.</p> - -<p>In the evening I asked old people in Arkham about the blasted heath, -and what was meant by that phrase "strange days" which so many -evasively muttered. I could not, however, get any good answers, except -that all the mystery was much more recent than I had dreamed. It was -not a matter of old legendry at all, but something within the lifetime -of those who spoke. It had happened in the 'eighties, and a family had -disappeared or was killed. Speakers would not be exact; and because -they all told me to pay no attention to old Ammi Pierce's crazy tales, -I sought him out the next morning, having heard that he lived alone in -the ancient tottering cottage where the trees first begin to get very -thick. It was a fearsomely ancient place, and had begun to exude the -faint miasmal odour which clings about houses that have stood too long. -Only with persistent knocking could I rouse the aged man, and when he -shuffled timidly to the door I could tell he was not glad to see me. He -was not so feeble as I had expected; but his eyes drooped in a curious -way, and his unkempt clothing and white beard made him seem very worn -and dismal.</p> - -<p>Not knowing just how he could best be launched on his tales, I feigned -a matter of business; told him of my surveying, and asked vague -questions about the district. He was far brighter and more educated -than I had been led to think, and before I knew it had grasped quite -as much of the subject as any man I had talked with in Arkham. He was -not like other rustics I had known in the sections where reservoirs -were to be. From him there were no protests at the miles of old wood -and farmland to be blotted out, though perhaps there would have been -had not his home lain outside the bounds of the future lake. Relief -was all that he showed; relief at the doom of the dark ancient valleys -through which he had roamed all his life. They were better under water -now—better under water since the strange days. And with this opening -his husky voice sank low, while his body leaned forward and his right -forefinger began to point shakily and impressively.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was then that I heard the story, and as the rambling voice scraped -and whispered on I shivered again and again despite the summer day. -Often I had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific -points which he knew only by a fading parrot memory of professors' -talk, or bridge over gaps, where his sense of logic and continuity -broke down. When he was done I did not wonder that his mind had snapped -a trifle, or that the folk of Arkham would not speak much of the -blasted heath. I hurried back before sunset to my hotel, unwilling to -have the stars come out above me in the open; and the next day returned -to Boston to give up my position. I could not go into that dim chaos -of old forest and slope again, or face another time that grey blasted -heath where the black well yawned deep beside the tumbled bricks and -stones. The reservoir will soon be built now, and all those elder -secrets will lie safe forever under watery fathoms. But even then I do -not believe I would like to visit that country by night—at least not -when the sinister stars are out; and nothing could bribe me to drink -the new city water of Arkham.</p> - -<p>It all began, old Ammi said, with the meteorite. Before that time there -had been no wild legends at all since the witch trials, and even then -these western woods were not feared half so much as the small island -in the Miskatonic where the devil held court beside a curious stone -altar older than the Indians. These were not haunted woods, and their -fantastic dusk was never terrible till the strange days. Then there -had come that white noontide cloud, that string of explosions in the -air, and that pillar of smoke from the valley far in the wood. And by -night all Arkham had heard of the great rock that fell out of the sky -and bedded itself in the ground beside the well at the Nahum Gardner -place. That was the house which had stood where the blasted heath was -to come—the trim white Nahum Gardner house amidst its fertile gardens -and orchards.</p> - -<p>Nahum had come to town to tell people about the stone, and had dropped -in at Ammi Pierce's on the way. Ammi was forty then, and all the queer -things were fixed very strongly in his mind. He and his wife had gone -with the three professors from Miskatonic University who hastened out -the next morning to see the weird visitor from unknown stellar space, -and had wondered why Nahum had called it so large the day before. It -had shrunk, Nahum said as he pointed out the big brownish mound above -the ripped earth and charred grass near the archaic well-sweep in his -front yard; but the wise men answered that stones do not shrink. Its -heat lingered persistently, and Nahum declared it had glowed faintly in -the night. The professors tried it with a geologist's hammer and found -it was oddly soft. It was, in truth, so soft as to be almost plastic; -and they gouged rather than chipped a specimen to take back to the -college for testing. They took it in an old pail borrowed from Nahum's -kitchen, for even the small piece refused to grow cool. On the trip -back they stopped at Ammi's to rest, and seemed thoughtful when Mrs. -Pierce remarked that the fragment was growing smaller and burning the -bottom of the pail. Truly, it was not large, but perhaps they had taken -less than they thought.</p> - -<p>The day after that—all this was in June of '82—the professors had -trooped out again in a great excitement. As they passed Ammi's they -told him what queer things the specimen had done, and how it had -faded wholly away when they put it in a glass beaker. The beaker had -gone, too, and the wise men talked of the strange stone's affinity -for silicon. It had acted quite unbelievably in that well-ordered -laboratory; doing nothing at all and showing no occluded gases when -heated on charcoal, being wholly negative in the borax bead, and soon -proving itself absolutely non-volatile at any producible temperature, -including that of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. On an anvil it appeared -highly malleable, and in the dark its luminosity was very marked. -Stubbornly refusing to grow cool, it soon had the college in a state -of real excitement; and when upon heating before the spectroscope it -displayed shining bands unlike any known colours of the normal spectrum -there was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical -properties, and other things which puzzled men of science are wont to -say when faced by the unknown.</p> - -<p>Hot as it was, they tested it in a crucible with all the proper -reagents. Water did nothing. Hydrochloric acid was the same. Nitric -acid and even aqua regia merely hissed and spattered against its torrid -invulnerability. Ammi had difficulty in recalling all these things, but -recognized some solvents as I mentioned them in the usual order of use. -There were ammonia and caustic soda, alcohol and ether, nauseous carbon -disulphide and a dozen others; but although the weight grew steadily -less as time passed, and the fragment seemed to be slightly cooling, -there was no change in the solvents to show that they had attacked -the substance at all. It was a metal, though, beyond a doubt. It was -magnetic, for one thing; and after its immersion in the acid solvents -there seemed to be faint traces of the Widmänstätten figures found -on meteoric iron. When the cooling had grown very considerable, the -testing was carried on in glass; and it was in a glass beaker that they -left all the chips made of the original fragment during the work. The -next morning both chips and beaker were gone without trace, and only a -charred spot marked the place on the wooden shelf where they had been.</p> - -<p>All this the professors told Ammi as they paused at his door, and -once more he went with them to see the stony messenger from the -stars, though this time his wife did not accompany him. It had now -most certainly shrunk, and even the sober professors could not doubt -the truth of what they saw. All around the dwindling brown lump near -the well was a vacant space, except where the earth had caved in; -and whereas it had been a good seven feet across the day before, it -was now scarcely five. It was still hot, and the sages studied its -surface curiously as they detached another and larger piece with hammer -and chisel. They gouged deeply this time, and as they pried away -the smaller mass they saw that the core of the thing was not quite -homogeneous.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They had uncovered what seemed to be the side of a large coloured -globule embedded in the substance. The colour, which resembled some -of the bands in the meteor's strange spectrum, was almost impossible -to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it colour at -all. Its texture was glossy, and upon tapping it appeared to promise -both brittleness and hollowness. One of the professors gave it a smart -blow with a hammer, and it burst with a nervous little pop. Nothing was -emitted, and all trace of the thing vanished with the puncturing. It -left behind a hollow spherical space about three inches across, and all -thought it probable that others would be discovered as the enclosing -substance wasted away.</p> - -<p>Conjecture was vain; so after a futile attempt to find additional -globules by drilling, the seekers left again with their new -specimen—which proved, however, as baffling in the laboratory as -its predecessor. Aside from being almost plastic, having heat, -magnetism, and slight luminosity, cooling slightly in powerful acids, -possessing an unknown spectrum, wasting away in air, and attacking -silicon compounds with mutual destruction as a result, it presented -no identifying features whatsoever; and at the end of the tests the -college scientists were forced to own that they could not place it. It -was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as -such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws.</p> - -<p>That night there was a thunderstorm, and when the professors went out -to Nahum's the next day they met with a bitter disappointment. The -stone, magnetic as it had been, must have had some peculiar electrical -property; for it had "drawn the lightning," as Nahum said, with a -singular persistence. Six times within an hour the farmer saw the -lightning strike the furrow in the front yard, and when the storm was -over nothing remained but a ragged pit by the ancient well-sweep, -half-chocked with caved-in earth. Digging had borne no fruit, and the -scientists verified the fact of the utter vanishment. The failure was -total; so that nothing was left to do but go back to the laboratory and -test again the disappearing fragment left carefully cased in lead. That -fragment lasted a week, at the end of which nothing of value had been -learned of it. When it had gone, no residue was left behind, and in -time the professors felt scarcely sure they had indeed seen with waking -eyes that cryptic vestige of the fathomless gulfs outside; that lone, -weird message from other universes and other realms of matter, force, -and entity.</p> - -<p>As was natural, the Arkham papers made much of the incident with its -collegiate sponsoring, and sent reporters to talk with Nahum Gardner -and his family. At least one Boston daily also sent a scribe, and Nahum -quickly became a kind of local celebrity. He was a lean, genial person -of about fifty, living with his wife and three sons on the pleasant -farmstead in the valley. He and Ammi exchanged visits frequently, as -did their wives; and Ammi had nothing but praise for him after all -these years. He seemed slightly proud of the notice his place had -attracted, and talked often of the meteorite in the succeeding weeks. -That July and August were hot; and Nahum worked hard at his haying in -the ten-acre pasture across Chapman's Brook; his rattling wain wearing -deep ruts in the shadowy lanes between. The labour tired him more than -it had in other years, and he felt that age was beginning to tell on -him.</p> - -<p>Then fell the time of fruit and harvest. The pears and apples slowly -ripened, and Nahum vowed that his orchards were prospering as never -before. The fruit was growing to phenomenal size and unwonted gloss, -and in such abundance that extra barrels were ordered to handle the -future crop. But with the ripening came sore disappointment, for of all -that gorgeous array of specious lusciousness not one single jot was -fit to eat. Into the fine flavour of the pears and apples had crept -a stealthy bitterness and sickishness, so that even the smallest of -bites induced a lasting disgust. It was the same with the melons and -tomatoes, and Nahum sadly saw that his entire crop was lost. Quick to -connect events, he declared that the meteorite had poisoned the soil, -and thanked Heaven that most of the other crops were in the upland lot -along the road.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Winter came early, and was very cold. Ammi saw Nahum less often than -usual, and observed that he had begun to look worried. The rest of his -family too, seemed to have grown taciturn; and were far from steady -in their churchgoing or their attendance at the various social events -of the countryside. For this reserve or melancholy no cause could be -found, though all the household confessed now and then to poorer health -and a feeling of vague disquiet. Nahum himself gave the most definite -statement of anyone when he said he was disturbed about certain -footprints in the snow. They were the usual winter prints of red -squirrels, white rabbits, and foxes, but the brooding farmer professed -to see something not quite right about their nature and arrangement. -He was never specific, but appeared to think that they were not as -characteristic of the anatomy and habits of squirrels and rabbits and -foxes as they ought to be. Ammi listened without interest to this talk -until one night when he drove past Nahum's house in his sleigh on the -way back from Clark's Corners. There had been a moon, and a rabbit had -run across the road; and the leaps of that rabbit were longer than -either Ammi or his horse liked. The latter, indeed, had almost run away -when brought up by a firm rein. Thereafter Ammi gave Nahum's tales -more respect, and wondered why the Gardner dogs seemed so cowed and -quivering every morning. They had, it developed, nearly lost the spirit -to bark.</p> - -<p>In February the McGregor boys from Meadow Hill were out shooting -woodchucks, and not far from the Gardner place bagged a very peculiar -specimen. The proportions of its body seemed slightly altered in a -queer way impossible to describe, while its face had taken on an -expression which no one ever saw in a woodchuck before. The boys were -genuinely frightened, and threw the thing away at once, so that only -their grotesque tales of it ever reached the people of the countryside. -But the shying of horses near Nahum's house had now become an -acknowledged thing, and all the basis for a cycle of whispered legend -was fast taking form.</p> - -<p>People vowed that the snow melted faster around Nahum's than it did -anywhere else, and early in March there was an awed discussion in -Potter's general store at Clark's Corners. Stephen Rice had driven past -Gardner's in the morning, and had noticed the skunk-cabbages coming -up through the mud by the woods across the road. Never were things of -such size seen before, and they held strange colours that could not -be put into any words. Their shapes were monstrous, and the horse had -snorted at an odour which struck Stephen as wholly unprecedented. That -afternoon several persons drove past to see the abnormal growth, and -all agreed that plants of that kind ought never to sprout in a healthy -world. The bad fruit of the fall before was freely mentioned, and it -went from mouth to mouth that there was poison in Nahum's ground. Of -course it was the meteorite; and remembering how strange the men from -the college had found that stone to be, several farmers spoke about the -matter to them.</p> - -<p>One day they paid Nahum a visit; but having no love of wild tales and -folklore were very conservative in what they inferred. The plants were -certainly odd, but all skunk-cabbages are more or less odd in shape -and hue. Perhaps some mineral element from the stone had entered the -soil, but it would soon be washed away. And as for the footprints and -frightened horses—of course this was mere country talk which such -a phenomenon as the aerolite would be certain to start. There was -really nothing for serious men to do in cases of wild gossip, for -superstitious rustics will say and believe anything. And so all through -the strange days the professors stayed away in contempt. Only one -of them, when given two phials of dust for analysis in a police job -over a year and a half later, recalled that the queer colour of that -skunk-cabbage had been very like one of the anomalous bands of light -shown by the meteor fragment in the college spectroscope, and like the -brittle globule found imbedded in the stone from the abyss. The samples -in this analysis case gave the same odd bands at first, though later -they lost the property.</p> - -<p>The trees budded prematurely around Nahum's, and at night they swayed -ominously in the wind. Nahum's second son Thaddeus, a lad of fifteen, -swore that they swayed also when there was no wind; but even the -gossips would not credit this. Certainly, however, restlessness was -in the air. The entire Gardner family developed the habit of stealthy -listening, though not for any sound which they could consciously -name. The listening was, indeed, rather a product of moments when -consciousness seemed half to slip away. Unfortunately such moments -increased week by week, till it became common speech that "something -was wrong with all Nahum's folks." When the early saxifrage came out it -had another strange colour; not quite like that of the skunk-cabbage, -but plainly related and equally unknown to anyone who saw it. Nahum -took some blossoms to Arkham and showed them to the editor of the -<i>Gazette</i>, but that dignitary did no more than write a humorous article -about them, in which the dark fears of rustics were held up to polite -ridicule. It was a mistake of Nahum's to tell a stolid city man about -the way the great, overgrown mourning-cloak butterflies behaved in -connection with these saxifrages.</p> - -<p>April brought a kind of madness to the country folk, and began that -disuse of the road past Nahum's which led to its ultimate abandonment. -It was next the vegetation. All the orchard trees blossomed forth in -strange colours, and through the stony soil of the yard and adjacent -pasturage there sprang up a bizarre growth which only a botanist could -connect with the proper flora of the region. No sane wholesome colours -were anywhere to be seen except in the green grass and leafage; but -everywhere were those hectic and prismatic variants of some diseased, -underlying primary tone without a place among the known tints of earth. -The "Dutchman's breeches" became a thing of sinister menace, and the -bloodroots grew insolent in their chromatic perversion. Ammi and the -Gardners thought that most of the colours had a sort of haunting -familiarity, and decided that they reminded one of the brittle globule -in the meteor. Nahum ploughed and sowed the ten-acre pasture and the -upland lot, but did nothing with the land around the house. He knew it -would be of no use, and hoped that the summer's strange growths would -draw all the poison from the soil. He was prepared for almost anything -now, and had grown used to the sense of something near him waiting -to be heard. The shunning of his house by neighbours told on him, of -course; but it told on his wife more. The boys were better off, being -at school each day; but they could not help being frightened by the -gossip. Thaddeus, an especially sensitive youth, suffered the most.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In May the insects came, and Nahum's place became a nightmare of -buzzing and crawling. Most of the creatures seemed not quite usual in -their aspects and motions, and their nocturnal habits contradicted all -former experience. The Gardners took to watching at night—watching in -all directions at random for something they could not tell what. It was -then that they all owned that Thaddeus had been right about the trees. -Mrs. Gardner was the next to see it from the window as she watched the -swollen boughs of a maple against a moonlit sky. The boughs surely -moved, and there was no wind. It must be the sap. Strangeness had come -into everything growing now. Yet it was none of Nahum's family at all -who made the next discovery. Familiarity had dulled them, and what they -could not see was glimpsed by a timid windmill salesman from Bolton who -drove by one night in ignorance of the country legends. What he told in -Arkham was given a short paragraph in the <i>Gazette</i>; and it was there -that all the farmers, Nahum included, saw it first. The night had been -dark and the buggy-lamps faint, but around a farm in the valley which -everyone knew from the account must be Nahum's, the darkness had been -less thick. A dim though distinct luminosity seemed to inhere in all -the vegetation, grass, leaves, and blossoms alike, while at one moment -a detached piece of the phosphorescence appeared to stir furtively in -the yard near the barn.</p> - -<p>The grass had so far seemed untouched, and the cows were freely -pastured in the lot near the house, but toward the end of May the milk -began to be bad. Then Nahum had the cows driven to the uplands, after -which this trouble ceased. Not long after this the change in grass and -leaves became apparent to the eye. All the verdure was going grey, -and was developing a highly singular quality of brittleness. Ammi -was now the only person who ever visited the place, and his visits -were becoming fewer and fewer. When school closed the Gardners were -virtually cut off from the world, and sometimes let Ammi do their -errands in town. They were failing curiously both physically and -mentally, and no one was surprised when the news of Mrs. Gardner's -madness stole around.</p> - -<p>It happened in June, about the anniversary of the meteor's fall, and -the poor woman screamed about things in the air which she could not -describe. In her raving there was not a single specific noun, but -only verbs and pronouns. Things moved and changed and fluttered, and -ears tingled to impulses which were not wholly sounds. Something -was taken away—she was being drained of something—something was -fastening itself on her that ought not to be—someone must make it -keep off—nothing was ever still in the night—the walls and windows -shifted. Nahum did not send her to the county asylum, but let her -wander about the house as long as she was harmless to herself and -others. Even when her expression changed he did nothing. But when the -boys grew afraid of her, and Thaddeus nearly fainted at the way she -made faces at him, he decided to keep her locked in the attic. By July -she had ceased to speak and crawled on all fours, and before that month -was over Nahum got the mad notion that she was slightly luminous in the -dark, as he now clearly saw was the case with the nearby vegetation.</p> - -<p>It was a little before this that the horses had stampeded. Something -had aroused them in the night, and their neighing and kicking in their -stalls had been terrible. There seemed virtually nothing to do to calm -them, and when Nahum opened the stable door they all bolted out like -frightened woodland deer. It took a week to track all four, and when -found they were seen to be quite useless and unmanageable. Something -had snapped in their brains, and each one had to be shot for its own -good. Nahum borrowed a horse from Ammi for his haying, but found it -would not approach the barn. It shied, balked, and whinnied, and in -the end he could do nothing but drive it into the yard while the men -used their own strength to get the heavy wagon near enough the hayloft -for convenient pitching. And all the while the vegetation was turning -grey and brittle. Even the flowers whose hues had been so strange -were graying now, and the fruit was coming out grey and dwarfed and -tasteless. The asters and goldenrod bloomed grey and distorted, and -the roses and zinnias and hollyhocks in the front yard were such -blasphemous-looking things that Nahum's oldest boy Zenas cut them down. -The strangely puffed insects died about that time, even the bees that -had left their hives and taken to the woods.</p> - -<p>By September all the vegetation was fast crumbling to a greyish -powder, and Nahum feared that the trees would die before the poison -was out of the soil. His wife now had spells of terrific screaming, -and he and the boys were in a constant state of nervous tension. -They shunned people now, and when school opened the boys did not go. -But it was Ammi, on one of his rare visits, who first realized that -the well water was no longer good. It had an evil taste that was not -exactly fetid nor exactly salty, and Ammi advised his friend to dig -another well on higher ground to use till the soil was good again. -Nahum, however, ignored the warning, for he had by that time become -calloused to strange and unpleasant things. He and the boys continued -to use the tainted supply, drinking it as listlessly and mechanically -as they ate their meagre and ill-cooked meals and did their thankless -and monotonous chores through the aimless days. There was something of -stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another -world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom.</p> - -<p>Thaddeus went mad in September after a visit to the well. He had gone -with a pail and had come back empty-handed, shrieking and waving his -arms, and sometimes lapsing into an inane titter or a whisper about -"the moving colours down there." Two in one family was pretty bad, -but Nahum was very brave about it. He let the boy run about for a -week until he began stumbling and hurting himself, and then he shut -him in an attic room across the hall from his mother's. The way they -screamed at each other from behind their locked doors was very -terrible, especially to little Merwin, who fancied they talked in some -terrible language that was not of earth. Merwin was getting frightfully -imaginative, and his restlessness was worse after the shutting away of -the brother who had been his greatest playmate.</p> - -<p>Almost at the same time the mortality among the livestock commenced. -Poultry turned greyish and died very quickly, their meat being found -dry and noisome upon cutting. Hogs grew inordinately fat, then suddenly -began to undergo loathsome changes which no one could explain. Their -meat was of course useless, and Nahum was at his wit's end. No rural -veterinary would approach his place, and the city veterinary from -Arkham was openly baffled. The swine began growing grey and brittle -and falling to pieces before they died, and their eyes and muzzles -developed singular alterations. It was very inexplicable, for they had -never been fed from the tainted vegetation. Then something struck the -cows. Certain areas or sometimes the whole body would be uncannily -shrivelled or compressed, and atrocious collapses or disintegrations -were common. In the last stages—and death was always the result—there -would be a greying and turning brittle like that which beset the hogs. -There could be no question of poison, for all the cases occurred in a -locked and undisturbed barn. No bites of prowling things could have -brought the virus, for what live beast of earth can pass through solid -obstacles? It must be only natural disease—yet what disease could -wreak such results was beyond any mind's guessing. When the harvest -came there was not an animal surviving on the place, for the stock -and poultry were dead and the dogs had run away. These dogs, three -in number, had all vanished one night and were never heard of again. -The five cats had left some time before, but their going was scarcely -noticed since there now seemed to be no mice, and only Mrs. Gardner had -made pets of the graceful felines.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>On the nineteenth of October Nahum staggered into Ammi's house with -hideous news. The death had come to poor Thaddeus in his attic room, -and it had come in a way which could not be told. Nahum had dug a grave -in the railed family plot behind the farm, and had put therein what -he found. There could have been nothing from outside, for the small -barred window and locked door were intact; but it was much as it had -been in the barn. Ammi and his wife consoled the stricken man as best -they could, but shuddered as they did so. Stark terror seemed to cling -round the Gardners and all they touched, and the very presence of one -in the house was a breath from regions unnamed and unnameable. Ammi -accompanied Nahum home with the greatest reluctance, and did what he -might to calm the hysterical sobbing of little Merwin. Zenas needed no -calming. He had come of late to do nothing but stare into space and -obey what his father told him; and Ammi thought that his fate was very -merciful. Now and then Merwin's screams were answered faintly from the -attic, and in response to an inquiring look Nahum said that his wife -was getting very feeble. When night approached, Ammi managed to get -away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the -faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have -swayed without wind. It was really lucky for Ammi that he was not more -imaginative. Even as things were, his mind was bent ever so slightly; -but had he been able to connect and reflect upon all the portents -around him he must inevitably have turned a total maniac. In the -twilight he hastened home, the screams of the mad woman and the nervous -child ringing horrible in his ears.</p> - -<p>Three days later Nahum burst into Ammi's kitchen in the early morning, -and in the absence of his host stammered out a desperate tale once -more, while Mrs. Pierce listened in a clutching fright. It was little -Merwin this time. He was gone. He had gone out late at night with a -lantern and pail for water, and had never come back. He'd been going -to pieces for days, and hardly knew what he was about. Screamed at -everything. There had been a frantic shriek from the yard then, but -before the father could get to the door the boy was gone. There was no -glow from the lantern he had taken, and of the child himself no trace. -At the time Nahum thought the lantern and pail were gone too; but when -dawn came, and the man had plodded back from his all-night search of -the woods and fields, he had found some very curious things near the -well. There was a crushed and apparently somewhat melted mass of iron -which had certainly been the lantern; while a bent pail and twisted -iron hoops beside it, both half-fused, seemed to hint at the remnants -of the pail. That was all. Nahum was past imagining, Mrs. Pierce was -blank, and Ammi, when he had reached home and heard the tale, could -give no guess. Merwin was gone, and there would be no use in telling -the people around, who shunned all Gardners now. No use, either, in -telling the city people at Arkham who laughed at everything. Thad was -gone, and now Merwin was gone. Something was creeping and creeping and -waiting to be seen and heard. Nahum would go soon, and he wanted Ammi -to look after his wife and Zenas if they survived him. It must all be a -judgment of some sort; though he could not fancy what for, since he had -always walked uprightly in the Lord's ways so far as he knew.</p> - -<p>For over two weeks Ammi saw nothing of Nahum; and then, worried about -what might have happened, he overcame his fears and paid the Gardner -place a visit. There was no smoke from the great chimney, and for a -moment the visitor was apprehensive of the worst. The aspect of the -whole farm was shocking—greyish withered grass and leaves on the -ground, vines falling in brittle wreckage from archaic walls and -gables, and great bare trees clawing up at the grey November sky with -a studied malevolence which Ammi could not but feel had come from some -subtle change in the tilt of the branches. But Nahum was alive, after -all. He was weak, and lying in a couch in the low-ceiled kitchen, -but perfectly conscious and able to give simple orders to Zenas. The -room was deadly cold; and as Ammi visibly shivered, the host shouted -huskily to Zenas for more wood. Wood, indeed, was sorely needed; since -the cavernous fireplace was unlit and empty, with a cloud of soot -blowing about in the chill wind that came down the chimney. Presently -Nahum asked him if the extra wood had made him any more comfortable, -and then Ammi saw what had happened. The stoutest cord had broken at -last, and the hapless farmer's mind was proof against more sorrow.</p> - -<p>Questioning tactfully, Ammi could get no clear data at all about the -missing Zenas. "In the well—he lives in the well—" was all that the -clouded father would say. Then there flashed across the visitor's mind -a sudden thought of the mad wife, and he changed his line of inquiry. -"Nabby? Why, here she is!" was the surprised response of poor Nahum, -and Ammi soon saw that he must search for himself. Leaving the harmless -babbler on the couch, he took the keys from their nail beside the door -and climbed the creaking stairs to the attic. It was very close and -noisome up there, and no sound could be heard from any direction. Of -the four doors in sight, only one was locked, and on this he tried -various keys on the ring he had taken. The third key proved the right -one, and after some fumbling Ammi threw open the low white door.</p> - -<p>It was quite dark inside, for the window was small and half-obscured -by the crude wooden bars; and Ammi could see nothing at all on the -wide-planked floor. The stench was beyond enduring, and before -proceeding further he had to retreat to another room and return -with his lungs filled with breathable air. When he did enter he saw -something dark in the corner, and upon seeing it more clearly he -screamed outright. While he screamed he thought a momentary cloud -eclipsed the window, and a second later he felt himself brushed as if -by some hateful current of vapour. Strange colours danced before his -eyes; and had not a present horror numbed him he would have thought of -the globule in the meteor that the geologist's hammer had shattered, -and of the morbid vegetation that had sprouted in the spring. As it -was he thought only of the blasphemous monstrosity which confronted -him, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young -Thaddeus and the livestock. But the terrible thing about the horror was -that it very slowly and perceptibly moved as it continued to crumble.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape -in the corners does not re-appear in his tale as a moving object. -There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common -humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law. I gathered that no -moving thing was left in that attic room, and that to leave anything -capable of motion there would have been a deed so monstrous as to damn -any accountable being to eternal torment. Anyone but a stolid farmer -would have fainted or gone mad, but Ammi walked conscious through that -low doorway and locked the accursed secret behind him. There would be -Nahum to deal with now; he must be fed and tended, and removed to some -place where he could be cared for.</p> - -<p>Commencing his descent of the dark stairs, Ammi heard a thud below him. -He even thought a scream had been suddenly choked off, and recalled -nervously the clammy vapour which had brushed by him in that frightful -room above. What presence had his cry and entry started up? Halted by -some vague fear, he heard still further sounds below. Indubitably there -was a sort of heavy dragging, and a most detestably sticky noise as -of some fiendish and unclean species of suction. With an associative -sense goaded to feverish heights, he thought unaccountably of what he -had seen upstairs. Good God! What eldritch dream-world was this into -which he had blundered? He dared move neither backward nor forward, but -stood there trembling at the black curve of the boxed-in staircase. -Every trifle of the scene burned itself into his brain. The sounds, the -sense of dread expectancy, the darkness, the steepness of the narrow -steps—and merciful Heaven!—the faint but unmistakable luminosity of -all the woodwork in sight; steps, sides, exposed laths, and beams alike.</p> - -<p>Then there burst forth a frantic whinny from Ammi's horse outside, -followed at once by a clatter which told of a frenzied runaway. In -another moment horse and buggy had gone beyond earshot, leaving the -frightened man on the dark stairs to guess what had sent them. But that -was not all. There had been another sound out there. A sort of liquid -splash—water—it must have been the well. He had left Hero untied -near it, and a buggy-wheel must have brushed the coping and knocked in -a stone. And still the pale phosphorescense glowed in that detestably -ancient woodwork. God! how old the house was! Most of it built before -1700.</p> - -<p>A feeble scratching on the floor downstairs now sounded distinctly, and -Ammi's grip tightened on a heavy stick he had picked up in the attic -for some purpose. Slowly nerving himself, he finished his descent and -walked boldly toward the kitchen. But he did not complete the walk, -because what he sought was no longer there. It had come to meet him, -and it was still alive after a fashion. Whether it had crawled or -whether it had been dragged by any external forces, Ammi could not -say; but the death had been at it. Everything had happened in the last -half-hour, but collapse, greying, and disintegration were already far -advanced. There was a horrible brittleness, and dry fragments were -scaling off. Ammi could not touch it, but looked horrifiedly into the -distorted parody that had been a face. "What was it, Nahum—what -was it?" He whispered, and the cleft, bulging lips were just able to -crackle out a final answer.</p> - -<p>"Nothin' ... nothin' ... the colour ... it burns ... cold an' wet, but -it burns ... it lived in the well.... I seen it ... a kind o' smoke ... -jest like the flowers last spring ... the well shone at night.... Thad -an' Merwin an' Zenas ... everything alive ... suckin' the life out of -everything ... in that stone ... it must o' come in that stone ... -pizened the whole place ... dun't know what it wants ... that round -thing them men from the college dug outen the stone ... they smashed -it ... it was that same colour ... jest the same, like the flowers an' -plants ... must a' ben more of 'em ... seeds ... seeds ... they -growed ... I seen it the fust time this week ... must a' got strong -on Zenas ... he was a big boy, full o' life ... it beats down your -mind an' then gits ye ... burns ye up ... in the well water ... you -was right about that ... evil water ... Zenas never come back from the -well ... can't git away ... draws ye ... ye know summ'at's comin', but -'tain't no use ... I seen it time an' agin Zenas was took ... whar's -Nabby, Ammi? ... my head's no good ... dun't know how long sence I fed -her ... it'll git her ef we ain't keerful ... jest a colour ... her -face is gittin' to hev that colour sometimes towards night ... an' it -burns an' sucks ... it come from some place whar things ain't as they -is here ... one o' them professors said so ... he was right ... look -out, Ammi, it'll do suthin' more ... sucks the life out...."</p> - -<p>But that was all. That which spoke could speak no more because it had -completely caved in. Ammi laid a red checked tablecloth over what was -left and reeled out the back door into the fields. He climbed the slope -to the ten-acre pasture and stumbled home by the north road and the -woods. He could not pass that well from which his horses had run away. -He had looked at it through the window, and had seen that no stone -was missing from the rim. Then the lurching buggy had not dislodged -anything after all—the splash had been something else—something which -went into the well after it had done with poor Nahum....</p> - -<p>When Ammi reached his house the horses and buggy had arrived before -him and thrown his wife into fits of anxiety. Reassuring her without -explanations, he set out at once for Arkham and notified the -authorities that the Gardner family was no more. He indulged in no -details, but merely told of the deaths of Nahum and Nabby, that of -Thaddeus being already known, and mentioned that the cause seemed to -be the same strange ailment which had killed the livestock. He also -stated that Merwin and Zenas had disappeared. There was considerable -questioning at the police station, and in the end Ammi was compelled -to take three officers to the Gardner farm, together with the coroner, -the medical examiner, and the veterinary who had treated the diseased -animals. He went much against his will, for the afternoon was advancing -and he feared the fall of night over that accursed place, but it was -some comfort to have so many people with him.</p> - -<p>The six men drove out in a democrat-wagon, following Ammi's buggy, and -arrived at the pest-ridden farmhouse about four o'clock. Used as the -officers were to gruesome experiences, not one remained unmoved at -what was found in the attic and under the red checked tablecloth on -the floor below. The whole aspect of the farm with its grey desolation -was terrible enough, but those two crumbling objects were beyond all -bounds. No one could look long at them, and even the medical examiner -admitted that there was very little to examine. Specimens could be -analysed, of course, so he busied himself in obtaining them—and here -it develops that a very puzzling aftermath occurred at the college -laboratory where the two phials of dust were finally taken. Under the -spectroscope both samples gave off an unknown spectrum, in which many -of the baffling bands were precisely like those which the strange -meteor had yielded in the previous year. The property of emitting this -spectrum vanished in a month, the dust thereafter consisting mainly of -alkaline phosphates and carbonates.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ammi would not have told the men about the well if he had thought they -meant to do anything then and there. It was getting toward sunset, and -he was anxious to be away. But he could not help glancing nervously -at the stony curb by the great sweep, and when a detective questioned -him he admitted that Nahum had feared something down there—so much so -that he had never even thought of searching it for Merwin or Zenas. -After that nothing would do but that they empty and explore the well -immediately, so Ammi had to wait trembling while pail after pail of -rank water was hauled up and splashed on the soaking ground outside. -The men sniffed in disgust at the fluid, and toward the last held their -noses against the foetor they were uncovering. It was not so long a -job as they had feared it would be, since the water was phenomenally -low. There is no need to speak too exactly of what they found. Merwin -and Zenas were both there, in part, though the vestiges were mainly -skeletal. There were also a small deer and a large dog in about the -same state, and a number of bones of smaller animals. The ooze and -slime at the bottom seemed inexplicably porous and bubbling, and a man -who descended on hand-holds with a long pole found that he could sink -the wooden shaft to any depth in the mud of the floor without meeting -any solid obstruction.</p> - -<p>Twilight had now fallen, and lanterns were brought from the house. -Then, when it was seen that nothing further could be gained from the -well, everyone went indoors and conferred in the ancient sitting-room -while the intermittent light of a spectral half-moon played wanly on -the grey desolation outside. The men were frankly nonplussed by the -entire case, and could find no convincing common element to link the -strange vegetable conditions, the unknown disease of livestock and -humans, and the unaccountable deaths of Merwin and Zenas in the tainted -well. They had heard the common country talk, it is true; but could not -believe that anything contrary to natural law had occurred. No doubt -the meteor had poisoned the soil, but the illness of person and animals -who had eaten nothing grown in that soil was another matter. Was it the -well water? Very possibly. It might be a good idea to analyse it. But -what peculiar madness could have made both boys jump into the well? -Their deeds were so similar—and the fragments showed that they had -both suffered from the grey brittle death. Why was everything so grey -and brittle?</p> - -<p>It was the coroner, seated near a window overlooking the yard, who -first noticed the glow about the well. Night had fully set in, and all -the abhorrent grounds seemed faintly luminous with more than the fitful -moonbeams; but this new glow was something definite and distinct, and -appeared to shoot up from the black pit like a softened ray from a -searchlight, giving dull reflections in the little ground pools where -the water had been emptied. It had a very queer colour, and as all the -men clustered round the window Ammi gave a violent start. For this -strange beam of ghastly miasma was to him of no unfamiliar hue. He had -seen that colour before, and feared to think what it might mean. He -had seen it in the nasty brittle globule in that aerolite two summers -ago, had seen it in the crazy vegetation of the springtime, and had -thought he had seen it for an instant that very morning against the -small barred window of that terrible attic room where nameless things -had happened. It had flashed there a second, and a clammy and hateful -current of vapour had brushed past him—and then poor Nahum had been -taken by something of that colour. He had said so at the last—said it -was like the globule and the plants. After that had come the runaway -in the yard and the splash in the well—and now that well was belching -forth to the night a pale insidious beam of the same demoniac tint.</p> - -<p>It does credit to the alertness of Ammi's mind that he puzzled even -at that tense moment over a point which was essentially scientific. -He could not but wonder at his gleaning of the same impression from -a vapour glimpsed in the daytime, against a window opening in the -morning sky, and from a nocturnal exhalation seen as a phosphorescent -mist against the black and blasted landscape. It wasn't right—it was -against Nature—and he thought of those terrible last words of his -stricken friend, "It come from some place whar things ain't as they is -here ... one o' them professors said so...."</p> - -<p>All three horses outside, tied to a pair of shrivelled saplings by -the road, were now neighing and pawing frantically. The wagon driver -started for the door to do something, but Ammi laid a shaky hand on his -shoulder. "Dun't go out thar," he whispered. "They's more to this nor -what we know. Nahum said somethin' lived in the well that sucks your -life out. He said it must be some'at growed from a round ball like one -we all seen in the meteor stone that fell a year ago June. Sucks an' -burns, he said, an' is jest a cloud of colour like that light out thar -now, that ye can hardly see an' can't tell what it is. Nahum thought it -feeds on everything livin' an' gits stronger all the time. He said he -seen it this last week. It must be somethin' from away off in the sky -like the men from the college last year says the meteor stone was. The -way it's made an' the way it works ain't like no way o' God's world. -It's some'at from beyond."</p> - -<p>So the men paused indecisively as the light from the well grew stronger -and the hitched horses pawed and whinnied in increasing frenzy. It was -truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house -itself, four monstrous sets of fragments—two from the house and two -from the well—in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and -unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front. Ammi had restrained -the driver on impulse, forgetting how uninjured he himself was after -the clammy brushing of that coloured vapour in the attic room, but -perhaps it is just as well that he acted as he did. No one will ever -know what was abroad that night; and though the blasphemy from beyond -had not so far hurt any human of unweakened mind, there is no telling -what it might not have done at that last moment, and with its seemingly -increased strength and the special signs of purpose it was soon to -display beneath the half-clouded moonlit sky.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>All at once one of the detectives at the window gave a short, sharp -gasp. The others looked at him, and then quickly followed his own -gaze upward to the point at which its idle straying had been suddenly -arrested. There was no need for words. What had been disputed in -country gossip was disputable no longer, and it is because of the -thing which every man of that party agreed in whispering later on, -that strange days are never talked about in Arkham. It is necessary to -premise that there was no wind at that hour of the evening. One did -arise not long afterward, but there was absolutely none then. Even -the dry tips of the lingering hedge-mustard, grey and blighted, and -the fringe on the roof of the standing democrat-wagon were unstirred. -And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all -the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and -spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the -moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked -by some allied and bodiless line of linkage with sub-terrene horrors -writhing and struggling below the black roots.</p> - -<p>Not a man breathed for several seconds. Then a cloud of darker depth -passed over the moon, and the silhouette of clutching branches faded -out momentarily. At this there was a general cry; muffled with awe, -but husky and almost identical from every throat. For the terror had -not faded with the silhouette, and in a fearsome instant of deeper -darkness the watchers saw wriggling at the treetop height a thousand -tiny points of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like -the fire of St. Elmo or the flames that come down on the apostles' -heads at Pentecost. It was a monstrous constellation of unnatural -light, like a glutted swarm of corpse-fed fireflies dancing hellish -sarabands over an accursed marsh; and its colour was that same nameless -intrusion which Ammi had come to recognise and dread. All the while -the shaft of phosphorescence from the well was getting brighter and -brighter, bringing to the minds of the huddled men, a sense of doom and -abnormality which far outraced any image their conscious minds could -form. It was no longer <i>shining</i> out; it was <i>pouring</i> out; and as the -shapeless stream of unplaceable colour left the well it seemed to flow -directly into the sky.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> -<p> ... and in the fearsome instant of deeper darkness, the -watchers saw wriggling at that treetop height, a thousand tiny points -of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like the fire -of St. Elmo ... and all the while the shaft of phosphorescence from -the well was getting brighter and brighter and bringing to the minds -of the huddled men, a sense of doom and abnormality.... It was no -longer shining out; it was pouring out; and as the shapeless stream of -unplaceable colour left the well, it seemed to flow directly into the -sky.</p> - - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The veterinary shivered, and walked to the front door to drop the heavy -extra bar across it. Ammi shook no less, and had to tug and point for -lack of a controllable voice when he wished to draw notice to the -growing luminosity of the trees. The neighing and stamping of the -horses had become utterly frightful, but not a soul of that group in -the old house would have ventured forth for any earthly reward. With -the moments the shining of the trees increased, while their restless -branches seemed to strain more and more toward verticality. The wood -of the well-sweep was shining now, and presently a policeman dumbly -pointed to some wooden sheds and beehives near the stone wall on the -west. They were commencing to shine, too, though the tethered vehicles -of the visitors seemed so far unaffected. Then there was a wild -commotion and clopping in the road, and as Ammi quenched the lamp for -better seeing they realized that the span of frantic grays had broken -their sapling and run off with the democrat-wagon.</p> - -<p>The shock served to loosen several tongues, and embarrassed whispers -were exchanged. "It spreads on everything organic that's been around -here," muttered the medical examiner. No one replied, but the man who -had been in the well gave a hint that his long pole must have stirred -up something intangible. "It was awful," he added. "There was no bottom -at all. Just ooze and bubbles and the feeling of something lurking -under there." Ammi's horse still pawed and screamed deafeningly in -the road outside, and nearly drowned its owner's faint quaver as he -mumbled his formless reflections. "It come from that stone—it growed -down thar—it got everything livin'—it fed itself on 'em, mind and -body—Thad an' Merwin, Zenas an' Nabby—Nahum was the last—they all -drunk the water—it got strong on 'em—it come from beyond, whar things -ain't like they be here—now it's goin' home—"</p> - -<p>At this point, as the column of unknown colour flared suddenly stronger -and began to weave itself into fantastic suggestions of shape which -each spectator later described differently, there came from poor -tethered Hero such a sound as no man before or since ever heard from -a horse. Every person in that low-pitched sitting-room stopped his -ears, and Ammi turned away from the window in horror and nausea. Words -could not convey it—when Ammi looked out again the hapless beast lay -huddled inert on the moonlit ground between the splintered shafts of -the buggy. That was the last of Hero till they buried him next day. -But the present was no time to mourn, for almost at this instant a -detective silently called attention to something terrible in the very -room with them. In the absence of the lamplight it was clear that a -faint phosphorescence had begun to pervade the entire apartment. It -glowed on the broad-planked floor where the rag carpet left it bare, -and shimmered over the sashes of the small-paned windows. It ran up -and down the exposed corner-posts, coruscated about the shelf and -mantel, and infected the very doors and furniture. Each minute saw it -strengthen, and at last it was very plain that healthy living things -must leave that house.</p> - -<p>Ammi showed them the back door and the path up through the fields to -the ten-acre pasture. They walked and stumbled as in a dream, and did -not dare look back till they were far away on the high ground. They -were glad of the path, for they could not have gone the front way, by -that well. It was bad enough passing the glowing barn and sheds, and -those shining orchard trees with their gnarled, fiendish contours; but -thank Heaven the branches did their worst twisting high up. The moon -went under some very black clouds as they crossed the rustic bridge -over Chapman's Brook, and it was blind groping from there to the open -meadows.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When they looked back toward the valley and the distant Gardner place -at the bottom they saw a fearsome sight. All the farm was shining -with the hideous unknown blend of colour; trees, buildings, and even -such grass and herbage as had not been wholly changed to lethal grey -brittleness. The boughs were all straining skyward, tipped with tongues -of foul flame, and lambent tricklings of the same monstrous fire were -creeping about the ridgepoles of the house, barn and sheds. It was a -scene from a vision of Fuseli, and over all the rest reigned that riot -of luminous amorphousness, that alien and undimensioned rainbow of -cryptic poison from the well—seething, feeling, lapping, reaching, -scintillating, straining, and malignly bubbling in its cosmic and -unrecognizable chromaticism.</p> - -<p>Then without warning the hideous thing shot vertically up toward the -sky like a rocket or meteor, leaving behind no trail and disappearing -through a round and curiously regular hole in the clouds before any -man could gasp or cry out. No watcher can ever forget that sight, and -Ammi stared blankly at the stars of Cygnus, Deneb twinkling above the -others, where the unknown colour had melted into the Milky Way. But his -gaze was the next moment called swiftly to earth by the crackling in -the valley. It was just that. Only a wooden ripping and crackling, and -not an explosion, as so many others of the party vowed. Yet the outcome -was the same, for in one feverish kaleidoscopic instant there burst up -from that doomed and accursed farm a gleamingly eruptive cataclysm of -unnatural sparks and substance; blurring the glance of the few who saw -it, and sending forth to the zenith a bombarding cloudburst of such -coloured and fantastic fragments as our universe must needs disown. -Through quickly re-closing vapours they followed the great morbidity -that had vanished, and in another second they had vanished too. Behind -and below was only a darkness to which the men dared not return, and -all about was a mounting wind which seemed to sweep down in black, -frore gusts from interstellar space. It shrieked and howled, and lashed -the fields and distorted woods in a mad cosmic frenzy, till soon the -trembling party realized it would be no use waiting for the moon to -show what was left down there at Nahum's.</p> - -<p>Too awed even to hint theories, the seven shaking men trudged back -toward Arkham by the north road. Ammi was worse than his fellows, -and begged them to see him inside his own kitchen, instead of -keeping straight on to town. He did not wish to cross the blighted, -wind-whipped woods alone to his home on the main road. For he had had -an added shock that the others were spared, and was crushed for ever -with a brooding fear he dared not even mention for many years to come. -As the rest of the watchers on that tempestuous hill had stolidly set -their faces toward the road, Ammi had looked back an instant at the -shadowed valley of desolation so lately sheltering his ill-starred -friend. And from that stricken, far-away spot he had seen something -feebly rise, only to sink down again upon the place from which the -great shapeless horror had shot into the sky. It was just a colour—but -not any colour of our earth or heavens. And because Ammi recognized -that colour, and knew that this last faint remnant must still lurk down -there in the well, he has never been quite right since.</p> - -<p>Ammi would never go near the place again. It is forty-four years now -since the horror happened, but he has never been there, and will be -glad when the new reservoir blots it out. I shall be glad, too, for I -do not like the way the sunlight changed colour around the mouth of -that abandoned well I passed. I hope the water will always be very -deep—but even so, I shall never drink it. I do not think I shall visit -the Arkham country hereafter. Three of the men who had been with Ammi -returned the next morning to see the ruins by daylight, but there were -not any real ruins. Only the bricks of the chimney, the stones of the -cellar, some mineral and metallic litter here and there, and the rim -of that nefandous well. Save for Ammi's dead horse, which they towed -away and buried, and the buggy which they shortly returned to him, -everything that had ever been living had gone. Five eldritch acres of -dusty grey desert remained, nor has anything ever grown there since. -To this day it sprawls open to the sky like a great spot eaten by acid -in the woods and fields, and the few who have ever dared glimpse it in -spite of the rural tales have named it "the blasted heath."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The rural tales are queer. They might be even queerer if city men -and college chemists could be interested enough to analyze the water -from that disused well, or the grey dust that no wind seems ever to -disperse. Botanists, too, ought to study the stunted flora on the -borders of that spot, for they might shed light on the country notion -that the blight is spreading—little by little, perhaps an inch a year. -People say the colour of the neighboring herbage is not quite right -in the spring, and that wild things leave queer prints in the light -winter snow. Snow never seems quite so heavy on the blasted heath as -it is elsewhere. Horses—the few that are left in this motor age—grow -skittish in the silent valley; and hunters cannot depend on their dogs -too near the splotch of greyish dust.</p> - -<p>They say the mental influences are very bad, too; numbers went queer in -the years after Nahum's taking, and always they lacked the power to get -away. Then the stronger-minded folk all left the region, and only the -foreigners tried to live in the crumbling old homesteads. They could -not stay, though; and one sometimes wonders what insight beyond ours -their wild, weird stories of whispered magic have given them. Their -dreams at night, they protest, are very horrible in that grotesque -country; and surely the very look of the dark realm is enough to stir -a morbid fancy. No traveler has ever escaped a sense of strangeness in -those deep ravines, and artists shiver as they paint thick woods whose -mystery is as much of the spirits as of the eye. I myself am curious -about the sensation I derived from my one lone walk before Ammi told -me his tale. When twilight came I had vaguely wished some clouds would -gather, for odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept -into my soul.</p> - -<p>Do not ask me for my opinion. I do not know—that is all. There was no -one but Ammi to question; for Arkham people will not talk about the -strange days, and all three professors who saw the aerolite and its -coloured globule are dead. There were other globules—depend upon that. -One must have fed itself and escaped, and probably there was another -which was too late. No doubt it is still down the well—I know there -was something wrong with the sunlight I saw above that miasmal brink. -The rustics say the blight creeps an inch a year, so perhaps there is -a kind of growth or nourishment even now. But whatever demon hatchling -is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly -spread. Is it fastened to the roots of those trees that claw the air? -One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move -as they ought not to do at night.</p> - -<p>What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing -Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed laws that -are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as -shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. -This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our -astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour -out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity -beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns -the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open -before our frenzied eyes.</p> - -<p>I doubt very much if Ammi consciously lied to me, and I do not think -his tale was all a freak of madness as the townsfolk had forewarned. -Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, -and something terrible—though I know not in what proportion—still -remains. I shall be glad to see the water come. Meanwhile I hope -nothing will happen to Ammi. He saw so much of the thing—and its -influence was so insidious. Why has he never been able to move away? -How clearly he recalled those dying words of Nahum's—"can't git -away—draws ye—ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use—" Ammi is -such a good old man—when the reservoir gang gets to work I must write -the chief engineer to keep a sharp watch on him. I would hate to think -of him as the grey, twisted, brittle monstrosity which persists more -and more in troubling my sleep.</p> - - -<p class="ph1">THE END</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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