Right now, as you are reading this there are thousands of works of fiction sitting on dusty shelves waiting for our adventurous minds to seek them out. It is the goal of this little effort of mine to seek out these shuttered tales and see how well they hold up. Are they hidden gems full of contemporary meaning? Or are they clunky relics of the past who’s time has long slipped through the hourglass? Let us find out.
[T]he title of this story is what caught my attention. It seemed intriguing, although admittedly I didn’t know what exactly what was meant by “cutting the ace”. It’s the cover story for Ghost Stories Magazine, which is usually also a good sign, since I have to believe that the editors of these periodicals must have wanted to put their best foot forward. The scan of the yellowed pages was fun to dive into; so let us examine this little blast from the past.
The story begins with the narrator named Stinson spying on his wife as she gets ready for a night out on the town. We learn that there are rumors of perhaps infidelity on her part with his friend Randolph. The narrator comes across as hot tempered and jealous by nature, and as I read along I couldn’t help but feel like he was unjustified in his actions/emotions. We learn that the couple are planning a trip to Washington, but that he would rather not go.
Approaching his wife who’s name we learn in Jean, the narrator sees in her minuscule reactions things that confirm his growing suspicions. We find out that they are both leaving for separate trips, the wife leaving with friends to “The Forresters” and then via a late night train, and our narrator by other means. Their dialogue starts off light, with Stinson raining compliments down on his wife, but quickly things get a bit weird. Stinson makes a comment about being jealous of another man, and his wife picks up on a bit of his underlying rage.
We then learn about a weird quirk in their relationship. Apparently they agreed to be together for five years, during which time if they fell in love with another they would be allowed to leave the relationship. At the time when I read this I was thinking that this might be a marriage of convenience, so that perhaps the woman could become an american citizen or something. Our narrator then might have caught feelings for her, and complicated this plan that they had going.
Stinson then bids farewell to Jean before they can really conclude their conversation and jumps off into a cab. He reflects as he is speeding away how he has felt followed the last few times he has left, but since he can’t seem to spot anyone on his tail he gives it no further thought. What he does however is say the following:
Jean Riviere had been mine for three years. And, pledge or no pledge, I intended to keep her as long as I chose. I did not live her; I had never expected her to love me. To her I was simply a middle-aged protector- and a source of money, gowns, and jewels. Her pledge, I believed, was merely an effort to salve a passing qualm of conscience. But she could not trick me. My hands clenched at the thought. I would not be made a laughing-stock.
So needless to say my opinion of our narrator sank even further. He’s basically keeping a woman bound to him out of some strange loveless pledge, and then still conjuring up rage against her and and another man. Either he’s lying to himself about his own feeling towards Jean, or he’s just psychotic.
Stinson continues to feel like he is being followed, and so ditches the cab and walks a distance in front of a series of reflective shop windows. He watches the windows to see if he is being followed, and discovers that yes he is! There are two men watching him from across the street, one looks to be a rather clumsy detective type, and the other looks like an aged and stooped version of himself. Doing his level best Stinson evades his pursuers in the train station, making it appear as if he boarded the train, but secretly slipping out the back and to the street behind the building.
The narrator then goes through several motions with Sinson, sowing how cautions he is being, and building a bit of tension as he comes closer to completing his plan. He goes to a poor set of brownstone houses, and we learn that he had rented a room there. He then dresses in disguise, a shabby coat over evening ware, and puts a silenced revolver in his pocket. He then slinks his way to the Golden Peacock, the ritzy night club that he knows Jean will be at with another man.
Stinson greases some palms and makes his way unnoticed to an upper balcony that overlooks the dance floor below. His rage grows as he watches Jean flirt and dance with Randall (her new love). He watches as they ascend to the upper level where he is, and he remains hidden nearby as they take a private booth that overlooks the inn courtyard.
As an aside, as I was reading this story I thought about how cool it would be to experience a swinging 1920s nightclub like this Golden Peacock. The smokey rooms, the live swing music, the glitzy art deco, flapper dresses and Stetson have a certain allure to me. I wasn’t sure just where this story was taking me, but I appreciated the fun images it was conjuring up in my mind along the way.
We learn here that Randall and Jean intend to marry and run away to japan together. Randall wants to run off and leave immediately, while Jean wants to party the night away knowing that she is truly free with Stinson out of town.
Our narrator knows that they will have to return to his house to pack Jean’s things, and so he leaves the club to go lie in wait for them. We get another glimpse of the strange doppelganger that is seemingly following our narrator here, but Stinson just shrugs it off. It’s one of those things where I wish I hadn’t read the title of the story; because knowing that there is going to be a specter kind of spoils any kind of surprise about what this strange double actually is.
The author does a good job of conveying the stuffy tense atmosphere of Stinson’s apartment as he waits to kill the two lovers. His nerves are tense, and he paces and plays solitaire to try and keep focused. Ultimately he slumps in a chair, waiting and listening for the two to come. But when Stinson looks up he sees- his doppelganger!
In a very corny exchange we learn that the look-alike is really a sort of spirit of his better self. Translucent and independent, the specter tells Stinson that he was exorcised from him during his teenage years, and accuses him to be driven only by selfishness and hate. Stinson denies this, asserting that he is only reacting to Randall cheating him out of Jean. The specter tells Stinson that he has never been a fair man, and would never take a risk unless he was sure to win; and so a contest is set. Each will take turns cutting the deck of cards until one draws an ace, if the doppelganger cuts the ace first Stinson will leave and not come back, and if Stinson wins he will no longer be haunted by the spirit.
As you might have guessed by the title of the story the specter cuts the ace, and Stinson honors the bargain. He leaves a note for Randall telling him that he knew about everything and that he shall not return. The end.
Was this a scary story? No. Was this an innovative story? No. This was entertaining only for the atmosphere and the build up of tension as we learn that the narrator intends to commit murder. There is no twist, or unexpected challenges, nor is there really any kind of explanation as to why Stinson’s ghostly better self comes into play at all. It’s a battle of conscience that does not really involve the narrator learning any sort of lesson save for the fact that he will lose a game of chance. Not recommended.
Are you really insisting on bringing that bushel of bananas with you, even though you know we are going to be exploring the origins of the killer ape? It just seems like a bad idea, that’s all. This time it’s Edgar Allan Poe’s tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Right now, as you are reading this there are thousands of works of fiction sitting on dusty shelves waiting for our adventurous minds to seek them out. It is the goal of this little effort of mine to seek out these shuttered tales and see how well they hold up. Are they hidden gems full of contemporary meaning? Or are they clunky relics of the past who’s time has long slipped through the hourglass? Let us find out.
[W]ho’s ready for a werewolf western? I am! Or so I thought going into this piece. The cover story of Weird Tales volume 36 number 07 is none other than Satan’s Bondage by Manly Bannister. Two things right off the bat here: Firstly, the title of this werewolf western is “Satan’s Bondage”? What a lame name. So lame in fact that I almost chose something different. I was hoping for something more like- “Dances With Werewolves”, “A Fistful of Silver Bullets”, or perhaps “The Good, The Bad and the Wolfey”. But oh well, here we are. Secondly, the author’s name is Manly Bannister, and yes that is his actual name. Sounds pretty macho, but let’s stop judging this thing by the cover and the author’s name and get into it.
Side note, I could only find an article about the author on the German Wikipedia… not sure what that’s about but here you go.
The story opens with our narrator and protagonist driving through the intense heat and landscape of what I presume is an American dessert. The whole thing is just chock full of description, and after the first page of it, you want to shout at the pages to stop. Predictably the car breaks down, and we get introduced to Joan. Joan is an attractive young blond woman who both the narrator and I thought had no business “hiking” around out in the middle of this unforgiving landscape.
She seems suspicious and it’s refreshing that the narrator thinks so too. He agrees to give her a lift down the road, and after adding water to the radiator and letting it cool the two are motoring along. We find out here that the young woman is heading in the same direction as the narrator to, wait for iiiit, “Wereville”. That’s right fellow readers the narrator of this werewolf story is headed a place called Wereville. Oof. I couldn’t help but feel that our chances for a great story were narrowing.
There is a weird reaction from a cowboy that they pass, further confirming that she’s bad news, and then something funny happens.
The narrator and the girl come up to a blocked road guarded by a bunch of yokels. They tell our narrator to turn around and that outsiders are not welcome in their town. But our man is so insistent that he belongs there, that he must go there that I started to think that maybe we were in for a twist and that HE was the actual monster. We find out that his parents were from the town, a fact confirmed by the oldest and most curmudgeonly of the yokels, and the posse lets them pass.
Was this really a whole town of werewolves? It’s a bit heavy-handed, the mountain behind the town is described as wolf-like, the people are wolf-like, we get it. Even still, I was back on board.
Our narrator gets into town and convinces the locals that he is indeed the son of his parents, who were once members of the community. We are introduced to Joan’s father Jordan, and we learn a bit more about the local ranchers in the surrounding area mobilizing against those in Wereville. Apparently, some bible thumping priest has brought them together, and it was here that I was starting to see the making of a shootout between the townies and the ranchers. The narrator is brought to his old family home which has been kept up and vacant.
Inside his old family dwelling, we get confirmation that our narrator, Kenneth Mulvaney, has the characteristics of the townies. He has the same empty stare to his eyes, and just before he turns in for the night we learn that he casts no shadow in the lamplight. Now normally I think of casting no shadow as being more of a vampire trait, but I can get behind it. He is confirmed supernatural and guaranteed to be hated by the angry ranchers.
The next section is seen through the eyes of Sam Carver, a big man and the defacto leader of the ranchers. He’s talking to the new Priest in town Father d’Arcy. We learn that as the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan these wolves are only really vulnerable to silver bullets and that they kill cattle in droves every full moon. This time the ranchers have been supplied with werewolf killing bullets, and despite their suspicions that the priest’s suggestions are a load of bunk, they gear up. I liked this section. You get the feeling that the ranchers are acting from a believable standpoint, skeptical but willing to try anything, and you get the motivation of the catalyst. Father d’Arcy has dedicated his life to “stamping out evil” and clearly knows how to combat werewolves. The tension has been cranked up, let’s see where we go.
Finally, we get the transformation scene. Joan comes to the narrator in the middle of the night, naked. Always in these old pulps, there are naked women. Anyway, she leads our man to a nearby creek and the transformation happens in the water. She explains a bit about being a werewolf, and the two trot to the mass meeting of the werewolves that is happening that night.
Manly’s werewolves are a bit different than the standard:
Were-people only transform in the valley
Cast no shadow during the night of the full moon
Vulnerable to silver
Transformation occurs in water
Sunlight is deadly in wolf form
They must drink fresh blood on the night of the full moon
Silvered mirrors show their true form
We learn that the leader of the werewolves is an evil black wolf, a character named Bock who made a small appearance when Mulvaney first got to town. Bock insists that the wolves hunt as a group, and that instead of going after regular game animals like deer, that they go after cattle and humans. The narrator sees Bock as truly evil, and as a younger stronger beast, he threatens to topple the old alpha. Werewolf fight!
They fought as wolves fight- fang to fang and claw to claw. Rage and murderous hate flamed in Mulvaney’s wolf-brain. His man-brain looked askance, observed what he did, and approved.
The night was made fearful with their hate. Their snarling rage struck silence and terror to the tiny denizens of the field. The moon and the stars looked on impassively.
Mulvaney sought with murderous fangs the throbbing jugular of his enemy.
Mulvaney prevails, yay! But then something strange happens. Instead of blood Bock seems to have bled glowing sulfur, and rising up there is a demonic form cloaked in mist and purple lightning. We learn that a demon was possessing Bock, and seeks at some point to possess our narrator. It seems the demon has collected all of the old descendants of the witch folk of eld (the werewolves) for some greater purpose to collect souls and battle against humanity for supremacy.
Corny super-villain alert. Let’s be real here for a moment, the demon has assembled 65 people in a remote town where they can barely eke out an existence. It seems to me that there is really no threat here. And let’s add to that the fact that while he possesses somebody, besides perhaps making them want to do evil things they gain no power. Bock died no problem. I don’t know, it just feels like this contrived demonic figure really is all bark and no bite (duh-dum, tiss).
Mulvaney leads the pack to the cattle, where he is attacked by a rancher with holy water. The blessed fluid burns him and sends him and the rest of the back fleeing. Mulvaney has a moment of clarity because of this, and figures that he will just lead the group back to the creek where they will transform back into people and be done for the night. But wait! The ranchers have mobilized along the creek and are ready to attack.
Half of the wolves die in the first assault, Joan among them. The rest fled back up into the hills and howl with all their sorrow and frustration. Mulvaney knows that they are monsters, that they have been beaten and are doomed. Dawn is fast approaching, and so they rush the waterline once more and are slain.
Final Thoughts
An entertaining story that lets you empathize with the werewolves instead of making them into the default monsters of the piece. I liked that there were no good guys and bad guys save for the priest and the demon who were both evil in my mind, but rather a bloody conflict born out of a bad situation. Solidly entertaining and only stumbled a couple of times I think.
Does the underground call to you? Are you intrigued with dark subterranean spaces? Well, you should be! They can be incredibly provocative and interesting settings for a story, at times lending their unique qualities as much to a scene as a character would. In this article you are going to learn all about the underground as we take a look at what it can bring to the table, what kinds of underground locations there are to play with, and a bit about the real world underground as it is separate from the imaginative places we may have read about or seen on screen. To be clear this article will be dealing with actual subterranean spaces, not a resistance movement sometimes referred to as the underground, nor are we talking about a biblical hell. Although admittedly as in all things there is a bit of a grey area here.
Oh, and recommended reading to get you going.
Let us delve!
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[T]he underground, a place rife with ominous dripping water, blackness thicker than night, and obscure passages that can be found in both the remote wilderness as well as the urban metropolis. No matter which way you cut it subterranean spaces are emotional places.
Just put your imaginative shoes into those of an explorer going down into the depths of an uncharted passageway. Think about what kinds of things you might find down there, and how long those things might have gone untouched in the protected cool recesses of the place. Caves can be like the surface of the moon, they can preserve things in a way you don’t find in the “regular” natural world. Things like human remains become mummified, wooden objects can be spared the disintegrating power of rot, and even metallic objects can persist in a steady state so long as they are away from water. The underground can act as the ultimate time capsule!
With forgotten spaces far away from the light comes the unknown. H.P. Lovecraft has a great quote about the unknown:
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature
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Photo by Ian Chen on Unsplash
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It’s a great opportunity for a writer to insert things that have not yet been classified and studied by the world at large. Be they mole people, be they eyeless dinosaurs, be they sentient protoplasm. Putting them underground makes them seem more plausible, and the plausibility of the unknown is terrifying.
So let’s touch on the feeling of being forgotten or lost that the underground conjures up. Perhaps your mind conjures up images of underground places untouched since they were last used as WWII bunkers, still replete with all of the trappings of that time. Or perhaps your mind imagines coming across the remains of previous spelunkers, who wandered until their lights and rations ran out. Was that sound in the distance just the earth moving, or something more? Either way, the feeling that the underground is so removed from the rest of the world is a strong one. The big three emotions are going to be timelessness, isolation, and adventure. Let’s touch on those:
Timelessness: This is that time capsule effect, but it can also be a sense of being out of time all together. The underground has a way of collecting bits and pieces of things that tumble down to it over the course of a large span of time, so play with that. Coins from colonial america can be mixed with civil war paraphernalia, with a few Motorola Razr flip phones on top. The ultimate grab bag of relics.
Isolation: The normal rules of society don’t have to apply to the spaces beneath your character’s feet. The police don’t patrol them, the animals we already know don’t come down here, and even all plat life stops at the door. A space removed that plays by different rules can be either liberating for those that suffer constraints from the standard society, or disturbing for those that don’t.
Adventure: With isolation comes the opportunity for your characters to be explorers into this strange dark world. Are they the first people in a hundred years to come down here? A thousand? ever? Digging into uncharted territory can be thrilling for your characters, and thrilling for your readers too.
While the underground universally calls up these feelings, beyond that you are going to want to consider what type of underground space you are talking about. As I have suggested there are two branching tunnels here, the natural underground and the urban underground. Both have their own unique characteristics, so lets trod through some of them now.
Natural Underground
The natural underground is both more spectacular and more different than you might imagine it to be if all you know was its depictions from popular media. They are extremely delicate ecosystems, often times each one being as unique as a fingerprint. In nature, caves can be extremely wet or extremely dry and have very different rock formations and life forms that exist in them depending on the presence of water. The air underground is unbelievably steady too, often being consistent year round at 55° F. Fauna that has evolved to live in deep cave environments, for the most part, are extremely specialized, eking out an existence on the meager amounts of energy that filters down to them. These types of cave creatures often live so close to the bone that things like eyes are a luxury. Camouflage is also a non-starter in a light-less environment, often resulting in the inhabitants taking on a very pale colorless look. So if you are considering populating your underground spaces these characteristics are worth bearing in mind.
One thing that is interesting and helpful to know is the fact that most of the cliche and spectacular formations that we see in cave systems, such as the stalactite and the stalagmite (spiky formations that develop top down or bottom up respectively) or gargantuan crystals form because of the activity of water. Now a cave that was once wet may not be any more, or vise-versa, but it’s a good thing to know if you’ve inserted an underground river whether or not these kinds of things would be in the landscape.
Dry caves, on the other hand, are the real master places for preservation. Primitive cave art can seem like it was painted just yesterday, remains can mummify and remain remarkably untouched, and footprints can stand in the dust for just about as long as they are allowed to. Dry caves need not be found below dry surface environments either, as layers of protective materials such as clay can act as a shield from any rainfall or top town moisture.
Tropes of the natural underground:
Hitherto unknown flora and fauna
Virgin exotic/alien terrain
Urban Underground
Conversely, we have the urban underground. Places rife with the decadent themes of a fallen society. These places may have once served a purpose but have since fallen out of mind, or their utility is taken so for granted that they are not thought about anymore. Old subway terminals, utility tunnels and bomb shelters all fall into this category. There is a reason that the underbelly of civilization is linked to the places beneath our feet. Removed from law and order and left to fester these spaces are often the realms of the homeless, the degenerate, and the vermin of a civilization.
As the set designer for your creative endeavor you may find using urban underground spaces a bit more of a challenge because of the necessary question of purpose. Unlike a naturally forming cave urban underground spaces were created with a purpose in mind even if that purpose is no longer necessary. Did the sultan have an escape tunnel built in case of an attempted coup? Did the abandoned research facility have an annex in the mountain for radiation shielding? Did the gallery have a sub basement to hide away all of its really valuable paintings? In almost any situation there was an endeavor to create the space first, which you will need to account for, then once you do you just need to dial it into the state you want when your characters interact with it. i.e. add the cobwebs.
Tropes of the urban underground:
Fallen glory
Criminal activity
Outsiders
Recommended Reading
This is by no means an exhaustive list, just the first few that sprung to mind. If you have suggestions for additional titles please share!
