19 Nocturne Boulevard - THE PICTURE IN THE HOUSE (The Lovecraft 5, #1) - Reissue
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(A loose adaptation of "The Picture in the House" by H.P. Lovecraft)
Five friends get together to spook each other with stories, and Charles tells a tale of a weird encounter with a strange old man.\\xa0\\xa0
Cast List
Charles - Michael Coleman (Tales of the Extraordinary)
Warren - Glen Hallstrom
Richard - Philemon Vanderbeck
Herbert - Carl Cubbedge
Edward - Bryan Hendrickson
Creepy Old Guy - J. Hoverson
Martha - Risa Torres
Music by Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
Editing and Sound: \\xa0 Julie Hoverson
Cover Design:\\xa0 Brett Coulstock
"What kind of a place is it?
Why it\'s a brownstone dinner party, can\'t you tell?"
***************************************************
THE PICTURE IN THE HOUSE (Lovecraft 5, #1)
Cast:
- Charles, a dilettante
- Herbert, a scientist
- Richard, a painter
- Warren, a professor
- Edward, the missing member, a writer
- Scary old man
- Martha, the cook
OLIVIA \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0[opening credits] Did you have any trouble finding it?\\xa0 What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?\\xa0 Why, it\'s a brownstone dinner party, can\'t you tell?\\xa0
MUSIC
1_after dinnerish
SOUND \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0RAIN.\\xa0 RECORD PLAYER CLICKS AND MUSIC STARTS
SOUND \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0FOOTSTEPS
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What\'s the tune?
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 MATCH STRIKES
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It\'s--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\'s one of Eric\'s isn\\u2019t it?\\xa0
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No-o-o.\\xa0 You know he never records.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I must say that veal cutlet was excellent.\\xa0 Positively delicious.\\xa0 Compliments to your cook, Charles.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Excellent woman.\\xa0 Don\'t know what I would do without her.\\xa0 Been with the family for years.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\'s the only way to get good help these days - I wish I was fortunate enough to inherit hereditary retainers.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Any chance I can get the recipe for the cooking staff at the faculty dining hall?\\xa0 We don\'t get veal very often, but--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\'ll ask, but I doubt it - she\'s very secretive about her seasonings.\\xa0 Now, Herbert, see that everyone has a good stiff drink, for--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Aren\'t we waiting on Edward?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [darkly]\\xa0 He isn\'t able to join us tonight.\\xa0 Don\'t worry - I\'m quite sure he won\'t hold it against us.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Here you go.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Cheers.\\xa0 [drinks]\\xa0 So, what is this story you\'ve brought us here for, Charles?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Anyone for a cigar?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ah, certainly.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I won\'t say no.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You promised us a tale to - I believe the phrase you used was "to make the gorge rise and the hair stand on end", wasn\'t it?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.\\xa0 And I know you all consider me the weakest of us all for telling a coherent tale, just because I have a tendency to let myself get distracted and lose my place, but I have a real corker for tonight.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, we\'re all uncorked ... now, so lets see what you can do to us.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 All right, I won\'t keep you in suspense any longer.\\xa0 You recall that I was away for most of last summer, traveling around the back country roads of New England, looking up genealogical records, tracing my family?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Of course - and we all envy you, being a man of enough leisure to be able to wander off at will, instead of having to stay around for your job.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What do you know about jobs?\\xa0 You\'re an academic.\\xa0 That\'s hardly a real job.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Hah!\\xa0 This from the artist.\\xa0 Now, science - science is an all-consuming master.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 All right.\\xa0 All right.\\xa0 Come on - it\'s my party and my story.\\xa0 Don\'t really matter what your jobs are - you\'re all idiot enough to be my friends, and that\'s all that matters.
EVERYONE\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [general laughter]
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I don\'t know whether you\'ll believe me or not - probably not, but it\'s all true.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It won\'t be that easy - you\'re talking to a couple of hardened skeptics here.\\xa0 I won\'t believe anything without empirical proof and Warren won\'t believe you \'til it\'s written in a book at least a hundred years old, with footnotes and cross-references.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [snort]
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And me?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh, you artists - who knows what you\'ll believe.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [chuckles] We\'ll see what you all think by the time I\'m finshed.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Edward\'ll regret having missed a good story.
2_story starts
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [darkly] We\'ll worry about Edward later.\\xa0 [beat]\\xa0 If I don\'t start, we\'ll be here til dawn, so let\'s have a bit of hush.\\xa0 [beat]\\xa0 Damn-- [forgot]
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You were cycling around the countryside.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Right.\\xa0 And I was pedaling like mad, trying to keep in front of this wicked great thundershower, when I spotted a crumbling pile - an ancient cottage built right up into the side of a hill.\\xa0 It had reached that stage of decrepitude where you\'re not sure whether it was built there, or just sprang up like a mushroom.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Very evocative.\\xa0 Rounded corners, slanting walls, you can almost smell the mildew.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 May I continue?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You didn\'t happen to have a camera with you on your sojourn, did you?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I wasn\'t sightseeing.\\xa0 Never been any good with one of them contraptions anyway.\\xa0 [sigh]\\xa0
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [prompting] The house.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Right, so since it was the only structure - and I use the term very lightly - that I\'d seen in hours and hours, I decided that forbidding as it looked, the clouds rolling in were worse.\\xa0 I was already feeling the rain, and the lightning kept striking closer and closer.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 THUNDER
EVERYONE\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [gasps]
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well!\\xa0 That was timely.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now how did you manage that?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Sheer luck.\\xa0 Although the weather report did--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ah, so you haven\'t been looking through any of those old grimoires Warren has charge of?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh, stop.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Where was I?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Perhaps you should keep some notes - I find note cards work quite adequately for me when I\'m called upon to give a lecture.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [sigh] I went into the house.\\xa0 I knocked first - I certainly didn\'t want to meet an angry homeowner with a shotgun in my face.\\xa0 But since there was no answer, I figured it might be abandoned.\\xa0 And the rain was starting to come down like rods.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 THUNDER
EVERYONE\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [mild chuckles]
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [full-on storytelling mode] Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odor. \\xa0I entered, leaned my cycle against the wall, and crossed into a small, dim chamber, furnished in the barest and most primitive possible way. \\xa0It appeared to be a kind of sitting-room, for it had a table and several chairs - and an immense fireplace above which ticked an antique clock on a mantel. Books and papers were very few, and in the prevailing gloom I could not readily discern the titles. \\xa0Now, in all the room I could not discover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date! \\xa0Had the furnishings been less humble, the place would have been a collector\'s paradise.
3_music changes
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 THE RECORD STOPS. CLICK AS THE NEXT RECORD GOES ON
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You didn\'t look at the books at all?\\xa0 Pity.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You enthusiasts - always gallivanting ahead.\\xa0 [dry chuckle] The first object of my curiosity was a book.\\xa0 It lay open upon the table, presenting such an antediluvian aspect that I marveled at beholding it outside a museum or libary. \\xa0Bound in leather with metal fittings, it was in an excellent state of preservation - altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in an abode so lowly.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [eager] And the title?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Hold your damn hosses.\\xa0 When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than... [beat, dragging out the suspense]
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ye-e-e-es?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Pigafetta\'s account of the Congo region, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and printed at Frankfurt in 1598.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [awed!] There\'s only 12 known copies extant.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And you know that off the top of your head?\\xa0 Oh, Warren.\\xa0 You need a wife... or at the very least a bad habit.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ssh.\\xa0 The book?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The engravings were indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descriptions - it even represented natives with Caucasian features.\\xa0 Nor would I soon have closed the book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my sensation of disquiet.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 RATTLE OF HARD RAIN AGAINST THE WINDOW
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I think I need another drink.\\xa0 Anyone?\\xa0
SOUND \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0DRINKS POUR
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Go on ahead.\\xa0
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [jumping in] The book?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [exasperated sigh] What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at Plate twelve, which represented in gruesome detail a butcher\'s shop of the cannibal Anziques.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Anziques?\\xa0 They were wiped off the face of the Congo in the seventeenth century, I believe?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Were you aware that cannibalism was nowhere near as widespread as so-called history tells us?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That is a debatable point--
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No, no, really - One of the easiest rallying cries to convince your followers to annihilate or enslave another culture was to accuse them of anthropophagy.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Fascinating as this is, save it for your own dinner party, Herbert.\\xa0 What you find so very engaging, I found exceedingly grotesque - to my own shame.\\xa0 The drawing disturbed me, especially in connection with some adjacent passages descriptive of Anzique gastronomy.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What did it say?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [annoyed] It\'s hardly important. \\xa0I\'ve worked hard to forget it.\\xa0 [calm] Anyway, I was examining the rest of the meagre libary - an eighteenth century Bible, a "Pilgrim\'s Progress" of like period, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather\'s "Magnalia Christi Americana," and a few other books of evidently equal age - when my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room overhead.
4_cook
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 DOOR OPENS
EVERYONE\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [gasps]
MARTHA\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\'m so sorry sir, I thought you\'d all be done by now - I was gonna clean up.\\xa0 I\'ll just - I\'ll just get to it in the morning.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, yes of course Martha.\\xa0 Have a good night.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 DOOR CLOSES
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You set her up to do that.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [not quite convincing]\\xa0 Of course not.\\xa0 Heaven forbid.\\xa0 [a bit smug] That\'d be such an entirely transparent ruse.\\xa0
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Perhaps you should be writing these sorts of thrillers, rather than Edward.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Did he say why he missed coming out tonight?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [exasperated sigh]\\xa0 He dropped by earlier for a moment, but he didn\'t have much to say.\\xa0 If I may continue?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I, at least, am interested.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Thank you very much. \\xa0I concluded that the occupant had just awakened from a sound sleep, and listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking stairs. \\xa0Then, after a moment of silence during which the walker may have been inspecting my bicycle, I heard a fumbling at the door latch and saw the paneled portal swing open again.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 PAUSE, SOME GASPS AS THEY AWAIT SOME SOUND WHICH DOESN\'T COME.
EVERYONE\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [chuckles]
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 In the doorway stood a person of such singular appearance that I might have exclaimed aloud - but for the restraints of good breeding. \\xa0Old, white-bearded, and ragged, his height could not have been less than six feet, and despite a general air of age and poverty he was stout and powerful in proportion. \\xa0His face, almost hidden by a long beard which grew high on the cheeks, seemed abnormally ruddy and less wrinkled than one might expect; while over a high forehead fell a shock of white hair little thinned by the years. \\xa0His blue eyes, though a trifle bloodshot, seemed inexplicably keen and burning. \\xa0But for his horrible unkemptness the man would have been as distinguished-looking as he was impressive.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Unkemptness?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I expect the word he should be using - but for the restraints of good breeding - is odoriferous?
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 A-yuh. - the elderly...
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, yes.\\xa0\\xa0
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, Charles, you\'re halfway to your goal - that alone very nearly brought up my dinner.\\xa0
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0It wasn\'t just the house that suffered from... damp and mildew.\\xa0 Shall we leave it at that?\\xa0
\\xa0
5_old man speaks
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 RECORD PLAYER CHANGES AGAIN - TO MUSIC FOR FLASHBACK
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 CLOCK GETS LOUDER
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [fading into flashback] The appearance of this man, and the instinctive fear he inspired, prepared me for something like enmity; so that I almost shuddered through surprise and a sense of uncanny incongruity when he motioned me to a chair and addressed me in a thin, weak voice full of fawning respect and ingratiating hospitality.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Catched in the rain, be ye?\\xa0 Glad ye was nigh the house an\' had the sense t\' come right in. \\xa0I calculate I was asleep, else I\'d a heard ye - I ain\'t as young as I used to be, an\' I need a powerful sight o\' naps nowadays.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [breaking] He truly sounded like that?\\xa0 That\'s quite an extreme form of archaic Yankee dialect.\\xa0 I\'d thought anything like that dead and gone long years back.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 There are strange holdouts in little pocket communities all over the back woods.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I apologized for my rude entry into his domicile, and--
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Travelling far? \\xa0I hain\'t seen many folks \'long this road since they took off the Arkham stage.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I replied that I was going to Arkham, whereupon he continued.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Glad t\' see ye, young Sir - new faces is scarce around here, an\' I hain\'t got much t\' cheer me up these days. Guess you hail from Boston, don\'t ye? I never been there, but I can tell a town man when I see \'im - we had one for district schoolmaster in \'eighty-four, but he quit sudden an\' no one never heared on \'im since -
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Here the old man lapsed into a kind of chuckle, and made no explanation when I questioned him. \\xa0For some time he rambled on, when it struck me to ask him how he came by so rare a book as Pigafetta\'s "Regnum Congo."
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh, that Afriky book? Cap\'n Ebenezer Holt traded me that in \'sixty-eight - him as was killed in the war.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now, Ebenezer Holt was a name I had encountered in my genealogical work, but not in any record since the Revolution. I speculated that my host could help me in the task at which I was laboring.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ebenezer was on a Salem merchantman for years, an\' picked up a sight o\' queer stuff in every port. He got this in London, I guess - he used to like to buy things at the shops. I was up t\' his house once, on the hill, trading horses, when I see this book. I relished the pictures, so he give it in on a swap. \'Tis a queer book - here, leave me get on my spectacles-
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Spectacles.\\xa0 Quite terrifying.\\xa0 A smelly old man in cheaters.\\xa0 Funny I somehow recall you promising a tale that would set all our hair on end.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I, for one, am fascinated.\\xa0 Your recall of his accent is quite impressive.\\xa0 Is he, do you know - despite being as old as you describe - is he still among the living?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I am quite certain of the contrary.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Pity.\\xa0
6_more drinks
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 More drinks?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Perhaps one more round.\\xa0 And yes, I am about to get to the meat of the matter, so to speak, if you can hold on for a bit longer, Herbert.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Very well.\\xa0 Patience is a virtue more useful to scientists than many.\\xa0 I\'m putting on my listening face.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Good.\\xa0 The old man donned his glasses, then reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages lovingly.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ebenezer could read a little o\' this - \'tis Latin - but I can\'t. \\xa0I had two or three schoolmasters read me a bit, and Parson Clark, him they say got drownded in the pond - can you make anything out on it?
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0I told him that I could, and translated for his benefit a paragraph near the beginning. If I erred, he was not scholar enough to correct me; for he seemed childishly pleased at my English version. His proximity was becoming rather obnoxious--
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Simple hygiene was one of the most important scientific and medical discoveries of the--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [overriding] --yet I saw no way to escape without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old man for the pictures in a book he could not read, and wondered how much better he could read the few books in English which adorned the room. This revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill-defined apprehension I had felt, and I smiled as my host rambled on:
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Queer how pictures kin set a body thinkin\'. Take this one here near the front.\\xa0 Have you ever seen trees like that, with big leaves a floppin\' over an\' down? \\xa0Some o\' these here critters looks like monkeys, or half monkeys an\' half men, but I never heared o\' nothin\' like this un.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Here he pointed to a fabulous creature of the artist, which one might describe as a sort of dragon with the head of an alligator.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\'ve seen things like that myself in mediaeval and renaissance art.\\xa0 To my recollection Bosch painted some, and there\'s at least one or two in the woodcuts of Breughel.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But now I\'ll show ye the best un - over here nigh the middle - [getting excited]\\xa0 What d\'ye think o\' this - ain\'t never seen the like hereabouts, eh? When I see this I telled Eb Holt, \'That\'s somethin\' to stir ye up an\' make your blood tickle.\'
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Was this still the cut of the lizard man thing?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No, [heavy import] he\'d just let the book fall open where it would--
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 When I read in Scripture about slayin\' - like them Midianites was slew - I kinder think things, but I ain\'t got no picture of it.\\xa0 Here a body can see all they is to it - I s\'pose \'tis sinful, but ain\'t we all born an\' livin\' in sin?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ahhh - the same picture that put the chills up you?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, he obviously didn\'t feel the same way about it--
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That feller bein\' chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at \'im - I have to keep lookin\' at \'im - see where the butcher cut off his feet? \\xa0There\'s his head on that bench, with one arm side of it, an\' t\' other arm\'s on the other side o\' the meat block.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted. \\xa0He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness more terrible than a scream.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 As I says, \'tis queer how pictures sets ye thinkin\'. Do ye know, young Sir, I\'m right sot on this one here. After I got the book off Eb I used to look at it a lot, especial when I\'d heared Parson Clark rant o\' Sundays in his big wig.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [realizing what the word is] Oh, "Parson"!
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh!\\xa0 I thought that was his name!
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No, it was the reference to the wig that--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Tell him later.\\xa0
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\'ll never remember--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Perhaps you should keep some note cards.
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Once I tried somethin\' funny - here, young Sir, don\'t get skeert [scared] - all I done was to look at the picture afore I killed the sheep for market - killin\' sheep was kind of more fun after lookin\' at it -
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible.
7_killing sheep
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 THE RECORD CHANGES, BECOMES MORE SINISTER SOUNDING
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I listened to the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season.
OLD MAN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Killin\' sheep was kind of more fun - but d\'ye know, \'t wasn\'t quite satisfyin\'. Queer how a cravin\' gets a hold of ye - As ye love the Almighty, young man, don\'t tell nobody, but I swear to God that picture begun to make me hungry for victuals I couldn\'t raise nor buy - here, set still, what\'s ailin\' ye? - I didn\'t do nothin\', only I wondered how \'t would be if I did - They say meat makes blood an\' flesh, an\' gives ye new life, so I wondered if \'t wouldn\'t make a man live longer an\' longer if \'t was more o\' the same -
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm. It was produced by a very simple, though somewhat unusual, happening.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The open book lay flat between us, with the picture staring repulsively upward. As the old man whispered the words--
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 more o\' the same
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0--a tiny splattering impact was heard, and something showed on the yellowed paper of the upturned volume.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 THUNDER SHAKES THE HOUSE
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh, heavens!
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\'s why Edward is absent, is it?\\xa0 I know he\'s quite the fellow for phobias and superstitions - maybe he has to stay in to avoid the lightning?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No - storms have never been on his list - not that he\'s ever told me.\\xa0 Anything underground, foreigners, the fair sex, getting lost, and cold drafts - those he will go on and on about avoiding, but never storms.\\xa0
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Not that I\'ve heard, either.\\xa0 But I can add illness, the clear night sky, and heredity to things which make him uneasy.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [heavy sigh] I\'m almost finished, then you three can gossip on like old biddies all you want.\\xa0 [storytelling] The drip.\\xa0 I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red. \\xa0On the butcher\'s shop of the Anzique cannibals, a small red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending vividness to the horror of the engraving. \\xa0
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 SQUEAK OF LEATHER CHAIR, AS HE SITS FORWARD
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The old man saw it, and stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it necessary; saw it and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. For a moment I couldn\'t even move, Then a thunderclap broke me out of my hypnotic stare and I realized just what a fix I was in.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 How did you manage to get away?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh, so now I have your attention.\\xa0 Well, it was simple really - I told the authorities later that lightning had struck the house, and I barely escaped with my life, but really--
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Lightning?\\xa0 Ridiculous.\\xa0 Not that it wouldn\'t strike a house, but--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 BUT - What happened was, I tipped over his lamp, sending burning oil everywhere.\\xa0 Then I dashed past and out the building, while the old man screamed and wailed behind me.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Angry at you, was he?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [very dry] Well he was on fire.\\xa0
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And the blood?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 For all that, I wasn\'t curious enough to go back and look.\\xa0 Even left my bicycle behind, and had to go shanks mare [on foot] - and through the tail end of the storm, mind you.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, that was an interesting--
8_windigo
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Hold on, now.\\xa0 That\'s mostly the end of the story, but that crazy old man set me t\'thinking ... [trails off]
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [mildly curious] Yes?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, I recalled pretty clearly the names he\'d mentioned as people he knew back in the day, and when I looked them up in historical records - a couple of them being rather famous, at least locally - and they\'d all been dead for at least 50 years.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 He must have been telling you something told him by his father or grandfather - older folks, particularly those in isolated country settings, are often a bit delusional.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 How old do you think he was?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 He looked to be about 70, allowing for wind and weather and poverty--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And unkemptness--
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, yes...
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 --but he was also hale and hearty and strong and .... plump.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But you can\'t think that--
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So I started to look into the whole theory.\\xa0 It was really those last words--
OLD GUY\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [echoey] More o\'the same...
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0--that made me wonder.\\xa0 So I find out there\'s an old Indian myth from a ways up north--
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The Wendigo?\\xa0 But that\'s strictly a cautionary tale. \\xa0Ethnologists agree on that.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The windy-what?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 May I?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [sigh] Certainly.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [lecturing] The Wendigo, also known as the Windeego, the windikkuk, or the whittikow, is a myth from the various Ojibwa-speaking Indian nations of Canada.\\xa0 We assume it is a cautionary myth about the evils and perils of resorting to cannibalism during times of famine, particularly during the frozen winter months, which is why the wendigo is inextricably linked with cold and snow.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Lovely.\\xa0 But like scholars everywhere, you left out the best part - what precisely is the myth?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh!\\xa0 [chuckles]\\xa0 True, the background is often closer to the academic\'s heart--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I know the story.\\xa0 And I won\'t bore Herbert with the ethnological derivations.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Go on, then.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [spooky]\\xa0 It is said that the windigo is the spirit of winter, howling always just outside the camps of the people, calling to them to break the taboos and let it in.\\xa0 For when a man eats the flesh of another man, the spirit of the wendigo can enter him, and turn him into a ravening monster - never satisfied with lesser flesh ever again.\\xa0 For the wendigo is hunger, endless hunger, and the more it eats, the greater its hunger grows.\\xa0 So if you\'re ever in a snowstorm and see a man-like shape, thin and gaunt, and missing the tips of its fingers and its lips - for if it can\'t find other prey, it will devour its own extremities - you\'d best run.\\xa0 Fast.
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [silent moment, then] LIGHT GOLF CLAP
CHARLES \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Nicely told.\\xa0
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I really could have used a thunderclap there somewhere.\\xa0 How do you get so lucky?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But your old man, who seems to have indulged himself in cannibalism - or at least, that appeared to be the point of your tale, was ruddy and healthy and stout.\\xa0 Hmm.\\xa0 Sounds more like Stoker\'s description of Count Dracula after a good biting.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Interesting point.\\xa0 I must admit I hadn\'t made that connection.\\xa0 I suppose it\'s not that far a leap from drinking someone\'s blood to eating their flesh.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Wine and wafers.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No!\\xa0 I am not going to waste time indulging you in another anti-religious diatribe, Herbert.\\xa0 We all know where you stand on that.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Let\'s get back to my yarn.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 There\'s more?\\xa0 I thought you\'d quite finished?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Just a bit to go yet.\\xa0 There is another myth of the windigo, by the by, though it may be merely a literary creation of Algernon Blackwood.\\xa0 He wrote of a windigo unrelated to the eating of human flesh--
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Anthropophagy.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Eh?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Sorry.\\xa0 Anthropophagy is the eating of human flesh.\\xa0 Cannibalism is the eating of human flesh by a fellow human.\\xa0 There\'s quite a difference.
9_blackwood
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [sigh] Blackwood wrote of the windigo as a huge lonely entity living in the north woods, which calls the names of hunters in the night to lure them away from their campfires.\\xa0 And one sight of it could drive a man mad.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Blackwood probably did a bit of bowdlerizing on the original myth - he heard a good story and felt that the cannibalism angle would make it less worthy of publication.\\xa0
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.\\xa0 Edward has often spoken of his difficulties in getting some of his more gruesome tales into print.\\xa0 Surprising how old-maid-ish some of these vaunted editors can be.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 He\'s not the only one.\\xa0 Why some of my paintings have been shunned and I\'ve had to remove them from view for fear of having them burned!
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It makes you wonder what people fear more, the mere act of being shown the horrible, or the person who shows it to them.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Enough digression.\\xa0 As I said, the old man made me wonder.\\xa0 Made me curious what other tales there were of cannibalism.\\xa0 After what I discovered, about various religious and cultural activities from around the world, I felt certain the windigo tale wasn\'t to be taken literally, but as a cautionary tale, created to warn people off from antisocial behavior--
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Like Struwwelpeter?\\xa0 You know, the children\'s book that warns good little children not to suck their thumbs or the scissor man will come and lop them off?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Essentially.\\xa0 In fact that\'s a very good example - teaching through use of extreme grotesquerie.\\xa0 You can\'t say to a child "leave off sucking that thumb or you\'ll have pruney thumb in the morning", they just won\'t take it very seriously, so we invent extremes.\\xa0 Go off the path and grandma will get eaten by a wolf.\\xa0 Eat another person and you will turn into a ravening monster.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I seem to remember struwwelpeter - it had some horrific illustrations, didn\'t it?\\xa0 Particularly for children.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I realize I can\'t possibly hold your interest much longer, but there is a bit more, if you will pay me the courtesy--\\xa0 [beat] Right.\\xa0 Well I found that in most cultures - disregarding the various incidents of cannibalism for survival, such as during wars and famines--
A1_medusa
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Like the sinking of the Medusa?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Sorry.\\xa0 Nothing.\\xa0 Pray continue.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Disregarding eating for survival, there was a pervasive belief that eating parts of one\'s conquered enemies - human or otherwise - would grant the eater some of the strength of the fallen one.\\xa0 Many hunters ate the hearts of their prey for this very reason.\\xa0 Hearts being the seat of bravery in many ancient cultures.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The seat of bravery or romantic attachment - how sad it is now relegated to merely the centerpiece for the circulatory system.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So they would devour other humans for their strength. Now putting this together with the old man\'s tale, and his necessary age, if indeed he\'d met half the people he mentioned in passing--
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And devoured them.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Eh?
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I was thinking back on your tale - if you repeated his words and intonations correctly, and always assuming your cannibalism slant is the true one - then he probably et most of the people he referred to - like "him as they say drowned in the pond".
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Hmm... [unconvincing] Never really thought much on it.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Of course you did.\\xa0 Now you have me interested again.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, assuming he must have been a couple decades past a hundred when we spoke - at least - then the eating of human flesh had to have had the restorative properties he claimed it did. \\xa0Gaining strength from the fallen.\\xa0 O\'course there was always still the threat of the windigo, but I had ruled that out after all the extensive tales of cannibalism due to need in other quarters of the globe, and none of those folks gone crazy, running around eating their own lips.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [Muttered] The crew of the Medusa went mad.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You\'re not going to let it go, are you?\\xa0 Fine.\\xa0 Tell us about the Medusa, but be quick, would you?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The medusa was a sailing ship heading for the cape of good hope which through poor management was run aground on a sand bar.\\xa0 Everyone abandoned ship, and the sailors were lost on a raft for weeks.\\xa0 By the time they were found, they\'d resorted to cannibalism and gone mad, not necessarily in that order.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I recall the painting in the Louvre - it\'s massive.\\xa0 The pathos.\\xa0 It seemed to imply they were within sight of land the entire time.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, paintings.\\xa0 They\'re really more interested in the tragic story than the facts.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And they went mad, eh?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.\\xa0 You see how it is more universal than you think?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 They went mad after eating each other.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 --and being out on the open ocean, possibly within sight of land, for weeks, with no fresh water, in the blistering heat somewhere near the cape of good hope had nothing to do with it.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And they started out French.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, when you put it that way--
A2_wrap up
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [snort] Well, as a final touch to my collection of cannibalistic stories, I did find one rather interesting description of human flesh - the taste and texture of it - written by a connoisseur who had tried some, that said it was much like a good veal - not so tough as beef, nor stringy.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I expect that if your cook got ahold of some, it would taste just as good as the veal tonight.
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.\\xa0 [with import]\\xa0 Very likely.
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Did the description say there was any way to tell the difference?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Not if it was cut and prepared right.\\xa0 Oh, if you found a finger in your stew, you would probably suspect something, but a chop is a chop.\\xa0 And a roast is a roast.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [gulp] Where did Edward say he was tonight?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 He didn\'t.\\xa0 You going mad yet?\\xa0
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [interested, not freaked]\\xa0 You mean, you tricked us into--?
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [trying not to vomit]\\xa0 Edward!\\xa0 But he was -- your-- our friend!
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Still is.\\xa0 He\'ll be with us always.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [horrified and fascinated]\\xa0 How did you - do it?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, I wouldn\'t let him suffer, would I?\\xa0 After all, he was a friend.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I can\'t --
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 GETTING UP FROM CHAIR, RAPID FOOTSTEPS
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 DOOR OPENS. FEET STOP SHORT.
EDWARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [laughing] The look on your face!\\xa0
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [long painful gasp] Edward!
EDWARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I never knew you cared.
WARREN\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [faints] ahh!
SOUND\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 BODY DROP
HERBERT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 These academics.\\xa0 Not enough exercise, too much theory.
RICHARD\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So the cutlet?
CHARLES\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Veal, o\'course, you ninnies.\\xa0 I only promised you a story to make your gorge rise and your hair stand on end.\\xa0 Besides.\\xa0 Martha\'d\'a never put up with me pulling a stunt like that in her kitchen.
END
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