#08: 8 Legs a’ Lurching From, “The Dunwich Horror” – H. P. Lovecraft Well actually, they’re not uhh . . . The scene captures the moment when Professors Armitage, Morgan, and Rice, esteemed faculty of Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, discover Wilbur Whateley, dying and rapidly decomposing on a floor in the campus Library. Prof. Armitage, the Head Librarian, recognizes Whateley’s face from an encounter with him a few weeks earlier. Whateley had wanted to check out Miskatonic’s copy of The Necronomicon, a sort of ancient sorcerer’s manual. It was one of only a few left in the world that not only was physically intact, but was also printed in the original arcane (and blasphemous) prose. Armitage refused. He was so disturbed by the meeting that after it ended he contacted Harvard to make sure Whateley wasn’t granted access to its copy either. (I knew there was a good reason for why I avoided going into the Stacks at Widener Library!) Apparently Whateley wanted the book so badly he had decided to steal it. His attempt was aborted by the guard dog, and it had cost him his life—if one could call it that. Now the only thing Armitage could recognize was the thief’s face. Lovecraft noted in vivid detail that the rotting figure on the floor, with its repulsive physique and putrid discharges, was clearly “not of this earth.” But, as the three scholars would later discover, this strange story wasn’t over. Wilbur’s death meant that no other Whateleys would look after things at the farmhouse—which for years had been undergoing almost continual renovation. The Dunwich Horror is drawn from a small but particularly unsettling section of the horror genre. Many of the stories were written by Lovecraft or several literary colleagues who collaborated with him to create what is popularly called The Cthulu Mythos. It explores the notion that humans were not the first inhabitants of Earth to possess its highest level of intelligence. And it warns that we will not be the last. I had a lot of fun building this scene. But it may be a while before I’m comfortable enough to eat a pickle or calamari again. “Props” to ffabris (open shirt), AofD (open book), Baument (bookcase), rosspest (puddle), JoeKurz (morphing tentacle), Archive3d (waste basket) and anyone I may have missed. Selections from the same shelf: “The Trail of Cthulu,” August Derleth “Children of the Night,” Robert E. Howard “Planet of the Apes,” Pierre Boulle