The Tomb

The Tomb
By
H.P. Lovecraft/ RDaphael

1917/2012
Do not record my unnecessary name. Just sit quite still and listen.  From earliest childhood, I have been a dreamer and a visionary. In relating the circumstances which  led to my present confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence certain isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few. A person of broader intellect, such as myself, knows that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them. I have dwelt often in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my New Hampshire home. I do not think that what I read in those books or saw in those fields and groves was exactly what other children read and saw there; but of this I must say little, since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me. It is sufficient for me to relate events without analyzing causes.

I have said that I dwelt apart from the visible world, but I have not said that I dwelt alone. This no human creature may do; for lacking the fellowship of the living, he inevitably draws upon the companionship of things that are not, or are no longer, living. Close by my former home there lies a singular wooded hollow just near Gunn Road. In those twilight deeps I spent most of my time; reading, thinking, and dreaming.. Well did I come to know the presiding presence of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon, but of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets near the town of Keene. The deserted tomb of the Morrisons, an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant was laid within its black recesses many decades before my birth.

The vault to which I refer is of ancient granite, weathered and discolored by the mists and dampness of generations. Excavated back into the hillside, the structure is visible only at the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone, hangs upon rusted iron hinges, and is fastened ajar in a queerly sinister way by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks. This dark abode was once crowned by the family crest. Now fallen it is, or was, a rather ominous construct of violence and hinted depravity. And the nearby family  mansion had long since fallen victim to the flames which sprang up from a midnight stroke of lightning. Of this storm, the older inhabitants of the region sometimes speak in hushed and uneasy voices; alluding to what they call `divine wrath' in a manner that in later years vaguely increased the always strong fascination which I had felt for this singular place. The last Morrison had perished in the fire and his ashes were  placed in this abode of shade and stillness. He was said to be a man of vast intellect and of questionable morals. Apparently, he spent his last years apart from his fellow man. It was rumored he had once been married to a beautiful Indian maiden and that there was a child, a daughter.  What became of them is uncertain.  His tall, gaunt figure was occasionally seen roaming the woods. And, there were stories of strange activities at the mansion on Gunn road, lights and noises and odd smells which could be detected from some distance. Still, New Hampshire residents are a solitary lot and no one would dare to inquire.  No one remains to lay flowers before the granite portal, and few care to brave the depressing shadows which seem to linger strangely about the water-worn stones.

I shall never forget the afternoon when first I stumbled upon this half-hidden house of death. It was in midsummer, when the alchemy of nature transmutes the sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass of green; when the senses are well-nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of subtly indefinable odors of the soil and the vegetation. In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective; time and space become trivial and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten prehistoric past beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness.

All day I had been wandering through the mystic groves of the hollow; thinking thoughts I need not discuss, and conversing with things I need not name. In years I was a child of ten, I had seen and heard many wonders unknown to the masses; and I was oddly older in certain respects. When, upon forcing my way between two savage clumps of briars, I suddenly encountered the entrance of the vault, I had no knowledge of what I had discovered. The dark blocks of granite, the door so curiously ajar aroused in me no associations of mournful or terrible character. Of graves and tombs I knew and imagined much, but had on account of my peculiar temperament been kept by my parents from all personal contact with churchyards and cemeteries. The strange stone house on the woodland slope was to me only a source of  tantalizing speculation. But, in that instant of curiosity was born the events which has brought me to this hell of my present confinement. Spurred on by a voice which must have come from the  soul of the forest, I resolved to enter the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous chains which barred my passage. In the waning light of day I forcefully rattled the rusty impediments with a view to throwing wide open the stone door. Failing that I essayed to squeeze my slight form through the space already provided; but neither plan met with success. At first curious, I was now frantic; and when in the thickening twilight I returned the short distance to my home, I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would some day force an entrance to the black, chilly depths that seemed to be calling out to me. The physician with the iron-grey beard who comes each day to my room, in this my current horrid prison, once told a visitor that this decision marked the beginning of my pitiful mental state; but, I will leave final judgment of that to my readers when they shall have learnt all.
The months following my discovery were spent in futile attempts to force the complicated padlock of the slightly open vault. To various  adults, I made carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history of the structure. With the traditionally receptive ears of the small child, I learned much.
Among those details was an interesting speculation about the last Morrison. It was said that he roamed the wooded hills searching for his lost wife and daughter. He was sometimes seen carrying a tattered picture and speaking to it in an apologetic voice.  Perhaps some clue of this might remain in this vault of death. Oh, but then, the fateful day arrived. Over the past several months, I had spent so many days before the tomb that it was now a shaded bower that had its own comfort. I felt no fear in this place or the nearby skeleton of the burned down mansion. Oh I had heard mumbled tales of the weird rites and godless revels of bygone years in the ancient hall. But, this just gave to me a new and potent interest in the tomb, before whose door I would sit for hours. Even the odd odor of the place bewitched me. And so it was that as sunlight receded on ALL Hallows Eve I fell asleep at the entrance.  I can’t say what awakened me. But it happened suddenly. No foggy awareness, no slow climb to awakening. My eyes were open. And they fastened upon the fact of the now open tomb door.  And from within the tomb there came a faint greenish light just sufficient for me to make out the stairs descending into the beckoning darkness.  I arose from my mossy bed and crept forward, my heart thudding against my chest, my ears straining for the slightest sound. Thats when I realized that the normal sounds of a forest night were absent. It was utterly still. Thick and complete silence.  Until a voice, so soft that it caressed my very soul, spoke.

“come down” 
Each word stretched out like a refrain from a long forgotten song.
“come down”

I moved even closer, hunched through the portal and took my first step down.
After that first step there was no possible retreat.  Step by slow step I descended into the tomb.
How long it took I do not know, but then, I came to the bottom of the steps and there before me, in the faint light, was an ornate door. But this door did not appear old or decayed. In fact, it was a shining, sculptured piece that appropriately belonged on the entrance to a wealthy estate. The scenes which had been delicately etched into this door were of a particularly sordid and lovingly cruel sort. As I caressed the figures on the door I could hear, no, felt is a better word the sounds of a gay party. The figures beneath my hand seemed to move and insist on my entry. My hand grasped the brass knob, and  slowly,  I pulled  the door open. I gasped as before me was the inside of the Morrison mansion. I knew this for a certainty. How I do not know.  Gone for a century, it was now alight with the splendor of many candles. Inside, a well-dressed  throng swirled to discordant music  in shouts of ecstasy. I entered and strode unafraid through the ballroom. Somehow I knew I belonged with the hosts rather than with the guests. The hall was filled with music, sly laughter, and wine on every hand. Several faces I recognized; though I should have known them better had they not been shriveled or eaten away by death and decomposition. A tall gaunt man with the feet of a goat handed me a cup filled to the brim. I drank deeply, and then realized that the wine contained another taste. A coppery warm taste that was sweet and powerful and full of knowledge. The taste of innocent blood used for vile purposes. And I knew what had been the fate of the beautiful wife and daughter. I didn't care.  Amidst a wild and reckless throng I was the wildest and most abandoned.  In shocking words and deeds, I heeded no law of God, or nature as I indulged my every childish whim.  A clock struck midnight just as a storm began to rage outside the windows.  Suddenly, an enormous clap of thunder deafened me and the red velvet curtains burst into flames.  As a mob, the revelers fled to the doors and knocked me to the floor. The host, the last Morrison, was awash in fire as he lifted me in his arms and pressed his fiery face to mine.
I was found the next day lying in the remains of the mansion. Some hunters had seen my crumpled child form from a nearby hillside and had come to ‘rescue’ me. I raved at them, and howled like a beast, as I tried to sink my curiously pointed teeth into their flesh. I desperately wanted more of that drink. And so they restrained me with cruel cords.  And now, for many years, I find myself confined to this place for the mad. Except I’m not mad.  My burned, scarred face sees the world for the illusion it is, and isn't.