Joseph

I have once again embraced my tradition of immersing myself, each day of this accursed October, in the unsettling visions conjured by that inimitable master of cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft. Today’s selection, “The Terrible Old Man,” proved to be a tale of remarkable brevity—so much so that I consumed its dark essence in the span it took for my coffee to brew. Yet, despite its brevity, the tale was no less steeped in the ineffable dread and creeping unease that so defines Lovecraft’s works.

And they say that the Terrible Old Man talks to these bottles, addressing them by such names as Jack, Scar-Face, Long Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate Ellis, and that whenever he speaks to a bottle the little lead pendulum within makes certain definite vibrations as if in answer.

In the shadow-haunted town of Kingsport, there exists a figure whose name has long been swallowed by the tides of time. This ancient man, once rumored to have been a captain of clipper ships that sailed the unwholesome waters of the East, dwells alone in a decrepit house on Water Street, where the years have worn away the barriers between the mundane and the unknown. The very air around the house is heavy with a dread beyond mortal comprehension, and though few dare to speak of it, those who pass his dwelling whisper of bizarre collections of stones in his yard and of strange, eldritch conversations with bottles upon his table—bottles that, inexplicably, seem to respond in kind.

It was against this grim and arcane backdrop that three men—Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek, and Manuel Silva—sought the treasures whispered to lie within. With greed-fueled bravado, Ricci and Silva entered the abode, leaving Czanek outside, oblivious to the cosmic horrors lurking within. When the ghastly cries shattered the stillness, Czanek, unaware of the lurking forces, presumed mere mortal violence had ensued. But from the ancient threshold emerged not his comrades, but the old man himself, his eyes aglow with an unnatural, yellow luminescence, a smile twisted in unspeakable malevolence.

Later, the mutilated corpses of the would-be thieves were discovered near the sea, their bodies ravaged by horrors unknown to earthly men, as if by the cruel hands of spectral sailors from some nameless void. The people of Kingsport murmured of strange happenings, but the ancient figure remained detached from the prattle of the world, his mind surely preoccupied with forces far older, far darker, than any living soul could fathom.