Henry Kuttner - The Book of Iod

“I went through. Bob has made it easier; I can begin where he left off, as Scott says. And I went up through the Cold Flame and the Whirling Vortices until I reached the place where Scott is. Where he was, rather, for I picked him up and carried him through several planes before I had to return. Bob didn’t mention the suction one has to keep fighting against. But it doesn’t get very strong until I’ve got quite a distance in.”

The next entry is dated a day later. It is scarcely legible.

“Couldn’t stand it. Had to get out. Walked around Griffith Park for hour. Then I came back to the apartment and almost immediately Scott talked to me. I’m afraid. I think he senses that, and is frightened too, and angry.

“He says we can’t waste any more time. His vitality is almosy gone, and he’s got to reach the Center quick and get back to earth. I saw Bob. Just a glimpse, and I wouldn’t have known it was he if Scott hadn’t told me. He was all-awry, and horrible somehow. Scott said the atoms of his body had adapted themselves to another dimension when he let himself get caught. I’ve got to be careful. We’re nearly at the Center.”

The last entry.

“Once more will do it. God, I’m afraid, horribly afraid. I heard the piping. It turned my brain into ice. Scott was shouting at me, urging me on, and I think trying to drown that — other sound, but of course he couldn’t do it. There was a very faint violet glow in the distance, and a flickering of colored lights. Beyond, Scott told me, was Azathoth.

“I can’t do it. I don’t dare — not with that piping, and those Shapes I saw moving far down. If I look in that direction when I’m at the Veil it will mean — but Scott is insanely angry with me. He says I was the cause of it all. I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to let the suction draw me back, and then to smash the Gateway — the crystal thing. Maybe if I find myself unable to keep looking away from the Veil when next I go through I’ll do just that. I told Scott if he let me come back to earth for one more breathing-space I’d finish the job this next time. He agreed, but said to hurry. His vitality is going fast. He said if I didn’t come through the Gateway in ten minutes he’d come after me. He won’t, though. The life that keeps him going Outside wouldn’t be any use on earth, except for a second or two.

“My ten minutes is up. Scott is calling from the Gateway. I’m not going! I can’t face it — not the last horror Outside, with those things moving behind the Veil and that awful piping screaming out—

“I won’t go, I tell you! No, Scott — I can’t face it! You can’t come out — like that. You’d die — I tell you I won’t go! You can’t force me — I’ll smash the Gateway first!… what? No! No, you can’t… you can’t do it!… Scott! Don’t, don’t… God, he’s coming out—”

That was the last entry in the diary, which police found open on Edmond’s desk. A hideous screaming and subsequently a stream of red liquid seeping out sluggishly from beneath the door of Edmond’s apartment had resulted in the arrival of two radio patrol officers.

The body of Paul Edmond was found near the door, the head and shoulders lying in a widening crimson pool.

Near by was an overturned brass brazier, and a flaky white substance, granular in nature, was scattered over the carpet. Edmond’s stiff fingers still tightly gripped the object which has since been the cause of so much discussion.

This object was in an incredible state of preservation, in view of its nature. Part of it was coated with a peculiar grayish slime, and its jaws were clamped tightly, the teeth having horribly mangled Edmond’s throat and sevred the carotid artery.

There was no need to search further for the missing head of Kenneth Scott.

This story was originally titled “Horror at San Xavier", for so Lovecraft refers to it in an April 16, 1936 letter to Kuttner, expressing eagerness to see it. HPL refers to it as a “recent yam”, so Kuttner must have mentioned “Horror at San Xavier* as the title of a finished story, not the working title of a draft. Thus we can safely guess that the title “Bells of Horror” was a typical ham-handed editorial usurpation. (If I felt like doing a bit of editorial tampering with Kuttner’s work, I’d have called it "Death Toll.”)

In general structure “Bells of Horror” has a nagging resemblance to Bertram Russell's “The Scourge of B‘moth” (Weird Tales, May 1929), and it is interesting to speculate whether it might have influenced him here. At any rate, it is noteworthy that Kuttner has taken Lovecraft’s advice about the circumstances of the chance act leading to the unleashing of the cataclysmic horror. Even at that, the story is one more version of the “King Tut’s Curse” scenario of which horror writers have still not grown tired.

First publication: Strange Stories, April 1939.

A great deal of curiosity has been aroused by the strange affair of the lost bells of Mission San Xavier. Many have wondered why, when the bells were discovered after remaining hidden for over a hundred and fifty years, they were almost immediately smashed and the fragments buried secretly. In view of the legends of the remarkable tone and quality of the bells, a number of musicians have written angry letters asking why, at least, they were not rung before their destruction and a permanent record made of their music.

As a matter of fact, the bells were rung, and the cataclysmic thing that happened at that time was the direct reason for their destruction. And when those evil bells were shrieking out their mad summons in the unprecedented blackness that shrouded San Xavier, it was only the quick action of one man that saved the world — yes, I do not hesitate to say it — from chaos and doom.

As secretary of the California Historical Society, I was in a position to witness the entire affair almost from its inception. I was not present, of course, when the bells were unearthed, but Arthur Todd, the president of the society, telephoned me at my home in Los Angeles soon after that ill-fated discovery.

He was almost too excited to speak coherently. “We’ve found them!” he kept shouting. “The bells, Ross! Found them last night, back in the Pinos Range. It’s the most remarkable discovery since — since the Rosetta Stone!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, groping in a fog of drowsiness. The call had brought me from my warm bed.

“The San Xavier bells, of course,” he explained jubilantly. “I’ve seen them myself. Just where Junipero Serra buried them in 1775. A hiker found a cave in the Pinos, and explored it — and there was a rotting wooden cross at the end, with carving on it. I brought—”

“What did the carving say?” I broke in.

“Eh? Oh — just a minute, I have it here. Listen: ‘Let no man hang the evil bells of the Mutsunes which lie buried here, lest the terror of the night rise again in Nueva California.’ The Mutsunes, you know, were supposed to have had a hand in casting the bells.”

“I know,” I said into the transmitter. “Their shamans were supposed to have put a magic spell on them.”

“I’m — I’m wondering about that,” Todd said. “There have been some very unusual things happening up here. I’ve only got two of the bells out of the cave. There’s another, you know, but the Mexicans won’t go in the cave any more. They say — well, they’re afraid of something. But I’ll get that bell if I have to dig it up myself.”

“Want me to come up there?”

“If you will,” Todd said eagerly. “I’m phoning from a cabin in Coyote Canyon. I left Denton — my assistant — in charge. Suppose I send a boy down to San Xavier to guide you to the cave?”