by Robert Bloch
Have you ever heard the laughter of a ghoul? Shrill and high, it
rises and ululates with the cadence of a song from the Pit. Hearing
it brings the soul closer to strange terrors and gives the listener
vague glimpses into half-opened door-ways thru which no man should peer
too closely. Once I heard that mocking laughter in the silence of the
night, and since that evil-fated day the night has held neither silence
nor surcease from the haunting memory of that mirth or madness. Ever it
lurks and lingers in the shadows of my brain, till only thru expression
of my torment can I hope to maintain my sanity in a world made hideous
by the Nemesis of inescapable memory.
In all the Rood-mass realms of Nightmare, there is nothing equalling in
foulness that grim and fearful monster known to legend as the Ghoul.
Accursed is he, and accursed the land burdened by his presence. In such
a land I dwelt, lord of an ancient, remote line.
Slithering secrets dwelt within the archaic avenues of the vast and
sombre forest near my manor in the hills--secrets black and hideous,
haunting and unspeakable, such as demonian presences mumble nightly in
the aeon-dead abysses beyond the light of stars. Here in this forlorn
realm of trickling tarns and baleful solitude my newly-wedded and
beloved bride chanced one day to wander, as in rustic holiday. All
unbeknowning, I spent the day in town, returning only as even-tide drew
near. But she, my beloved, did not return, even with the coming of
darkness.
Then it was that the frightened servants who met me at the gate babbled
that which sent me racing off, torch in hand, into the depths of the
dream-wood looming so loathesomely in the unholy luminance of the
autumn moon. Shrieking and cursing I went on, gibbering threats to the
skies; but more dreadful still was my silence when at last I reached
the end of my quest. Do not ask me how or where I found her. She was
not dead, but she would have been better so after what It had done. She
never spoke after I found her, and I do not think that she knew me. I
pray that she did not. I carried her back to the manor and delivered
her to the care of the servants. Then, with a score of retainers I
returned again to the forest to do that which must be done, and to
eradicate certain discoveries whose very existence was an insult to
sanity. There were bloated trees to cut down, and creepers to be torn
from the depths of nameless graves. There were curious holes to be
blocked with massive stones and certain tracks and monstrous footprints
over which the good curé must pronounce exorcism. There was another
shrub-hidden cavern in the swamps containing grisly but unmistakable
evidences of tenancy. One such place I entered alone and performed a
deed with the long sword my grand-sire had wielded in the Orient. Then
I collapsed, and was carried home upon a hastily-improvised litter of
birchen branches, to toss for many weeks thereafter in the delirious
agony of mocking, cacodemoniacal memory.
After that I spent many days poring unceasingly over disquieting bits
of ancient legendry concerning the forest and its ghastly presences,
whilst awaiting the birth of my wife's child--for she, in a condition
of unsensibility precluding her removal from the manor, was about to
become a mother. And so slowly passed the dreary months of waiting and
expectancy, whilst over all hung the shadow of an impinging dread.
At last the day arrived when, as I brooded in my study, poring over the
chronicle of a woodsman who had heard the pipes of Pan, the mid-wife
came and gently touched me on the shoulder. In faltering accents she
whispered that my wife was dead. I sat there dully for five endless
minutes; then in a voice sepulchrally muted, I asked after my child.
She led me silently into the room where dead mother and living infant
lay.
Yes, the child was alive, still is alive, but I will say no more. May
the Ultimate Powers consign it--and the Fate that produced it--to
everlasting torment! For it was when I entered that room where the dead
mother and the living infant lay that I heard for the first time The
LAUGHTER OF A GHOUL!