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The Tomb · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camra. It's ready.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Are you welcome to stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks
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  Speaker 1: dot com?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Heyden, Welcome to the podcast. A very special podcast, right, Chuck,
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  Speaker 2: A spectacular if you will. Happy Halloween to all of
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  Speaker 2: you out there. This should come out a couple of
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: days before it before, but we wanted to make sure
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  Speaker 2: that we weren't going to miss it, and so we're
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  Speaker 2: releasing a special Halloween podcast that's right for this year.
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  Speaker 3: Little something new.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what we're doing is not in any way,
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  Speaker 2: shape or form scientific. It is, in fact pure fiction
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  Speaker 2: or is it it is? Okay, we're going to read
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  Speaker 2: just to make sure we scare you guys, good and proper.
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  Speaker 2: This Halloween and HP Lovecraft short story that was published
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty two, and it's entitled The Tomb, Right.
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  Speaker 4: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Did you like this?
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  Speaker 4: It was? It was good.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a great short story. It's one of
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  Speaker 2: my faves.
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  Speaker 4: Awesome.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I should probably preface this with Chuck is uncertain
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  Speaker 2: about how this is gonna go. So if it goes good,
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  Speaker 2: that means you're hearing it. If not, it'll be locked
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  Speaker 2: away forever in a vault of some sort, possibly a tomb.
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  Speaker 3: Right, tomb?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Chuck, are you ready? I am, I'm spooky,
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  Speaker 2: I'm loose, I'm a little nervous, am I said?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, right, all right.
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna start. Okay, okay, all right, ready, I'm ready
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  Speaker 2: the tomb by HP Lovecraft, in relating the circumstances which
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  Speaker 2: have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented,
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  Speaker 2: I am aware that my present position will create a
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  Speaker 2: natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is
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  Speaker 2: an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too
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  Speaker 2: limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and
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  Speaker 2: intelligence those isolated phenomena seen and felt only by a
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  Speaker 2: psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men
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  Speaker 2: of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction
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  Speaker 2: betwixt the real and the unreal, that all things reappear
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  Speaker 2: as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual
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  Speaker 2: physical and mental media through which we are made conscious
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  Speaker 2: of them. But the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns
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  Speaker 2: his madness. The flashes of supersight which penetrate the common
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  Speaker 2: veil of obvious empiricism, so I should probably say right here, Chuck,
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  Speaker 2: that it.
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  Speaker 3: Gets a lot better. Okay, Okay.
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  Speaker 2: My name is Jervis Dudley, and from earliest childhood I
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  Speaker 2: have been a dreamer and a visionary, wealthy beyond the
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  Speaker 2: necessity of a commercial life, and temperamentally unfitted for the
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  Speaker 2: formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances. I have
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  Speaker 2: dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world, spending
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  Speaker 2: my youth and adolescence in ancient and life little known books,
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  Speaker 2: and in roaming the fields and groves of the region
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  Speaker 2: near my ancestral home. I do not think that what
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  Speaker 2: I read in these books or saw in these fields
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  Speaker 2: and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there.
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  Speaker 2: But of this I must say little, since detailed speech
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  Speaker 2: would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect, which
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  Speaker 2: I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants
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  Speaker 2: around me. It is sufficient for me to relate events
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  Speaker 2: without analyzing causes. I have said that I dwelt apart
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  Speaker 2: from the visible world, but I have not said that
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  Speaker 2: I dwelt alone. This no human creature may do for
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  Speaker 2: lacking the fellowship of the living, he inevitably draws upon
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  Speaker 2: the companionship of the things that are not or are
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  Speaker 2: no longer living. Close by my home there lies a
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  Speaker 2: singular wooded hollow, in.
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  Speaker 3: Whose twilight deeps.
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  Speaker 2: I spent most of my time, reading, thinking, and dreaming.
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  Speaker 2: Down its moss covered slopes, my first steps of infancy
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  Speaker 2: were taken, and around its grotesquely gnarled oaks, my first
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  Speaker 2: fancies of boyhood were woven. Did I come to know
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  Speaker 2: the presiding dry heads of those trees? And often have
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  Speaker 2: I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of
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  Speaker 2: waning moon. But of these things I must not now speak.
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  Speaker 2: I will tell only of the lone tomb in the
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  Speaker 2: darkest of the hillside thickets, the deserted tomb of the Hides,
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  Speaker 2: an old and exalted family whose last direct ascendant had
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  Speaker 2: been laid within the black recesses many decades before my birth.
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  Speaker 4: Take it, chuck, So there's a family called the Hides. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: and there's a tomb.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, that's where the Hides are, gotcha?
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  Speaker 3: Okay?
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  Speaker 4: The vault to which I refers in ancient granite, weathered
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  Speaker 4: and discolored by the mists and dampness of generations excavated
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  Speaker 4: back into the hillside. The structure is visible only at
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  Speaker 4: the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone,
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  Speaker 4: hangs upon rusted iron hinges, and is fastened a jar
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  Speaker 4: in a queerly sinister way by means of heavy iron
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  Speaker 4: chains and padlocks. According to a gruesome fashion of a
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  Speaker 4: half a century ago, the abode of the race whose
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  Speaker 4: scions are inurned had once crowned the declivity which holds
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  Speaker 4: the tomb, but had long since fallen victims to the
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  Speaker 4: flames which sprang up from a disastrous stroke of lightning
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  Speaker 4: of the midnight storm which destroyed this gloomy mansion. The
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  Speaker 4: older inhabitants of the region sometimes speak and hushed and
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  Speaker 4: uneasy voices alluding to what they call divine wrath, in
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  Speaker 4: a manner that, in later years vaguely increased the always
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  Speaker 4: strong fascination which I felt for the forest darkened sepulcher.
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  Speaker 4: One man only had perished in the fire when the
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  Speaker 4: last of the hides was buried. In this place of
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  Speaker 4: shade and stillness. The sad urnful of ashes had come
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  Speaker 4: from a distant land to which the family had repaired.
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  Speaker 4: When the mansion burned down. No one remains to lay
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  Speaker 4: flowers before the granite portal, and few care to brave
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  Speaker 4: the depressing shadows which seem to linger strangely about the
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  Speaker 4: water worn stone. I shall never forget the afternoon when
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: I first stumbled upon the half hidden House of the Dead.
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  Speaker 4: It was in midsummer, when the alchemy of nature transmutes
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  Speaker 4: the Sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass
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  Speaker 4: of green. When the senses are well nigh intoxicated with
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  Speaker 4: the surging seas of moist verdure and the subtly indefinable
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  Speaker 4: odors of the soil and the vegetation in such surroundings,
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  Speaker 4: the mind loses its perspective. Time and space become trivial
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  Speaker 4: and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten, prehistoric pass beat
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  Speaker 4: insistently upon the enthralled consciousness. All day I had been
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  Speaker 4: wandering through the mystic groves of the Hollow, thinking thoughts
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  Speaker 4: I need not discuss, and conversing with things I need
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  Speaker 4: not name. In years a child of ten, I had
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  Speaker 4: seen and heard many wonders unknown to the throng, and
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  Speaker 4: was oddly aged in certain respects. When, upon forcing my
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  Speaker 4: way between two savage clumps of briars, I suddenly encountered
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  Speaker 4: the entrance of the vault. I had no knowledge of
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  Speaker 4: what I had discovered. The dark blocks of granite, the
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  Speaker 4: door so curiously ajar, and the funeral carvings above the
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  Speaker 4: arch aroused in me. No associations of mournful or terrible
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  Speaker 4: character of graves and tombs. I knew and imagined much,
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  Speaker 4: but had, on account of my peculiar temperament, been kept
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  Speaker 4: from all personal contact with churchyards and cemeteries. The strange
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  Speaker 4: stone house on the Woodland slope was to me only
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  Speaker 4: a source of interest and speculation, and its cold, damp
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  Speaker 4: interior into which I vainly peered through the aperture so
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  Speaker 4: tantalizingly left, contained for me no hint of death or decay.
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  Speaker 4: But in that instant of curiosity was borne the madly
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  Speaker 4: unreasoning desire which has brought me to this hell of confinement.
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  Speaker 4: Spurred on by a voice which must have come from
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  Speaker 4: the hideous soul of the forest, I resolved to enter
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  Speaker 4: the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous change which
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  Speaker 4: barred my passage in the waning light of day, I
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  Speaker 4: alternately rattled the rusty impediments with a view to throwing
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  Speaker 4: wide the stone door, an essay to squeeze my slight
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  Speaker 4: form through the space already provided. But neither plan met
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  Speaker 4: with success. At first curious, I was not frantic, and
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  Speaker 4: when in the thickening twilight I returned to my home,
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  Speaker 4: I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove
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  Speaker 4: that at any cost I would someday force an entrance
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  Speaker 4: to the black, chilly depths that seemed calling out to me.
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  Speaker 4: The physician with the iron gray beard who comes each
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  Speaker 4: day to my room once told a visitor that this
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  Speaker 4: decision marked the beginnings of a pitiful monomania. But I
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  Speaker 4: will leave final judgment to my readers when they shall
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  Speaker 4: have learnt all.
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  Speaker 2: So, basically where we're at right, Chuck, is that we
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  Speaker 2: have a little weirdo kid who discovered a family tomb
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  Speaker 2: that's been abandoned, yes in a grove. Tried to get in,
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  Speaker 2: and he realized that he can't because he's too puny.
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  Speaker 2: Yet he's drawn to it so much like his ex caliber.
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  Speaker 2: Getting into this tomb is like something he's sworn to do.
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  Speaker 2: Eventually sounds like it, but we find that he is
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  Speaker 2: in an asylum.
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  Speaker 4: Well, little Jervis Dudley, Little.
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  Speaker 3: Jervis Dudley, I'm going to take over now. Okay, okay.
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  Speaker 2: The months following my discovery were spent in feudal attempts
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  Speaker 2: to force the complicated padlock of the slightly open vault,
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  Speaker 2: and in carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history
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  Speaker 2: of the structure. With the traditionally receptive ears of the
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  Speaker 2: small boy, I learned much, though an habitual secretiveness caused
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  Speaker 2: me to tell no one of my information or my resolve.
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  Speaker 2: It is perhaps worth mentioning that I was not at
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  Speaker 2: all surprised or terrified on learning the nature of the vault.
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  Speaker 2: My rather original ideas regarding life and death had caused
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  Speaker 2: me to associate the cold clay with the breathing body
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  Speaker 2: in a vague fashion, and I felt that the sinister
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  Speaker 2: family of the burned down mansion was in some way
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  Speaker 2: represented within the stone space I sought to explore. Mumbled
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  Speaker 2: tales of the weird rights and godless revels of bygone
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  Speaker 2: years in the ancient hall gave to me a new
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  Speaker 2: and potent interest in the tomb, before whose doors I
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  Speaker 2: would sit for long hours at a time each day.
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  Speaker 2: Once I thrust a candle within the nearly closed entrance,
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  Speaker 2: but could see nothing save a flight of damp stone
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  Speaker 2: steps leading downward. The odor of the place repelled yet
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  Speaker 2: bewitched me. I felt I had known it before, in
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  Speaker 2: a past remote beyond all recollection, beyond even my tendency
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  Speaker 2: of the body I now possess. The year after I
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  Speaker 2: first beheld the tomb, I stumbled upon a worm eaten
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  Speaker 2: translation of Plutarch's lives in the book filled attic of
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  Speaker 2: my home. Reading the Life of Theseus, I was much
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  Speaker 2: impressed by that passage telling of the great stone beneath
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  Speaker 2: which the boyish hero was to find his tokens of
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  Speaker 2: destiny whenever he should become old enough to lift its
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  Speaker 2: enormous weight. This legend had the effect of dispelling my
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  Speaker 2: keenest impatience to enter the vault, for it made me
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  Speaker 2: feel that the time was not yet ripe. Later, I
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  Speaker 2: told myself I should grow to a strength and ingenuity
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  Speaker 2: which might enable me to unfasten the heavily chained door
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  Speaker 2: with ease. But until till then, I would do better
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: by conforming to what seemed the will of fate. Accordingly,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: my watches by the dank portal became less persistent, and
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  Speaker 2: much of my time was spent in other, though equally
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  Speaker 2: strange pursuits. I would sometimes rise very quietly in the night,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: stealing out to walk in those churchyards and places of
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  Speaker 2: burial from which I had been kept by my parents.
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  Speaker 2: What I did there I may not say, for I
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  Speaker 2: am not now sure of the reality of certain things.
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  Speaker 2: But I know that on the day after such a
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  Speaker 2: nocturnal ramble I would often astonish those about me with
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  Speaker 2: my knowledge of topics almost forgotten.
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  Speaker 3: For many generations.
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  Speaker 2: It was after a night like this that I shocked
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  Speaker 2: the community with a queer conceit about the burial of
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  Speaker 2: the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster, a maker of local
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  Speaker 2: history who was interred in seventeen eleven, and whose slate
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  Speaker 2: headstone bearing a graven skull and crossbones, was slowly crumbling
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  Speaker 2: to powder. In a moment of childish imagination, I vowed
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  Speaker 2: not only that the undertaker, Goodman Simpson, had stolen the
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  Speaker 2: silver buckled shoes, silken hose, and satin small clothes of
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  Speaker 2: the deceased before burial, but that the Squire himself not
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  Speaker 2: fully inanimate, had turned twice in his mound covered coffin
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  Speaker 2: on the day of internment, So what's going on here?
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  Speaker 2: So basically, the kid is resolved, like theseus, that his
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  Speaker 2: destiny still awaits him. He's not ready for it yet,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: so instead he's kind of going around, hanging around churchyard's
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  Speaker 2: burial places, and he's coming back the next day with
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  Speaker 2: weird knowledge, Chuck like knowledge. No living human should.
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  Speaker 4: Have knowledge that Jervis Dudley surely should not have.
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  Speaker 3: Right, Chuck, have you taken over again?
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  Speaker 4: I'd like to, Okay, okay, but the idea of entering
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  Speaker 4: the tomb never left my thoughts. Josh being indeed simulated
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  Speaker 4: by the unexpected genealogical discover that my own maternal ancestry
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  Speaker 4: possessed at least a slight link with a supposedly extra
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  Speaker 4: family of the hides. Last of my paternal race, I was,
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  Speaker 4: likewise the last of this older and more mysterious line.
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  Speaker 4: I began to feel that the tomb was mine, and
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  Speaker 4: to look forward with hot eagerness to the time when
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  Speaker 4: I might pass within the stone door and down those
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  Speaker 4: slimy stone steps into the dark. I now formed the
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  Speaker 4: habit of listening very intently at the slightly open portal,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: choosing my favorite hours of midnight stillness for the odd vigil.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: By the time I came of age, I had made
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  Speaker 4: a small clearing in the thicket before the mold stained
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  Speaker 4: facade of the hillside, allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: and overhang the space like the walls and roof of
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  Speaker 4: Sylvan Bower. This bower was my temple Josh, the fastened
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  Speaker 4: door my shrine, and here I would lie outstretched on
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: the mossy ground, thinking strange thoughts and dreaming of strange dreams.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: The night of the First Revelation was a sultry one.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: I must have fallen asleep from fatigue, for it was
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  Speaker 4: with a distinct sense of awakening that I heard the
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: voices of those tones and accents. I hesitate to speak
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  Speaker 4: of their quality. I will not speak, but I may
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: say that they presented certain uncanny differences in vocabulary, pronunciation,
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  Speaker 4: of mode, and utterance. Every shade of the New England dialect,
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: from the uncouth syllables of the Puritan colonists to the
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: precise rhetoric of fifty years ago, seemed represented in that
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: shadowy colloquy, though it was only later that I noticed
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  Speaker 4: the fact. At the time, indeed, my attention was distracted
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  Speaker 4: from this matter by another phenomenon, a phenomenon so fleeting
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  Speaker 4: that I could not take oath upon its reality. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: barely fancied that as I awoke, a light had been
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: hurriedly extinguished within the sunken sepulcher. I do not think
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I was either astounded or panic stricken, but I know
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: that I was greatly and permanently changed. That night, upon
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: returning home, I went with much directness to a rotting
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: chest in the attic, wherein I found the key, which
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: next day unlocked with ease the barrier I had so
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: long stormed in vain. The dude has a key in
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: his attic to this tomb, and he went directly to it.
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  Speaker 3: After this big nut.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Is his heat up. It was in the soft glow
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: of the late afternoon that I first entered the vault
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  Speaker 4: on the abandoned slope. A spell was upon me, and
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: my heart leaped with an exultation I can but ill describe.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: As I closed the door behind me and descended the
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: dripping steps by the light of my lone candle, I
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: seemed to know the way, and though the candle sputtered
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: with the stifling reek of the place, I felt singularly
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: at home in the musty charnel house air. Looking about me,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I beheld many marble slabs bearing coffins, or the remains
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: of coffins. Some of these were sealed and intact, but
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: others had nearly vanished, leaving the silver handles and plates
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: isolated amidst certain curious heaps of whitish dust. Upon one
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: plate I read the name Sir Jeffrey Hyde, who had
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: come from Sussex in sixteen forty and died here a
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: few years later. And a conspicuous alcove was one fairly
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: well preserved and untenanted casket, adorned with a single name,
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  Speaker 4: which brought to me both a smile and a shudder.
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  Speaker 4: An odd impulse caused me to climb upon the broad slab,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: extinguish my candle, and lie down within the vacant box.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So this guy is totally off his night at this point,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: he's lying down in a coffin in the tune.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: In the gray light of dawn, I staggered from the
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  Speaker 4: vault and locked the chain of the door behind me.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: I was no longer a young man, though, but twenty
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: one winters had chilled my bodily frame. Early rising villagers
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: who observed my homeward progress looked at me strangely and
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: marveled at the signs of ribald revelry, which they saw
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: in one whose life was known to be a sober
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: and solitary one. I did not appear before my parents
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  Speaker 4: till after a long and refreshing sleap.
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  Speaker 2: You're good at this, Chuck, Thanks, you're good.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: So you get what's going on here? Right? Yeah?
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: I think audible dot Com was gonna be calling us
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: any minute.
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  Speaker 3: Now and say please stop.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll sue you, all right, Chuck, you ready? So
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: what's going on? Is this kid is lying down in
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: this tomb. He leaves the tomb. Is he older now?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: He's twenty one? Now?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Remember he first found the tomb at age ten ten,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: couldn't open it, resolved to figure out, you know, basically
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: just turned into a weirdo in other ways. And then finally,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: when he's twenty one, he sees a light in this place. Yeah,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: one night is changed. When he wakes up, he goes
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: directly to his own attic, his own attic finds the key,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: finds the key.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Gets in, lays down in the coffin, pretty new coffin.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Wakes up the next day, stumbles back home in the
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: morning and it looks like he'd been partying all night.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and people are looking at him like he's weird,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: which I can't figure out. This all seems very normal
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: to me.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: All right, you ready, May I please do? Henceforward? I
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: haunted the tomb each night, seeing, hearing, and doing things
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I must never reveal. My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: was the first thing to succumb to the change. He
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: must have a thick tongue too, and my suddenly acquired
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: archaism of diction was soon remarked upon. Later, a queer
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: boldness and recklessness came into my demeanor, till I unconsciously
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: grew to possess the bearing of a man of the world.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Despite my lifelong seclusion. My former silent tongue waxed voluble
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: with the easy grace of a Chesterfield, with a godless
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: cynicism of a Rochester. I know you get that, Chuck.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I displayed a peculiar erudition, utterly unlike the fantastic Monkish
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: lore over which I had poured in my youth, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: covered the fly leaves of my books with facile, impromptu
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: epigrams which brought up suggestions of gay prior and the
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: sprightliest of Augustine wits and rhymsters. One morning at breakfast,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I came close to de z by declaiming impalpably licorice accents,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: an effusion of eighteenth century Bacchanalian mirth, a bit of
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book. So basically what
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: he's saying is he sounds like he's drunk in the mornings,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: even though he's like a very sober, solitary, kind of
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: a reclusive kid, but he's starting to kind of change
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: into a party boy.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Now here, there's a few passages that we're not going
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to read. We're gonna skip over these.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, the poetry.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: We're actually editing Lovecraft right now. Yeah, about this time
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: indifferent to such things, I had now an unspeakable horror
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: of them, and would retire to the innermost recesses of
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the house whenever the heavens threaten an electrical display. Yes,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: a favorite haun of mine during the day was the
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down. Remember that,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's above the tomb, and in fancy I
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: would picture the structure as it had been in its prime.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: On one occasion, I startled a villager by leading him
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: confidently to a shallow sub seller, of whose existence I
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: seemed to know, in spite of the fact that it
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: had been unseen and forgotten for many generations. At last
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: at the altered manner and appearance of their only son,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: commenced to exert over my movements, a kindly espionage which
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: purpose with religious zeals since childhood. But now I was
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: forced to exercise care in threading the mazes of the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: wooded hollow, that I might throw off a possible pursuer.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: My key to the vault I kept suspended from a
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: cord about my neck, its presence known only to me.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I never carried out of the sepulcher any of the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: things I came upon whilst within its walls. I like
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: that word, sepulcher. You've got twice, that was my first one.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: So what's going on here?
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Kids?
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Fraid of lightning and thunder?
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Remember that house? Yeah, this cellar of which he's visiting
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: was struck by lightning and burned out and one person
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: perished in it. And this is in the eighteenth century.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, long before this kid's running around, because
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: this was supposed to be contemporary in like the nineteen twenties.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: Right, okay, okay, Cherry's in there laughing. You ready my turn?
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I'm ready, Bud.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: One morning, as I emerged from the damp tomb and
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: fastened the chain of the portal with no too steady hand,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: I beheld an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: See that's creepy.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Damn.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Surely the end was near, for my bower was discovered
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: and the objective of my nocturnal journey is revealed. The
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: man did not accost me, so I hastened home in
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: an effort to overhear what he might report to my
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: care worn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chain door
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: about to be proclaimed to the world imagine my delighted
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parents in cautious
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: whisper that I had spent the night in the bower
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: outside the tomb. My sleep filmed eyes fixed upon the
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: crevice where the padlocked portal stood. Ajar By what miracle
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: had the watcher thus deluded? I was now convinced that
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: since circumstance, I began to resume perfect openness in going
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: to the vault, confident that no one would witness my entrance.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: For a week, I tasted to the full the joys
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: of that charnal conviviality, which I must not describe. When
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: the thing happened and I was borne away to this
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: accursed abode of sorrow and monotony.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: So did you get what just happened? Uh?
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah? He basically the guy said, this kid hasn't been going.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: In there, he's just been sleeping outside of it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but he feels like he's going in there. Sure
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: he's losing it or has he lost it? Or is he?
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Or will he.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Find out? Right now?
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: I should not have ventured out that night, for the
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: taint of thunder was in the clouds, and hellish phosphorescence
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: The call of the dead, too was different. Instead of
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: the hillside tomb, it was the charred cellar on the
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: crest of the slope, whose presiding damon beckoned me with
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: unseen fingers. As I emerged from the intervening grove upon
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: the plain before the ruin, I beheld, in the misty moonlight,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: for a century, once more reared its stately height to
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: the raptured vision, every window ablaze with a splendor of
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: many candles. Up the long drive rolled the beaches of
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: the Boston gentry, whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: of powdered exquisites from the neighboring mansions. With this throng
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: I mingled, though I knew I belong with the hosts
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: rather than the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: and wine on every hand. Several faces I reckoned eyes,
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: though I should have known them better, had they been
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: shriveled or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amidst a
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: wild and reckless throng. I was the wildest and most abandoned.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips and in
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: my shocking sallies. I heeded no law of God, man
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: or nature. Suddenly a peal of thunder resonant even above
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: the din of the Swinish revelry clave the very roof,
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: and laid a hush fear upon the boisterous company. Red
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: tongues of flame and searing gust of heat and gulf
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: the house, and the roisterers struck with terror. The descent
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: of a calamity, which seemed to transcend the bounds of
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: un guided nature, fled shrieking into the night. I alone
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: remained josh riveted to my seat by a groveling fear
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: which I had never felt before. And then a second
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive, the ashes
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: my body dispersed by the four winds. I might never
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: lie in the tomb of the hides. Was not my
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right arrest
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Jeoffrey Hyde, I
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: I would claim my heritage of death, even though my
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: soul would go seeking through the ages for another corporeal
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: tenement to represent it on that vacant slab and the
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: alcove of the vault. Jervis Hide should never share the
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: sad fate of Palarinus.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: He's Scottish. All of a sudden, yeah or whatever that was?
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: You ready?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Well, what's going on here? Is he clearly saw the
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: mansion and yeah, I mean it was rebuilt. There were guests,
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: ghostly guest and he went and partied as a host.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: He felt like as a hide, Yeah, as a hide.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: And then what lightning came and took care of business
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: all over again.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was at the party on the night that
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: it went down, that whole sad, ghastly business went down.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Is he mad?
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, let's find out all right? You ready? Yeah? May
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I take it home?
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah? The exciting conclusion of the tomb.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: As the phantom of the Burning House faded, I found
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: one of whom was the spy who had followed me
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in Torrents, and
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: upon the southern horizon were flashes of the lightning that
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: demands to be laid within the tomb, frequently admonishing my
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: captors to treat me as gently as they could. A
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of a violent stroke from the heavens, and from this
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: spot a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: a small box of antique workmanship, which the thunderbolt had
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: brought to light, ceasing my futile and now objectless writhing.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure trove,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which unearthed it
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: contained many papers and objects of value, but I had
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of a young man in a smartly curled bag wig
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: and bore the initials J H. The face was such
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that as I gazed, I might as well have been
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: studying my mirror.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: You got the a's messed up.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: On the following day, I was brought to this room
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: with the barred windows but I have been kept informed
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: of certain things through an aged and simple minded servitor,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: for whom I bore a fondness in infancy, and who,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: like me, loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of my experiences within the vault has brought me only
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: at no time did I pass the chained portal, and
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: fifty years.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: When he examined it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: He even says that all the village knew of my
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: as I slept in the bower outside the grim facade,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: my half open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: to the interior. Against these insertions, I have no tangible
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: strange things of the past which I learned during the
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: nocturnal meetings with the dead, he dismisses as the fruits
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: of my lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: of the family library. Had it not been for my
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: old servant, Hiram. I should have by this time become
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: quite convinced of my madness. But Hiram, loyal to the last,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: has held faith in me and has done that which
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: impels me to make public at least part of my story.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: A week ago he burst open the lock which changed
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: the door of the tomb perpetually Ajar, and descended with
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: an alcove, he found an old but empty coffin, whose
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: tarnished plate bears the single word jervis. In that coffin
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: and in that vault, they have promised me I shall
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: be buried.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: The end and scene.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Wow, the tomb HP Lovecraft.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Pretty good, huh, i'd very creepy. Yeah, absolutely different time
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: back then, well much creepier obviously.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this might have been in Amazing Stories
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: at first.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: You're Weird Stories, one of the two.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: In the TV show Amazing Stories.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: No, No, the old pulp comic book. Oh okay, yeah,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: so hopefully that creeped.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: Everybody out right, Chuck, I'm creeped out.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I'm creeped out too. What are you going to be
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: for Halloween?
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know. The band is playing a gig and
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: we're all gonna dress alike, so something I'm lobbing for
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: something with mustaches, okay? Or maybe the taint of the thundercloud?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, which took?
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: What are you going to be?
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Eight times? Eight takes for.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Me to read that? Or are you laughing or Jerry laughing?
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah? It was something messed that up.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: We should release the outtakes of the begin so U
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: I guess that's it. I got nothing.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Happy Halloween to everybody, Thank you care very much. Yeah, yes,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: be safe out there. Remember if you're wearing an all
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: black costume, don't be stupid. Put some sort of reflective
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: material on it. Be careful of kids if you're driving,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Be careful of cars if you're a kid. And have
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: a happy, happy Halloween. And ta linus sitting in the
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: great Pumpkin Patch. There's always next to your pal.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: housetuffworks dot com.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: Want more house stuff.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve Camri. It's ready, are you