Aramgutang
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2008
- Messages
- 2
Hi, I was just wondering if anyone could help me identify a short story I read when I was young. It was compiled in a volume along with "Rats in the Walls" and "The Thing on the Doorstep" among others, but I'm not sure if all the stories in it were by Lovecraft. The volume was translated into Russian, and I'd love to be able to find and read that story in the original English.
The plot of the story was as follows: a group of about 3 men are travelling through the desert, when a sandstorm forces them to seek shelter in a cave. Deep inside the cave, they find a long descending passageway. When they reach the bottom, they find a society of pale humanoid creatures with no eyes. These creatures worship a small statue made of some unknown metal, which looks like a hideous beast with lots of sucking appendages. The creatures would caress the statute, and fall into a trance-like state, eventually losing consciousness and collapsing on the ground. The men are forced to participate in the ritual as well. When they wake up, they notice that one of the creatures, unlike the others, has eye sockets, and upon closer inspection, turns out to be human. The man has had his eyes removed and has been there for so long that he has nearly lost the ability to speak. He manages to communicate to the other men that there is a beast living under the water of an underground lake in the area, that comes out to feed while the creatures are uncoscious from the trance. The men decide to escape from the cave, but as they ascend the pasageway, they hear the sounds of suckers attaching and detaching to walls, getting nearer. The beast with the sucker appendages manages to overtake them, and uses the appendages to suck out one of the men's eyeballs. As it reaches out its appendages to the other man, the story ends.
Any help in identifying the name of this story (and the author, if it's not Lovecraft) would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
The plot of the story was as follows: a group of about 3 men are travelling through the desert, when a sandstorm forces them to seek shelter in a cave. Deep inside the cave, they find a long descending passageway. When they reach the bottom, they find a society of pale humanoid creatures with no eyes. These creatures worship a small statue made of some unknown metal, which looks like a hideous beast with lots of sucking appendages. The creatures would caress the statute, and fall into a trance-like state, eventually losing consciousness and collapsing on the ground. The men are forced to participate in the ritual as well. When they wake up, they notice that one of the creatures, unlike the others, has eye sockets, and upon closer inspection, turns out to be human. The man has had his eyes removed and has been there for so long that he has nearly lost the ability to speak. He manages to communicate to the other men that there is a beast living under the water of an underground lake in the area, that comes out to feed while the creatures are uncoscious from the trance. The men decide to escape from the cave, but as they ascend the pasageway, they hear the sounds of suckers attaching and detaching to walls, getting nearer. The beast with the sucker appendages manages to overtake them, and uses the appendages to suck out one of the men's eyeballs. As it reaches out its appendages to the other man, the story ends.
Any help in identifying the name of this story (and the author, if it's not Lovecraft) would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
