So far we have had a lot of polite horror. Nothing too violent happens, and if there is some unpleasantness, it tends to be implied rather than depicted. With “The Black Pool,” things change. In fact, it’s very much clear that his kind of fiction is the precursor for TALES FROM THE CRYPT and other EC books. Greene is not afraid to get his hands dirty. Actually, as the story goes, his work was considered too extreme for his time, so he self published this tale, among others, in one volume.
Meet the Van Norden family. The Judge and his wife have just had sons, a set of twins so identical that no one but Mrs. Van Norden can tell them apart. Everyone else has to wait for them to talk. Schuyler is the hot-headed one, a very fiery sort of fellow. Allan is much more laid back, he thinks things through, and he’s a very deliberate kind of guy.
Naturally, a girl causes a rift to open between them. Up until they meet Marion Reid, they are the closest friends one can imagine. Allan is willing to kill an acquaintance when said acquaintance accuses Schuyler of cheating at cards in a rather gruesome (for the day) scene. But this young woman changes everything. Allan sees how smitten his brother is with her, but he wants her for himself. Ever the honest man, Allan takes Schuyler aside and demands that any contest for her hand in marriage should be an open and fair fight. Right off the bat, Schuyler lies and says he’s not in love with her.
Allan emerges as the clear winner, and anyone with half a brain can figure out what’s going to happen next. Allan is called away out of town for an emergency, and he asks his brother to tell Marion what happened. As soon as Allan is gone, Schuyler rushes out to meet with Marion, but not before he practices Allan’s voice a little. He’s got to be perfect, considering how Marion is the only one aside from their mother who can tell the twins apart.
Allan returns only to discover that Marion never thought he was gone. When she makes a comment that is very easily construed to mean that she had made love to “Allan” when Allan was out of town, the more deliberate twin suddenly realizes what has happened. He decides not to tell Marion about it, and instead chooses to plot revenge against his brother.
After coming up with a foolproof plan, Allan tricks his brother out to the Black Pool, a pond on their property that is so black it perfectly reflects everything on its surface. After manipulating Schuyler into wearing himself out (so he wouldn’t be so physically formidable), Allan ruthlessly drowns his twin. It is possibly the most graphic depiction of one man drowning another ever put to paper, and it’s made all the creepier because of the reflective surface, seeing as how they look exactly alike.
But that’s not the end of this vicious little tale. SPOILER ALERT: Allan manages to make it all look like an accident, and a while later, Marion dies giving birth to their daughter. However, Allan wonders whose baby it really is. He can’t figure it out because every feature Schuyler had, Allan has. He finds himself hating the child and even stares daggers into his own reflection while shaving. He hates Schuyler more than anyone he has ever met, and he can’t escape the image of the bastard. In a fit of lunacy, he rushes out to the Black Pool and sees his reflection in the surface. He takes this to mean that Schuyler is back from the dead, and he intends to murder him yet again. He jumps into the Black Pool only to drown himself accidentally. END OF SPOILERS.
Pretty cool, eh? It also seems like a turning point for the horror genre. While the voice itself is still a bit archaic, it’s inching closer to becoming something a modern audience can identify with. The characters are much more fleshed out. Here we finally start to leave polite horror behind. If you consider yourself a connoisseur of the horror genre and you haven’t read this, you need to rectify that immediately.
[This story originally appeared in THE GRIM THIRTEEN and can be read here.]
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