And now we come to the most notorious of our authors so far. Just as those who know nothing of torture and porn are familiar with the name of the Marquis de Sade, those who don’t know much about horror know the name of this gentleman. Shockingly, though, this tale is so far the scariest of the entire volume. He takes on a lot of topics in this one that scare most people, notably among them life after death. He also does it with a remarkable amount of flair. People generally consider splatterpunk a product of the ‘Eighties, but this story might be proof that Crowley had a hand in creating the subgenre.
This is the tale of Magdalen Blair, a young schoolgirl who can read people’s minds. Her classmates and professor find out about this, and they run a bunch of tests on her. Sure enough, she’s the real deal. She becomes the focus of her professor’s experiments, and before long, they fall in love with each other. After they are married, the professor, Arthur, develops Bright’s disease and starts deteriorating. She has no control over her powers, so she’s forced to listen to his inner turmoil as he dies inch by inch in a very unflattering way. Eventually, he finally croaks, but much to her dismay, he doesn’t stop broadcasting from his mind. She discovers tobacco products help kill the sound, and she starts smoking like a fiend, but nothing can keep silent the horrors of her husband’s life after death.
Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of talk of religion in this story, considering the source. However, there is a huge lack of Crowley’s usual claptrap. There is no talk of beasts, Satan’s name isn’t mentioned once, and as far as mysticism goes, the only supernatural thing is Magdalen’s telepathy.
His mastery of this tale is so profound, though, that he knows exactly what buttons to push on people. The fear of death is one of the biggest weapons he uses against his readers, but there’s an even scarier thing than that: the fear of what comes after. It’s so terrifying that as Magdalen tells us her story, she says she’s going to kill herself afterward, and not in a very nice fashion. She intends to light a stick of dynamite like it was a cigar and smoke that fucker till it blows her head off. Killing the brain is key.
Naturally, Crowley can’t tell his story from the point of view of someone who has died, so he gives us the next best thing, something that seems a lot more plausible: telling the story of the afterlife from the perspective of a mind-reader who saw it all happen to her husband.
It’s an ugly picture she depicts. Dante’s Inferno couldn’t hold up to the gruesome things Crowley gives us. SPOILER ALERT: Arthur’s consciousness is trapped inside the deteriorating wreckage of his brain. As it starts to rot, Arthur sees all of these horrible, hellish scenes that keep getting worse as he rots more. Magdalen comes to the conclusion that it will keep getting worse just so long as there is matter left of his brain, hence her desire to completely destroy hers. This surmise is confirmed when she has him cremated, and the transmission from his dead brain finally stops. However, in the notes concluding the story, we learn that she was not successful at offing herself. Instead, she was committed, even though the doctor seems to believe she’s a mind reader. END OF SPOILERS.
Undoubtedly, this story scared the bejabbers out of readers back in 1913. Crowley uses language in a way very few people did back then. Perhaps the story was even banned shortly after its introduction to the world. Regardless, if you haven’t read this story, and it’s not on your reading list, maybe you don’t like horror as much as you think.
[This story was first published in THE EQUINOX and can be read here.]
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