This one starts kind of slow, but it’s really the perfect example of how one can build up suspense until the plot just explodes at the end. Poe said a story should build up to a point and drop the reader off a cliff at the ending. This one certainly does the job.
Hugh Gallant is a questionable sort. Though it’s never explained, it seems he is a mercenary. He finds himself mountain climbing and spying on a US Army glider camp. However, he runs into another mercenary out in the middle of nowhere, and though the details are kind of murky, it looks like this fellow, a man named Morgan, is attempting to blackmail our protagonist.
He goes to a bar for a few drinks (where beer is only twenty cents!), and he runs into a bartender who knows about the land Gallant is camped out on. Apparently, it belongs to the Carker family, a notorious group of . . . well, no one seems to know what they are. All they know is, “They bite.” Whenever a traveler stops by their house, that person is never seen again. Their bones are later discovered with teeth marks on them. As a result, the Army took the initiative and wiped the family out. It didn’t take, though, so they went back and did it again. When they returned from the dead a third time, the Army let it go.
Gallant thinks it’s all bullshit, but it has helped him find a solution to his little blackmail problem. He lures Morgan out to the place, where he gruesomely murders him with a machete. He plans on burying the body here, thinking that it would take the world a long time to find him, since most people stay away from the place, and even if they did discover him, they would attribute it to the legend of the Carkers.
Not a bad plan. SPOILER ALERT! Gallant goes into the ruins of the house and finds a family of mummies sitting around. He thinks this is how the rumors about the Carkers got started, but when he notices one of them is actually breathing, things get a bit iffy. He is attacked by one of them, and its teeth clamp down on his hand. His response is to cut its head off, but the teeth still remain attached to him. When he realizes there is only one thing he can do, he coldly cuts his own hand off, intending to use a tourniquet and some bandages and etc. Very weird. But he doesn’t get the chance to do that because one of the other Carkers is standing over him, ready to finish him off. END OF SPOILERS.
Traditionally, the plot structure is supposed to be a roller coaster with one hump. You start at the bottom, then rise slowly until you reach the top, then sink down to the bottom again with a conclusion. Here, you reach the top and fly off the tracks. Boucher does an excellent job with this unusual kind of story for its time. It has more in common with Howard’s tale rather than everything that came before. Is it possible that polite horror has finally found its grave?
[This story first appeared in UNKNOWN WORLDS and can be read here.]
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