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"The Horror in the Museum" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald.
Plot[]
Stephen Jones is an artist, looking for artistic stimulation, who comes to a certain wax museum, which specializes in the grotesque. He is impressed: the proprietor is a former employee of Madam Tussaud, who was fired for mysterious reasons, but has turned his incredible talents to not just the gallery of conventional horrors (common in wax museums of the time), but to fantastic monsters, some of which Jones recognizes: "black, formless Tsathoggua, many-tentacled Cthulhu, proboscidian Chaugnar Faugn, and other rumoured blasphemies from forbidden books like the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon, or the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt." Later descriptions mention Yog-Sothoth, Gnoph-keh, and a night-gaunt.
Wanting to meet the creator, Jones is introduced to George Rogers. Rogers is happy to have an audience, and while his stories are initially conventional, he soon lapses into bizarre tales about the things he has read ("monstrous and half-fabulous books as the prehistoric Pnakotic Fragments and the Dhôl Chants attributed to malign and non-human Leng"), and his trips around the world, trying to find the lost civilizations described in those works, though he is only able to corroborate some of his stories with photos. He insists that all the creatures in his museum are real, and the pair soon develop an odd relationship: Jones holds an open but amused fascination with his fellow artist, and Rogers' spends their meetings trying to convince Jones to change his mind.
One day, Jones is at the museum when Rogers is supposedly not, and hears a horrible noise that Rogers' employee and servant, Orabona, attempts to pass off as a dogfight outside. Investigating, Jones notes a light on in Rogers' workroom, and comes to suspect the strange, locked door at the back of that room, marked with an undescribed symbol that Jones recognizes from the Necronomicon.
Jones and Rogers meet later that night. Rogers is in a pique, and tells Jones about a particularly important expedition to Alaska. Rogers insists that "There were things in the north before the land of Lomar." During the trip, Rogers frequently lambasted Orabona for his fear and caution, since he knew what they are hunting. Rogers continues to insult Orabona throughout the conversation. In the deep tundra, the pair and their hired crew discovered a ruin with a massive, ivory throne, housing a horrendous occupant which is either in a million-years long hibernation, or outright deceased. Later identifying this creature as "Rhan-Tegoth," Rogers insists that it is a god, and all it needs is the right sacrifice to give it nourishment. Rogers arranged for the thing to be sent to London, and shows Jones a photograph, which shocks him, but he insists it must have been staged. Rogers declares that the creature is now actually awake, and accepted its first, successful sacrifice that very afternoon: the dog, which now lies pulverized and drained of blood by a hundred, circular marks on its body.
Jones is shocked by the corpse, but is convinced it is Rogers' own doing, and does his best to talk Rogers down and back to sanity. Rogers, frustrated that he is unable to convince Jones of the truth, brings up a standing bet that he has for his guests: to spend the night in the museum without running away in terror, a bet he has always won. Jones agrees to take bet on the condition that Rogers destroy his strange new "model" and go on vacation for the sake of his mental wellbeing. Rogers agrees, and Jones is soon sealed within the museum, with no one to help him if he calls. The hours tick by slowly, and as time passes, Jones becomes more and more frightened of the wax figures, gradually believing they are coming to life around him, and begins to smell a peculiar scent he never noticed before.
Finally, Jones hears slow, heavy footsteps behind the door to the workroom, and is paralyzed with fear as a horrible figure storms out and seizes him. When he recovers from his faint, he is surprised to discover that this is no alien monster: it is Rogers, dressed in a costume of a Dimensional_Shambler – implied to be the actual hide of such a beast. He rambles that he is chief priest of the revived god, and is going to present the disbelieving Jones as an offering. Though Rogers managers to drag his prisoner to the workroom, Jones escapes, and begins a savage brawl, during which part of Rogers' costume is torn away and a scratch ripped down his cheek.
Finally, Jones is victorious, and binds Rogers. When Rogers recovers (after insulting Jones with insults tied to the Mythos, mentioning Noth-Yidik, K'thun, and the gods that encircle Azathoth), he reveals that he not only planned to sacrifice Jones, but to immortalize his body as one of his wax figures, as he has done with many if not all the figures in the museum outside, who were presumably with the victims of his previous, failed sacrifices to the god – this explains the odd smell. He also plans to sacrifice the equally-unfaithful Orabona. Seeing Jones is not interested in this horrendous "immortality," Rogers tries to appeal to his greed, and eventually admits that if the monster starves, "the Old Ones can never come back!"
At this point, Rogers limps his way to the mysterious door, banging his head on it and calling on the monster, and Jones is shocked silent when he begins to hear sounds of the monster splashing in its tank. Rogers urges Jones to help free the monster for their own self-preservation, but his pleas fall on paralyzed ears, and Jones only makes his escape when a great claw slams its way through the door, ignoring Rogers' pleas for help.
After recovering from his shock for a week, Jones begins to doubt his memories when no news comes out of the museum, and is shocked when he returns and finds it in normal operation. A smiling Orabona greets him, and claims Rogers has left on extended business, leaving him in charge indefinitely. Through coded language, however, he suggesting that he found the scene of the attack, that someone fired a pistol, and that Orabona hid the evidence by completing Rogers' final masterpiece, saying that Rogers contributed "materially" to this final work. The result is so shocking the police insisted it be removed, but Orabana smugly shows it to Jones, revealing a wax statue of the great god in its throne, with a familiar claw, and a twisted, human sacrifice before it – a sacrifice with a long scratch dug down one cheek.
Characters[]
- Stephen Jones
- George Rogers, owner and curator of the titular wax museum.
- Orabona, Rogers' assistant.
Continuity[]
- The creature killed by Rogers of which he is wearing its hide is a Dimensional Shambler. (EXP: Malleus Monstrorum)
Behind the Mythos[]
H. P. Lovecraft ghostwrote "The Horror in the Museum" for Somerville, MA writer Hazel Heald in October 1932, one of five which he did so. Heald had been introduced to Lovecraft by his Providence friend Muriel E. Eddy, the wife of C. M. Eddy, Jr.
First printed in the July 1933 edition of Weird Tales, the story has been reprinted in several collections, such as The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions.