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Two Black Bottles

by H.P. Lovecraft and Wilfred Blanch Talman

Not all of the few remaining inhabitants of Daalbergen, that dismal little
village in the Ramapo Mountains, believe that my uncle, old Dominie
Vanderhoof, is really dead. Some of them believe he is suspended somewhere
between heaven and hell because of the old sexton's curse. If it had not
been for that old magician, he might still be preaching in the little damp
church across the moor.

After what has happened to me in Daalbergen, I can almost share the
opinion of the villagers. I am not sure that my uncle is dead, but I am
very sure that he is not alive upon this earth. There is no doubt that the
old sexton buried him once, but he is not in that grave now. I can almost
feel him behind me as I write, impelling me to tell the truth about those
strange happenings in Daalbergen so many years ago.

It was the fourth day of October when I arrived at Daalbergen in answer to
a summons. The letter was from a former member of my uncle's congregation,
who wrote that the old man had passed away and that there should be some
small estate which I, as his only living relative, might inherit. Having
reached the secluded little hamlet by a wearying series of changes on
branch railways, I found my way to the grocery store of Mark Haines,
writer of the letter, and he, leading me into a stuffy back room, told me
a peculiar tale concerning Dominie Vanderhoof's death.

"Y' should be careful, Hoffman," Haines told me, "when y' meet that old
sexton, Abel Foster. He's in league with the devil, sure's you're alive
'Twa'n't two weeks ago Sam Pryor, when he passed the old graveyard, heared
him mumblin' t' the dead there. 'Twa'n't right be should talk that way -
an' Sam does vow that there was a voice answered him - a kind o'
half-voice, hollow and muffled-like, as though it come out o' th' ground.
There's others, too, as could tell y' about seein' him standin' afore old
Dominie Slott's grave - that one right agin' the church wall - a-wringin'
his hands an' a-talkin' t' th' moss on th' tombstone as though it was the
old Dominie himself."

Old Foster, Haines said, had come to Daalbergen about ten years before,
and had been immediately engaged by Vanderhoof to take care of the damp
stone church at which most of the villagers worshipped. No one but
Vanderhoof seemed to like him, for his presence brought a suggestion
almost of the uncanny. He would sometimes stand by the door when the
people came to church, and the men would coldly return his servile bow
while the women brushed past in haste, holding their skirts aside to avoid
touching him. He could be seen on week days cutting the grass in the
cemetery and tending the flowers around the graves, now and then crooning
and muttering to himself. And few failed to notice the particular
attention he paid to the grave of the Reverend Guilliam Slott, first
pastor of the church in 1701.

It was not long after Foster's establishment as a village fixture that
disaster began to lower. First came the failure of the mountain mine where
most of the men worked. The vein of iron had given out, and many of the
people moved away to better localities, while those who had large holdings
of land in the vicinity took to farming and managed to wrest a meager
living from the rocky hillsides. Then came the disturbances in the church.
It was whispered about that the Reverend Johannes Vanderhoof had made a
compact with the devil, and was preaching his word in the house of God.
His sermons had become weird and grotesque - redolent with sinister things
which the ignorant people of Daalbergen did not understand. He transported
them back over ages of fear and superstition to regions of hideous, unseen
spirits, and peopled their fancy with night-haunting ghouls. One by one
the congregation dwindled, while the elders and deacons vainly pleaded
with Vanderhoof to change the subject of his sermons. Though the old man
continually promised to comply, he seemed to be enthralled by some higher
power which forced him to do its will.

A giant in stature, Johannes Vanderhoof was known to be weak and timid at
heart, yet even when threatened with expulsion he continued his eerie
sermons, until scarcely a handful of people remained to listen to him on
Sunday morning. Because of weak finances, it was found impossible to call
a new pastor, and before long not one of the villagers dared venture near
the church or the parsonage which adjoined it. Everywhere there was fear
of those spectral wraiths with whom Vanderhoof was apparently in league.

My uncle, Mark Haines told me, had continued to live in the parsonage
because there was no one with sufficient courage to tell him to move out
of it. No one ever saw him again, but lights were visible in the parsonage
at night, and were even glimpsed in the church from time to time. It was
whispered about the town that Vanderhoof preached regularly in the church
every Sunday morning, unaware that his congregation was no longer there to
listen. He had only the old sexton, who lived in the basement of the
church, to take care of him, and Foster made a weekly visit to what
remained of the business section of the village to buy provisions. He no
longer bowed servilely to everyone he met, but instead seemed to harbor a
demoniac and ill-concealed hatred. He spoke to no one except as was
necessary to make his purchases, and glanced from left to right out of
evil-filled eyes as he walked the street with his cane tapping the uneven
pavements. Bent and shriveled with extreme age, his presence could
actually be felt by anyone near him, so powerful was that personality
which, said the townspeople, had made Vanderhoof accept the devil as his
master. No person in Daalbergen doubted that Abel Foster was at the bottom
of all the town's ill luck, but not a one dared lift a finger against him,
or could even approach him without a tremor of fear. His name, as well as
Vanderhoof's, was never mentioned aloud. Whenever the matter of the church
across the moor was discussed, it was in whispers; and if the conversation
chanced to be nocturnal, the whisperers would keep glancing over their
shoulders to make sure that nothing shapeless or sinister crept out of the
darkness to bear witness to their words.

The churchyard continued to be kept just as green and beautiful as when
the church was in use, and the flowers near the graves in the cemetery
were tended just as carefully as in times gone by. The old sexton could
occasionally be seen working there, as if still being paid for his
services, and those who dared venture near said that he maintained a
continual conversation with the devil and with those spirits which lurked
within the graveyard walls.

One morning, Haines went on to say, Foster was seen digging a grave where
the steeple of the church throws its shadow in the afternoon, before the
sun goes down behind the mountain and puts the entire village in
semi-twilight. Later, the church bell, silent for months, tolled solemnly
for a half-hour. And at sun-down those who were watching from a distance
saw Foster bring a coffin from the parsonage on a wheelbarrow, dump it
into the grave with slender ceremony, and replace the earth in the hole.

The sexton came to the village the next morning, ahead of his usual weekly
schedule, and in much better spirits than was customary. He seemed willing
to talk, remarking that Vanderhoof had died the day before, and that he
had buried his body beside that of Dominie Slott near the church wall. He
smiled from time to time, and rubbed his hands in an untimely and
unaccountable glee. It was apparent that he took a perverse and diabolic
delight in Vanderhoof's death. The villagers were conscious of an added
uncanniness in his presence, and avoided him as much as they could. With
Vanderhoof gone they felt more insecure than ever, for the old sexton was
now free to cast his worst spells over the town from the church across the
moor. Muttering something in a tongue which no one understood, Foster made
his way back along the road over the swamp.

It was then that Mark Haines remembered having heard Dominie Vanderhoof
speak of me as his nephew. Haines accordingly sent for me, in the hope
that I might know something which would clear up the mystery of my uncle's
last years. I assured my summoner, however, that I knew nothing about my
uncle or his past, except that my mother had mentioned him as a man of
gigantic physique but with little courage or power of will.

Having heard all that Haines had to tell me, I lowered the front legs of
my chair to the floor and looked at my watch. It was late afternoon.

"How far is it out to the church?" I inquired. "Think I can make it before
sunset?"

"Sure, lad, y' ain't goin' out there t'night! Not t' that place!" The old
man trembled noticeably in every limb and half rose from his chair,
stretching out a lean, detaining hand, "Why, it's plumb foolishness!" he
exclaimed.

I laughed aside his fears and informed him that, come what may, I was
determined to see the old sexton that evening and get the whole matter
over as soon as possible. I did not intend to accept the superstitions of
ignorant country folk as truth, for I was convinced that all I had just
heard was merely a chain of events which the over-imaginative people of
Daalbergen had happened to link with their ill-luck. I felt no sense of
fear or horror whatever.

Seeing that I was determined to reach my uncle's house before nightfall,
Haines ushered me out of his office and reluctantly gave me the few
required directions, pleading from time to time that I change my mind. He
shook my hand when I left, as though he never expected to see me again.

"Take keer that old devil, Foster, don't git ye!" he warned again and
again. "I wouldn't go near him after dark fer love n'r money. No siree!"
He re-entered his store, solemnly shaking his head, while I set out along
a road leading to the outskirts of the town.

I had walked barely two minutes before I sighted the moor of which Haines
had spoken. The road, flanked by a whitewashed fence, passed over the
great swamp, which was overgrown with clumps of underbrush dipping down
into the dank, slimy ooze. An odor of deadness and decay filled the air,
and even in the sunlit afternoon little wisps of vapor could be seen
rising from the unhealthful spot.

On the opposite side of the moor I turned sharply to the left, as I had
been directed, branching from the main road. There were several houses in
the vicinity, I noticed; houses which were scarcely more than huts,
reflecting the extreme poverty of their owners. The road here passed under
the drooping branches of enormous willows which almost completely shut out
the rays of the sun. The miasmal odor of the swamp was still in my
nostrils, and the air was damp and chilly. I hurried my pace to get out of
that dismal tunnel as soon as possible.

Presently I found myself in the light again. The sun, now hanging like a
red ball upon the crest of the mountain, was beginning to dip low, and
there, some distance ahead of me, bathed in its bloody iridescence, stood
the lonely church. I began to sense that uncanniness which Haines had
mentioned, that feeling of dread which made all Daalbergen shun the place.
The squat, stone hulk of the church itself, with its blunt steeple, seemed
like an idol to which the tombstones that surrounded it bowed down and
worshipped, each with an arched top like the shoulders of a kneeling
person, while over the whole assemblage the dingy, gray parsonage hovered
like a wraith.

I had slowed my pace a trifle as I took in the scene. The sun was
disappearing behind the mountain very rapidly now, and the damp air
chilled me. Turning my coat collar up about my neck, I plodded on.
Something caught my eye as I glanced up again. In the shadow of the church
wall was something white - a thing which seemed to have no definite shape.
Straining my eyes as I came nearer, I saw that it was a cross of new
timber, surmounting a mound of freshly-turned earth. The discovery sent a
new chill through me. I realized that this must be my uncle's grave, but
something told me that it was not like the other graves near it. It did
not seem like a dead grave. In some intangible way it appeared to be
living, if a grave can be said to live. Very close to it, I saw as I came
nearer, was another grave - an old mound with a crumbling stone about it.
Dominie Slott's tomb, I thought, remembering Haines' story.

There was no sign of life anywhere about the place. In the semi-twilight I
climbed the low knoll upon which the parsonage stood, and hammered upon
the door. There was no answer. I skirted the house and peered into the
windows. The whole place seemed deserted.

The lowering mountains had made night fall with disarming suddenness the
minute the sun was fully hidden. I realized that I could see scarcely more
than a few feet ahead of me. Feeling my way carefully, I rounded a corner
of the house and paused, wondering what to do next.

Everything was quiet. There was not a breath of wind, nor were there even
the usual noises made by animals in their nocturnal ramblings. All dread
had been forgotten for a time, but in the presence of that sepulchral calm
my apprehensions returned. I imagined the air peopled with ghastly spirits
that pressed around me, making the air almost unbreathable. I wondered,
for the hundredth time, where the old sexton might be.

As I stood there, half expecting some sinister demon to creep from the
shadows, I noticed two lighted windows glaring from the belfry of the
church. I then remembered what Haines had told me about Foster's living in
the basement of the building. Advancing cautiously through the blackness,
I found a side door of the church ajar.

The interior had a musty and mildewed odor. Everything I touched was
covered with a cold, clammy moistore. I struck a match and began to
explore, to discover, if I could, how to get into the belfry. Suddenly I
stopped in my tracks.

A snatch of song, loud and obscene, sung in a voice that was guttural and
thick with drink, came from above me. The match burned my fingers, and I
dropped it. Two pin-points of light pierced the darkness of the farther
wall of the church, and below them, to one side, I could see a door
outlined where light filtered through its cracks. The song stopped as
abruptly as it had commenced, and there was absolute silence again. My
heart was thumping and blood raced through my temples. Had I not been
petrified with fear, I should have fled immediately.

Not caring to light another match, I felt my way among the pews until I
stood in front of the door. So deep was the feeling of depression which
had come over me that I felt as though I were acting in a dream. My
actions were almost involuntary.

The door was locked, as I found when I turned the knob. I hammered upon it
for some time, but there was no answer. The silence was as complete as
before. Feeling around the edge of the door, I found the hinges, removed
the pins from them, and allowed the door to fall toward me. Dim light
flooded down a steep flight of steps. There was a sickening odor of
whiskey. I could now hear someone stirring in the belfry room above.
Venturing a low halloo, I thought I heard a groan in reply, and cautiously
climbed the stairs.

My first glance into that unhallowed place was indeed startling. Strewn
about the little room were old and dusty books and manuscripts - strange
things that bespoke almost unbelievable age. On rows of shelves which
reached to the ceiling were horrible things in glass jars and bottles -
snakes and lizards and bats. Dust and mold and cobwebs encrusted
everything, In the center, behind a table upon which was a lighted candle,
a nearly empty bottle of whisky, and a glass, was a motionless figure with
a thin, scrawny, wrinkled face and wild eyes that stared blankly through
me. I recognized Abel Foster the old sexton, in an instant. He did not
move or speak as I came slowly and fearfully toward him.

"Mr. Foster?" I asked, trembling with unaccountable fear when I heard my
voice echo within the close confines of the room. There was no reply, and
no movement from the figure behind the table. I wondered if he had not
drunk himself to insensibility, and went behind the table to shake him.

At the mere touch of my arm upon his shoulder, the strange old man started
from his chair as though terrified. His eyes, still having in them that
same blank stare, were fixed upon me. Swinging his arms like flails, he
backed away.

"Don't!" he screamed. "Don't touch me! Go back - go back!"

I saw that he was both drunk and struck with some kind of a nameless
terror. Using a soothing tone, I told him who I was and why I had come. He
seemed to understand vaguely and sank back into his chair, sitting limp
and motionless.

"I thought ye was him," he mumbled. "I thought ye was him come back fer
it. He's been a-tryin' t' get out - a-tryin' t' get out sence I put him in
there." His voice again rose to a scream and he clutched his chair. "Maybe
he's got out now! Maybe he's out!"

I looked about, half expecting to see some spectral shape coming up the
stairs.

"Maybe who's out?" I inquired.

"Vanderhoof!" he shrieked. "Th' cross over his grave keeps fallin' down in
th' night! Every morning the earth is loose, and gets harder t' pat down.
He'll come out an' I won't be able t' do nothin'."

Forcing him back into the chair, I seated myself on a box near him. He was
trembling in mortal terror, with the saliva dripping from the corners of
his mouth. From time to time I felt that sense of horror which Haines had
described when he told me of the old sexton. Truly, there was something
uncanny about the man. His head had now sunk forward upon his breast, and
he seemed calmer, mumbling to himself.

I quietly arose and opened a window to let out the fumes of whisky and the
musty odor of dead things. Light from a dim moon, just risen, made objects
below barely visible. I could just see Dominie Vanderhoof's grave from my
position in the belfry, and blinked my eyes as I gazed at it. That cross
was tilted! I remembered that it had been vertical an hour ago. Fear took
possession of me again. I turned quickly. Foster sat in his chair watching
me. His glance was saner than before.

"So y're Vanderhoof's nephew," he mumbled in a nasal tone. "Waal, ye
might's well know it all. He'll be back after me afore long, he will jus'
as soon as he can get out o' that there grave. Ye might's well know all
about it now."

His terror appeared to have left him. He seemed resigned to some horrible
fate which he expected any minute. His head dropped down upon his chest
again, and he went on muttering in that nasal monotone.

"Ye see all them there books and papers? Waal, they was once Dominie
Slott's - Dominie Slott, who was here years ago. All them things is got t'
do with magic - black magic that th' old dominie knew afore he come t'
this country. They used t' burn 'em an' boil 'em in oil fer knowing' that
over there, they did. But old Slott knew, and he didn't go fer t' tell
nobody. No sir, old Slott used to preach here generations ago, an' he used
to come up here an' study them books, an' use all them dead things in
jars, an' pronounce magic curses an' things, but he didn't let nobody know
it No, nobody knowed it but Dominie Slott an' me."

"You?" I ejaculated, leaning across the table toward him.

"That is, me after I learned it." His face showed lines of trickery as he
answered me. "I found all this stuff here when I come t' be church sexton,
an' I used t' read it when I wa'n't at work. An' I soon got t' know all
about it."

The old man droned on, while I listened, spellbound. He told about
learning the difficult formulae of demonology, so that, by means of
incantations, he could cast spells over human beings. He had performed
horrible occult rites of his hellish creed, calling down anathema upon the
town and its inhabitants. Crazed by his desires, he tried to bring the
church under his spell, but the power of God was too strong, Finding
Johannes Vanderhoof very weak-willed, he bewitched him so that he preached
strange and mystic sermons which struck fear into the simple hearts of the
country folk. From his position in the belfry room, he said, behind a
painting of the temptation of Christ which adorned the rear wall of the
church, he would glare at Vanderhoof while he was preaching, through holes
which were the eyes of the Devil in the picture. Terrified by the uncanny
things which were happening in their midst, the congregation left one by
one, and Foster was able to do what he pleased with the church and with
Vanderhoof.

"But what did you do with him?" I asked in a hollow voice as the old
sexton paused in his confession. He burst into a cackle of laughter,
throwing back his head in drunken glee.

"I took his soul!" he howled in a tone that set me trembling. "I took his
soul and put it in a bottle - in a little black bottle! And I buried him!
Bul he ain't got his soul, an' he can't go neither t' heaven n'r hell! But
he's a-comm' back after it. He's a-trying' t' get out o' his grave now. I
can hear him pushin' his way up through the ground, he's that strong!"

As the old man had proceeded with his story, I had become more and more
convinced that he must be telling me the truth, and not merely gibbering
in drunkenness. Every detail fitted what Haines had told me. Fear was
growing upon me by degrees. With the old wizard now shouting with demoniac
laughter, I was tempted to bolt down the narrow stairway and leave that
accursed neighborhood. To calm myself, I rose and again looked out of the
window. My eyes nearly started from their sockets when I saw that the
cross above Vanderhoof's grave had fallen perceptibly since I had last
looked at it. It was now tilted to an angle of forty-five degrees!

"Can't we dig up Vanderhoof and restore his soul?" I asked almost
breathlessly, feeling that something must be done in a hurry. The old man
rose from his chair in terror.

"No, no, no!" he screamed. "He'd kill me! I've fergot th' formula, an' if
he gets out he'll be alive, without a soul. He'd kill us both!"

"Where is the bottle that contains his soul?" I asked, advancing
threateningly toward him. I felt that some ghastly thing was about to
happen, which I must do all in my power to prevent.

"I won't tell ye, ye young whelp!" he snarled. I felt, rather than saw, a
queer light in his eyes as he backed into a corner. "An' don't ye touch
me, either, or ye'll wish ye hadn't!"

I moved a step forward, noticing that on a low stool behind him there were
two black bottles. Foster muttered some peculiar words in a low, singsong
voice. Everything began to turn gray before my eyes, and something within
me seemed to be dragged upward, trying to get out at my throat I felt my
knees become weak.

Lurching forward, I caught the old sexton by the throat, and with my free
arm reached for the bottles on the stool. But the old man fell backward,
striking the stool with his foot, and one bottle fell to the floor as I
snatched the other. There was a flash of blue flame, and a sulfurous smell
filled the room. From the little heap of broken glass a white vapor rose
and followed the draft out the window.

"Curse ye, ye rascal!" sounded a voice that seemed faint and far away.
Foster, whom I had released when the bottle broke, was crouching against
the wall, looking smaller and more shriveled than before. His face was
slowly turning greenish-black.

"Curse ye!" said the voice again, hardly sounding as though it came from
his lips. "I'm done fer! That one in there was mine! Dominie Slott took it
out two hundred years ago!"

He slid slowly toward the floor, gazing at me with hatred in eyes that
were rapidly dimming. His flesh changed from white to black, and then to
yellow. I saw with horror that his body seemed to be crumbling away and
his clothing falling into limp folds.

The bottle in my hand was growing warm. I glanced at it, fearfully. It
glowed with a faint phosphorescence. Stiff with fright, I set it upon the
table, but could not keep my eyes from it There was an ominous moment of
silence as its glow became brighter, and then there came distinctly to my
ears the sound of sliding earth. Gasping for breath, I looked out of the
window. The moon was now well up in the sky, and by its light I could see
that the fresh cross above Vanderhoof's grave had completely fallen. Once
again there came the sound of trickling gravel, and no longer able to
control myself, I stumbled down the stairs and found my way out of doors.
Falling now and then as I raced over the uneven ground, I ran on in abject
terror. When I had reached the foot of the knoll, at the entrance to that
gloomy tunnel beneath the willows, I heard a horrible roar behind me.
Turning, I glanced back toward the church. Its wall reflected the light of
the moon, and silhouetted against it was a gigantic, loathsome, black
shadow climbing from my uncle's grave and floundering gruesomely toward
the church.

I told my story to a group of villagers in Haines' store the next morning.
They looked from one to the other with little smiles during the tale, I
noticed, but when I suggested that they accompany me to the spot, gave
various excuses for not caring to go. Though there seemed to be a limit to
their credulity, they cared to run no risks. I informed them that I would
go alone, though I must confess that the project did not appeal to me.

As I left the store, one old man with a long, white beard hurried after me
and caught my arm.

"I'll go wi' ye, lad," he said, "It do seem that I once heared my gran'pap
tell o' su'thin' o' the sort concernin' old Dominie Slott. A queer old man
I've heared he were, but Vanderhoof's been worse."

Dominie Vanderhoof's grave was open and deserted when we arrived. Of
course it could have been grave-robbers, the two of us agreed, and yet...
In the belfry the bottle which I had left upon the table was gone, though
the fragments of the broken one were found on the floor. And upon the heap
of yellow dust and crumpled clothing that had once been Abel Foster were
certain immense footprints.

After glancing at some of the books and papers strewn about the belfry
room, we carried them down the stairs and burned them, as something
unclean and unholy. With a spade which we found in the church basement we
filled in the grave of Johannes Vanderhoof, and, as an afterthought, flung
the fallen cross upon the flames.

Old wives say that now, when the moon is full, there walks about the
churchyard a gigantic and bewildered figure clutching a bottle and seeking
some unremembered goal.