chopping block by lee adam herold & ryan hohne

Thursday, October 10, 2002

"Pigeons from Hell", by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard is the creator of Conan the Barbarian". A contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft's, he wrote a HUGE number of stories (including a number of tales in the 'Cthulhu' cycle), the volume made all the more remarkable by the fact the he committed suicide at age 30. There is a lot of information about him and his stories at THIS SITE, as well as REHupa.com.

"Pigeons from Hell", unavailable online, was published in "Weird Tales" magazine in May 1938, and is my favorite. The comic pretty much tells you what's going on. Two travelers spend the night in an abandoned Manor House. During the night, one of the men is summoned upstairs, in his sleep, by an eerie whistling. He is murdered with a hatchet to the head. The dead man then comes back downstairs, carrying the same hatchet with which he was killed, to murder his companion. It's discovered that it may be the work of a "Zuvembie", which is a sort of female zombie, created with Voodoo magic from the West Indies. I recommend any collection you can find of Howard's stories, especially if it contains "Pigeons from Hell".