The Lurking Fear

The Lurking Fear by H. P. Lovecraft is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in November 1922, it was first published in the January through April 1923 issues of Home Brew.

The story is narrated by an unnamed seeker of strange horrors who is investigating the massacre of a community of some six dozen backwoods degenerates in an obscure region of the Catskills, a massacre which occurred during a particularly violent electrical storm and seems to have been perpetrated by an unidentified clawed beast. The narrator soon discovers that the most sinister legends of the region center around the abandoned Martense mansion, and he decides together with two companionsto spend the night in the big old house...

Plot

In 1921, an unnamed monster-hunter travels to Tempest Mountain, in the Catskills range, after reports of various attacks by a group of unidentified creatures against the local inhabitants reaches the media. A month before, an unusually large, destructive thunderstorm had drifted over the region. Many homes were destroyed, seemingly by the storm, but upon closer inspection, the destruction seemed to be left by an enraged beast. The affected area, originally home to only 75 citizens, was completely destroyed, leaving no survivors.

Gathering what information he can from the locals, the hunter finds out that most of the legends surround the foreboding Martense mansion, a century-old Dutch homestead, which has been disregarded by the police as it is apparently abandoned. The hunter, bringing with him two companions as his bodyguards, enters the mansion at night, just when another thunderstorm approaches.

He takes up residence in the room of Jan Martense, a member of the family believed to have been murdered. Despite their careful preparation, keeping watch in shifts and sleeping armed, the group eventually drift off to sleep. The hunter wakes up to discover both his companions missing and, in a flash of lightning, witnesses a demonic shadow briefly cast upon the mansion's chimney by a grotesque monster. Neither of his companions are ever seen again.