I hate air bnb bc one time I stayed with this kinda Amish couple at their isolated farmstead so I could catch up on my reading list, only there were bugs everywhere and they had like 7 cats which made my allergies worse, and i found one of their cats like DEAD on a walk one day only it frigging came back and wouldn't stop staring at me without blinking and it started killing the other cats and trying to kill us, and it was a whole ordeal that got the wife killed and the husband chased me into the woods because he was possessed by an otherworldly and unknowable force, but noooo it was ME who gets placed under house arrest for murder charges, when there were bigger problems like the unnameable horror i may have unwittingly invited into our world, like it was the WORST summer of my life, I will never use air bnb ever again
Continuing until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
***
‘Something really weird happened today. I still keep trying to figure it out.’
With the Poroths gone for most of the day, walking into Gilead very early in the morning to attend Sunday worship and not returning until four, Jeremy is left to his own devices. While watching two of the cats, Bwada and Phaedra, chasing something near the barn, Jeremy makes himself breakfast and tries to keep going with Dracula, but can’t manage to enjoy the Whitby scenes after Jonathan Harker’s terrifying ordeal in the castle. Bored and lonely despite his masses of books, he sets out into the woods again. Following the stream and coming once more to the circular pool, he wades into the centre of the water and once again makes the strange signs with his face and hands that he did some days earlier in the tree – but feels they have somehow been robbed of their power. Plus he ends up having to pull a leech off his right ankle upon exiting the pool, and feeling somehow that the woods have become hostile to him, he beats a hasty retreat.
And on the way back to the farm he finds Bwada on the bank of the stream, on her side, dead.
‘She couldn’t have been dead for long, since I’d seen her only a few hours before, but she was already stiff. There was foam around her jaws. I couldn’t tell what had happened to her until I turned her over with a stick and saw, on the side that had lain against the ground, a gaping red hole, that opened like some new orifice. The skin around it was folded back in little triangular flaps, exposing the pink flesh beneath. I backed off in disgust, but I could see even from several feet away that the hole had been made from the inside.’
Confused, unsettled and uncertain about what to do with Bwada’s corpse, Jeremy eventually decides to leave it where it is, leaving it for Sarr to find so that he doesn’t have to tell the man himself.
When the Poroths return and call Jeremy for dinner, they’re curious about why Bwada hasn’t come in with the others cats. With Jeremy sticking to his lie that he hasn’t seen her, Sarr grows concerned and plans to go out while it’s still light to find her…
…but in the middle of dinner, they hear a scratching at the door, and Sarr opens it to let Bwada in.
While Jeremy is stunned into silence, the Poroths fuss over the cat and believe she’s hurt herself, bruising her side by running into something; when Bwada’s put down on the floor she walks clumsily and slips when she tries to walk about, seemingly unsure of how to use her muscles. Sarr plans to take her to the vet on the morrow if she’s worse. Jeremy tries to work out what he saw in the woods; perhaps he was wrong in assuming she was dead, she might have had a fit, she went into shock after running into something…but if so, what happened to that hole what seemed to come from inside her?
After killing the evening’s spiders and trying to read some more of Stoker, Jeremy writes up the events of the day while his mind keeps returning to one particular thing. Bwada kept staring at him throughout the evening, never blinking; when he mentioned it to Sarr, just as Sarr looked up, she blinked. As if she had understood him.
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein’s magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
Continuing until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
***
Jeremy mostly spends the day relaxing rather than reading, and trimming away the ivy on his building. While watching the late news with the Poroths after dinner, he’s startled to realise that it’s Friday the 13th, as he hasn’t really been keeping track of the days of the week do to the isolation of the place. The trio try to figure out whether anything unlucky has happened to any of them, and the only thing they can think of is Sarr being nipped on the hand by one of the animals one of the cats brought in; rather like a shrew but with a strangely askew mouth, bloodied and tattered since the cats had been at it, and apparently feigning death since it bit Sarr on the thumb when he picked it up to throw it in the bin, and it fled when he dropped it with the cats racing after.
Jeremy finishes the entry lying in bed while listening to sounds coming from the woods, musing about the millions of creatures out there in the dark.
The next diary entry begins on June 15th…
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein’s magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
Continuing until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
***
Jeremy decides to take a walk, and follows the brook running past his building into the woods, albeit with less enthusiasm after Sarr, working in the field, warns him to watch out for the resident copperhead. After leading him through thick undergrowth, the brook eventually leads to a pool that seems to act as a watering hole for the local wildlife, which he wades in for a time.
After finishing Otranto, Jeremy starts on The Monk, and dinner is very convivial due to the wine Sarr brought back from town. Jeremy’s often reluctant to leave them (especially Deborah) at the end of the evening to go back to his residence, and has to remind himself that he mustn’t intrude too long on their space. He leaves slightly after eleven, as the Poroths’ grandfather clock is slightly off kilter; the night before, it slowed for a few beats, then sped up again and carried on as before, for no reason that Sarr can discern.
The next diary entry begins on June 13th…
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein’s magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
Until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
(This is where it starts getting good, everyone!)
***
Jeremy remarks upon the humidity of the area during the day, compounded with the chill at night. He spends most of the day finishing Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, commenting on how it’s a book that wants the reader to hate and simply causes unconstructive rage, but still interesting and worth assigning to his class. Before dinner he then reads The White People by Arthur Machen and is immensely struck by the story:
‘the sections from the young girl’s notebook were…staggering. That air of paganism, the malevolent little faces peeping from the shadows, and those rites she can’t dare talk about […] it must be the most persuasive horror story ever written’. [1]
While walking to the farmhouse for dinner, the Poroths already having gone inside, and without really knowing the reason why, Jeremy climbs the old tree in the side yard and stands on a sturdy branch to make strange faces and gestures. ‘I must have looked like a madman’s shadow as I made signs to the wood and the moon.’ [2]
During dinner, Jeremy and Sarr get onto the usual topic of conversation: the cats, and the dead animals they keep bringing back from the woods or fields and leaving them on the porch, almost as an offering.
Once Jeremy leaves the Poroths to their television (deploring their taste in programs!) he conducts his nightly routine of hunting spiders with his extra powerful insect spray, meant for outdoor use only, and spraying his screens for good measure; trying to avoid killing moths and actively avoiding any slaughter of fireflies. Afterwards he sits in bed to read Algernon Blackwood's Ancient Sorceries and coming to dwell upon the Poroths’ seven cats, and all the numerous names they have for each of them. The only cat that doesn’t have multiple names is Bwada, Sarr’s pet from before he married Deborah; the oldest and by far the meanest of the cats, who’s bitten Deborah and guests in the past but thankfully appears to be afraid of Jeremy and keeps her distance.
Jeremy hears sounds from the farmhouse as the Poroths sing their devotions, and then there is silence. Jeremy plans to stay up and read a little more, when-
‘Something odd just happened. I’ve never heard anything like it. While writing for the past half hour I’ve been aware, if half consciously, of the crickets. Their regular chirping can be pretty soothing, like the sound of a well-tuned machine. But just a few seconds ago they seemed to miss a beat. They’d been singing along steadily, ever since the moon came up, and all of a sudden they just stopped for a beat – and then they began again, only they were out of rhythm for a moment or two, as if a hand had jarred the record or there’d been some kind of momentary break in the natural flow…’ [3]
While the insects sound normal enough once more, Jeremy decides to return to reading The Castle of Otranto in the hopes it will help him to fall asleep.
[1] The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D. Klein, originally published in From Beyond the Dark, edited by Edward P. Berglund in December 1972; this edition found in The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories, Loc 2269 of 17308
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid, Loc 2301 of 17308
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein’s magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
Until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
***
Jeremy spends the day unpacking his books, putting up screens to keep out insects, and killing the masses of spiders that have already infested the building in the few months since the Poroths renovated it. He comments that killing spiders is supposed to bring bad luck, but there’s no other recourse as he can’t sleep with anything crawling around.
He has dinner with the Poroths, pulling a faux pas as he begins to eat before Sarr can say grace. The conversation is somewhat awkward, as Sarr shuts up after a little while and Jeremy has to keep things going. Unfortunately for Jeremy, not only is he allergic to cats but all seven of the Poroths’ pet cats seem to love him, constantly rubbing against his ankles. While Sarr just watches, Deborah offers antihistamine and they’re able to get the talk going again by discussing “snake oil” and old folklore.
Leaving after dinner and delighting at the sight of numerous fireflies on the lawn, Jeremy returns to the outbuilding to figure out how to organise his books, and stays up late reading The Mysteries of Udolpho. He deems it a good study in romanticism, but far too long, and has to remind himself to have patience with it.
At two AM he’s about ready to go to sleep, but has to relieve himself outside as there’s no bathroom. He’s disconcerted by the view he gets of the outside of his building – the lamplight the only sight for miles, the winged creatures making for the screens, the windows that allow things to see in but can’t really allow the occupant to see anything in the darkness, and the fact that the woods are so close to the windows by the bed.
With his allergies still plaguing him, Jeremy determines to walk to town the next day to buy some Contac – and, as he sees a large spider scurrying to vanish behind his footlocker, he adds some insect spray to his shopping list.
The next diary entry begins on June 11th…
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein’s magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
Until August 20th, stay tuned for the unfolding of the terrible truth about The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D Klein!
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin...
***
As the novella begins, the summer is over, but Jeremy’s hotel room is like an oven. Instead of finishing his preparations for the course on gothic literature that he would have been teaching at Trenton State in the fall, he’s spent the past few days shut up in his sweltering room with the windows locked tight, not daring to leave. The place where he spent the past few months, Poroth Farm, is now a crime scene, while the residents of the nearby town of Gilead whisper of bad crops, polluted well water and rural murder.
Jeremy knows the truth, and he’s going to tell his story…just as soon as the telephone in his room stops ringing, and as long as whatever he desperately fears — whether it’s something waiting on the other end of the line, or an ordinary youth in red sunglasses, sitting on the courthouse steps opposite Jeremy’s hotel for almost as many days as he’s been hiding there — allows him the time to tell it.
A sense of humor- that's one quality I never noticed in it. I saw only a deadly seriousness and, of course, an intelligence that grew at terrifying speed, malevolant and inhuman. If it now feels itself safe enough to toy with me before doing whatever it intends to do, so much the worse for me. So much the worse, perhaps, for all.
I hope I'm wrong. Though my name is Jeremy, derived from Jeremiah, I'd hate to be a prophet in the wilderness. I'd much rather be a harmless crank.
But I believe we're in for trouble. [1]
While working out how best to begin his affidavit, Jeremy muses on the wilderness that can still be found in rural New Jersey, and the numerous tiny towns that can exist so close to major cities while both are nearly unaware of the other’s existence; religious communities that have remained virtually unchanged since the late 1800s, when technology such as telephones and telegraph truly began to link up America. Jeremy travelled into such a wilderness to one of those towns, Gilead, twenty miles north of Flemington, in quest of solitude. Two members of the close-knit community in Gilead were the Poroths, a married couple barely a few years older than Jeremy who had come to farming relatively late, having purchased their property only the previous year. Looking to supplement their income while they built up their farm, they advertised for a tenant to rent one of their refitted outbuildings behind their farmhouse, and Jeremy, seeking a place where he could read without distraction, saw the immensely secluded location as the perfect spot for his studies.
Jeremy goes into some detail describing the friends he never expected to make, and whom he’s clearly lost. He muses on their physical similarity, due to the limited gene pool in Gilead – both of them were tall, black haired, incredibly pale despite their work in the sun, and seeming at first glance to be siblings rather than merely third cousins - and on the dichotomy of the pair; while belonging to a tiny Mennonitic order and possibly only allowing someone like Jeremy (a dyed in the wool sceptic) to stay on their property because of Sarr’s affinity for the prophet Jeremiah, they were considered young liberals by most of Gilead, with Sarr obtaining a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Rutgers, Deborah attending community college for two years, and the sheer fact that they owned a television set – ‘in light of what was to come, however, it is unfortunate they lacked a telephone.’ [2] He muses how a visitor to the farm would initially think Sarr moody, stoic and silently judging them, until they realised ‘his reserve was not born of surliness but shyness’. By contrast, Deborah bubbled over with enthusiasm whenever she forgot the formality of her order, with ever increasing verbal and physical affection to both guests and the couple’s seven cats. Alcohol only increased their differences; ‘Deborah would forget the restraints upon women in the order and would eventually dominate the conversation, while her husband would seem to grow increasingly withdrawn and morose.’ [3] In hindsight, Jeremy wonders who really was the stronger of the pair, as he only ever saw them quarrel once.
His plan, now, is to turn to certain portions of the journal he kept throughout the summer in preparation for his anticipated course. Initially meant to record the books he read each day and to keep track of how he’d react to relative and extended solitude, it’s now the sole chronicle of the beginning, unfolding and climax of the terrible events at Poroth Farm. Once his affidavit is completed, Jeremy plans to sneak outside to mail them, and then leave New Jersey for good, clinging desperately to his optimism even while knowing that his fate ‘perhaps […] depends on what’s beneath those rose-tinted spectacles’ [4] of the boy on the steps.
The first diary entry begins on June 4th…
[1] The Events at Poroth Farm, by T.E.D. Klein, originally published in From Beyond the Dark, edited by Edward P. Berglund in December 1972; this edition found in The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories, Loc 2093 of 17308
[2] Ibid, Loc 2188 of 17308
[3] Ibid, Loc 2203 of 17308
[4] Ibid, Loc 2203 of 17308
(If you want to read along and delight in T.E.D. Klein's magnificent novella, you can find it in American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Classics) or The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK ®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories. If it turns out that I get a cease and desist from Klein et al, go and read the novella regardless!)
