around them and who find fulfillment through
their own accomplishments rather than from the
acts of others. Her stories are quite sophisticated,
and though aimed at young teens, they find a
ready audience among adults as well.
“Pigeons from Hell”Robert E. Howard
(1938)
Robert E. HOWARD, the creator of Conan and
some of the best weird adventure fiction in the
early part of the 20th century, was primarily a
writer of action stories. His protagonists rarely
shrank from danger and usually triumphed over it.
Although he wrote a fair number of horror stories,
his were generally not the brooding, intellectual
types of fellow writers such as H. P. LOVECRAFTbut
followed in much the same pattern as his fantasy
fiction. “Pigeons from Hell,” perhaps his most fa-
mous story of contemporary horror, illustrates this
difference.
The protagonist is Griswell, a traveler who
camps out in an apparently abandoned house with
his friend, John Branner. He wakens from an un-
settling dream to hear a strange whistling from the
second floor, after which his companion ascends
the stairs as though in a trance. A scream follows,
after which Branner returns with his skull shat-
tered by the same ax he now holds in his hand, a
walking corpse whose horrible aspect drives
Griswell out into the darkness. There he conve-
niently runs into Sheriff Buckner, who understand-
ably finds Griswell’s story suspicious. They return
to the house and find Branner’s now motionless
body. It now appears that Griswell must be arrested
for the crime. Fortunately, Buckner is both intelli-
gent and courageous, because he uncovers contra-
dictory evidence and attempts to investigate the
second floor, retreating when he discovers that his
flashlight will not work above the ground level.
The two men learn the history of the house,
which was last occupied by the Blassenville sisters,
several of whom disappeared mysteriously before
the last fled to another part of the country. One of
the missing sisters, Celia, was well known for mis-
treating her servants, and there were rumors of a
hidden room in the house and dark magic. Buck-
ner and Griswell consult a voodoo man, who is
promptly killed by a poisonous snake, apparently in
retribution for revealing the secret of the “zuvem-
bie,” a magically altered woman who is ageless,
who can command the dead to walk, and who has
various other powers. They believe that one of the
servants who was particularly badly treated by
Celia had herself transformed so she could wreak
her revenge, but when they finally track down the
killer—helped by fragments of a diary that show up
at an opportune moment—they discover it is Celia
herself who was transformed, although against her
will.
The story mixes voodoo, a haunted house, and
adventure in equal doses. Good does triumph over
evil, and Celia clearly deserves her horrible fate.
Evil rarely triumphs in Howard’s fiction, and this is
no exception. The pigeons of the title are symbolic
of the damned souls of the Blassenville family and
are only peripherally mentioned in the story, sug-
gesting that Howard added them simply to justify
using a title he liked.Pike, Christopher(1954– )
The American writer Kevin McFadden began writ-
ing young adult novels during the 1980s under the
name Christopher Pike and has continued to do so
ever since. Many of his later titles appeared as part
of the Spooksville series, which was the main com-
petition to the Goosebumps books by R. L. STINE
and is aimed at preteens, mixing very light horror
with farcical humor. The Spooksville series tends
to be more serious and is generally much better
written than Stine’s books, but it is still minor fare
and does not satisfy more sophisticated readers.
Among the better entries in the series, which ran
to more than 20 titles, are The Haunted Cave
(1995), The Cold People(1996), about the power to
turn people to ice, and The Dangerous Quest
(1998), which takes a band of children into the
world beyond the mirror.
Pike’s novels for teenagers are much more seri-
ous and often quite good. His first fantasy title, Re-
member Me(1989), involves time travel, a theme
he used several more times. His first story of the su-
pernatural was The Witch (1990), although the
teenaged witch in this case is on the side of good.
Bury Me Deep(1991) is a somewhat ambiguousPike, Christopher 275