after Tallant severs the thing’s head with a ma-
chete, its teeth remain locked onto his hand. Even
worse, the bite has a peculiar ache that probably
means some form of venom was injected. Desper-
ate, he cuts his own hand off at the wrist. Weak
and barely able to stand, he stumbles outside just
in time to see the creature’s mate coming his way.
The idea of a secret, inhuman race living
among us is a common one in horror fiction, start-
ing with vampires and werewolves and running the
gamut to transformed children, such as in The Chil-
dren of the Island(1983), by T. M. WRIGHT,Shadow
Child(1987), by Joe Citro, and Rick HAUTALA’s Lit-
tle Brothers(1988), which postulates the existence of
a species very much like those in this classic story.
Some form of cannibalism is usually involved.
“The Thing in the Cellar” David Keller
(1932)
One of the recurring themes in horror fiction is
that the innocence of a child might somehow allow
him or her to detect evils of which adults are un-
aware. One of the earliest and most powerful of
these stories is this disturbing piece from Weird Tales
magazine. The author introduces the cellar of the
title even before we meet his characters. It is an un-
usual construction that appears to be too large for
the house that rests on top of it and parts of which
are blockaded by debris so substantial that portions
have not been entered for more than a hundred
years. The latest owners of the house are the Tuck-
ers, whose infant son, Tommy, is often reduced to
hysterics when he is in the kitchen, particularly if
the door to the basement is unlocked or open.
Although his parents expect him to grow out
of his formless fear, Tommy’s dread of the cellar in-
creases as he learns to crawl, then walk, and then
talk. Although he refuses to explain just what it is
that frightens him, he will not remain alone in the
kitchen and absolutely will not venture into the
basement, even when accompanied by an adult.
His father in particular begins to wonder if there is
something wrong with the boy, and when he
reaches school age the parents take him to a doc-
tor, to whom the boy finally confides his conviction
that there is something in the basement, some-
thing he has never seen but that can hurt him.
The doctor unwisely decides that the boy is
simply too pampered and suggests locking him
alone in the kitchen with the basement door se-
cured open on the assumption that by finally fac-
ing his greatest fear he will overcome it. His
parents decide to try this approach, though with
some misgivings, and the doctor himself has sec-
ond thoughts after conferring with a colleague. He
arrives in the middle of the experiment and urges
that it be stopped, but it is too late. The boy’s mu-
tilated body is found lying at the top of the cellar
stairs. John Collier used a very similar device but
with a much different ending for “THUS I REFUTE
BEELZY” (1941), but whereas Collier’s story is
whimsical, Keller’s is tragic.Thompson, Ruth Plumly(1891–1976)
When L. Frank BAUMwrote THE WIZARD OF OZ
(1900) and then followed up with more than a dozen
sequels, it seemed he had exhausted the possibilities
of that world. The stories and their characters were
so popular, however, that imitators and parodies
sprang up on every side as well as a large number of
pastiches by writers including John R. Neill, Eric
Shanower, Jack Snow, and Donald Abbott. The most
successful of these was Ruth Plumly Thompson, who
wrote 18 book-length Oz novels between 1915 and
1938 with more total words than Baum, although
the last was not published until 1976.
Thompson started with Pirates in Oz(1915),
which introduces Peter, Thompson’s recurring child
protagonist, who must help defend the city against
the armies of the Gnome King. More titles followed
using both existing and new characters and set-
tings. The Scarecrow discovers that he is entitled to
the throne of a distant land in The Royal Book of Oz
(1921). Kabumpo in Oz(1922) introduces possibly
Thompson’s most popular Oz character, Kabumpo
the magical elephant. She rapidly expanded her
own cast of characters and generally abandoned
those created by Baum, but she endeavored to keep
the same general tone, usually successfully.
A few of her titles stand out, although even-
tually they became repetitious, just as had been
the case with Baum’s later novels. In Jack Pump-
kinhead of Oz(1929), Peter uses a magic coin to
return to the other side of the rainbow in time to350 “The Thing in the Cellar”