“The Curse of the House” (Strange Stories, February 1939)

Bloch, Robert. “The Curse of the House.” Strange Stories, February 1939, pp. 41-51.
https://archive.org/details/StrangeStoriesV01N01193902/page/40/mode/2up 

The story is narrated by a psychologist who is listening to a man named Banks describe his dire circumstances. The patient is a scholar who is working on a book about “olden devil-worship, traveling to Naples, Prague, Budapest, Cologne. I shall not say what I came to believe, nor shall I do more than hint at the survival of demon-worship in the modern world. Enough that after a time I established connections with the vast underground system controlling hidden cults. I learned codes, signals, mysteries” (42). He met a man named Brian Droome, whose ancestors, it was reputed, were sorcerers. He is invited to Droome’s home, an unusual event, according to locals. When Banks arrives, he immediately feels the presence of the house, as if he were stepping into the body of some strange, alien creature. In their conversation, Droome reveals that they have continually added onto the house—and mostly in a downward direction. Banks becomes worried about Droome’s loose use of the word “we” when describing himself, his family, and, alarmingly, the house. 

When Droome steps away, he is taken by a “mad impulse” and enters the lower levels unaccompanied and without permission. He discovers horrors below, including evidence of human sacrifice, and is attacked by Droome. He manages to impale Droome on a hook and flee the house, but not before setting it all afire. Banks returns home, but the house continues to pursue him. He sees it everywhere; each time it is getting closer and closer. His psychologist suggests that they confront his fear by going fishing and waiting for the house to appear. Banks appears to become hypnotized somehow and describes to the doctor the approach of the imagined house. The doctor encourages him to face his hallucination, to enter the house. Banks describes encountering Droome who is alive again; the massive wooden beams that hold up the house, Banks says, are falling down around him. He collapses, and the doctor rushes to his side where he discovers that Banks is dead and that his body has been crushed by what could only have been a massive beam falling upon him.

This is a fun story, for sure. It features a confident psychologist who applies the latest and most effective techniques to battle mental illness such as the one Banks appears to have. How did science work to cure banks? To be generous, perhaps there was nothing to be done to save the haunted man, Perhaps this was a story of cosmic horror all along, and the puny effort of a human being would never serve as a solution. There is also clear evidence that the psychologist, through overconfidence and arrogance, made everything worse. February 1939 marked the first-ever issue of Strange Stories! It ran for only thirteen months, and it featured August Derleth, Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and the usual suspects from Weird Tales. Derleth, Bloch, and Kuttner contributed 40 of the 148 total stories published in the magazine. Standard Magazines, which also published Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, never supported Strange Stories, and it died a quiet death in 1941. I just found the June issue on eBay in pretty good shape—for $875!!!