CZM Book Club: "The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce

the reading for you? No, someone else did. Anyway, this month on book Club, I'm gonna read spooky stories and this spooky story is another one I'm excited about because this one, I'm convinced this is where the Predator comes from. It never even occurred to me that the movie Predator had like a precursor, but I think I've found it, and you know, maybe other people have other ideas, like the people who made Predator. I don't know whatever, I

just find this story interesting. This story is called The Damned Thing and it was written in eighteen ninety eight by Ambrose Bierce. Who's Ambrose Bierce? You might ask, Well, if you lived in eighteen ninety eight, you would have known who Ambrose Bierce is, because, like a lot of the people that we cover, famous fickle and doesn't always last. Ambrose Bierce was like kind of the contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe and like one of the great spooky story

writers of American history. But he's not talked about as much today, which is a shame, because he spent five years fighting against slavery. In fact, when this kid was a kid and he was only fifteen years old, he went and worked at an abolitionist newspaper, and then when the war broke out, he went and fought. But he spent most of the of his life being like, hey, war is pretty terrible. He wasn't like, oh, man, glory, that stuff's cool, you know. And he went on to

influence just about everyone. And then in terms of spooky stories, in the year nineteen thirteen, he wrote a letter to a friend saying he was like gonna go to Mexico to see the Mexican Revolution. And then he disappeared, and no one's ever heard from him since. And realistically he probably died somehow in that conflict. He was in his early seventies, But who knows. Maybe he's a vampire. I think everyone's a vampire. This story, the damned thing, it

is from eighteen ninety eight. I already told you that split into four sections. One by the light of the tallow candle, which had been placed on one end of a rough table, a man was reading something written in a book. It was an old account book, greatly worn, and the writing was not apparently very legible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flame of

the candle to get a stronger light upon it. The shadow of the book then would throw into obscurity a half of the room, darkening a number of faces and figures. For besides the reader, eight other men were present. Seven of them sat against the rough log walls, silent and motionless, and the room, being small, not very far from the table. By extending an arm, any one of them could have touched the eph man, who lay on the table, face upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides.

He was dead. The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke. All seemed to be waiting for something to occur. The dead man only was without expectation from the blank darkness outside came in the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar

noises of night in the wilderness. The long, nameless note of a distant coyote, the stilly, pulsing thrill of tireless insects and trees, strange cries of night birds so different from those of the birds of the day, the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been half heard when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all of this was noted in that company.

Its members were not over much addicted to the idle interest in matters of no practical importance that was obvious in every line of their rugged faces, obvious even in the dim light of the small candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity, farmers and woodmen. The person reading was a trifle different. One would have said of him that he was of the world worldly, albeit there was a hint in his attire which attested to a certain

fellowship with the organisms of his environment. His coat would hardly have passed muster in San Francisco, his foot gear was not of urban origin. The hat that lay by him on the floor he was the only one uncovered, was such that, if one had considered it an article of mere personal dormant, he would have missed its meaning. In countenance, the man was rather prepossessing, with just a hint of sternness, though that he may have assumed or cultivated as is appropriate to one in authority. For he

was a coroner. It was by virtue of his office that he had possession of the book in which he was reading. It had been found among the dead men's effects in his cabin, where the inquest was now taking place. When the coroner had finished reading, he put the book into his breast pocket. At that moment, the door was pushed open and a young man entered. He clearly was not of mountain berth and breeding. He was clad as

those who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from travel, he had in fact been writing hard to attend the inquest. The coroner nodded. No one else greeted him. We have waited for you, said the coroner. It is necessary to have done with this business tonight. The young man smiled. I'm very sorry to have kept you, he said. I went away not to evade your summons, but to post to my newspaper an account of what I suppose I am called back to relate. The coroner smiled.

The account that you posted to your newspaper, he said, differs probably from that which you will give here under oath. That replied the other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, is as you choose. I used manifold paper and have a copy of what I sent. It was not written as news, for it is incredible, but as fiction it may go as a part of my testimony under oath. But you say it is incredible, that is nothing to you, sir,

if I also swear that it is true. The coroner was apparently not greatly affected by the young man's manifest resentment. He was silent for some moments, his eyes upon the floor. The men about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom withdrew their gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently, the coroner lifted his eyes and said, we will resume the inquest. The men removed their hats. The witness was sworn. What is your name, the coroner asked, William Harker, age

twenty seven. You knew the deceased Hugh Morgan, Yes, you were with him when he died near him. How did that happen? Your your presence, I mean, I was visiting him at this place to shoot and fish. A part of my purpose, however, was to study him and his odd, solitary way of life. He seemed a good model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write stories, I sometimes read, though, thank you stories in general, not yours. Some of the

jurors laughed against a somber background. Humor shows high lights, soldiers in the intervals of battle laugh easily, and a jest in the death chamber conquers by surprise. Relate the circumstances of this man's death, said the coroner. You may use any notes or memoranda that you please. The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket, he held it near the candle and turning the leaves until he found the passage he wanted. He began to read, and what

he read was these ads. That's not what he read. But here's some ads anyway, whether you want them or not. And we're back two. The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking for quail, each with a shot gun, but we had only one dog. Morgan said that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and we crossed it by a trail through the chapparral. On the other side was

a comparatively level ground thickly covered with wild oats. As we emerged from the chapparral, Morgan was but a few yards in advance. Suddenly we heard, at a little distance to our right and partly in front, a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could see were violently agitated. We've started a deer, said I.

I wish we had brought a rifle. Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated chaparral, said nothing, but he had cocked both barrels of his gun and was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited, which surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness, even in moments of sudden and imminent peril. Oh, come, I said, you are not going to fill up a deer with quail shot, are you still?

He did not reply, but catching a sight of his face as he turned it slightly toward me, I was struck by the pallor of it. Then I understood that we had serious business on hand, and my first conjecture was that we had jumped a grizzly I advanced to Morgan's side, cocking my piece as I moved. The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as attentive to the place as before. What is it? What the devil is it? I asked that damned thing,

he replied, without turning his head. His voice was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly. I was about to speak further when I observed the wild oats near the place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way I can hardly describe it. It seemed as if they were stirred by a streak of wind which not only bent it, but pressed it down, crushed it so that it did not rise. And this movement was slowly prolonging itself towards us. Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so

strangely as this unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomena. Yet I am unable to recall any sense of fear. I remember and tell it here because singularly enough I recollected it. Then, that once in looking carelessly out of an open window, I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail, seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere

falsification of the law of aerial perspective. But it startled, almost terrified me. We so rely on the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the herbage and the slow, undeviating approach of the line

of disturbance were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened, and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass. Before the smoke of the discharge it cleared away, I heard a loud, savage cry, a scream like that of a wild animal, and flinging his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran

swiftly from the spot. At the same instant, I was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke, some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with great force. Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from

fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat, and may Heaven and Mercy spare me from another sight like that. At a distance of less than thirty yards, was my friend down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair and disorder, and his whole body and violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand, at least I could see none. The

other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body. It was as if he had been partly blotted out, I cannot otherwise express it. Then a shifting of his position would bring it all into view again. All this must have occurred within a few seconds. Yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler, vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw

nothing but him in him, not always distinctly. During the entire incident, his shouts and curses were heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I have never heard from the throat of man or brute. For a moment only I stood irresolute. Then, throwing down my gun, I ran forward to my friend's assistance. I had a vague belief that he was suffering from a fit or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach his side, he was down and quiet. All sounds

had ceased. But with a feeling of such horror as even these awful events had not inspired, I now saw the same mysterious movement of the wild oats prolonging itself from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of the wood. It was only when I had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my eyes and look at my companion. He was dead. Three. The corner rose from his seat and stood beside the

dead man. Lifting an edge of the sheet, he pulled it away, exposing the entire body altogether naked and showing in the candle light a clay like yellow. It had, however, broad maculations of bluish black ob caused by extravasted blood from contusions. The chests and sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations.

The skin was torn in strips and shreds. The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk handkerchief which had been passed under the chin and knotted up at the top of the head. When the handkerchief was drawn away, it exposed what had been the throat. Some of the jurors, who had risen to get a better view, repented their curiosity and turned away their faces. Witness Harker went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick, dropping the

handkerchief upon the dead man's neck. The corner stepped to an angle of the room and from a pile of clothing, produced one garment after another, each of which he held up for a moment of inspection. All were torn and stiff with blood. The jurors did not make a closer inspection. They seemed rather uninterested. They had, in truth, seen all this before, the only thing that was new to them being Harker's testimony. Gentlemen, the coroner said, we have no

more evidence. I think your duty has been already explained to you. If there is nothing you wish to ask, you may go outside and consider your verdict. The foreman rose, a tall, bearded man of sixty coarsely clad. I should like to ask one question, mister coroner, He said, what asylum did this your last witness escape from? Mister Harker said the coroner, gravely and tranquility. What asylum did you

last escape? Harker flushed Crimson again, but said nothing. The seven jurors rose and solemnly filed out of the cabin. If you have done insulting me, sir, said Harker, as soon as he and the officer were left alone with the dead man. I suppose I'm at liberty to go. Yes. Harker started to leave, but paused with his hand on the door latch. The habit of his profession was strong in him, stronger than his sense of personal dignity. He turned about and said, the book that you have there,

I recognize it as Morgan's diary. You seem greatly interested in it. You read in it while I was testifying. May I see it? The public would like the book? Will cut no figure in this matter, replied the official, slipping it into his coat pocket. All the entries in it were made before the writer's death. As Harker passed out of the house, the jury re entered and stood about the table on which the now covered corpse showed

under the sheet with sharp definition. The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from his breast pocket a pencil on a scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the following verdict, which, with various degrees of effort, all signed. We the jury, do find the remains come to their death at the hands of a mountain lion. But some of us thinks all the same they had fits. You too might have a fit if you don't take advantage of all of the opportunities made to you by our advertisers.

Whom we love dearly and un ironically, and we're back four. In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries, having possibly a scientific value, as suggestions. At the inquest upon his body, the book was not put in evidence. Possibly the coroner thought it not worthwhile to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned cannot be ascertained. The upper right part of

the leaf is torn away. The part of the entry remaining is as follows would run in a half circle, keeping his head turned always towards the center, and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but on returning to the house, found no other alteration in his manner than what was obviously due to fear of punishment?

Can a dog see with his nose do odors impress some olfactory center with images of the thing emitting them? September second, Looking at the stars last night, as they rose above the crest of the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappear from left to right. Each was eclipsed, but an instant and only a few at the same time, but along the entire length of the ridge, all that were within a degree or two of the

crest were blotted out. It was as if something had passed along between me and them, but I could not see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its outline. Ugh, I don't like this. Several weeks entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the book. September twenty seventh. It has been about here again. I find evidences of its presence every day. I watched again all of last night in the same cover, got in hand double charged with buckshot. In the morning, the fresh

footprints were there as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleep. Indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible, insupportable. If these amazing experiences are real, I shall go mad. If they are fanciful, I am mad already. October third, I shall not go. It shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward. October fifth, I can stand it no longer. I have invited Harker to pass a few weeks with me. He has a level head, I can

judge from his manner if he thinks me mad. October seventh, I have the solution to the problem. It came to me last night suddenly, as if by revelation. How simple, how terribly simple. There are sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir, no chord of that a perfect instrument the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire tree top, the

tops of several trees, and all in full song. Suddenly, in a moment, at absolutely the same instant, all spring into the air and fly away. How they could not all see one another, whole tree tops intervened. At no point could a leader have been visible to all. There must have been a signal warning or command, high and

shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed too, the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but other birds, quail, for example, widely separated by bushes, even on opposite sides of a hill.

It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between them will sometimes dive at the same instant, all gone out of sight in a moment the signal has been sounded too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck, who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by the base of the organ. As with sounds,

so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum, the chemist can detect the presence of what are known as actinic rays. They represent colors integral colors in the composition of light which we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument. Its range is but a few octaves of the real chromatic scale. I am not mad. There are colors that we cannot see. Ah, God help me. The damned thing is of such a color. The end. Okay, I like that story. I say this

every time. I like that story for a bunch of reasons. But it's true. I like the story for a bunch of reasons. I really like the way it plays with all of these different omniscient narrator. And then there's the account from the writer, and then there's the journal, like all crammed into a pretty short story, but in a way that flows well for me. It doesn't make it like spookier, but it makes it more fun or interesting.

This is the story actually gets classified as science fiction as much as it gets classified as anything else, like a ghost story. But at the same time it plays with something that people who live in the woods understand, which is that there's just often this sense that there's just something there, you know, and the whole like the dog barking at nothing and the stars went out for

a moment and all those things. Those are experiences I've had and I don't actually think there's a damned thing in the woods it's going to get me, and you know, honestly, like I don't know. It also like gets at this idea of like camouflage, right, it talks about the one tree that looked like the other trees and I don't know anyway, I just like that story and I like that the author fought whole ass word and slavery and

you know, was pretty interesting. So I hope you like it too, and if not, maybe you'll like next weeks. And if you did like this week's, maybe you'll like next weeks on cool Zone Media book Club. Also, I'm on tour right now. I'm reading fables out. If you are anywhere in the US, there's a decent chance I'll be on tour near you. Unless I already have been. You can go to my substack Margaret kiljoyd Do at

substack dot com. I wrote a whole bunch of folklore, said in the same world as The Sapling Cage, which is my new book, and I'm on tour with The Sapling Cage. But I thought, rather than read from my book, which would be sort of boring for me, I'm going to read all these fables, which so far I've had good reception with, and eventually I'll read you all the fables on this book club, but not yet because I want you to go hear me read them to you

in person, so you should do that. And even the idea of like writing all this folklore, honestly, it comes from well, reading you all this folklore because I like old stories and maybe you like them too.