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October 20, 2024 25 mins

Margaret reads you the story she figures probably inspired Predator.

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media book Club book Club, book Club, book Club,
book Club Club. It's the Cool Zone Media book Club
Spooky Month Edition. I mean, mister Margaret Kildre, the Cool

(00:22):
Zonned Media book Club is the only book club where
you don't have to do the reading because I do
it for you. There's other book clubs where people to
probably do the reading for you. But did I do
the reading for you? No, someone else did. Anyway, this
month on book Club, I'm gonna read spooky stories and

(00:43):
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

(01:05):
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.

(01:29):
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

(01:49):
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

(02:09):
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

(02:32):
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

(02:54):
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

(03:15):
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

(03:36):
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

(04:00):
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

(04:20):
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

(04:44):
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

(05:05):
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.

(05:26):
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.

(05:49):
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

(06:12):
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.

(06:32):
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

(06:53):
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,

(07:15):
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

(07:38):
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,

(08:01):
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.

(08:26):
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.

(08:54):
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

(09:15):
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.

(09:37):
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

(09:59):
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

(10:22):
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

(10:43):
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

(11:07):
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,

(11:29):
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

(11:51):
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,

(12:13):
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

(12:33):
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

(12:54):
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

(13:17):
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

(13:38):
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

(13:58):
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

(14:20):
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.

(14:44):
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

(15:05):
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

(15:26):
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

(15:47):
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

(16:09):
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

(16:29):
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.

(16:53):
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?

(17:15):
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

(17:37):
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

(17:57):
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.

(18:22):
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

(18:45):
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?

(19:09):
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

(19:30):
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.

(19:53):
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.

(20:13):
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

(20:35):
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.

(20:56):
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

(21:19):
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.

(21:44):
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

(22:06):
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

(22:26):
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

(22:48):
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

(23:08):
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

(23:28):
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

(23:49):
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.

(24:10):
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

(24:33):
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

(24:53):
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.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
All right, bye, it could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts, you can find sources for It could happen here,
Updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

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