Derleth’s “The Survivor”

Part of Lovecraft’s Investigators and Their Guns.

(set in 1930, published in 1954)

The events of that night, though not frightening me too badly, did result in my purchasing a powerful Luger pistol in a second-hand shop, as well as a new flashlight; the lamp had impeded me in the night, which a flashlight would not do in similar circumstances … What I saw was incredible, horrible. It was not a man who stood there, but a travesty of a man. I know that for one cataclysmic moment I though consciousness would leave me; but a sense of urgency coupled with an awareness of acute danger swept over me, and without a moment’s hesitation, I fired four times, at such range that I knew each shot had found harbor in the body of the bestial thing that leaned over Dr. Charriere’s desk in that darkened study.

 

While “The Survivor” has most likely been entirely written by August Derleth, despite his own claims of posthumous cooperation with H.P. Lovecraft, the story is nevertheless in the Lovecraftian mould. Furthermore, Derleth’s work is obviously a heavy influence for Call of Cthulhu. As one of Derleth’s better efforts, I feel fully justified to cover this here as well.

Lovecraft and His Guns

The lore of hunting allured me, and the feel of a rifle was balm to my soul; but after killing a squirrel I formed a dislike for killing things which could not fight back, hence turned to targets …

‒ H.P. Lovecraft as quoted by L. Sprague de Camp in Lovecraft: A Biography (1975)

In 1903, aged 13, H.P. Lovecraft already owned at least one firearm, a revolver that made up part of his kit as an eager consulting detective in the Providence Detective Agency ‒ and it was “the real thing” (letter to August Derleth in 1931), unlike the water pistol and cap gun of his colleagues.

 Source: Wikipedia Commons