The nation was rocked by the revelations of "The Pentagon Papers" years ago...and now the horror film world is certain to be rocked and shocked by the disclosures of...
By Geoffrey Miller
(At the end of the classic Universal Studios horror cycle, Larry Talbot, the reluctant Wolfman, was cured of his lycanthropic affliction in House Of Dracula. Or was he? In the later Abbot And Costello Meets Frankenstein, Larry's back to his wolfish tricks again. What really happened to Lawrence Talbot? The recent discovery of a tattered handwritten manucript in the ruins of an old castle in Frankenstein, Germany, seems to provide some answers. The following is a transcription of a portion of the manuscript.)
It was the fiftieth anniversary of my death. My first death. I decided to commemorate it by going home. No one in Llanwelly would recognize me anymore, even though I looked exactly the same, forever 31 years old. Those who might remember me must all be dead. And the events of my death had probably been told and retold so many times that by now they were considered nothing more than a fanciful tale. I could not die but I hoped all memory of me had. Not the memory of me, Lawrence Talbot, but the part dogs were forever barking at, that made cats’ hair stand on end and flee when they crossed my path. That made birds stop singing when I walked through a forest. The part that my father, always the scientist, insisted didn’t exist, couldn’t exist, and was merely symbolic of the evil in all men’s souls. The werewolf.
In 1939, when I returned to Llanwelly after
having exiled myself in America for eighteen years, Llanwelly was
a village. Quaint and very Welsh. There had been only a few cars.
Most people still got around in horse drawn wagons. Now it was a
small city, no longer quaint or very Welsh, but looking like any
other "new town" you see everywhere in the British
Isles. I looked at it through a pair of binoculars from a hill
directly above the cemetery. I took the glasses away from my eyes
and smiled. It reminded me of the first time I saw Gwen. Gwen
Conliffe. I had just installed a new refractor in my
father’s telescope. I was looking through it at the village
when I saw her in her room. She lived with her father above the
antique store they owned. She was so beautiful. I was still
smiling at the thought. I’m not a man who’s smiled very
much in the last fifty years. I looked down the hill at the
cemetery and wondered if that’s where she was now.
On a wall in the office of the cemetery superintendent was a map of all the graves. Her name was not there. But all the others were. Jenny Williams. Richardson, the grave digger. Paul Montford. Frank Andrews. Doctor Lloyd. Mr.Twiddle. Gwen’s father, Charles. And Bela. I paid my respects to each of them in turn. At the far end of the cemetery, in an area reserved no doubt for paupers and the disreputable, was a tilted headstone obscured by weeds. The inscription read:
BELA, A GYPSY
KNOWN ONLY TO GOD
I stared at it a long while . . . and felt nothing. Curious. Here was the man who had done this to me, whose bite had put this curse on me. As the cycle of the full moon approaches my chest begins to ache. And I have the same vivid dream. It’s night in the forest near the marshes where the trees seem to grow straight up out of the ground. The moon is full and a thick, nearly stagnant fog floats eerily above land and water alike. We’re all there - Frank Andrews, Captain Montford, Doctor Lloyd, Mister Twiddle, my father and I. Lying over the roots of a tree, next to a walking stick mounted with the silver head of a wolf, is some kind of dead animal with a bloody crushed skull and muddy bare human feet with leaves stuck to them. I yell at everyone gathered around this creature, "What kind of a thing is this? An animal with human feet!" And all they can say is, "Look, his feet are bare." "So they are. He just didn’t have time to put on his shoes." Now I stared calmly at Bela’s weather-beaten tombstone as if it were that of a total stranger. I turned and left the cemetery, headed for Llanwelly.
* * *
I walked down White Swan Lane which, miraculously, had hardly changed. And there it was, where it had always been, right across the street from the Oyster Bed Cafe. The sign painted on the window read:
CONLIFFE ANTIQUES - bought and sold
I was ...there’s
really no way to describe how overcome by emotion I was. This one
tiny part 
of the Lane was totally unchanged.
I went around to the side of the antique store. On the wall,
badly faded but still barely visible, was the painted sign that
said: Saneman Products Ltd. On that last night, just hours before
my death, as I stood barefoot under Gwen’s window, tossing
pebbles up at it, trying to awaken her, I looked at that sign and
wondered if it was referring to me. Was I a sane man?
A door opened and a tinny bell jingled. That bell, the one that rang when you opened the door to the antique store. I crossed to the side of the building and peered cautiously around the corner. Two old women were standing near the front door, one holding a vase. They exchanged a few words, then the one with the vase walked away. The other one ... the other one was slightly stooped, with snow white hair. The kind of white that used to be golden blond. She had to be in her early seventies. "Gwen", I said aloud, not meaning to. She looked my way and I pulled my head back. Then I heard the bell jingle as the door closed. I walked slowly toward the door, trying to peer inside. I stopped in mid-stride as if suddenly paralyzed. Hanging horizontally in the window, in a red velvet lined display case, was the black walking stick mounted with the silver head of a wolf and the pentagram, the five pointed star. A small sign attached to the bottom of the display case said: This item not for sale at any price. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at it. Eventually I noticed my reflection in the window. My eyes were as big as saucers and my mouth hung open. I blinked, closed my mouth and looked around, embarrassed. The sun was behind me and its harsh glare on the window prevented me from seeing clearly inside. A good thing too. I couldn’t simply walk in there, as I might have unthinkingly done. Maybe I shouldn’t have any contact with her at all. As far as she was concerned I died fifty years ago. Suppose a dead man walked in, looking exactly the way he did the night he died? But I wanted to see her. I had to.
I went to a stationary store and bought a pen and small note pad. I wrote:
Do you still have those earrings? Half moon shaped with spangles. The ones you were wearing the first time I saw you through the telescope? We never did get our fortunes told that night, did we? You’re not engaged to Frank anymore, so the old ladies can’t cluck their tongues. I’ll see you tonight at eight. It really is me, Gwen. If your heart can stand it, so can mine. See you tonight.
I found a girl, about ten years old, looking through the front window of a candy store. "Do you know Conliffe’s antique store?", I asked her.
She looked up at me and nodded.
* * *
"Do you know the woman who works there?"
"Miss
Gwen? Uh huh."
I took a five pound bill from my pocket and wrapped the note I had written around it. "The money’s for you. All you have to do is make sure Miss Gwen gets this note. Will you do that for me?"
Her eyes lit up. "Wow! Five quid! Sure, guv!" She snatched the money out of my hand and ran down White Swan Lane, headed for the antique store.
* * *
At eight o’clock I was waiting on the stairway next to the store. I heard the bell jingle as the door opened and jingle again as it closed. My heart was pounding. I walked down the steps onto the sidewalk, not ten feet from her.
She put her open hand to her mouth. "My God . . . Larry. It is--" She couldn’t say any more.
I stood close to her and couldn’t contain a smile. "You look great." I almost laughed. "I’m sorry, Gwen. That sounds so dumb. But I don’t know what else to say."
She kept shaking her head. "I don’t know what to say either." She was wearing the earrings. She just kept shaking her head in disbelief. "I saw you die."
"I did."
She waved a hand in front of her face to dispel the mood created by the mention of death. "Would you like to come inside? I’ll make us a cup of tea. Would you like that?"
I nodded and took her hand.
She opened the door and the bell jingled. "Larry . . . I’ve got a million questions I want to ask you."
And there the transcript ends! But there's more of "The Pentagram Papers" to be revealed--look for the next installment during the next full moon...
Article copyright (c) Geoffrey Miller. Talbot JPG courtesy of The Monster Bash Page and "E-Gor" Chastain.
