The Grinning Ghoul

"The Grinning Ghoul" is a short story by Robert Bloch that first appeared in the June 1936 issue of Weird Tales. The plot, involving a psychiatrist whose attempts to treat a patient put the doctor himself in a sanitarium, reflects the fact that Bloch was "long skeptical of the pretensions of psychiatrists...regarding them as little more than shamans in suits."Mysteries of the Worm, introduction to "The Grinning Ghoul", Robert M. Price (Chaosium, 1993).
==Synopsis==
The narrator is an "inmate of a sanitorium for mental cases" who six months earlier was a "well-known and moderately successful practicing psychiatrist". In an effort to treat Alexander Chaupin, a professor at Newberry College, who has recurring nightmares about ghouls living beneath Misericorde Cemetery, the doctor insists that the two of them visit the graveyard at night to demonstrate that the creatures he fears are imaginary. When Chaupin leads the doctor to a tomb, he is surprised to find that there is indeed a secret opening there--giving access to stairways that drop deep into the earth. At the bottom is a vast cavern system, where Chaupin leaves the doctor, saying he will bring back proof that his stories are true. Instead, the doctor hears a cry, then "the rustling scrape of frantic movement", then a "hoarse barking", a "bestial growling" that sickens him with "its semi-human tones". The doctor races up the stairs, and slams the secret portal shut in the face of the pursuing ghouls--but not before he sees that the leader of the pack is Professor Chaupin.
==Behind the Mythos ==
In an effort to convince the doctor of the truth of his claims, Chaupin cites a number of Cthulhu Mythos tomes: "Ludvig Prinn's Mysteries of the Worm", "the grotesque Black Rites of mystic Luveh-Keraphf, the priest of cryptic Bast", and "the mad and legendary Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred". He makes mysterious references to "the banned and infamous Fable of Nyarlathotep", and the "Legend of the Elder Saboth"; he speaks of "fabled Leng, lightless N'ken, and demon-haunted Nis", as well as "such blasphemies as the Moon of Yiggurath and the secret parable of Byagoona the Faceless One."
Of course, the doctor dismisses all this as "incoherent ravings"--but he does prepare for their visit to the cemetery with "a hasty perusal of the expurgated edition of Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules."
==References==
Category:Robert Bloch works
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works