The Whippoorwills in the Hills

"The Whippoorwills in the Hills" is a horror short story by August Derleth, first published in the September 1948 issue of the magazine Weird Tales. Set in the Cthulhu Mythos, it derives elements from several H. P. Lovecraft stories, particularly "The Dunwich Horror", The Shadow Out of Time, and "The Rats in the Walls".
==Synopsis==
On April 30th, 1928, a man named Dan Harrop takes possession of a country house in the vicinity of Arkham and Aylesbury. The house used to belong to Dan's cousin, Abel Harrop, who disappeared a few weeks before. Convinced that the local authorities are not doing anything to find out what happened to him, Dan decides to investigate on his own, but finds the other residents of the valley to be both suspicious and uncooperative, as Abel was regarded as a recluse with a bad reputation for reading books on occultism.
At night, Dan is kept awake by the incessant callings of a flock of whippoorwills, which are noticeably larger and noisier than usual. According to local folklore, whippoorwills can capture the soul of a person who's dying, so the birds' activity is taken as a bad omen.
On the next day, Dan speaks to a man named Amos Whateley, who reacts with hostility to him, but hesitates when Dan points out that he won't stay permanently, and would be willing to sell the house as soon as he finds out what happened to his cousin. Whateley tells him that Abel was taken by "Them from Outside", but regrets saying it when he realises that Dan has no idea what he's talking about. Instead of explaining, he urges Dan to burn Abel's books.
Back in the Harrop house, Dan decides to read some of the books to get to the bottom of the mystery. He finds some marked passages, one of which cautions the reader about summoning Yog-Sothoth and other entities, who demand blood when summoned, and will feed on the summoner themself if the latter has no other sacrifice to offer.
That night, Dan manages to fall asleep, despite the cacophony of the whippoorwills, but wakes up in the middle of the night by a different sound: that of a thunderous, pulsating chant in an unknown language which includes the name Yog-Sothoth. The whippoorwills seem to call rhythmically, as if responding to the chant. Although Dan is unable to identify the source of the chant, he feels that it is extremely close: inside the house, or even inside his room. He remains paralysed with fear until the strange ritual ends with the sound of earth-shaking footsteps moving away, and the fluttering of the whippoorwills taking off.
In the morning, Dan is still shaken by his experience. Before he can return to the study of Abel's books, he realises with some confusion that he seems to already know their contents, as if he had read them before. He goes as far as to recall a vision of tentacled, amoeboid beings with names such as Yog-Sothoth, Cthulhu, Hastur, etc., who wait in other dimensions for their followers to open the gates, so they can reclaim the Earth.
Stepping out into the daylight, Dan feels normal again. He decides to spend the day talking to his neighbours, trying to understand their fear and hostility towards Abel, who was, as far as Dan can remember, a reclusive but thoroughly gentle man who never meant harm to anyone. In spite of the neighbours' animosity, even the most hostile ones insist that they never raised a hand against Abel, and that his disappearance was entirely his own fault, as he has been "taken" by something he summoned himself.
When Dan returns to the house at dusk, he has the feeling that someone is there with him, and thinks he can hear his cousin's voice calling his name. In a corner hidden by piles of boxes, Dan finds a chair with Abel's clothes. However, the clothes are positioned in such a way that suggest that a man had been sitting there and simply vanished. Once again, Dan goes to bed while the whippoorwills torment him with their endless noise. The sounds increase until Dan finally gets up, grabs a cudgel and tries to scare them away. He then falls asleep, exhausted.
Tragedy hits the valley, as the bodies of a child and four cows are found dead, with their throats and wrists torn open and no blood inside them. At night, Dan is surprised when the whippoorwills suddenly fall silent, and goes to the window just in time to see a man he recognises as Amos Whateley setting fire to the house and running away. Dan manages to put out the fire and confronts Whateley about it. Whateley accuses Dan of having read the books and unwittingly oppened the gates. He explains that Abel did the same thing, but refused to offer the sacrifice, which is the reason why he was taken.
At night, Dan once again hears the ponderous alien chant amidst the rhythmic calls of the whippoorwills, and is unable to identify its source, despite feeling that it is very close. The sound reverberates until Dan loses consciousness and dreams of a prehistoric scene in what he recognises as the Paleozoic Era. He sees giant amorphous creatures with retractable tentacles inhabiting a monolithic city. These entities are attended by smaller beings, whose form is also malleable. Dan still hears the whippoorwills, but sees himself as one of the smaller servitors, hunting animals to offer as blood sacrifices to his masters. In the morning, he wakes up feeling as tired as if he had spent the night labouring, and learns that seven more cows have been found dead and bloodless.
The following night, Dan has the same dream, this time aware of being one of the servitors of Yog-Sothoth itself, the mightiest of all the Ancient Ones. Even while dreaming, he can still hear the alien chant and the whippoorwills.
Dan ends the narrative by revealing what others have told him: that it was Dan himself who was chanting all along, and that he was found drinking the blood of a woman whose throat he had torn apart, surrounded by the flock of restless whippoorwills. In his final rant, Dan alternates between reaffirming his loyalty to Yog-Sothoth and proclaiming his innocence, blaming the woman's death on the whippoorwills.
==Gallery==
WhippoorwillsInTheHills1.jpeg|First illustration by Lee Brown Coye
WhippoorwillsInTheHills2.jpg|Second illustration by Lee Brown Coye
==Behind the Mythos==
The library of Abel Harrop includes such titles as "the Rev. Ward Phillips' book, Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-England Canaan, [...] the Cultes des Goules, by Comte d'Erlette, De Vermis Mysteriis, by Dr. Ludvig Prinn, Lully's Ars Magna et Ultima, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the R'lyeh Text, Von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and many other similar titles".
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:August Derleth works