Four O'Clock

"Four O'Clock" is a horror short story by Sonia H. Greene, based on an idea suggested to her by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1922, it was published for the first time in the 1949 Arkham House collection Something About Cats and Other Pieces. It was later reprinted in The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions.
==Synopsis ==
The narrator lies wide awake in bed at night, anticipating with dread and horror the approach of four o'clock. At some point in the past, a man placed a curse on them, which would take place on this exact date at 4 a.m., the same day and hour in which some undisclosed tragedy befell the man, although the narrator claims to be blameless. The fact that the man is now dead does little to placate the narrator's fears. On the contrary, from their window, the narrator can see the cemetery in which the man was buried, and wonders why they chose to sleep in this very house on this very date.
From the direction of the cemetery rises a mist-like substance which seeps through the narrator's window and takes up the form of a giant clock's dial. From the empty dial protrude four claws on the place where the numeral 4 would be. As the monster gradually emerges from the dial, the narrator sees that each claw ends in a cluster of wriggling tentacles. At this point, every sound coming from outside is intensified unbearably, and the cricket's chirping seems to endlessly repeat the words 'four o'clock". The bedroom's wall comes alive with images of dancing demons of various sizes, each with the face of a clock showing four. When the narrator turns back to the tentacled apparition, the creature reveals itself as a hellish being made of fire, and with a face reminiscent of the deceased man who cursed the narrator.
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Sonia H. Greene works
Category:H. P. Lovecraft works