The Space-Eaters

"The Space-Eaters" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Frank Belknap Long, originally published in the July 1928 issue of Weird Tales. It was reprinted in Long's collection The Hounds of Tindalos (1946) and in August Derleth's seminal anthology Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1969), among others.
The story's narrator, Frank, appears to be the same character from "The Hounds of Tindalos", as both stories are set in the fictional town of Partridgeville. Frank and his friend Howard are also named and modeled after Long himself and his real life friend Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
==Synopsis==
The story opens as a mysterious fog envelops the town of Partridgeville at night. Frank and his friend Howard are discussing Howard's career as a horror author, and the challenge of describing in words something entirely alien to human experience. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Frank's neighbor, Henry Wells, who tells them about a strange incident that happened to him while returning to town from Brewster.
While Wells was crossing the woods, an object similar to a calf's brain fell from the trees on his wagon, followed by a long thin white creature. Wells finds this creature difficult to describe, but compares it to an impossibly long thin arm coming out from the tree tops, complete with a hand. He notes, however, that it might not have looked like that at all. Wells and his horse are scared by the sight and run away, but Wells feels an agonizing sensation of frigid cold inside his head, as if his brain was being burned by ice. Although the pain soon fades away, Wells finds out that he now has a deep hole on his head.
Frank and Howard have little time to examine Wells' head before the pain comes back and the big man runs away, screaming about something inside his head that wants to return to the woods. Frank believes that Wells has been shot on the head and survived miraculously, but Howard points out that the flesh wasn't torn and there was no blood. As they hear Wells' tortured screams, the two venture into the woods and find him alive but barely conscious, telling them that he's been attacked again. And this time could see the being more coherently: it was not a hand, but some kind of many-legged creature which entered his head and was now feeding on his brain.
The three men hear a mysterious droning sound and Howard urges them to run. They arrive at the farm exhausted and shut the door, but Wells starts acting like a wild animal and bites Howard, prompting the latter to knock him unconscious. Frank ties Wells up, tends to Howard's wounds, and calls a doctor, Smith, who declares that Wells has a brain fever and will die if not operated on. Smith notices that Howard has a slight fever too, and gives him a glass of water with an opiate, so Howard falls asleep while Smith operates on Wells. Frank holds the lamp for him, but doesn't dare to look. When Smith is finished, he reveals that he couldn't do anything about the thing he saw inside Wells' head, so he simply sealed up the wound. He remarks that Wells is doomed anyway, and warns Frank to leave the house, as the creatures will come for him.
When Howard wakes up and hears about what Dr. Smith said, he agrees that they must leave the house immediately, and suggests Frank's boat, as even a foggy sea at night would be safer than staying close to the woods. As they sail away from the shore, they turn back to see that the woods are now burning in flames, and some undefinable form or shadow is visible above the trees. Howard tells Frank not to concentrate on it, as the creatures are trying to penetrate their minds by making them interpret them as a recognizable form. For the two of them to remain safe, the thing has to remain formless.
Inspired by the idea that the sign of the cross is older than its religious significance, and might have been used by primitive humans to ward off cosmic predators, Frank tells Howard to light a torch and makes the sign in the air with it. Howard sees that it is working and does the same, and the horror seems to vanish. Frank collapses, exhausted.
Three weeks later, Frank visits Howard in Brooklyn and asks him to explain what had happened that night. Howard believes that several phenomena, such as the long thin "arm" that Wells saw coming down from trees and the droning sound they heard, were actually caused by the Space Eaters reaching out to their minds, which in turn tried to make sense of them by giving them some form that is recognizable by human senses.
Howard is now struggling to write a story based on what they experienced, and is convinced that there is no danger. The creatures must have left Earth already, perhaps destroyed or banished by the sign of the cross, he reasons, as there has been no manifestation of them for three weeks. Frank, on the other hand, is more cautious, and advises Howard to try to forget everything instead of writing it down, an advice that Howard ignores. He completes the story three days later and shows it to Frank, who finds it utterly distasteful.
That same night, Howard phones Frank and desperately informs him that the creatures have been drawn to him, and he is powerless to resist them. Even the sign won't repel them anymore. Howard believes that writing down the story has doomed him. Frank rushes to Howard's house, but is too late. He sees Howard's dead body and a luminous alien creature floating above him, feeding on his brain. It is only the sudden apparition of the cross in the air, as foretold in John Dee's Necronomicon, that spares Frank from suffering the same fate.
==Characters==
*Frank, the narrator, who resides in Partridgeville.
*Howard, Frank's friend, a writer of horror stories who lives in Brooklyn.
*Henry Wells, Frank's neighbor, described as a very large and tall man, but usually kind and gentle.
*Dr. Smith, a physician who examines Wells.
==Behind the Mythos==
"The Space-Eaters" opens up with a quote from John Dee's translation of the Necronomicon, thus predating Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror", which likewise establishes how the tome has been translated to English by Dee. The use of the cross as a protective symbol is also present in some of Lovecraft's stories, such as "Psychopompos" (1919) and "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933).
"The Space-Eaters" is sometimes considered to be the first Cthulhu Mythos story not written by Lovecraft"A Chronology of the Cthulhu Mythos, 1920-1937," Edward P. Berglund.. However, it was predated by Long's own "The Were-Snake", which mentions Abdul Alhazred.
Robert M. Price praised "The Space-Eaters" in his collection The Tindalos Cycle, and also used it as a template for his comedic pastiche "The Dweller in the Pot: Or, The Pasta Out of Space Eaters".
==Adaptations==
"The Space-Eaters" was loosely adapted as an episode of the anthology TV series Monsters, which aired in 1991. The episode was written and directed by Robert T. Megginson, and features a number of changes to the narrative. Notably, the character Frank is renamed Frederick. It was one of two Mythos stories adapted for the series, the other being "Far Below".
== References ==
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Frank Belknap Long works