The Pool of the Stone God by A. Merritt

How well do you know Japan?

Do you know why so many stone statues of Ojizo and foxes wear red bibs and have pinwheels

clicking softly beside them? Are you familiar with the once popular beauty recipe of mixing rusty

nails and iron scraps in a tincture of vinegar and strong tea? All so you can dye your teeth the

most stunning shade of black. I'm author Theresa Matsura and for over 35 years I've been exploring

the hidden, fascinating and sometimes terrifying corners of a country I call home.

If you too are charmed by Japan and want to learn a little more about these obscure bits of culture

or if you just want to put on your headphones close your eyes and relax while listening to me tell you

about a yokai that licks the scum from your drain with its disturbingly long tongue.

Then uncanny Japan is for you. Now broadcasting from SpectreVision Radio. You can find and follow

me on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Dewa Matah.

Welcome to The Horror of Apple Podcast.

The Pool of the Stone God by Abraham Merritt.

This is Professor James Maaston's story. A score of learned bodies have

purchasedly heard him tell it and then among themselves have lamented that so brilliant a man

could have such an obsession. Professor Maaston told it to me in San Francisco just before he started

to find the island that holds his pool of the stone god and the wings that guard it. He seemed to

me very sane. It is true that the equipment of his expedition was unusual and not the least

curious part of it are the suits of fine chainmail and masks and gauntlets with which each man of

the party is provided. The five of us, said Professor Maaston, sat side by side on the beach.

There was Wilkinson, the first officer, Bates and Cassidy, the two semen, waters, the purler,

and myself. We had all been on our way to New Guinea. I, to study the fossils for the Smith

Sonion. The marinas had struck the hidden reef the night before and had sunk swiftly. We were then,

roughly, about 500 miles northeast of the Guinea coast. The five of us had managed to drop a

lifeboat and get away. The boat was well stocked with water and provisions. Whether the rest of

the crew had escaped, we did not know. We had sighted the island at dawn and had made for her.

The lifeboat was drawn safely up on the sands.

We'd better explore a bit anyway, said Waters. This may be a perfect place for us to wait rescue,

at least until the typhoon season is over. We've our pistols. Let's start by following this

brook to its source, look over the place and then decide what we'll do.

The trees began to thin out. We saw a head and open space. We reached it and stopped in sheer

amazement. The clearing was perfectly square and about 500 feet wide. The trees stopped abruptly

at its edges as though held back by something unseen. But it was not this singular impression that

held us. At the far end of the square were a dozen stone huts clustered about one slightly larger.

They reminded me powerfully of those prehistoric structures you see in parts of England and

France. I approach now the most singular thing about this whole singular and sinister place.

In the center of the space was a pool walled about with huge blocks of cut stone.

At the side of the pool rose a great stone figure carved in the semblance of a man with

outstretched hands. It was at least 20 feet high and was extremely well executed. At the

distance the statue seemed nude and yet it had a peculiar effect of drapery about it.

As we drew nearer we saw that it was covered from ankles to neck with the most extraordinary

carved wings. They looked exactly like bat wings when they were folded. There was something

extremely disquieting about this figure. The face was inexpressively ugly and malignant.

The eyes, mongrel-shaped, slanted evil. It was not from the face though that this feeling

seemed to emanate. It was from the body covered with wings and especially from the wings.

They were part of the idol and yet they gave one the idea that they were clinging to it.

Cassidy, a big brute of a man, swaggered up to the idol and laid his hand on it.

He drew it away quickly, his face white, his mouth twitching.

I followed him and conquering my unscientific repugnance examined the stone.

It, like the huts and in fact the whole place, was clearly the work of that forgotten race whose

monuments are scattered over the southern Pacific. The carving of the wings was wonderful.

They were bat-like, as I have said, folded and each-ended in a little ring of conventionalized

feathers. They ranged in size from four to ten inches. I ran my fingers over one.

Never, if I felt the equal of the nausea that sent me to my knees before the idol.

The wing had felt like smooth, cold stone, but I had the sensation of having touched back of

the stone some monstrous obscene creature of a lower world. The sensation came, of course,

I reasoned only from the temperature and texture of the stone, and yet this did not really satisfy me.

Dusk was soon due. We decided to return to the beach and examine the clearing further on the

morrow. I desired greatly to explore the stone huts. We started back through the forest.

We walked some distance, and then night fell. We lost the brook. After a half hours wondering,

we heard it again. We started for it. The trees began to thin out, and we thought we were approaching

the beach. Then waters clatched my arm. I stopped. Directly in front of us was the open space

with the stone god leering under the moon, and the green water shining at his feet. We had made a

circle. Bates and Wilkinson were exhausted. Cassidy swore that devils are no devils he was going to

camp that night beside the pool. The moon was very bright, and it was so very quiet. My scientific

curiosity got the better of me, and I thought I would examine the huts. I left Bates on guard,

and walked over to the largest. There was only one room, and the moon night shining through the

chinks in the wall illuminated it clearly. At the back were two small basins set in the stone.

I looked in one, and so a faint reddish gleam reflected from a number of globular objects.

I drew a half dozen of them out. They were pearls, very wonderful pearls, of a peculiarly

rosy hue. I ran toward the door to call Bates, and stopped. My eyes had been drawn to the stone

idol. Was it an effect of the moonlight, or did it move? No, it was the wings. They stood out from

the stone and waved. They waved, I say, from the ankles to the neck of that monstrous statue.

Bates had seen them too. He was standing with his pistol raised. Then there was a shot.

And after that the air was filled with a rushing sound, like that of a thousand fans.

I saw the wings loose themselves from the stone god and sweep down in a cloud upon the four men.

Another cloud raced up from the pool and joined them. I could not move.

The wings circled swiftly around and about the four. All were now on their feet,

and I never saw such horror as was in their faces.

Then the wings closed in. They clung to my companions as they had clung to the stone.

I fell back into the hut. I lay there through the night insane with terror.

Many times I heard the fan-like rushing about the enclosure, but nothing entered my hut.

Dawn came in silence, and I dragged myself to the door.

There stood the stone god with the wings carved upon him as we had seen him ten hours before.

I ran over to the four lying on the grass. I thought that perhaps I had had a nightmare,

but they were dead. That was not the worst of it.

Each man was shrunken to his bones. They looked like collapsed white balloons.

There was not a drop of blood in them. They were nothing but bones wrapped around in thin skin.

Mastering myself, I went close to the idol. There was something different about it.

It seemed larger, as though the thought went through my mind, as though it had eaten.

Then I saw that it was covered with tiny drops of blood that had dropped from the ends of the

wings that clothed it. I do not remember what happened afterward. I awoke on the purling

schoonlewana, which had picked me up, crazed with thirst as they supposed in the boat of the maranus.

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