Hidden within the depths of "From Beyond," an unsettling horror tale by H.P. Lovecraft, lies the discovery of a device that unveils a ghastly dimension beyond human perception. As the narrator peers into this unearthly realm, unspeakable creatures and sinister secrets come to light. With a relentless inter-dimensional predator on their heels, the boundaries of reality blur, forcing a chilling choice that will haunt them forever. Prepare to be consumed by a haunting tale of forbidden knowledge and the terrors that lurk just beyond our grasp.
*Created by:*
▶ Narrated by Josh Greenwood
▶ Edited by Martin Gold
▶ Graphic by Jordan Harvey
Author: Howard Phillips Lovecraft https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFA6HwSbUABqcFccVWq9F_TNHwxNAyM3C
Date of creation: 1920
First publication: The Fantasy Fan, 1934
Language: English
Version: Unabridged, Complete/Full
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Tags: #audiobook #hplovecraft #lovecraft #audiobooks #shortstories #shortstory
Gates of Imagination presents: From Beyond by H.P. Lovecraft. Narrated by Josh Greenwood. Horrible beyond conception was the change
which had taken place in my best friend, Crawford Tillinghast. I had not seen him since that day, two months
and a half before, when he had told me toward what goal his physical and metaphysical researches
were leading; when he had answered my awed and almost frightened remonstrances by driving
me from his laboratory and his house in a burst of fanatical rage. I had
known that he now remained mostly shut
in the attic laboratory with that accursed electrical machine, eating little and excluding
even the servants, but I had not thought that a brief period of ten weeks could so alter
and disfigure any human creature. It is not pleasant to see a stout man suddenly
grown thin, and it is even worse when the baggy skin becomes yellowed or greyed, the
eyes sunken, circled, and uncannily glowing, the forehead veined and corrugated, and the
hands tremulous and twitc
hing. And if added to this there be a repellent
unkemptness; a wild disorder of dress, a bushiness of dark hair white at the roots, and an unchecked
growth of pure white beard on a face once clean-shaven, the cumulative effect is quite
shocking. But such was the aspect of Crawford Tillinghast
on the night his half-coherent message brought me to his door after my weeks of exile; such
the spectre that trembled as it admitted me, candle in hand, and glanced furtively over
its shoulder as if fearful
of unseen things in the ancient, lonely house set back from
Benevolent Street. That Crawford Tillinghast should ever have
studied science and philosophy was a mistake. These things should be left to the frigid
and impersonal investigator, for they offer two equally tragic alternatives to the man
of feeling and action; despair if he fail in his quest, and terrors unutterable and
unimaginable if he succeed. Tillinghast had once been the prey of failure,
solitary and melancholy; but now I knew, wi
th nauseating fears of my own, that he was the
prey of success. I had indeed warned him ten weeks before,
when he burst forth with his tale of what he felt himself about to discover. He had been flushed and excited then, talking
in a high and unnatural, though always pedantic, voice. “What do we know,” he had said, “of
the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly
few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are co
nstructed to
see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend
the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger, or different
range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study
whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected
with the senses we have. I have always believed that such strange,
inaccessible worlds exist at our very elbo
ws, and now I believe I have found a way to break
down the barriers. I am not joking. Within twenty-four hours that machine near
the table will generate waves acting on unrecognised sense-organs that exist in us as atrophied
or rudimentary vestiges. Those waves will open up to us many vistas
unknown to man, and several unknown to anything we consider organic life. We shall see that at which dogs howl in the
dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight. We shall see these thing
s, and other things
which no breathing creature has yet seen. We shall overleap time, space, and dimensions,
and without bodily motion peer to the bottom of creation. When Tillinghast said these things I remonstrated,
for I knew him well enough to be frightened rather than amused; but he was a fanatic,
and drove me from the house. Now he was no less a fanatic, but his desire
to speak had conquered his resentment, and he had written me imperatively in a hand I
could scarcely recognise. As I enter
ed the abode of the friend so suddenly
metamorphosed to a shivering gargoyle, I became infected with the terror which seemed stalking
in all the shadows. The words and beliefs expressed ten weeks
before seemed bodied forth in the darkness beyond the small circle of candle light, and
I sickened at the hollow, altered voice of my host. I wished the servants were about, and did
not like it when he said they had all left three days previously. It seemed strange that old Gregory, at least,
should des
ert his master without telling as tried a friend as I. It was he who had given
me all the information I had of Tillinghast after I was repulsed in rage. Yet I soon subordinated all my fears to my
growing curiosity and fascination. Just what Crawford Tillinghast now wished
of me I could only guess, but that he had some stupendous secret or discovery to impart,
I could not doubt. Before I had protested at his unnatural pryings
into the unthinkable; now that he had evidently succeeded to some degre
e I almost shared his
spirit, terrible though the cost of victory appeared. Up through the dark emptiness of the house
I followed the bobbing candle in the hand of this shaking parody on man. The electricity seemed to be turned off, and
when I asked my guide he said it was for a definite reason. “It would be too much . . . I would not
dare,” he continued to mutter. I especially noted his new habit of muttering,
for it was not like him to talk to himself. We entered the laboratory in the attic, a
nd
I observed that detestable electrical machine, glowing with a sickly, sinister, violet luminosity. It was connected with a powerful chemical
battery, but seemed to be receiving no current; for I recalled that in its experimental stage
it had sputtered and purred when in action. In reply to my question Tillinghast mumbled
that this permanent glow was not electrical in any sense that I could understand. He now seated me near the machine, so that
it was on my right, and turned a switch somewhere
below the crowning cluster of glass bulbs. The usual sputtering began, turned to a whine,
and terminated in a drone so soft as to suggest a return to silence. Meanwhile the luminosity increased, waned
again, then assumed a pale, outré colour or blend of colours which I could neither
place nor describe. Tillinghast had been watching me, and noted
my puzzled expression. “Do you know what that is?” he whispered. “That is ultra-violet.” He chuckled oddly at my surprise. “You thought ultra-violet wa
s invisible,
and so it is—but you can see that and many other invisible things now. “Listen to me! The waves from that thing are waking a thousand
sleeping senses in us; senses which we inherit from aeons of evolution from the state of
detached electrons to the state of organic humanity. I have seen truth, and I intend to shew it
to you. Do you wonder how it will seem? I will tell you.” Here Tillinghast seated himself directly opposite
me, blowing out his candle and staring hideously into my eye
s. “Your existing sense-organs—ears first,
I think—will pick up many of the impressions, for they are closely connected with the dormant
organs. Then there will be others. You have heard of the pineal gland? I laugh at the shallow endocrinologist, fellow-dupe
and fellow-parvenu of the Freudian. That gland is the great sense-organ of organs—I
have found out. It is like sight in the end, and transmits
visual pictures to the brain. If you are normal, that is the way you ought
to get most of it . .
. I mean get most of the evidence from beyond.” I looked about the immense attic room with
the sloping south wall, dimly lit by rays which the every-day eye cannot see. The far corners were all shadows, and the
whole place took on a hazy unreality which obscured its nature and invited the imagination
to symbolism and phantasm. During the interval that Tillinghast was silent
I fancied myself in some vast and incredible temple of long-dead gods; some vague edifice
of innumerable black stone column
s reaching up from a floor of damp slabs to a cloudy
height beyond the range of my vision. The picture was very vivid for a while, but
gradually gave way to a more horrible conception; that of utter, absolute solitude in infinite,
sightless, soundless space. There seemed to be a void, and nothing more,
and I felt a childish fear which prompted me to draw from my hip pocket the revolver
I always carried after dark since the night I was held up in East Providence. Then, from the farthermost region
s of remoteness,
the sound softly glided into existence. It was infinitely faint, subtly vibrant, and
unmistakably musical, but held a quality of surpassing wildness which made its impact
feel like a delicate torture of my whole body. I felt sensations like those one feels when
accidentally scratching ground glass. Simultaneously there developed something like
a cold draught, which apparently swept past me from the direction of the distant sound. As I waited breathlessly I perceived that
both so
und and wind were increasing; the effect being to give me an odd notion of myself as
tied to a pair of rails in the path of a gigantic approaching locomotive. I began to speak to Tillinghast, and as I
did so all the unusual impressions abruptly vanished. I saw only the man, the glowing machine, and
the dim apartment. Tillinghast was grinning repulsively at the
revolver which I had almost unconsciously drawn, but from his expression I was sure
he had seen and heard as much as I, if not a great de
al more. I whispered what I had experienced, and he
bade me to remain as quiet and receptive as possible. “Don’t move,” he cautioned, “for in
these rays we are able to be seen as well as to see. I told you the servants left, but I didn’t
tell you how. It was that thick-witted housekeeper—she
turned on the lights downstairs after I had warned her not to, and the wires picked up
sympathetic vibrations. It must have been frightful—I could hear
the screams up here in spite of all I was seeing and he
aring from another direction,
and later it was rather awful to find those empty heaps of clothes around the house. Mrs. Updike’s clothes were close to the
front hall switch—that’s how I know she did it. It got them all. But so long as we don’t move we’re fairly
safe. Remember we’re dealing with a hideous world
in which we are practically helpless. . . . Keep still!” The combined shock of the revelation and of
the abrupt command gave me a kind of paralysis, and in my terror my mind again opened t
o the
impressions coming from what Tillinghast called “beyond”. I was now in a vortex of sound and motion,
with confused pictures before my eyes. I saw the blurred outlines of the room, but
from some point in space there seemed to be pouring a seething column of unrecognisable
shapes or clouds, penetrating the solid roof at a point ahead and to the right of me. Then I glimpsed the temple-like effect again,
but this time the pillars reached up into an aërial ocean of light, which sent down
one bl
inding beam along the path of the cloudy column I had seen before. After that the scene was almost wholly kaleidoscopic,
and in the jumble of sights, sounds, and unidentified sense-impressions I felt that I was about
to dissolve or in some way lose the solid form. One definite flash I shall always remember. I seemed for an instant to behold a patch
of strange night sky filled with shining, revolving spheres, and as it receded I saw
that the glowing suns formed a constellation or galaxy of settle
d shape; this shape being
the distorted face of Crawford Tillinghast. At another time I felt the huge animate things
brushing past me and occasionally walking or drifting through my supposedly solid body,
and thought I saw Tillinghast look at them as though his better trained senses could
catch them visually. I recalled what he had said of the pineal
gland, and wondered what he saw with this preternatural eye. Suddenly I myself became possessed of a kind
of augmented sight. Over and above the lu
minous and shadowy chaos
arose a picture which, though vague, held the elements of consistency and permanence. It was indeed somewhat familiar, for the unusual
part was superimposed upon the usual terrestrial scene much as a cinema view may be thrown
upon the painted curtain of a theatre. I saw the attic laboratory, the electrical
machine, and the unsightly form of Tillinghast opposite me; but of all the space unoccupied
by familiar material objects not one particle was vacant. Indescribable sha
pes both alive and otherwise
were mixed in disgusting disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of
alien, unknown entities. It likewise seemed that all the known things
entered into the composition of other unknown things, and vice versa. Foremost among the living objects were great
inky, jellyish monstrosities which flabbily quivered in harmony with the vibrations from
the machine. They were present in loathsome profusion,
and I saw to my horror that they overlapped; that they
were semi-fluid and capable of passing
through one another and through what we know as solids. These things were never still, but seemed
ever floating about with some malignant purpose. Sometimes they appeared to devour one another,
the attacker launching itself at its victim and instantaneously obliterating the latter
from sight. Shudderingly I felt that I knew what had obliterated
the unfortunate servants, and could not exclude the things from my mind as I strove to observe
other properties of
the newly visible world that lies unseen around us. But Tillinghast had been watching me, and
was speaking. “You see them? You see them? You see the things that float and flop about
you and through you every moment of your life? You see the creatures that form what men call
the pure air and the blue sky? Have I not succeeded in breaking down the
barrier; have I not shewn you worlds that no other living men have seen?” I heard him scream through the horrible chaos,
and looked at the wild face th
rust so offensively close to mine. His eyes were pits of flame, and they glared
at me with what I now saw was overwhelming hatred. The machine droned detestably. “You think those floundering things wiped
out the servants? Fool, they are harmless! But the servants are gone, aren’t they? You tried to stop me; you discouraged me when
I needed every drop of encouragement I could get; you were afraid of the cosmic truth,
you damned coward, but now I’ve got you! What swept up the servants? What made t
hem scream so loud? . . . Don’t know, eh? You’ll know soon enough! Look at me—listen to what I say—do you
suppose there are really any such things as time and magnitude? Do you fancy there are such things as form
or matter? I tell you, I have struck depths that your
little brain can’t picture! I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity
and drawn down daemons from the stars. . . . I have harnessed the shadows that stride
from world to world to sow death and madness. . . . Space belongs to me, do y
ou hear? Things are hunting me now—the things that
devour and dissolve—but I know how to elude them. It is you they will get, as they got the servants. Stirring, dear sir? I told you it was dangerous to move. I have saved you so far by telling you to
keep still—saved you to see more sights and to listen to me. If you had moved, they would have been at
you long ago. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you. They didn’t hurt the servants—it was seeing
that made the poor devils scream so. My pets are not p
retty, for they come out
of places where aesthetic standards are—very different. Disintegration is quite painless, I assure
you—but I want you to see them. I almost saw them, but I knew how to stop. You are not curious? I always knew you were no scientist! Trembling, eh? Trembling with anxiety to see the ultimate
things I have discovered? Why don’t you move, then? Tired? Well, don’t worry, my friend, for they are
coming. . . . Look! Look, curse you, look! . . . It’s just over your left shoulder.
. . .”
What remains to be told is very brief, and may be familiar to you from the newspaper
accounts. The police heard a shot in the old Tillinghast
house and found us there—Tillinghast dead and me unconscious. They arrested me because the revolver was
in my hand, but released me in three hours, after they found it was apoplexy which had
finished Tillinghast and saw that my shot had been directed at the noxious machine which
now lay hopelessly shattered on the laboratory floor. I did not tell v
ery much of what I had seen,
for I feared the coroner would be sceptical; but from the evasive outline I did give, the
doctor told me that I had undoubtedly been hypnotised by the vindictive and homicidal
madman. I wish I could believe that doctor. It would help my shaky nerves if I could dismiss
what I now have to think of the air and the sky about and above me. I never feel alone or comfortable, and a hideous
sense of pursuit sometimes comes chillingly on me when I am weary. What prevents me f
rom believing the doctor
is this one simple fact—that the police never found the bodies of those servants whom
they say Crawford Tillinghast murdered. Thank you for listening. If you like our recordings consider liking
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Comments
If you enjoyed our work and would like to support us, you can: 👍 Like this video and subscribe to our channel ♥ Join us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC61NF20ZcIsbzJB7_IyURsQ/join 👥 Follow us on https://www.facebook.com/gates.of.imagination.fb and https://twitter.com/gates_of_imagin
Good afternoon thank you for the great stories you’re a good narrator❤
Aloha from Hawaii 🌋🏝️🌈! Nice job Josh. Clear as a bell with focus and comprehension. This is a great story and describes my old lsd experiences.
Pleasantly upsetting.
How does one "accidentally scratch ground glass", I wonder.
Great job. Wonderful narration. I listened to this one late at night while making Tea. I like how it keeps me company waiting for the water to boil. 🫖 👍