The Terrible Old Man

The Terrible Old Man returns to a similar theme to the case of Charles Dexter Ward. In this tale we hear about a man so old that no-one knows who he is, or how old he is... Just that he has lived in the house for a longer than anyone can remember Ad talks to some bottles as if they are long lost friends. Local rumours have him owning a mirage horde of treasure that is too good an opportunity to turn down for three burglars; unfortunately for them things don't quite go their way and they are found mutilated as if hacked apart by cutlasses and stomped by boots.

In the Charles Dexter Ward tale, Curwen is able to store and reanistores dead, who he stores in bottles. We can only assume that in his travels, this old man discovered how to keep s friends close in a similar manner; wether through malice, or loneliness we don't know. It does, however, raise an interesting idea that the Germans, Russians or Japanese may decide to follow similar experiments in order to drop large armies behind enemy lines more easily.... Just imagine dropping a crate of bottles and one person to animate the dust contained within? Invading a city would be easy... Who would suspect one man and a crate?