L Ron Hubbard - Fear

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FEAR

L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Bridge Publications, Inc., 4751 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

90029.

Jacket illustration by Gerry Grace.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hubbard, L. Ron (Lafayette Ron), 19H - 1986

Fear

1. Fiction, American. I. Title

ISBN 0-88404-599-4 (alk. paper)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

There is one thing which I wish the reader could keep in mind throughout, and that is: this story is

wholly logical, for all that will appear to the contrary. It is not a very nice story, nor should it be read

alone at midnight-for it is true that any man might have the following happen to him. Even you, today,

might lose four hours from your life and follow, then, in the course of James Lowry.

- L. Ron Hubbard

FOREWORD

Once in a while an editor sees a story that is so finely crafted that it provides immeasurable pleasure

to bring it before the reader. Fear is just such a work, and more, for it not only has great reader appeal, it

uniformly inspires awe in top authors themselves. From Ray Bradbury to Isaac Asimov, it has earned rare

praise as an unforgettable, timeless classic.

Written more than fifty years ago, the story has not only withstood the test of time, but additionally,

it is credited by literary historians, such as David Hartwell, for transforming and creating "the foundations

of the contemporary horror genre."

Legend, too, has a habit of springing up around great works. Robert Heinlein, a close friend of L.

Ron Hubbard, was fond of relating the story of how Fear was written on a single train ride from New York

to Seattle.

But it is the impact on the reader that is the singular, most important test of any work. Fear delivers.

Stephen King, without question today's master of the horror genre, says it best when he looks back at

the accomplishment represented by Fear:

L. Ron Hubbard's Fear is one of the few books in the chiller genre which actually merits

employment of the overworked adjective "classic,” as in "This is a classic tale of creeping,

surreal menace and horror." If you're not averse to a case of the cold chills-a rather bad one-and

you've never read Fear, I urge you to do so. Don't even wait for a dark and stormy night. This is

one of the really, really good ones.

In that, he is not alone. Whether read today or reread fifty years from today, the chilling impact will

never fade.

Why is this?

L. Ron Hubbard did something no other author had ever successfully done. Without the use of

supernatural contrivance-werewolves, vampires; without resorting to extreme venues-the haunted house-

on-the-hill, the cellar lab, the strange planet; and without using super-psychotic protagonists-Freddy

Kruger, Norman Bates; he took an ordinary man, in a very ordinary circumstance and descended him into

a completely plausible but extraordinary hell.

Why is Fear so powerful? Because it really could happen. And that is terrifying.

That simple premise has garnered more accolades than a thousand books of wolves howling to a pale

moon on a "dark and stormy night."

So, if you're not afraid of the ordinary, this story is for you.

But, don't say we didn't warn you...

THE EDITORS

CHAPTER 1

For the briefest flicker he half recalled the birth of his own wanderlust. A theft in his dorm,

accusation, expulsion and disgrace...

Lurking, that lovely spring day, in the office of Dr. Chalmers, Atworthy College Medical Clinic,

there might have been two small spirits of the air, pressed back into the dark shadow behind the door,

avoiding as far as possible the warm sunlight which fell gently upon the rug.

Professor Lowry, buttoning his shirt, said, "So I am good for another year, am I?"

"For another thirty-eight years," smiled Dr. Chalmers. "A fellow with a rugged build like yours

doesn't have to worry much about a thing like malaria. Not even the best variety of bug Yucatan could

offer. You'll have a few chills, of course, but nothing to worry about. By the way, when are you going

back to Mexico?"

"If I go when my wife gives me leave, that'll be never."

"And if I had a woman as lovely as your wife Mary," said Chalmers, "Yucatan could go give its

malaria to somebody else. Oh, well"-and he tried to make himself believe he was not, after all, envious of

Atworthy's wandering ethnologist- "I never could see what you fellows saw in strange lands and places."

"Facts," said Lowry.

"Yes, I suppose. Facts about primitive sacrifice and demons and devils- Say, by the way, that was a

very nice article you had in the Newspaper Weekly last Sunday."

The door moved slightly, though it might have been caused by the cool breath of verdure which came

in the window.

"Thank you," said Lowry, trying not to look too pleased.

"Of course," said young Chalmers, "you were rather sticking out your neck. You had your friend

Tommy frothing about such insolence. He's very fond of his demons and devils, you know."

"He likes to pose," said Lowry. "But how do you mean, 'sticking out my neck'?"

"You haven't been here much under Jebson," said Chalmers. "He nearly crucified a young

mathematician for using Atworthy's name in a scientific magazine. But then, maybe our beloved president

didn't see it. Can't imagine the old stuffed shirt reading the Newspaper Weekly, anyway."

"Oh," said Lowry. "I thought you meant about my denying the existence of such things. Tommy-"

"Well, maybe I meant that, too," said Chalmers. "I guess we're all superstitious savages at heart. And

when you come out in bold-face type and ridicule ancient belief that demons caused sickness and woe and

when you throw dirt, so to speak, in the faces of luck and fate, you must be very, very sure of yourself."

"Why shouldn't I be sure of myself" said Lowry, smiling. "Did anyone ever meet a spirit of any sort

face to face? I mean, of course, that there aren't any authenticated cases on record anywhere."

"Not even," said Chalmers, "the visions of saints?"

"Anyone who starves himself long enough can see visions.

"Still," said Chalmers, "when you offer so wildly to present your head in a basket to the man who can

show you a sure-enough demon-"

"And my head in a basket he shall have," said Lowry. "For a man of science, you talk very weirdly,

old fellow."

"I have been in a psychiatric ward often enough," said Chalmers. "At first I used to think it was the

patient and then, after a while, I began to wonder. You know, demons are supposed to come out with the

full moon. Ever watch a whole psychopathic ward go stark raving mad during the three days that a moon

is full?"

"Nonsense:'

"Perhaps."

"Chalmers, I tried, in that article, to show how people began to believe in supernatural agencies and

how scientific explanation has at last superseded vague terror. Now don't come along and tell me that you

can cast some doubt on those findings."

"Oh"-and Chalmers began to laugh-"we both know that 'truth' is an abstract quantity that probably

doesn't exist. Go crusading against your devils and your demons, Professor Lowry. And if they get mad at

you, argue them out of existence. I myself don't say they exist. It merely strikes me strangely that man's lot

could be so consistently unhappy without something somewhere aiding in that misery. And if it is because

electrons vibrate at certain speeds, or if it is because the spirits of air and earth and water are jealous of

any comfort and happiness that man might have, I neither know nor care. But how comforting it is to

knock on wood when one has made a brag."

"And so," said Lowry, slipping into his topcoat, "the goblins are gonna get me if I don't watch out."

"They'll get you all right if Jebson saw that article," said Chalmers.

The door moved ever so little-but then, perhaps it was just the cool, sweet breath of spring

whispering through the window.

Lowry, swinging his stick, went out into the sunlight. It felt good to be home. The place looked and

smelled good, too. For beyond the change of the seasons, there was never any difference in this town,

never any real difference in the students; and when the college built a new building, why, it always looked

somehow old and mellow before it was half completed. There was a sleepy sameness to the place which

was soothing to one whose eyes had been so long tortured by the searing glare of spinning sun on brassy

sand.

As he walked along toward his office he asked himself why he ever left this place at all. These great

elms, putting forth their buds, yawning students stretched out upon the fresh green grass, colorful jackets,

a mild blue sky, ancient stones and budding ivy-For the briefest flicker he half recalled the birth of his

own wanderlust. A theft in his dorm, accusation, expulsion and disgrace; and three years later-three years

too late to completely remove the scar-they had finally reached him to tell him that the guilty one had been

found within a week after his running away. Remembering, he again felt that seep of shame through him

and the shy idea that he should apologize to the first one he met.

But it passed. It passed and the air was full of spring and hope and the smell of moist earth. Clouds,

hard driven high up, occasionally flashed shadows over the pavement and lawns; the breeze close to earth

frisked with the remnants of autumn, chasing leaves out of corners and across lawns and against trees,

bidding them vanish and make way for a new harvest later on.

No, little ever changed in this quiet and contented Mecca of education. Twenty-five years ago

Franklin Lowry, his father, strolled down this same street; twenty-five years before that Ezekiel Lowry

had done so. And each had done so not once but on almost every day of his mature life and then, dead,

had been carried in a hearse along this way. Only James Lowry had varied such a tradition and that only

slightly, but then James Lowry, in his quiet but often stubborn way, had varied many traditions. He had

been the first Lowry to even start to stain that scholastic name, and he was certainly the first Lowry with

the wanderlust. But then he had been a strange child; not difficult, but strange none the less.

Reared up in a great tomb of a house where no word was less than three syllables long and where the

main attention paid to him was "Hush!" James Lowry had, perforce, built a universe of his own from the

delicate stuff of dreams. If he cared to look in that old dean of a mansion, he knew he could find his

boyhood companions tucked out of sight below the planks which covered the attic floor with indifference;

Swift, Tennyson, Carroll, Verne, Dumas, Gibbon, Colonel Ingram, Shakespeare, Homer, Khayyam and

the unknown creators of myth and legend of all lands had been his advisers and companions and

playmates, taking him off among discards and dust and whispering strange thoughts to him, a wide-eyed

child, smear-faced with jam and attic cobwebs. But, he supposed, walking down in the warmth of the new

sun, he, too, would keep on walking down this street, past these stores with pennants in the windows, past

these students in bright jackets, past these old elms and ancient walls; and he, too, would probably be

carried in a hearse over this pavement to a resting place beside his letter-burdened forefathers.

He was fortunate, he told himself. He had a lovely lady for a wife; he had an honest and wise

gentleman for a friend; he had a respected position and some small reputation as an ethnologist. What of a

slight touch of malaria? That would pass. What if men did not understand so long as they were respectful

and even kind? Life was good and worth the living. What more could one ask?

A group of students passed him and two, athletes from the bars on their sweater arms, touched their

caps and called him "sir." A professor's wife, followed at a respectful distance by her bundle-laden maid,

nodded to him with a friendly smile. A girl from the library followed him with her glance a little way and

without knowing it he walked the straighter. Indeed life was good.

"Professor Lowry, sir." It was an anemic book-delver, assistant to an assistant in some department.

"Yes?"

The young man was a little out of breath and he took a moment or two, standing there and wringing a

wretched cap in his hands, the better to talk clearly. "Sir, Mr. Jebson saw you pass by and sent me after

you. He wants to see you, sir."

"Thank you," said Lowry, turning and retracing his steps until he came to the curving pathway which

led up to the offices. He did not wonder very greatly at being summoned for he was not particularly afraid

of Jebson. Presidents had come and gone at Atworthy and some of them had had peculiar ideas; that

Jebson was somewhat on the stuffy side was nothing to worry about.

The girl in the outer office jumped up and opened the door for him with a muttered, "He will see you

right now, sir," and Lowry went in.

Once or twice a new president had brought some furniture here and had even tried to change the

appearance of this office. But the walls were older than paint and the floor had seen too many carpets pass

away to shift itself much on the account of a new one. Dead men stared frostily out of frames. An eyeless

bust of Cicero stood guard over a case of books which no one ever read. The chairs were so deep and so

ancient that they might have been suspected of holding many a corpse that they had drowned.

Jebson was looking out of the window as though his inattention there might result in a collapse of the

entire scene visible from it. He did not look around, but said, "Be seated, Lowry:'

Lowry sat, regarding the president. The man was very thin and white and old, so stiff he looked more

like plaster than flesh. And each passing year had dug a little deeper in the austere lines which furrowed

his rather unkindly face. Jebson was motionless, for it was his pride that he had no nervous habits. Lowry

waited.

Jebson, at last, opened a drawer and took out a newspaper which was partly printed in color; this he

laid out before him with great care, moving his pen stand so that it would lie smoothly.

Lowry, until then, had felt peaceful. He had forgotten, completely and utterly, that article in the

Newspaper Weekly But even so he relaxed again, for certainly there was nothing wrong in that.

"Lowry," said Jebson, taking a sip of water which must have been white vinegar from the face he

made, and then holding the glass before his face as he continued:

"Lowry, we have stood a great deal from you."

Lowry sat straighter. He retreated to the far depths of himself and regarded Jebson from out the great

shadows of his eyes.

"You have been needed here," said Jebson, "and yet you chose to wander in some lost and

irretrievable land, consorting with the ungodly and scratching for knickknacks like a dog looking for a

bone he has buried and forgotten." Jebson was a little astonished at his own

fluent flight of simile and paused. But he went on in a moment. "Atworthy has financed you when

Atworthy should not have financed anything but new buildings. Atworthy was not built on nonsense."

"I have found more than enough to pay for my own expeditions," ventured Lowry. "Those money

grants were refunded three years ago-"

"No mind. We are here to develop the intelligence and youth of a great nation, not to exhume the

molder mg bones of a heathen civilization. I am no ethnologist. I have little sympathy with ethnology. I

can understand that a man might utilize such play as a hobby, but, holding as I do that man is wholly a

product of his own environment, I cannot see that a study of pagan customs can furnish any true light by

which to understand mankind. Very well. You know my opinions in this matter. We teach ethnology and

you are the chair in anthropology and ethnology. I have no quarrel with learning of any kind, but I do

quarrel with a fixation!"

"I am sorry," said Lowry.

"And I am sorry," said Jebson in the tone a master inquisitor of the Inquisition might have used

condemning a prisoner to an auto-da-fe. "I refer, of course, to this article. By what leave, may I ask, was it

written?"

"Why," floundered poor Lowry, "I had no idea that I was doing wrong. It seemed to me that the

function of the scholar is to give his learning to those who might use it-"

"The function of the scholar has nothing to do with this, Lowry. Nothing whatever to do with this!

Why, this wretched rag is a brand! It is trash and humbug! It is stuffed with lies under the name of

scientific fact. And;' he stated, ominously lowering his tone, "this morning I was confronted with the name

of Atworthy in such a place! If a student had not brought it to me I might never have seen it at all. There it

is, 'By Professor James Lowry, Ethnologist, Atworthy College?"

"I saw no reason to sign anything else-"

"You had no right to inscribe it originally, 'Professor Lowry of At worthy College? It is cheap. It is a

wretched attempt at notoriety. It demeans the very name and purpose of education. But then;' he added

with a sniff, "I suppose one cannot expect anything else from a man whose whole life has been highly

irregular."

"I beg your pardon?" said Lowry.

"Oh, I have been here long enough to know the record of every man on our staff. I know you were

expelled-"

"That matter was all cleared!" cried Lowry, blushing scarlet and twisted with the pain of the memory.

"Perhaps. Perhaps. But that is beside the point. This article is cheap and idiotic and by being cheap

and idiotic it has demeaned the name of Atworthy?' Jebson bent over it and adjusted his glasses upon the

thin bridge of his nose. "'Mankind's mental ills might in part be due to the phantoms of the witch doctors

of yesterday!' Humph! 'By Professor James Lowry, Ethnologist, Atworthy College? You will be writing

about demonology next as something which one and all should believe! This is disgraceful. The entire

town will be talking about it-"

Lowry had managed to control his shaking hands and now erased the quiver from his throat which

sought to block his voice. "That is not an article about demonology, sir. It is an attempt to show people

that their superstitions and many of their fears grew out of yesterday's erroneous beliefs. I have sought to

show that demons and devils were invented to allow some cunning member of the tribe to gain control of

his fellows by the process of inventing something for them to fear and then offering to act as interpreter-"

"I have read it;' said Jebson. "I have read it and I can see more in it than you would like me to see.

Prating of demons and devils and the placating of gods of fear-By your very inference, sir; I suddenly

conceive you to mean religion itself! Next, I suppose, you will attack Christianity as an invention to

overthrow the Roman capitalistic state!"

"But-" began Lowry and then, turning red again, held his tongue and retreated even further into

himself

"This wild beration of demons and devils;' said Jebson, "reads like a protest of your own mind against

a belief which association with the ungodly and unwashed of far lands might have instilled in you yourself

You have made yourself ludicrous. You have brought mockery upon Atworthy. I am afraid I can not

readily forgive this, Lowry. In view of circumstances, I can find no saving excuse for you except that you

desired money and gained it at the expense of the honor and esteem in which this institution is held. There

are just two months left of this school year We cannot dispense with you until the Poor, beautiful, sweet

Mary.

He had always wanted to appear grand to her, to make up somehow for being so many years older

than she. And now he had brought her disgrace and separation from that which she knew best. She would

take it well; she would follow him; she would be sorry and never once mention that she felt badly on her

own account. Yes. Yes, she would do that, he knew. And he would not be able to prevent, nor even be

able to tell her how badly he felt for hen

Again he had the recollection of having an appointment somewhere, but again he could not remember

The wind was chill now and tugged at his hat, and the clouds which swept their shadows over the

pavement were darker still.

He looked about him and found that he was within sight of an old house with iron deer before k, the

home of Professor Tommy Williams, who, for all his bachelorhood, maintained his family place alone.

Feeling strangely as though all had not yet happened to him and experiencing the need of shelter and

company, he walked swiftly to the place and turned up the walk. The mansion seemed to repel him as he

stared at it, for the two gable windows were uncommonly like a pince-nez sitting upon the nose of a

moldering judge; for an instant he hesitated, almost turned around and went away.

And then he had a mental image of Tommy, the one man in this world to whom he could talk, having

been the one kid with whom he had associated as a boy. But if he had come out of his boyhood with a shy

reticence, Tommy had chosen another lane, for Tommy Williams was the joy of his students and the

campus; he had traveled much in the old countries and therefore brought to this place an air of the

cosmopolitan, a gay disregard for convention and frumpy thought. Tommy Williams loved to dabble with

the exotic and fringe the forbidden, to drink special teas with weird foreign names and read cabalistic

books; he told fortunes out of crystal balls at the charity affairs and loved to eye his client afterward with a

sly, sideways look as though outwardly this must all be in fun, but inwardly-inwardly, mightn't it be true?

Tommy was all laughter, froth and lightness, with London styles and Parisian wit, a man too clever to

have any enemies-or very many friends.

No. He need not pause here on the threshold of Tommy's home. It would do him good to talk to

Tommy. Tommy would cheer him and tell him that old Jebson was, at his finest, a pompous old ass. He

mounted the steps and let the knocker drop.

Some dead leaves on the porch were going around in a harassed dance, making a dry and crackly

music of their own; and then inanely they sped out across the lawn as though trying to catch up with a

cloud shadow and so save themselves from an eventual bonfire. Nervous leaves, running away from

inevitable decay, unable to cope with the rival buds which were pushing tenderly forth all unknowing that

those things which fled had once been bright and green, coyly flirting with the wind. This was Lowry's

thought and he did not like it, for it made him feel ancient and decayed, abandoned in favor of the fresh

and green that had no flaws, who were too young to be anything but innocent; how many days would it be

before another had his job? Some youthful other, preaching, perhaps, from Lowry's own books?

He dropped the knocker again, more anxious than before to be admitted to the warmths of fire and

friendship; his teeth were beginning to chatter and he had a sick, all-gone sensation where his stomach

should have been. Malaria?-he asked himself. Yes, he had just come from Chalmers, who had called these

chills malaria. He had not two hours ago peered into a microscope where his basically stained blood was

spread out so that they could see the little globes inside some of the red corpuscles. Malaria wasn't

dangerous, merely uncomfortable. Yes, this must be a malarial chill and shortly it would pass.

Again he dropped the knocker and felt the sound go booming through the high-ceilinged rooms

within; he wanted to go away from there, but he would not bring himself to leave just as Tommy came to

the door. He shivered and turned up his collar. Very soon he would begin to burn; not unlike a leaf, he

told himself. He peered through the side windows which flanked the door.

He had once more the idea that he had an engagement somewhere and pondered for an instant, trying

to pull forth the reluctant fact from a stubborn recess.

No, he wouldn't keep standing here. Houses were never locked in this town, and Tommy, even if he

was not home, would welcome him eagerly when he did return; he pushed open the door and closed it

behind him.

It was dim in the hall; dim with collected years and forgotten events, with crepe long crumbled and

bridal bouquets withered to dust and smoky with childish shouts and the coughing of old men. Somewhere

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FEARL.RonHubbardFEAR.Copyright©1991L.RonHubbardLibrary.Allrightsreserved.PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.Earliereditioncopyright©1940L.RonHubbard.Nopartofthisbookmaybeusedorreproducedinanymannerwhatsoeverwithoutwrittenpermissionexceptinthecaseofbriefquotationsembodiedincriticalarticlesorreviews.Fo...

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