In the Vault

"One should start in the cold December of 1880, when the ground froze and the cemetery delvers found they could dig no more graves till spring." In the Vault is a macabre short story written in 1925, (although not published until 1932) showcasing Lovecraft‘s flair for turning mundane settings into scenes of horror. When an undertaker manages to trap himself in the vault where he stores the bodies, he tries to pile-up the (occupied) coffins in an effort to escape. But a careless misstep leads to a horrifying encounter with vengeance from beyond the grave. Though virtually unknown and financially unsuccessful during his lifetime, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is now regarded as one of the most influential 20th-century writers of supernatural horror fiction. Widely credited with inventing the "cosmic horror" genre—fiction that explores humanity‘s insignificance in the face of vast, unknowable cosmic forces—he also created the "Cthulhu Mythos", a shared universe of ancient alien beings and forbidden knowledge that has influenced generations of horror and science fiction writers.