SOURCE: "Wet Straw" (Weird Tales, January 1953) by Richard Matheson

DESCRIPTION: "She began to kiss his lips. Her mouth was cold, her eyes wide open. He stared into them while her breath mingled with his. Then she threw back her head and she was laughing and lightning was bursting through the window...Her fingers clenched on his neck. He pulled with all his might and gritted his teeth and wrenched from her grasp..." ("Wet Straw" by Richard Matheson)

NOTES: A man who has lost his wife is living in a boarding house. He finds when he covers his head in bed he is transported from his room to a barn filled with the smell of wet straw. He tries this dimensional shift many times before he realizes his dead wife is also in the barn, a spot they had once gone to escape the rain. She latches onto him, reminding him they swore they'd never be separated, even by death. He tries to escape because he had poisoned her for her money. A tug of war begins with him finally breaking free. The next morning the housekeeper finds his body, minus the head.

HISTORY: This kind of simple revenge story can be very boring but Matheson tells it brilliantly, ending it with a Lovecraftian clincher. The more early Matheson I read the more HPL influence I see. Matheson has done so much great work, especially on TV, it is strange to think he stated in WT like any old Pulper.