Lichbale's Opening Lecture...

I transferred to Miskatonic University, in the autumn of 'my most immemorial year', having realized that my former alma mater could not provide me with the unique learning I wished to attain; anyone who has heard of the venerable and sinister college in the equally venerable and sinister town of Arkham will be able to divine the peculiar kind of knowledge I thirsted for...but it came as something of a surprise to me when I discovered that even at Miskatonic, there were those who considered certain forms of knowledge to be dangerous.
   When I informed the Dean of Admissions of my desire to sign up for Professor Lichbale's "Metaphysics of Death" course, the bony-faced harridan sniffed and pursed her thin lips in a classic display of puritanical New England disapproval.
  "What's wrong?" I asked.  "I was given to understand that Professor Lichbale is one of Miskatonic's most learned instructors."
  "He's most erudite, naturally," the Dean replied, "but unfortunately Dr. Lichbale is regarded by some as being rather misanthropic, even cynical, in his methods...he has the highest number of drop-outs among his students than any other professor on campus."
  "They probably couldn't keep up with him," I replied in my youthful arrogance; the Dean saw that I would not be denied, and so I found myself, a few short days later, sitting in the worm-eaten benches of an antiquated lecture-room in Curwen Hall,together with a dozen or so equally enthused fellow-students, awaiting the arrival of the notorious scholar.
   We were all equally disappointed, I think, by Lichbale's appearance--a lean, almost Rockwellian figure in comfortable academic tweeds ambled into the room with an armload of books, his avuncular aspect heightened by a snow-white mane and beard; he deposited the volumes on a table beside the lectern, and turned to gaze at us.
  I felt a shudder course through all of us at the sight of his basilisk eyes--even now, many years later, I still shiver at the effect of his cold, remote scrutiny!  Not even photographs of Reinhard Heydrich inspired me with such nameless dread...and our horror escalated at his opening remark:
      
     "One of you is going to die in a few minutes."

   We all sat there in a deathly silence; one of us began to rise to his feet, but sat down abruptly as the Professor added, "Remain calm, gentlemen--" (I should point out that, then as now, Miskatonic has always been woefully short of female students, and none were present in that class)--"Remain calm...sit down, you in the blue jacket, unless of course you're volunteering!  As I am about to demonstrate, Death is not nearly so alien and terrible as you have been brought up to imagine.  That is the entire point of this course, after all.
  "Death is by no means the mere cessation of physical life; nor is it some distant, alien dimension, 'from which no traveler ever returns'--it is a State of existence as immediate and palpable as Life itself."
  As he spoke, Professor Lichbale retrieved several items from an inner pocket of his tweed jacket; a pen knife, a small black bottle stoppered with a cork, and a score of ordinary drinking straws; he laid these on the table, counted out one for each of us, and with cool deliberateness cut one of them in half.  A vague yet ghastly sense of foreboding fell upon us with his terrible eyes as he gathered the straws into his hand and came up into the bleachers with us; he held out his fist, and one by one we began to draw lots, the silence broken by audible sighs of terrible relief as we saw the complete straws in our shaking hands...
   Until the seventh student plucked the short straw.
"Never mind, young man...it's not the end of the world," said the Professor, patting the stricken student on the shoulder; "Come along!"
  The young man, a stout-looking fellow with sandy hair, rose unsteadily to his feet and stumbled down to join Lichbale beside the table; the Professor bade him sit on a wooden chair, facing us.
  "Now then--what's your name?"
"Wuh-Woodbury," the student gulped.
  "Now then, Woodbury, this shan't hurt a bit...just drink this down, and we will proceed with the demonstration," Lichbale told him with horrific matter-of-factness, holding the little black bottle under Woodbury's nose.
  "Uhhh...wh-what happens if I refuse?" Woodbury forced himself to ask, and Professor Lichbale smiled.
  If I live to be a thousand, I never--EVER--want to see that smile again, and I know all my classmates felt the same; Woodbury, reeling directly under that hideous smile, immediately snatched the bottle from the Professor's hand, popped the cork, and gulped down the contents.  He gasped loudly, convulsed, and fell from his chair--his body twitched a bit on the floor, but I'm convinced he was dead before he hit the deck.
  "Very well, gentlemen, come forward," Professor Lichbale commanded; "If some of you will kindly place Woodbury on the table?  And all of you take his pulse, feel for a heartbeat--take your time until you are satisfied that he is dead."
  The terrible scholar stood patiently at the lectern, paging through a peculiarly old and repellant-looking black book, until we had all ascertained that our classmate was indeed a corpse; "Now, pay close attention," said Lichbale, stepping nearer with the open tome in his hands, and he began to read out loud.
  They were words unlike any I'd ever heard before---harsh, guttural, sibilant syllables writhed in our ears, creating weird and uncanny echoes in that dusty old lecture-room; for endless ages the professor's voice chanted, now unbearably loud, now soft as the whisper of the headsman's axe, until with an abruptness that made us all flinch, he slammed the book shut.
  "Woodbury!  You may sit up, now."
The rest of us had remained standing around the corpse on the table the entire time; now, as one, we fell back with shrieks as the dead student's left arm shot straight up, its fingers writhing and clenching!  Then Woodbury lurched into a sitting position, his glassy eyes blinking, his bloodless face twitching and grimacing in an indescribable manner...
  "Stand up!  How do you feel, Woodbury?" Professor Lichbale inquired, and the corpse obeyed, swaying slightly on his feet and gaping around at us, a sliver of drool escaping his slack mouth.
  "Ugghhhhhh...." he droned; the Professor gave him a sharp smack on the back of his head, and Woodbury blinked.
  "I feel...hungry, sir," the erstwhile corpse replied, his voice rather hollow but unmistakably that of our fellow student.
  "Good!  Off you go, and eat...you will find others like you in the cemetery on the west end of the campus," said Lichbale; "They will show you around...have fun, my boy!"
  The thing that had been Woodbury staggered to the door, opened it, and shambled out with a gurgling chuckle that still sometimes wakes me in the dead of night; I never saw him again.
  "Any questions?" asked Professor Lichbale, raising his hoary eyebrows.