The Haunter of the Dark recap

Occult-minded writer Robert Harrison Blake becomes obsessed with an abandoned Providence church shunned by its neighbors. Inside he finds the remains and notebook of journalist Edwin Lillibridge, records of the Church of Starry Wisdom, and the Shining Trapezohedron, a stone used to call an intelligence that fears light. By looking into the stone, Blake awakens contact with the Haunter confined in the church tower. He tries to resist the link, but a thunderstorm causes a citywide blackout and lets the entity move through the darkness. Blake is found dead at his window after recording signs that the presence was overtaking him. Dr. Dexter later removes the stone from the church and casts it into Narragansett Bay.

Robert Harrison Blake, a writer and painter with an interest in forbidden lore, rents rooms in Providence and repeatedly studies a large abandoned church on Federal Hill. The local Italian community fears the building, but Blake enters it and discovers records of the Church of Starry Wisdom, a congregation founded by Enoch Bowen. In the tower he finds the skeleton and notebook of missing reporter Edwin M. Lillibridge, as well as a metal box containing the Shining Trapezohedron. When Blake looks into the stone, he perceives strange worlds and establishes contact with an immense intelligence. Lillibridge's notes indicate that the congregation called this presence through the stone and kept it in darkness because light could drive it back. Blake leaves the church, but his mental connection to the entity continues. He becomes terrified whenever storms threaten the city's lights, while residents near the church gather with candles and prayers. A severe thunderstorm finally cuts the electrical power. Watching from his apartment, Blake records the dark presence leaving the tower and approaching across the city, then writes as though his identity is merging with it. He is found dead at the window when the lights return. Dr. Dexter subsequently removes the Trapezohedron and throws it into Narragansett Bay, ending access to the object without resolving what happened to Blake's mind at the moment of death.

During a violent thunderstorm, Providence loses electrical power and the light that had kept the presence inside the church is extinguished. Blake watches the darkened tower from his apartment while writing increasingly disordered notes that suggest the entity is approaching and entering his mind. When the lights return, he is found dead at his window, staring toward the church; his face bears an expression of terror, and the medical explanation does not account for all the circumstances. Dr. Dexter enters the church afterward, removes the Shining Trapezohedron, and throws it into Narragansett Bay. The object is gone, but Blake's final notes leave open how completely the Haunter had joined itself to him before his death.