"The Clock of Dreams"

by Brian Lumley
originally published Jove Books 1978

DeMarigny is summoned in dreams to Kthanid, the anti-Cthulhu (who de Marigny knows he can trust because of his gentle eyes), and shown a vision of Titus Crow and Tiania in chains.  He is told he must go to Earth's dreamworld to save them - if he can (Kthanid is prone to insulting de Marigny the same way Crow was).  To help him, Kthanid gives him a data dump of all things Dreamlands related (not without a "are you sure you can handle it - of course, Crow could but you're a peabrain" lecture).  De Marigny's extended mini-tour of the Dreamlands is actually pretty evocative.

De Marigny finds himself in the Dreamlands, sans clock, after accidentally giving the too-literally-minded clock the wrong orders (maybe he is a doofus after all).  He meets with Atal in Ulthar, and is sent toward Dyath-Leen, an accursed place, with a potion that will wake (and therefore potentially save) a dreamer.  He is told to seek out Grant Enderby in town.

Enderby tells him how men from Leng took over the city of Dyath-Leen, driving its inhabitants away, and how he, Enderby, ended their curse with some magic taught him by Atal.

Now, however, the Leng-men are back.  They've taken over the city and driven out most of the good folks.

DeMarigny flies to Dyath-leen (using his flying cloak), and finds Crow and Tiania tied up on a pedestal beneath the giant ruby the Leng-men use to control/bedevil the inhabitants.  He rescues them and flies them off to some nearby mountains.  A giant night-gaunt grabs Tiania and flies off with her.  Crow takes DeMarigny's flying cloak, leaving him to walk back to Ulthar (thanks!).  Along the way he's siezed by Leng-men and tied to their pedestal in Dyath-leen, to be sacrificed to Nyarlathotep.  DeMarigny tricks the not-very-bright Leng men into dosing him with the potion, and he awakes safely back on Earth.

Crow, meanwhile, is stranded in the desert because, when DeMarigny is tossed back into the waking world - his cloak goes with him!

So, while Crow hoofs it through the desert and into some vast, desert-floored caves, DeMarigny figures he's gotta hop in the clock and get back to the Dreamlands, pronto.  How best to do this?  Get drunk on brandy of course!!

Meanwhile, Crow fights it out with a trio of monsters.  Of couse, he wins.  DeMarigny and the clock reappear in Dyath-leen, where the Leng men try to set the clock on fire.  DeMarigny, drunk and pissed off, using the clocks energy beams to blow up lots of stuff, in the process freeing the Fly-by-the-Light, a monster imprisoned in the Leng-men's giant ruby.  He kills that, too.

Crow finds Tiania and others held prisoner by a giant being called The Keeper.  After a pointless discussion with it, Crow fights it.  DeMarigny flies in with the clock and wastes The Keeper, too.

They fly back to Ulthar to drop off Tiania, then off to Ilek-vad where they hook up with Randolph Carter, who's raising an army to fight the Leng-men.  Then off for a parley with King Kuranes in Serranian.  Then another confab with Atal.  Then its off to The Enchanted Wood where the Leng-men attempt to unleash an army of nightmare creatures.  Crow cuts them down using the clock's energy beam (of course, Crow uses it).  Nyarlathotep shows up, puts a spell on Crow, calling him forth in thrall.  Kthanid shows up, and, using the distraction, DeMarighy swoops in and grabs the bewitched Crow.  Kthanid attacks Nyarlathotep with beams from his eyes, causing Nyarlathotep to disappear and, in his place, Yog-Sothoth - who gives way to Ithaqua, who gives way to ... aww fuck about a dozen of the usual Great Old Ones until finally it's Cthulhu, who gets blown away. Everyone goes home happy.

This is a little more than a modestly amusing sword-and-sorcery tale, set in the Dreamlands.  DeMarigny remains a doormat, and Crow remains insufferable.  As a read, it's painless and short.  I actually remember liking it a lot when I was 14...

"Aunt Hester"

by Brian Lumley

originally published The Satyr's Head and Other Tales of Horror, 1975

It seems Aunt Hester, the eccentric aunt of the narrator - spiritualist? psychic?  witch? - has some rare abilities - particularly the ability to switch bodies with others.  Such as her brother.  And her nephew...

A fairly forgettable tale, apparently influenced by The Thing on the Doorstep.

"The Warder of Knowledge"

by Richard F. Searight
originally published Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos, Fedogan and Bremer, 1992

Gordon Whitney is a child prodigy who grows up to study the occult.  His study of the "Eltdown Shards" leads him to a ceremony to summon "The Warder of Knowledge", a being that will lead him to enlightenment. He gives it a try.  It opens the way to a journey through vistas of time and space, and finally an encounter with a spongy, green tentacled beastie that absorbs his consciousness into its own.

And odd little tale, highly reminiscent of Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos", but not nearly as effective.

"The Shadow Out Of Time"

by H.P. Lovecraft
originally published Astounding, June 1936

Pity poor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee.  As if weren't bad enough to be named Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee(!), he has the misfortune to be a professor of political economy (at Miskatonic U, of course)!  But as if being the prof of the most snooze-inducing class on campus weren't a ghastly enough fate, one day in the middle of a lecture, he suddenly keels over.  The next thing you know he can't speak, move, walk, etc.  In fact, he acts as if his body were alien to him! 

Whether his napping students ever noticed his lapse of consciousness is not mentioned.

Peaslee recovers, sort of.  But he's seriously weird now.  Including a newfound interest in the occult and sciences.  His wife and kids bail on him, while he travels the world, looking for strange places and stranger people.

Five years into this and - poof! - his old personality and persona return.  And he resumes his old life.  Sort of.   It seems, you see, that he has no memory of the past five years - at all.

However, he is further troubled by strange dreams, of an alien landscape and an alien, unhuman civilization, a race of scholars in the form of giant, cone-shaped tentacular gloop-beasties (L. Sprague DeCamp referred to them as "super limpets").   In time, his increasingly vivid dreams reveal to him much of their culture.  The super-limpets were known as "the Great Race of Yith," an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spatial or temporal destination.  The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. The cone-shaped entities lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert, millions of years before mankind (22°3′14″S 125°0′39″E). (thank you, Wikipedia!)

At first, Peaslee figures he's psychologically damaged.  However, he comes to learn of other cases like his, and their consistency with how own experiences leads him to believe they must be related, somehow.  His studies and his own published articles about his experience lead him into an archaeological expedition to Australia, where he ultimately finds his into the ruins of the city of his dreams.

And that is not all.  For it seems the Yithians were in conflict with another pre-human race, described as "half-polypous", able to control menacing winds.  The Yithians feared these beings, and ultimately fled their cone-bodies to inhabit new form, millenia after man's passing from earth.  But while the Yithians may be gone, the "polypous" are still very much alive.

And that too, is not all.  For, while fleeing the ruins, Peaslee seizes a book that once belonged to the Yithians, an object he remembers from his dreams.  Therein, he finds further proof that said dreams were indeed, not dreams at all.

This tale, though highly regarded, has never been a big personal fave.  Perhaps it just operates on too intellectual a plane ( the final, physical threat is tacked on at the end).  Perhaps just too much of it is a dissertation on the life and culture of a race of limpet-cone-thingies that I don't find all that fascinating (though they are, assuredly, alien).   In any case, its always been a story I admired more than liked. 

By this late in the game, Lovecraft had become a very polished writer, and it is intriguing to me that the rather dry, journalistic nature of the story actually makes profound sense - this narrator is attempting to prove his sanity by the very sober and thorough nature of his writing.

One thing that struck me is how much the final portion, with its mysterious, haunted, unhuman ruins, and a sinister and threatening wind, recalls his early story "The Nameless City".  But where "The Nameless City" is vague, dreamlike, and unfocused, this portion of the story is specific, tight, and matter-of-fact in its strangeness, making it all the more effective.  I wonder if HPL realized he had come full circle as he composed this tale of "mental" time travel? 

Regardless of my reservations, still an impressive work.  And thus, I shall give it my first:

"Lord of the Worms"

by Brian Lumley

originally published Weirdbook 17, 1983

It's 1946.  Titus Crow, having just mustered out of the military, where he served as a specialist in codes and ciphers, finds himself some part-time employment cataloging the library of the ill-reputed Julian Carstairs, a Crowley-like black magician who (of course) lives in a creepy old house.

Not only that, he serves creepy food.  Including some very strong wine which seems to affect Crow in odd ways.

Then there's Carstairs' disconcerting habit of entering Crow's room at night, toadie servant in tow, and making post-hypnotic suggestions to enslave his will.

Oh, and maggots keep showing up in the library.  Hm.

Well, of course the ever-resourceful Crow calls upon some allies to examine the wine and eventually puts two-and-two together (long after the reader has) that Carstairs is up to some dark magic intending to switch bodies with Crow, thus prolonging his life.

It all comes to a head with the big ritual, where it turns out Crow isn't as controlled, nor such a perfect subject, occult-ly, as Carstairs had thought.  Crow turns the tables on him, revealing that Carstairs is actually a skin suit inhabited by armies of worms and maggots, which, tables turned, devour their failed host as Crow flees.

This very pulpy tale is one of the last, and best, Crow stories.  In large part that's because this isn't Crow the insufferable know-it-all we encounter in most Crow tales.  No, this Crow is young and mortal.  To be sure there's a fair amount of silliness, but its all pulled off with a good Weird Tales flair that makes it, ultimately, a good read.

"The Dreams in the Witch-House"

by H.P. Lovecraft

originally published Weird Tales, July 1933

Young Walter Gilman, mathematics major folklore minor at Miskatonic University, rents an attic at Arkhams's "witch-house", an old place with a bed rep.  It used to be the home of Keziah Mason, an accused witch who vanished out of Salem prison in 1692.  Ever since then, occupants of the attic room tend to come to bad ends.

One curse on the place seems to be architectural.  Gilman believes the dimensions conform to some kind of unearthly geometry and may be the key to interdimensional travel.

Gilman starts having strange dreams about drifting bodiless through an otherworldly space of unearthly geometry, indescribable colors, and sounds.  At times he encounters bizarre clusters of bubbles and polyhedral-shaped figures, which appear to be sentient life forms.  

Keziah Mason and her human-faced rat-familiar "Brown Jenkin" also appear in his dreams, and in his waking life as well.

Strange findings evince that Gilman's dreams may not be dreams after all.  He further experiences visiting a city of the "elder things", signing his name in "The Book of Azathoth" under the influence of Keziah and an ominous "Black Man".  He is taken before the throne of Azathoth and apparently takes part in the kidnapping of a local infant.

On May Eve Gilman dreams of a sacrificial ritual involving the infant.  Gilman throttles Keziah, but Brown Jenkin bites through the child's wrist, completing the blood sacrifice, then escapes into a triangular abyss. Awakening, Gilman hears an unearthly sound that leaves him deaf. He tells his neighbor, Frank Elwood about his dream.  The next night, Elwood sees Brown Jenkin eat its way out of  Gilman's chest.

The house is ultimately abandoned and ruined in a storm.  Wreckers eventually find Keziah's skeleton, books on black magic, a sacrificial knife, and a bowl made of some metal which scientists are unable to identify, the skeleton of an enormous deformed rat, with hints of human or primate anatomy,a strange stone-statuette of the star-headed "Elder Things" from Gilman's dreams, and the bones of many children. 

"Dreams" is one of HPL's more controversial tales.  HPL himself called it "a miserable mess".  Derleth, Lin Carter, and S.T. "He Who Knows All" Joshi are all on record with a low opinion of it.  

I'm on board with Lin Carter, who called it "minor" on this one.  I don't think I've read "Dreams" since high school, and all I really retained from it were Gilman's weird dreams, the unexpected appearance of "elder things", and Brown Jenkin.  Re-reading it now after more than thirty years, I'd say that's because that's really all there is too retain.  

"The Jewels of Charlotte"

by Duane Rimel
originally published Unusual Stories No. 1, May-June 1935

Constantine Theunis narrates a strange tale.

Some time previously, he had visited the small town of Hampdon, in order to check out some ancient sculptures.  He found the atmosphere oppressive, and one night heard a strange chiming sound which he (and others) found disquieting.   

Eavesdropping on some G-men who have come to town, Theunis learns that the chime has been associated with disappearances in the past.  Said disappearances always associated with an old man named Cruth, who lives outside the village, and once lost a daughter named Charlotte, who is said to be buried in a tomb in the hills, alongside some rare jewels.  Those disappearances have always been of men who came to try to find the tomb and take the jewels.  And it seems the G-men are trailing some ruffians thought to be seeking the jewels.

Old man Cruth turns out to be quite senile, but he warns everyone to stop seeking the jewels, that "in Yith, my Charlotte will not be broken!"

Theunis leaves the town.  As he drives off, he hears the chime again.

This little vignette has a certain atmosphere to it, but in the end, its far too obtuse to really make much of.  

"Sister of the Sands"

by David Conyers
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

A strange woman walks out of the White Desert of Egypy, into a British reconnaissance camp.  She is covered in blood - but its not hers.  She carries an inverted ankh, which causes the Egyptians to shun her, declaring she and anyone who comes near her is under a death-curse.  But Lieutenant Hennessy is fascinated by her.

The girl ends up back at Hennessy's place, where she stays.  A neighbor's cat shuns her.  She seems to know nothing of the world, or human emotions.  

Hennessy is confronted by an Omar Shakti, who claims he has lost "something of his".  Hennessy figures it's the girl, but says nothing.  

From a scholar named Jamal Alhazred, Hennessy learns of a legend of the pharoah(ess) Nitocris, who bore a child to Nyarlathotep, but abandoned it in the desert.  He is shown (apparently) a Necronomicon and another ancient book entitled The Masked Messenger.  He also learns that he has run afoul of the Nyarlathotep-whorshipping cult of The Black Pharoah.

Hennessy attempts to flee with the mysterious woman.  They are openly attacked by Black Pharoah assassins in a marketplace.  Hennessy kills several of the assassins, but the woman transforms into a tentacled, pincer-d gloop monster and begins slaughtering people.  Hennessy realizes she is the child of Nitocris, abandoned in the desert ages ago.  He reminds her of the power of love, and talks her into leaving earth in search of her own kind, which she does.  

Hennessy flees Egypt and drifts, forever hunted by the Cult of the Black Pharoah.

Well, this has to be the first Cthulhu story I've ever read where The Power of Love wins out!

Other than that - well-written is a somewhat purplish way.  It builds really nicely but the payoff pulls the plug on it.  Bummer.

"Big `C'"

by Brian Lumley
Originally published Lovecraft's Legacy, 1990

The discovery of a second moon in orbit around earth, Luna II, in 2013 leads to a manned expedition, its star - Benjamin "Smiler" Williams.  Who happens to have terminal cancer.

Williams returns, changed.  He still has cancer. But he's not dying of it.  And then "Big C", as Williams calls his illness, decides to exit his body (we are mercifully given only a brief description of this).  And, as a sentient being, it (a) takes over the space installation where Williams is housed (b) gets its tentacles on a bunch of nukes and (c) claims a big chunk of Florida as its own.

Peter, Williams' old friend, is sent to visit Williams and (surreptitiously) detonate a nuclear device to kill "Big C".  It turns out Williams is long dead, merely animated by "Big C" who has drained his memories and such.  "Big C" has also infected Peter (the reason he was sent on the suicide mission).  And he's taking over everything.

Lumley claims this is a sequel of sorts to "The Colour Out Of Space", though I myself can't see it.  Conceptually, it does sort of recall the original Quatermass, though.

In any case, this is decent Lumley tale that's almost amusing in its nastiness.  He really seems to have been having a good time with its grimness and grue.  

"The Bleeding Shadow"

by Joe R. Lansdale
originally published in Down These Strange Streets, 2011

Texas, c. 1954.
Our narrator is a black, unlicensed (blacks couldn't get detective licenses in 1950's Texas) private eye.  One night Alma May, an ex-lover, engages his services.  She takes him back to her place, and plays a 78 her brother Tootie, a blues singer, has sent to her.

The sound isn't the blues, but something indescribable that affects and frightens both of them.  Alama May asks our narrator to find Tootie, who she's sure is in terrible trouble (nothing new) and bring him home.

The narrator sets off for Dallas, eventually tracing Tootie to an ultra-seedy hotel, where he lays around with the strange music playing, musical notes painted on the walls, and notebooks full of strange music notation.  When the narrator stops the music, a gateway to another dimension opens in the walls, and a strange monster starts to enter.  The music drives off the monster and closes the gateway.

The narrator takes Tootie back home, with the monster in pursuit.  There it catches and takes him.

I dug the first part of this tale, with its 50's Texas setting, racial issues, and the blues.  But in the second it becomes pretty mundane.  Yet another in the "Cthulhu Blues" genre which periodically raises its head.  This is one of the better examples, though.

"Requiem for the Burning God"

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Max Calder, a British mercenary and man of action, is hired bya company called NWI to help guard/secure a mining camp in the Andes.  Calder becomes suspicious and investigates the mines, where he and some of his fellow mercs find enslaved indians shoveling pools of apparently sentient black slime into barrels.  A lot of (frankly confusing) action ensues, which involves the other mercs being captured or killed and Calder slugging/shooting/stabbing it out with Lehmann, the cult leader, and then taking off in a bi-plane and shooting down an NWI plane before being shot down himself by an NWI zeppelin(!)

Calder, having survived explosion, shooting, stabbing, beating and now being shot down in a bi-plane and crashing into the ocean, swims off and boards the NWI ship that the planes and zeppelin have been accompanying.  He finds the remaining cultists busy dancing and singing (too busy to pay much attention to him) and sacrificing the last of his fellow remaining mercs to the black slime.  Calder mans the ships guns and shoots down the zeppelin, then jumps into the sea as the zeppelin crashes into the ship, soon catching a handily-ejected lifeboat and floating away to safety.

Wow - this one's a wild ride.  I can't say there's much meat on it, but there's plenty of gripping and well-written action.

"Dagon's Bell"

by Brian Lumley
Originally published Weirdbook 23/24, 1988

David Parker marries June Anderson and moves to a remote farm in Yorkshire.  The farm is the subject of strange rumors and history.  Odd American expatriate inhabitants - from Innsmouth!  And haunted by a phenomenon called "Dagon's Bell" - an eerie tolling heard in the night, seeming to come from under the sea.

David begins to find evidence of a temple on the farm grounds.  His wife becomes ill due to "miasma", a sinister, nasty fog that fills the region.  The bell is heard.

David and his friend William Trafford find underground tunnels leading to an ancient temple to Dagon.  They are attacked by Deep Ones.  David is killed sealing off the temple.

A disappointment, mainly because the first half is highly effective in a classic ghost story fashion.  Lumley had matured enormously as a writer by the time this one came about.  If the story hadn't petered out so in the last third, this would be a real winner.

"The Devil's Diamonds"

by Cody Goodfellow
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Kenya, 1930.  A British run diamond mine, the Lucky Kate, is taken over by Somali workers, and the Cult of the Bloody Tongue, a Nyarlathotep-worshipping cult who are trying to summon the Big N hisself.  Maj. Glendower and Cecil Chichester, the company secretary, are taken hostage and made to work in the mines, digging out glowing green jewels thought to be the remains of a meteor.  Afterwards, they are to be killed, but not without some torture first!  Glendower, witnessing their blood-soaked ritual, sees a chance to escape or at least take a bunch of cultists with him.  He does both.  Some time later in London, he receives an ominous letter from Chichester.

Not much to say about this one.  It's vividly and effectively written, but not much on plot, and there's enough graphic gore to scare of Herschell Gordon Lewis!  Potent in a way, but not that rewarding.

"The Nature of Faith"

by Oscar Rios
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Malcolm Drake, archaeologist and professor at Columbia, is presented a most unusual find by a student:  a coin of obvious ancient Celtic origin, in remarkable condition, depicting a Celt and a Native American, with the Native American presenting the Celt with a turkey.

This coin is important. It clearly indicates the presence of Celts in North America centuries prior to the arrival of the Norsemen, a theory Drake holds but most consider crackpot.  The student informs him the coin came from Dunwish, MA.  Drake decides to spend his spring break in Dunwich, investigating. 

Upon arriving in Dunwich, he promptly wrecks his car.  He's taken to the general store by a friendly local, and there he meets Gerdy Pope, a strange, semi-albino local girl, who's known to have "the gift" - a definite psychic power.  Gerdy takes him to the Tanner's place (a local couple she's rooming with), puts him up, and offers to help him find more coins.  But before she can start, Gerdy is summoned by Mother Bishop, head honcho of the local pagan cult, who warns her that the prof must be dealt with, lest he reveal their secrets.

Gerdy leads him into some woods where, with some help from her pyschic gifts, he finds a coin.  She is troubled by visions of a past in some magical/technological city, where apparently she and the prof were, in previous incarnations, lovers.  

Gerdy leads him into some swamps, where he finds the head of an impossibly ancient statue.  A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath rises out of the water, and Gerdy makes a prayer of sacrifice to it as it kills and devours the prof.

This is a relatively effective story that is marred by some rather weak writing on Rios' part.  He doesn't have a lot of style, and, in more powerful hands, this could have been evocative.  Bummer.

"Quarter To Three"

by Kim Newman
Originally published Fear #2, 1988

A college student from Miskatonic U. works at an all-night bar and grill in Innsmouth.  One night a cute, but very pregnant, teen girl comes in.  He makes her a fish-burger and manages to get him to spike a couple ginger ales for her, while complaining about the baby's father.  The father shows up.  He is, of course, a Deep One.

This whole thing reminds me of those little "black-outs" they used to do on Night Gallery. Remember those? Anyway, it's amusing enough.

"Old Ghost"

by Peter A Worthy 

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Father Thomas moves to Shanghai in 1926, escaping a painful past.  The captain of the ship that takes him in, Williamsen, sets him up with a place to live, an interpreter named Li, and shows him a word in Chinese, which, though the Father can't read it, Williamsen warns him to recognize, and, if he should see it anywhere, to stay away, stating that it is the sign of a cult that practices murder.  He also mentions the name Ho Fong, a local importer who apparently was affiliated with the cult.   It seems Ho Fong recently survived an attempt on his life by some foreigners, all of whom were subsequently killed by his associates.

The cult seems to encroach on Thomas.  He notices the mysterious word tattoed on his housekeeper.  Williamsen is lost at sea.  Serafinowicz, the first mate from Williamsen's the journey that brought Thomas to Shanghai, makes contact.  He introduces Thomas to Medeved, a Russian sailor who also knows a bit too much about the cult, which is known as The Cult of the Bloated Woman.  He gives Thomas two scrolls somehow important to the cult.  Thomas gives them to Li, expecting that the cult will find him and bump him off.  Apparently, they do.

This is a fairly effective story and (for once in the Cthulhu's Dark Cults collection), you don't need to know that Ho Fong and the Cult of the Bloated Woman come from Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign to get something out of it.

On the downside, the unclear ending undercuts the story's strength, and it doesn't quite generate the sense of paranoia it needs to to really pack a punch.  

"Only the End of the World Again"

By Neil Gaiman

originally published Shadows Over Innsmouth 1994

Lawrence Talbot is a claims adjuster.  And a werewolf (get the joke?).  Being a long-time drifter, he's found himself this winter in the run-down town of Innsmouth.  Where everyone seems to know he's a werewolf.  One afternoon, he finds a fat, odd mad sitting in his office.  The man mutters some of the usual "return of the Great Old Ones" stuff Lawrence is used to hearing from the townsfolk, then leaves.  

Lawrence has a strange encounter with the fortune teller in the office opposite his, and then finds himself led by a bartender to a cliffside overlooking the ocean, where the townsfolk are cavorting in some kind of ritual abandon in the surf.  There the bartender, the fat man, and the fortune teller prepare to sacrifice him to the Great Old Ones, telling him that while his wolf-form is murderous, his human form is innocent.

Despite their claims that he will not be able to, Lawrence turns into his wolf form and attacks the fortune teller.  In a dream-like state, he has a vision of himself under the sea, battling a feminine creature with a face "like the stuff you don't want to eat in a sushi counter; all suckers and spines and drifting anemone fronds."  

He returns to consciousness to find he's killed the fortune teller.  The bartender tries to charge him with a ritual dagger, but misses and falls to his death off the cliff.  The fat man shrugs the whole thing off, saying "it's over for now."  He walks away.  Lawrence goes off hunting.  In the morning he awakes naked in the snow, with the remains of a deer he killed last night beside him.  A hawk flies over and drops a small dead squid at Lawrence's feet.  He takes this as some kind of omen, but its meaning is unclear to him.

Neil Gaiman is fine writer, creator of the award-winning Sandman comics series, the book Coraline and many other excellent works.  He's also Lovecraft fan and has a finely-tuned sense of humor and whimsy.  "Only" is an amusing, well-told, but ultimately not-very meaty tale, full of in-jokes. Perhaps its best part is the depiction of a modern but still completely seedy and decaying Innsmouth.  Fun, but hardly essential stuff.  It was later adapted into a graphic novel.

"Covenant of Darkness"

by William Jones
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Det. Matthew Leahy and Prof. Rudolph Pearson are hanging in Pearson's NYC apartment in 1923, waiting for some expected and unpleasant guests.  It seems Pearson has attracted the unwanted attentions of a cult of ghouls living in the hidden places in NYC.

A knock at the door brings Jordan Gabriel, an anthropologist who works cataloging specimens at the Museum of Natural Science.  She has a bag of bones that are decidedly unnatural.

Jordan begins to display and explain the bones when, lo and behold, a ghoul appears at the window.  Jordan is only moderately non-plussed by this.

After several bits of business, the ghoul breaks into the apartment.  It demands the bones.  Finally they decide to hand them over.  Prof. Pearson lives with the knowledge that the ghouls live in secret in the Big Apple, and prey on derelicts and throwaways.

A fairly slight story, and the writing, though quite good, suggests Jones' tongue is in his cheek.  The ghoul cult (drawn from Chaosium's Secrets of New York gaming supplement for Call of Cthulhu) is eerie, and recalls Whitley Streiber's interesting The Wolfen.  I think it will come to some use in my own (still upcoming) Call of Cthulhu campaign.  But in general, while entertaining, this tale is too slight to make much of an impression.

"In the Vaults Beneath"

by Brian Lumley
originally published The Caller of the Black, Arkham House, 1971

Simon Guest and Arthur Jeffries hook up with Prof. Gordon Walmsley, an archaeologist embracing some radical ideas based on Sir Amerry Wendy-Smith's writings.  They follow Walmsley to a dig site in some remote (and not identified) part of England.  Their digging leads them to a city of the Elder Things.  After several misadventures, including starting up a kind of gyroscopic machine (cuz, why not?)they discover what Walmsley believes to be "living Shoggoth tissue" sealed away.  They head out, carting off a bunch of artifacts for study.

The artifacts include several items of written material, a tiny, hollowed-out figurine of an Elder Thing, and a roll of metallic "cloth".  Much theorizing is done and study related, while Walmsley starts to muse about getting rich on their finds.

Walmsley comes to believe that the site is an outpost of the Elder Things, that some of them still alive, and that they will soon "reclaim" it - destroying everything, as they did the city found by the Miskatonic Expedition (cf. "At the Mountains of Madness").  They must get back to the site ASAP!

Guest and Jeffries are supposed to meet Walmsley in the morning.  That particular day, Guest wakes up late and notices the Elder Thing figurine "vibrating".  He puts it on the end of his finger (cuz, why not?), and suddenly, the figurine vanishes - along with most of his finger!  After calling for an ambulance, he and Jeffries make their way down to Walmsley's office.  Bad stuff. You see, it seems the gyroscopic machine was a teleportation device that teleported back to the Elder Things anything taken from their outpost - and anything in contact with them - such as Guest's finger.  And Walmsley, it seems, was about to model for his apprentices a suit he had made of the mystery cloth.  He was wearing it at just the moment the Elder Things "reclaimed" their outpost....

Umm, yeah, okay...

I have to think Lumley kinda had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote this one...