originally published The Dark Brotherhood Journal No.2, 1972
Our unnamed narrator tells us of his time at Miskatonic U, where he was fortunate enough to have a cool roommate named Bill Tracy, and to meet a pair of creeps named Renaunt and Peterson at the library, digging through the rare occult books. We know their creeps, because they've left a note laying around talking about summoning Ithaqua!
Bill Tracy fills in our narrator on Renaunt and Peterson's creephood. Despite this, when he runs into them the next day, and is invited to join them in looking at some ruins in the nearby woods, even though "every dormant intuition cried out loud" against going - he goes!
They traipse out to the remains of a tower on an island in a lake and - surprise! - knock him out. He comes to. Just as they're about to sacrifice him in order to open the gates for the GOO, and already have summoned up a giant, gaping tentacled mouth, who should come to the rescue but Bill Tracy, star-stones in hand! Brave Bill gets himself killed in the process, but before exiting manages to tell our narrator not to go to the cops (!) but to Prof. Sterns.
UN hunts down Sterns who of course believes him instantly, makes him read a bunch of Mythosian quotes, and drags him to a private plane - along with a mysterious figure in a hat, coat, and scarf over his face who never speaks - and heads off to the woods of Maine to stop an All Hallow's Eve ritual.
After a close brush with Ithaqua, they arrive, and the mysterious silent stranger doffs his clothes, revealing himself to be a pillar of fire. Together, they spoil the party.
Jeezus. Author James Wade has confessed that he was all of 16 when he wrote this little stinky puff. He himself described it as "The Rover Boys at Miskatonic U" and that's close enough. To give fair credit the writing itself is more than competent, and impressive coming from a 16 year old. That's not good enough to save it from its own ridiculousness, but if you're up for a laugh it's fun, and I've seen worse come from the pens of far more accomplished authors than the teenage Wade (Derleth, Bloch, Lumley ….)
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