"The Horror on the Beach"

by Alan Dean Foster
originally published Shroud Publishers, 1978

David Corfu buys himself a ranchero on the California coast:  Caso de Rodrigo de Lima, on the beach in Cabrillo Cove.  Dave is an oil engineer working on a project.  The house is big, old, historic and isolated.  He only has two neighbors - the Birches, and Joshua Whipple, an eccentric old beachcomber.

Things quickly turn weird.  The house has a bad rep.  The locals think its evil ("may god have mercy on your soul," one tells him).  Dave and his wife hear weird drumming sounds coming from the beach at night.  Martin Birch has heard the drums too, and notes they've become more frequent since the Corfus arrived.

Dave learns that de Lima was rumored to have made deals with the devil, and so frightened the local Yani Indians that they stormed the ranchero one night - and somehow de Lima, his wife, kid, and some servants wiped out the entire tribe.  They maintained their bad rep until they finally left the place in 1889 - and its stood empty ever since!

There are problems on the project, leading to an uncontrollable oil spill.  The local cops are aware of the night drumming but seem uninterested.  David's wife tells him it feels like the house moves in rhythm to the music.

David is awakened by a call from Martin, who's in some kind of dire emergency, warning him to grab the wife and kid and clear out ("my god - what an abomination!" he shouts) he hears Martin and his family scream, and the sound of glass shattering and more.  The cops come, and with David, find the Birches house obliterated and no sign of Birch, his wife, or his two kids.  They also don't seem terribly interested.  Josh Whipple tells David he's clearing out and suggests they do the same.  And he mentions some odd things.  Like something called Cthulhu.

Dave goes to see Pedro Armendariz, a Prof. of biochemistry.  When he hears the name Cthulhu dropped, Pedro gets a-larmed.  He knows quite a bit about such things, it seems.  And he urges David to get the wife and kid and come stay with him.  Advice which David, again, ignores.

That night at the house, Cthulhu tears the house down while they hide out in the wine cellar.  And he eats the family's Siamese cat (the bastard!)

The next morning they head out to Pedro's place, and he explains the usual Mythos stuff.  He believes there's a cult trying to loose Cthu on the world (thus the drums at night) and that they must take action.  He's enlisted Major Gomez at the nearby missile base to help.  With an army regiment in tow, they surround the cultists in mid-ritual.  Pedro interrupts their summoning with a counter-spell.  Joshua turns out to be the leader, his body covered in symbols burned or etched into his skin ("it was the very first time Dave had seen Joshua Whipple with his clothes off" - I guess Dave was in the habit of seeing his neighbors naked?).  Cthu arrives, then leaves, taking Whipple with him and wiping out most of the beach.  The cultists are rounded up by the army.

This is a weird story that somehow managed to veer between good and bad writing (it's full on non-sequitors like "it was the very first time Dave had seen Joshua Whipple with his clothes off", and decent and embarrassingly corny plotting.  Plus its weirdly structured, with sudden and abrupt jumps in time that make it initially hard to follow.  The penultimate scene with the family hiding out in the cellar while Cthu slaps his tentacles around is pretty effective, but in the end, Foster has reduced Lovecraft's cosmic god to a 50's B-movie monster, a feeling confirmed when the army saves the day (and since when are civilians able to persuade army regiments to go into action?).  A fun read but kind of stupid.