originally published Eldritch Tales No's 8 and 9, 1982, 1983
Our young narrator (E. Phillips Winsor) is a student at Miskatonic U in 1928, where he befriends an eccentric fellow student named Howard Wentworth Anable, who is basically H.P. Lovecraft under another name. It seems Anable has vanished, and our narrator knows how.
Anable has become absorbed in eccentric, occult studies, and likes our narrator because he thinks his friendship may help him stay grounded. He asks him to move into some rooms he's rented, next semester.
Winsor goes on vacation and has fun, while Anable writes increasingly weird letters about the discoveries he's making in his studies of old New England cults. When Winsor returns, Anable takes him to a remote spot called Satan's Ledge, where occult rites were held, and there they meet a local squatter named Jay Harper who claims to have part of the original Old Ones cult that met there.
Anable gets deeper and deeper into it. The cult is revived and begins to meet again on Satan's Ledge. Winsor interrupts Anable's initiation. At first Anable is angry, then grateful. He begins to recuperate, returns to his studies. But then becomes secretive and strange again. One night Winsor hears Anable chanting again, and busts down his door, but too late - Anable has been spirited away by something.
As he settles affairs and moves out, the landlady passes on a condescending letter from Anable, stating that Winsor wasn't worthy of transcending the mundane world anyway.
This is a relatively entertaining tale, despite being overloaded with Derleth/Lovecraft clichés. I can't quite make up my mind if I find the climax underwhelming, or impressive just cause it doesn't close with a shootout with gloopy monsters. In any case you could do a lot worse.
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