"Something in Wood"

 

by August Derleth

originally published Weird Tales, March 1948

Our narrator, a fellow named Pinckney, has a tale to tale re: his old buddy Jason Wecter, a famous(?!) and famously acerbic music and arts critic for a Boston newspaper.

Pinckney picks up a little gift for his buddy, who collects weird and primitive arts (including the sculptures of Clark Ashton Smith).  At an antique shop he finds a carving, in a strange, unidentified wood, of a tentacle-faced boogie.  Wecter thinks its great.

Things start getting weird though.  Wecter's columns are suddenly scathing about artists he once liked, and champion obscure, primitive artists and cultures no one's ever heard of.

Wecter tells Pinckney that even he doesn't know where these references came from, or ever remember writing the columns.  He's plagued every night by dreams of alien landscapes and cultures, and sometimes hallucinates that the wood carving has become gigantic, and alive.  He insists the carving is changing shape, gradually moving.

So it goes.  Wecter draws deeper into his weird inner (?) world, identifying the carving as being of Cthulhu (surprise!), and that a cult of Cthulhu is still active in the world. What's more, he likes what's happening to him, as it is opening new realities to him he never dreamt of.  Well anyway before long he up and vanishes without a trace.  

Per his will, Pinckney gets the carving back. Taking it with him out on a motor launch, he thinks he hears Wecter calling to him.  He sees that in one of the tentacles of the carving, there is now a carven image of Wecter, calling for help.  Pinckney throws the carving into the ocean.

Man ... WTF.  This actually is a half-way decent (though in no way great) story up until the last few paragraphs.  There's good atmospheric buildup, and for once we don't get a lecture on the Cthulhu Mythos or a reading list.  But then AD suddenly drops the whole ball with probably the most ludicrous ending he's ever thrown at us (and that is saying somethng)!  Boo!