"Those Who Wait"

by James Wade

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 ….)

"The Keeper of Dark Point"

by John Glasby
originally published The New Lovecraft Circle, Fedogan and Bremer, 1996

It's the summer of 1936 and Stephen Delmore Ashton has disappeared.  And Martin, our narrator, has some ideas as to where.

Stephen came from an ancient British family, who owned a crumbling ancestral manor, not far from an abandoned lighthouse on the Cornish coast.   Martin met Ashton in college, where they shared an interest in "pre-human civilizations" (these dudes must have been popular!).  They remained in touch as Martin became a historian/auhor and Stephen traveled the world in search of rare and odd things.

One night Stephen turns up at Martin's place, not looking so well.  He is on the hunt for a certain rare book, and wants Martin to translate it for him.  They head out to the family manor for some spooky atmosphere, some creepy hints about Stephen's family history, and another long-winded explanation of the Cthulhu Mythos.  He also has a bad habit of staring off into the horizon, and Martin notices lights in the night sky, in the vicinity of the abandoned lighthouse.

The family manor is in ruins, having been burned down 10 years ago by neighbors freaked out about the Ashton's occult hobbies.  A trapdoor in the ruins leads to some underground chambers, where they find an ancient book, and a note from Stephen's mom.  It seems Steph's parents weren't mere followers but actual minions of the GOO.  "Do not fear what lives beneath the manor" it admonishes.  The letter points them to two rituals in the book (one is needlessly hidden) which need to be performed under certain celestial conditions.  

They head out to the lighthouse, which is also in bad shape.  Encountering some hideous wailing coming from behind a locked door, they open it, catching a glimpse of "something scaly and of a hideous green" before they haul ass out of there.

Stephen performs the ritual, which closes an extra-dimensional gate.  Many bizarre sights are seen, and Stephen himself is sucked away.  Martin admits that the critter in the lighthouse, which lived in a tunnel connecting the lighthouse to the manor, had the head of Stephen's mother.

Despite its somewhat goofy reveal, this isn't altogether half-bad.  It's a Lovecraft pastiche that heavily apes HPL's structural storytelling - a series of vaguely or un- related facts and incidents slowly coming together to reveal a supernatural terror.  The writing is somewhat Lovecraftian in style, too, though the adjectiveitis is under control, and Glasby doesn't have HPL's feverish passion.  He writes a cool, very British, old-fashioned spook story line.

All in all, hardly a great story but a very decent, traditional Lovecraft pastiche.

"The Statement of One John Gibson"

by Brian Lumley

originally published Crypt of Cthulhu No. 19, Candlemas, 1984

One John Gibson is a dork who lives with his parents, sort of.  His mother's in an insane asylum and his father passes away of "some creeping organic malfunction" whatever that is.  OJG's pops has been an occult researcher, but warned his young'un away from such things, instead forcing him into religious studies and encouraging him to become a priest.   He has kind of a weird history - born on Walpurgis Night, tormented by dreams of being trapped in dark places, of being under some kind of controlling spell, opf waking hallucinations in which there's a tentacle sticking of of his jammies where his arm oughta be.  Just to make life more interesting, the family lawyer calls to inform OJG has inherited the family money and property, but promptly crashes his car on the family front porch - nonetheless, the brave solicitor manages to crawl from the burning wreckage and croak out "glub - glub - the bureau … destroy it" before he kicks over.

Having been warned to destroy the bureau, or something in it, OJG heads straight for the bureau, where he finds papers and a medallion depicting an alien city and various GOOs. Although he does not know their meaning, he feels a sense of recognition upon seeing these figures, as though he should know them.

He also finds a passel of OLD BOOKS (cue Cthulhu Mythos Booklist) (this bunch includes the Ghorl Nigral!) annnnnnnnnnnnd, in an amusing touch, copies of HPL's Selected Letters, back issues of Weird Tales, and a copy of The Horror in the Museum for good measure!

His researches with these reveal some interesting things, including his relation to Alonzo Typer, he of "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", one of Lovecraft's more regrettable paid revisions (which is saying quite a lot!), done for a client named William Lumley (noooooooo relation according to ol' Brian).  It seems "The Diary" may not have been entirely fictional.  He also comes across a letter from his great uncle to pops, in which great-uncle (who, it seems, is the one who retrieved the amulet - from Yian-Ho) warning him to stay away from dark occult forces … then concluding that he'll probably delve into them anyway - "So be it - I would not keep a man from his destiny" signs off unc, rather uselessly.

Apparently, mom and pops headed out to the haunted house in Attica, NY, where Alonzo Typer met his doom, and encountered something there, under the house.  And did something with it, or tried to.  But exactly what is unclear.  But it appears it may have done something to the missus...

OJG heads off to nut-house where his mom lives, and confronts her with the facts of his parentage, before (apparently) murdering her by pouring poison down her throat till it comes out her nostrils, and leaves pools of black slime around the room somehow.  Nonetheless, OJG himself is nowhere to be found.

Except for its appealing sordidness, this is a less-than-great Lumley tale.  The sub-Derleth/Lovecraft tone of the writing strongly suggests that this was an early, rejected tale that Lum had lying around and kindly gave to this zine.  In any case it's rambling, confused, and frankly pretty silly.  Pass.

"The Stone On The Island"

by Ramsey Campbell
originally published Over The Edge, Arkham House, 1964

Michael Nash is a young nerd who works at (apparently) the tax office.  He lives with his dad, a respected medical man who sidelines as an occult researcher.  And it seems Mike's been through dad's library as well.

One night Michael gets home to find pops dead, an apparent suicide.  He also has a letter for Michael, warning him not to pursue these paths of research, especially re: an island off Severnford which holds some sinister secret that's driven him to this self-inflicted exit.  

Michael, of course, defies his dad's dying wishes and immediately jumps into pops' notes on the island, a series of anecdotes going back over 100 years … remains of a Roman temple, mysterious stones, and people who go there reporting seeing fluttering things which shine in the moonlight, and almost all of whom seem to end up dead - mutilated.  

Naturally, Michael rents a boat and heads out there.  He finds the island unsettling, and spots a white, spherical stone which sends a cold shock through him when he touches it.  Disturbed, he leaves.  Arriving home, he spots a face peering at him from between some curtains.  He swings a poker at what he assume will be the body of the intruder, but only succeeds in breaking the window.  The face, which is apparently independent of any body, flutters out the window.  

The face continues to haunt him, floating around windows at his workplace.  Even worse, it brings friends.  Even worse, only he can see the floating faces.  After a few days of this, Michael's getting a little jumpy.  One afternoon while retrieving some forms from a basement room, he sees one of the faces and viciously attacks it, only to find he's actually injured or possibly killed a co-worker.  He flees, wandering around town until he finally confronts the faces, and is later found dead, mutilated, his own face removed.

This is an odd one.  Written just after The Inhabitant of the Lake, it is Campbell attempting to find his own voice and settings, and modeled not on HPL but M.R. James - and structurally it does indeed resemble a James tale.  It's quite minor, but it was an important story for Campbell.

"The Plain of Sound"

by Ramsey Campbell 

originally published The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Arkham House, 1964

Frank Nuttall, Tony Roles, and yet another Unnamed Narrator, having "nothing particular to do at Brichester University" decide to hike their way down to the village of Severnford, and visit "one of the oldest inns in England".  After the requisite downing of the pints, the gang decides to head home, following some directions from the innkeeper which he alleges are a shortcut.  Soon they're lost.

They begin to hear some strange sounds in the distance, possibly a tractor or some industrial machine.  Hoping to get some better directions, they follow it, finding a small, flat region between four ridges, with a small stone house in the middle of it somewhere.

The sounds become unbearable, but seem to disappear once they reach the stone house.  No one's home and, it seems, no one's been home for some time.  But, there are copies of some books on witchcraft, a diary, and a copy of Revelations of Glaaki.  Oh, and a weird-ass looking machine in one of the rooms.

The diary turns out to be the work of one Prof. Arnold Hird - ex-Brichester U.  Apparently around 1930, Prof. Hird moved out to the isolated stone house in an attempt to study the mysterious noises.  Instead, the Prof. was tortured by odd dreams in which he saw alien cities and even more alien inhabitants, who communicated with him.  The alien vistas and folks existed in alien dimension which overlapped with ours in certain places - the little plain being one of them.  The inhabitants and objects in their world (said world known as S'gluho)  were experienced in ours as sounds, whereas sounds from our world manifest as objects or living things in theirs.  The inhabitants directed Hird to find information in The Necronomicon and Revelations of Glaaki allowing him to build the aforementioned weird-ass machine, which allowed him to see into their world, and them to see us.  

But oh no, that ain't all.  It also allowed them to cross over into our world, in physical form.

And, after awhile, the Prof. began to feel these creatures were less than jake.  Built into the machine is a sounding board, which creates a sound in their world which can be used as a weapon against them, though the effects are apparently nasty (the Prof. does not elaborate).

Well shee-it!  What is their for three sobering-up British college joes to do in such a situation but fire up the blessed machine?  Which they immediately do.

Next thing you know, they're staring the reptilian S'gluhoans in the white-eyed face.  The S'gluhoans pretty quickly start attempting to get their slimy feet in the door.  Quick-thinking Frank uses the sounding board, and the S'gluhoans slam the door.  But Tony, having seen what the weapon did to them (he's unable to tell us exactly what that was) is reduced to a drooling lunatic.

An odd little story that recalls Clark Ashton Smith's weird sci-fi horror more than HPL.  It's certainly not bad, per se, and Campbell's writing is as solid as any other Weird Tales pastiche at this juncture - given that he was 18 or so when he wrote it, that's something.  Nonetheless, this is a very minor tale without much punch,  and its no surprise Campbell left it out of his 1980's Cold Print collection of his best Cthulhu stories.

"Through the Gates of the Silver Key"

by H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price
originally published Weird Tales, July 1934

At a gathering to decide the fate of Randolph Carter's estate (which has been held in trust since his disappearance) the mysterious Swami Chandraputra, who wears curious mittens and enveloping robes, tells Carter's acquaintances of his ultimate fate. He explains that the key took Carter to a type of higher dimension. There, Carter, on an ill-defined mission (or out of sheer curiosity), travelled strange sections of the cosmos by first meeting with 'Umr at-Tawil, a dangerous being warned of in the Necronomicon, saying those who deal with it never return. 'Umr at-Tawil offers Carter a chance to plunge deeper into the cosmos; Carter thus perceives the true nature of the universe before passing through the "Ultimate Gate."

After passing through the Ultimate Gate, Carter (now reduced to a disembodied facet of himself) encounters an Entity, implied to be Yog-Sothoth itself. This being explains that all conscious beings are facets of much greater beings, which exist outside the traditional model of three dimensions. Carter himself is a facet of this particular being, the Supreme Archetype, made up of the greatest thinkers of the universe. The Entity, appearing to be proud of Carter's accomplishments, offers to grant him a wish relating to the many facets of which it is a part. Carter explains that he would love to know more about the facets of a particular long-extinct race on a distant planet, Yaddith, which is constantly threatened by the monstrous Dholes. He has been having persistent dreams about Yaddith in the last few months. The Supreme Archetype accomplishes this by transferring Carter's consciousness into the body of one of his facets among that race, that of Zkauba the wizard, though not before warning Carter to have memorized all his symbols and rites. Carter arrogantly believes that the Silver Key alone will accomplish this claim, but it soon transpires Carter's wish was a mistake; he cannot escape, and is trapped in Zkauba's body. The two beings find each other repugnant, but are now trapped in the same body, periodically changing dominance.

After a vast amount of time trapped on Yaddith, Carter finds a means of suppressing the alien mind with drugs, and then uses their technology, along with the Silver Key to return both to the present and to Earth, where Carter can retrieve his manuscript with the symbols he needs to work on regaining his original body. Once there, the Swami reports, Carter did find the manuscript and promptly contacted Swami Chandraputra, instructing him to go to the meeting to say he would soon be along to reclaim his estate and to continue to hold it in trust. After the Swami finishes the tale, one in the party, the lawyer Aspinwall (who is Carter's cousin), accuses Swami Chandraputra of telling a false tale in an attempt to steal the estate, claiming that he is some kind of conman in a disguise. As Aspinwall tears at the Swami's masklike face and beard, it is revealed that the Swami is not human at all, but Carter, still trapped in Zkauba's hideous body. The other witnesses don't see Carter/Zkauba's true face, but Aspinwall suffers a fatal heart attack. The crisis causes Zkauba's mind to reassert itself, and the alien wizard enters a curious, coffin-shaped clock (implied to be Carter/Zkauba's means of transport to Earth) and disappears.

The tale ends with a vague postscript, speculating that the Swami was merely a common criminal who hypnotized the others to escape. However, the postscript notes, some of the story's details seem eerily accurate.

S.T. Joshi (aka He Who Knows All There Is Or Will Ever Be To Know About Lovecraft AND Is Smarter Than You, You Uneducated Peasant!) wrote of Price's draft (published in Crypt of Cthulhu in the 80's) "a textbook example of the follies a pulp hack can perpetrate when dealing with material entirely beyond his limited capacities".   I repeat this not because its necessarily true but because I find it amusing in its nastiness, and its a "textbook example" of why I think Joshi is an insufferable intellectual snob and a nasty little prick.

(As an aside, in the early 80's I discovered E Hoffman Price lived in the same town I grew up in, and had been living there for decades.  I considered looking him up, but, lacking such tools as the Internet and such - and he wasn't listed in the phone book - plus the nerve, I never did.  I'm glad I didn't, as apparently he was known to be hostile to fans, plus he was an unrepentant bigot - as, of course, was HPL.  In any case, I've read few of Price's stories, but the ones I've read were, yes, pulpy.  But not bad for all that.  Anyway, Joshi's still an asshole)

I find it an entertaining tale that rushes by like Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It's major shortcoming to me is that it isn't very memorable and nothing about it particularly sticks.

"Where I Go, Mi-Go"

by Lois H. Gresh
originally published Singers of Strange Songs, Chaosium, 1997

16 year-old Mirabella lives with her ancient aunt in a cabin somewhere along the Miskatonic.  And apparently she never wears shoes.  She has limited education, I guess, yet seems to be fully literate and even familiar with obscure classical music.  For a good time she makes out with her cousin Thaddeus, who's long-haired, studly, and going off to college.

One day, Auntie gives her a weird letter from Walter Gilman-Smith, Prof of Neurobiology at Miskatonic U.  It babbles incoherently about Mirabella being the last Wendigo, and Thaddeus being the last Derby, and bringing the Spawn of the Winds, and drops the usual names.  Mirabella doesn't get it and Auntie, who seemingly gets it, can't be bothered to explain it.  With nothing better to do, she goes off and gets hot`n'heavy with Thaddeus, who wants her to come away with him to Boston.  Thad has some kind of seizure, babbling the usual "ia! ia!s" and various names.  Auntie snuffs it and Mirabella falls ill with fever.  Thaddeus takes care of her and the two of them head off to Arkham, with Thaddeus blabbing about the Mi-Go coming from the Milky Way.

At Arkham, they find the neurobiology building has Cthulhu statues outside.  Mirabella (who still hasn't bothered to put on shoes or socks) has some kind of freak-out.  She wakes up on a couch in Dr. Gilman-Derby's office.  Thad now has short grey hair and is a middle-aged man.  Gilman-Derby has some kind of weird-ass machine with which he's trying to do ... something involving gold nuclei.  There's more nonsensical babbling about Mi-Go and quantum physics and the Crawling Chaos.  Gilman-Smith tells Mirabella she's pregnant with the spawn of the Mi-Go, and will give birth to creatures who will bring about the end of the world.  Gilman-Smith tries to kill Thaddeus, but Mirabella stops him.  She thinks she's giving birth.  Thaddeus starts to de-age back to his normal self.  Mirabella decides to have her child, and that she and Thaddeus will go back to their cabin and raise it.

What .... the .... fuck?

Y'know, when I was 18, I wanted to be a horror writer.  And I remember writing this absurd story that was completely plotless, a kind of stream-of-consciousness blast of surrealism, that I momentarily thought was really brilliant.  Then I re-read it and realized it didn't make a damn bit of sense and I mercifully destroyed it.  

This story is better than my miscarriage - but only a bit.  A bunch of senseless surreal vignettes vaguely held together by an obscure plotline.  Are these things happening, or not happening?  I get Thaddeus turning into an old man via the life-force being sucked out of him by the "Spawn" - but how did he get a haircut in the process?  Why is Mirabella still bopping around barefoot on the streets of Arkham, till her feet bleed?  Why is any of it happening?  

And, as bad as my youthful fictioneering was, even I was able to avoid sub comic-book dialog like "That's all very cool, doctor man, but what does it have to do with me being old and Mirabella being attacked by hellspawn?" and "Have you ever wondered, my dear, what exists between the cell nucleus and the neutron star?" and my favorite, when Mirabella's had enough of Gilman-Derby's quantum physics babble: "Stop already! Stop with the scientific crap!"  You go, Mirabella.

My god this is a terrible story.  Gresh has published quite a bit, though most of it seems to be in the professional fan fiction type mode (books based on games, etc).  I hope this was an early and not representative effort.  Gag!

"Subway Accident"

by Gregory Nicoll

originally published Singers of Strange Songs, Chaosium, 1997

Gentry is a down-on-his-luck homeless guy in Atlanta who used to work on the subway.  He runs into an old friend, Smedley, who's even more down-on-his-luck.  Smedley freaks out when he sees a handbill advertising an exhibit of Richard Upton Pickman paintings, which includes a photo of Pickman's painting "Subway Accident".

Hearing of some new tunnel work being done, Genty heads out to the site to see if he can talk the foreman into hiring him.  He finds the ground torn up but the equipment abandoned.  Something big tunnels up out of the ground.  Gentry escapes with his life but loses his legs in the process.

Nice try, but this is little more than a vignette and doesn't go anywhere.

"The High Rollers"

by Benjamin Adams and James Robert Smith
originally published Singers of Strange Songs, Chaosium, 1997

Donald Trump - I'm sorry, Anthony King, has purchased some coastal land in Innsmouth and is building a big casino there.  Too bad he's having all kinds of problems, what with workers up and quitting cause they don't want to deal with Innsmouth or its people, and his one friend in the world, Robert Steinberg, who runs a rare book dealership in the refurbished retail regions, is giving him ominous warnings based on things he's read in some of those old, rare books of his.

To top it all off, some of those icky Innsmouthers are pestering him to buy back the land, being as they say they have prior claim to it.

Well, the reps from "The Newquay and Raleigh Company" finally get to him and get him to bargain away the land in exchange for power and knowledge beyond anything he's dreamed.  Thus, King vanishes into vistas of cosmic otherwhatsiness.  Seven years later his body turns up.

Pretty well written, and a decent enough "Twilight Zone"-ish story.  It's hard to read something with such an obvious portrayal of a pre-presidential Donald Trump (it couldn't be more obvious) as the protagonist without snickering - this was written c. 1997. though, so I can't blame the authors for that.  It's nothing special though.