Our narrator, John O'Donnell, is wandering British woods when he comes across the "ruins" of what appears to be an ancient Saxon-built abbey, with a pool in front. I say "ruins" because the place seems to be in fine shape. Inside on a table he finds a letter written "in a feminine hand" - whatever that is! Anyway, the letter is an earlier visitor's account of finding the abbey (except on their trip, the place was in ruins...) and getting bitten by a large toad-thingie that jumped out of the pool. And afterwards the letter-writer's being plagued by weird dreams and croaking sounds. Oh and there's a sketch of scourge on the margins of the letter. Weird!
That's the extent of Howard's actual fragment. From there, Henderson takes over.
O'Donnell is surprised by the entrance of skinny old priest, who chats with him amiably but obtusely and seems to know way too much about him. When the priest's convo gets too weird, O'Donnell behaves as a proper R.E.H. hero should do - pulls a gun and shoots him. To no noticeable effect! The plugged priest pulls off his robe, revealing a pair of great wings. O'Donnell shoots him some more and then stomps him to death, then runs out to the pool (noticing that the abbey is now a ruin again) and demands that whatever is in the pool come out and face him like a man! Or a toad-thing! Or whatever!
He starts throwing big rocks and stones into the water, exhausting himself. That's when the sabre-toothed toad - as big as a boar! - comes out of the water and goes for him. Poor O'Donnell is doomed!
Just then a bare foot from nowhere emerges and crushes the toad! (Can I be forgiven for thinking this sounds a bit like the intro to Monty Python?) It turns out its the ghost/spirit of the young woman who wrote the letter. She's been trapped there ever since. And now O'Donnell has freed her. P.S. she's naked and doesn't seem to mind.
Now - this part throws me ... did I miss something? Because if her foot was big enough to completely crush something the size of a boar, she must've been pretty damn big! But nowhere is this mentioned. Did Henderson forget to mention it? Did O'Donnell? Am I just stupid?
Anyhoo, this is nothing to write home about. I do find Howard's portion interesting, and find myself thinking that it would have made a decent opening to a short story or even a novella - the toad attack being the first bizarre incident of many more to come.
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