"Sister of the Sands"

by David Conyers
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

A strange woman walks out of the White Desert of Egypy, into a British reconnaissance camp.  She is covered in blood - but its not hers.  She carries an inverted ankh, which causes the Egyptians to shun her, declaring she and anyone who comes near her is under a death-curse.  But Lieutenant Hennessy is fascinated by her.

The girl ends up back at Hennessy's place, where she stays.  A neighbor's cat shuns her.  She seems to know nothing of the world, or human emotions.  

Hennessy is confronted by an Omar Shakti, who claims he has lost "something of his".  Hennessy figures it's the girl, but says nothing.  

From a scholar named Jamal Alhazred, Hennessy learns of a legend of the pharoah(ess) Nitocris, who bore a child to Nyarlathotep, but abandoned it in the desert.  He is shown (apparently) a Necronomicon and another ancient book entitled The Masked Messenger.  He also learns that he has run afoul of the Nyarlathotep-whorshipping cult of The Black Pharoah.

Hennessy attempts to flee with the mysterious woman.  They are openly attacked by Black Pharoah assassins in a marketplace.  Hennessy kills several of the assassins, but the woman transforms into a tentacled, pincer-d gloop monster and begins slaughtering people.  Hennessy realizes she is the child of Nitocris, abandoned in the desert ages ago.  He reminds her of the power of love, and talks her into leaving earth in search of her own kind, which she does.  

Hennessy flees Egypt and drifts, forever hunted by the Cult of the Black Pharoah.

Well, this has to be the first Cthulhu story I've ever read where The Power of Love wins out!

Other than that - well-written is a somewhat purplish way.  It builds really nicely but the payoff pulls the plug on it.  Bummer.

"The Bleeding Shadow"

by Joe R. Lansdale
originally published in Down These Strange Streets, 2011

Texas, c. 1954.
Our narrator is a black, unlicensed (blacks couldn't get detective licenses in 1950's Texas) private eye.  One night Alma May, an ex-lover, engages his services.  She takes him back to her place, and plays a 78 her brother Tootie, a blues singer, has sent to her.

The sound isn't the blues, but something indescribable that affects and frightens both of them.  Alama May asks our narrator to find Tootie, who she's sure is in terrible trouble (nothing new) and bring him home.

The narrator sets off for Dallas, eventually tracing Tootie to an ultra-seedy hotel, where he lays around with the strange music playing, musical notes painted on the walls, and notebooks full of strange music notation.  When the narrator stops the music, a gateway to another dimension opens in the walls, and a strange monster starts to enter.  The music drives off the monster and closes the gateway.

The narrator takes Tootie back home, with the monster in pursuit.  There it catches and takes him.

I dug the first part of this tale, with its 50's Texas setting, racial issues, and the blues.  But in the second it becomes pretty mundane.  Yet another in the "Cthulhu Blues" genre which periodically raises its head.  This is one of the better examples, though.

"Requiem for the Burning God"

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Max Calder, a British mercenary and man of action, is hired bya company called NWI to help guard/secure a mining camp in the Andes.  Calder becomes suspicious and investigates the mines, where he and some of his fellow mercs find enslaved indians shoveling pools of apparently sentient black slime into barrels.  A lot of (frankly confusing) action ensues, which involves the other mercs being captured or killed and Calder slugging/shooting/stabbing it out with Lehmann, the cult leader, and then taking off in a bi-plane and shooting down an NWI plane before being shot down himself by an NWI zeppelin(!)

Calder, having survived explosion, shooting, stabbing, beating and now being shot down in a bi-plane and crashing into the ocean, swims off and boards the NWI ship that the planes and zeppelin have been accompanying.  He finds the remaining cultists busy dancing and singing (too busy to pay much attention to him) and sacrificing the last of his fellow remaining mercs to the black slime.  Calder mans the ships guns and shoots down the zeppelin, then jumps into the sea as the zeppelin crashes into the ship, soon catching a handily-ejected lifeboat and floating away to safety.

Wow - this one's a wild ride.  I can't say there's much meat on it, but there's plenty of gripping and well-written action.

"The Devil's Diamonds"

by Cody Goodfellow
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Kenya, 1930.  A British run diamond mine, the Lucky Kate, is taken over by Somali workers, and the Cult of the Bloody Tongue, a Nyarlathotep-worshipping cult who are trying to summon the Big N hisself.  Maj. Glendower and Cecil Chichester, the company secretary, are taken hostage and made to work in the mines, digging out glowing green jewels thought to be the remains of a meteor.  Afterwards, they are to be killed, but not without some torture first!  Glendower, witnessing their blood-soaked ritual, sees a chance to escape or at least take a bunch of cultists with him.  He does both.  Some time later in London, he receives an ominous letter from Chichester.

Not much to say about this one.  It's vividly and effectively written, but not much on plot, and there's enough graphic gore to scare of Herschell Gordon Lewis!  Potent in a way, but not that rewarding.

"The Nature of Faith"

by Oscar Rios
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Malcolm Drake, archaeologist and professor at Columbia, is presented a most unusual find by a student:  a coin of obvious ancient Celtic origin, in remarkable condition, depicting a Celt and a Native American, with the Native American presenting the Celt with a turkey.

This coin is important. It clearly indicates the presence of Celts in North America centuries prior to the arrival of the Norsemen, a theory Drake holds but most consider crackpot.  The student informs him the coin came from Dunwish, MA.  Drake decides to spend his spring break in Dunwich, investigating. 

Upon arriving in Dunwich, he promptly wrecks his car.  He's taken to the general store by a friendly local, and there he meets Gerdy Pope, a strange, semi-albino local girl, who's known to have "the gift" - a definite psychic power.  Gerdy takes him to the Tanner's place (a local couple she's rooming with), puts him up, and offers to help him find more coins.  But before she can start, Gerdy is summoned by Mother Bishop, head honcho of the local pagan cult, who warns her that the prof must be dealt with, lest he reveal their secrets.

Gerdy leads him into some woods where, with some help from her pyschic gifts, he finds a coin.  She is troubled by visions of a past in some magical/technological city, where apparently she and the prof were, in previous incarnations, lovers.  

Gerdy leads him into some swamps, where he finds the head of an impossibly ancient statue.  A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath rises out of the water, and Gerdy makes a prayer of sacrifice to it as it kills and devours the prof.

This is a relatively effective story that is marred by some rather weak writing on Rios' part.  He doesn't have a lot of style, and, in more powerful hands, this could have been evocative.  Bummer.

"Old Ghost"

by Peter A Worthy 

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Father Thomas moves to Shanghai in 1926, escaping a painful past.  The captain of the ship that takes him in, Williamsen, sets him up with a place to live, an interpreter named Li, and shows him a word in Chinese, which, though the Father can't read it, Williamsen warns him to recognize, and, if he should see it anywhere, to stay away, stating that it is the sign of a cult that practices murder.  He also mentions the name Ho Fong, a local importer who apparently was affiliated with the cult.   It seems Ho Fong recently survived an attempt on his life by some foreigners, all of whom were subsequently killed by his associates.

The cult seems to encroach on Thomas.  He notices the mysterious word tattoed on his housekeeper.  Williamsen is lost at sea.  Serafinowicz, the first mate from Williamsen's the journey that brought Thomas to Shanghai, makes contact.  He introduces Thomas to Medeved, a Russian sailor who also knows a bit too much about the cult, which is known as The Cult of the Bloated Woman.  He gives Thomas two scrolls somehow important to the cult.  Thomas gives them to Li, expecting that the cult will find him and bump him off.  Apparently, they do.

This is a fairly effective story and (for once in the Cthulhu's Dark Cults collection), you don't need to know that Ho Fong and the Cult of the Bloated Woman come from Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign to get something out of it.

On the downside, the unclear ending undercuts the story's strength, and it doesn't quite generate the sense of paranoia it needs to to really pack a punch.  

"Covenant of Darkness"

by William Jones
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Det. Matthew Leahy and Prof. Rudolph Pearson are hanging in Pearson's NYC apartment in 1923, waiting for some expected and unpleasant guests.  It seems Pearson has attracted the unwanted attentions of a cult of ghouls living in the hidden places in NYC.

A knock at the door brings Jordan Gabriel, an anthropologist who works cataloging specimens at the Museum of Natural Science.  She has a bag of bones that are decidedly unnatural.

Jordan begins to display and explain the bones when, lo and behold, a ghoul appears at the window.  Jordan is only moderately non-plussed by this.

After several bits of business, the ghoul breaks into the apartment.  It demands the bones.  Finally they decide to hand them over.  Prof. Pearson lives with the knowledge that the ghouls live in secret in the Big Apple, and prey on derelicts and throwaways.

A fairly slight story, and the writing, though quite good, suggests Jones' tongue is in his cheek.  The ghoul cult (drawn from Chaosium's Secrets of New York gaming supplement for Call of Cthulhu) is eerie, and recalls Whitley Streiber's interesting The Wolfen.  I think it will come to some use in my own (still upcoming) Call of Cthulhu campaign.  But in general, while entertaining, this tale is too slight to make much of an impression.

"The Whisper of Ancient Secrets"

by Penelope Love
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

In Victoria Australia lives the Prof., so-called even though he has no educational credentials.  The Prof also has no eyes, or genitals, or apparently several other body parts.  He has sacrificed them in his search for enlightenment. He lives with a group of mutants, or possibly lowlives he has altered in some way.  In addition, he keeps something he refers to as "The Experiment" trapped in caverns below the house they occupy.  Periodically, they steal cows from local ranches and sacrifice them to The Experiment, which has tentacles and wings and who knows what else.

The Prof's explorations are interrupted by the arrival of Robert Huston, another seeker, but one whom the Prof considers highly inferior.  He is on the run from two men and a woman who have apparently disrupted his own nefarious plans.  

The Prof learns that his mutants are plotting to kill him and take off with Huston on a killing spree.  He enlists the two men and the woman to kill them, while he escapes with The Experiment.  The sky opens up and they fly off to meet Azathoth.

This unpleasant little tale is dependent on the reader understanding who Robert Huston is.  As it happens, Huston is a character in Chaosium's Terror Australis campaign, an offshoot of the Masks of Nyarlathotep scenario.  Lacking that information, the tale is largely obtuse.

Even knowing that, the story is not exactly a fun read, being weird, confusing, and more than a little gruesome.  We're inside the head of a completely crazed cultist - and its not a fun place.  Good writing doesn't make this one any more pleasant.

"Perfect Skin"

by David Witteveen

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Charles and Evelyn Drake are celebrating their holiday on the Orient Express, now stopping in Istanbul.  They are accosted over breakfast by a Col. Phelps, a badly-scarred officer who claims to have important issues to discuss with Charles.  Charles runs him off, complaining that his appearance is spoiling their breakfast.

Evelyn is taken by Istanbul's exotica, and Charles buys her a monkey at the bazaar.  But, a couple nights in, Charles is suddenly called away on business - something to do with "The Brotherhood".

The next day, he still hasn't returned.  An alarmed Evelyn starts asking questions, but is stonewalled.  She contacts Col. Phelps, who is alarmed at mention of The Brotherhood.  He advises her to leave Istanbul immediately, that her life is in danger.

Back at the hotel, Evelyn encounters Charles in the hotel room.  But he doesn't seem to recognize her.  His eyes and teeth have changed, and his skin looks strange.  He threatens her with a knife, then flees without a word.  She finds the monkey has been skinned. Evelyn passes out.

She comes to with Col. Phelps on hand.  They're making arrangements to get her back to England.  Phelps explains that The Brotherhood (of the Skin) is a shunned and feared cult that allegedly removes the skins of their sacrifices and wears them in their ceremonies.  

Evelyn seeks out Mustafa, the hotel manager and a friend of Charles', and demands he take her to The Brotherhood.

A short time later, Phelps finds the Drakes on the train.  When he enters their compartment, he finds Evelyn's eyes are now black.  She kills him with a dagger.

Good writing and strong characterization elevate this otherwise slight story.  The Brotherhood of the Skin is a Clive Barker-ish cult presented in Chaosium's Horror on the Orient Express, but without knowledge of that scenario, this story has far less meaning.

"Captains of Industry"

by John Goodrich
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Janos and Dimitri work at Emerson's washing machine factory, near Boston, in 1921.  Janos is a big, hulking Hungarian, veteran of the Great War.  Dimitri is a small, slight Russian intellectual. Both are involved in forming a union, and, when we meet them, are heading a strike - that goes very bad when an army of strike-breakers hired by Emerson proceed to pound the living shoggoth-shit out of the strikers.

Bloodied but unbowed, organizer Antonio charges Dimitri and Janos to spy on Emerson, to find out how the skinflint factory owner found the wherewithal to bring in expensive strike-breakers.  They soon learn of his association with a private club called The Order of the Silver Twilight, a haven and network for the rich and powerful of Boston, passing itself off as a Masonic-type lodge.  Arrangements are made for Dimitri and Janos to join the wait staff for the Order's upcoming Xmas festivities.

 This seems to go off reasonably without a hitch.  As the party dwindles down, and clean-up begins, D&J sneak off to explore the lodge, hoping to find something incriminating they can use against Emerson.  

Instead they are captured and tortured by John Scott and Carl Stanford, the sinister heads of the organization, and Max Reed, Stanford's watchdog.  After using some nasty magic on them, Stanford hands off $100 to Janos, and the two are tossed into the streets.

Hard to say what to make of this piece.  Cthulhu's Dark Cults is a themed collection built around cults presented in scenarios written for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, and the Order of the Silver Twilight, and its evil leaders, are important components of one of the earliest and most famous scenarios, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. And it should be said that Goodrich sort of provides some personality and good description behind these cipher-ish characters.  

Unfortunately, though Goodrich writes well - Janos is a strong, entirely believable and compelling character, and the evocation of his poverty-stricken immigrant life is finely drawn, the story itself is rather empty.  Unless you're familiar with the original scenario it takes its inspiration from, there's no additional meaning, and the tale simply becomes an exercise in misery as Janos and Dimitri go from broken to more broken.  A bit of a waste of good writing, here.

"The Eternal Chinaman"

by John Sunseri

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Guy is a sailor who's just disembarked at San Francisco in 1920, with a pocketful of cash, ready to get laid.  Unfortunately, he runs into his cousin, David Delmonico.  David takes him to Mama Tropos' speakeasy, and has a favor to ask - a big favor.

It seems David has acquired an item that once belonged to Lang Fu, leader of a Tong-like cult, one that Guy has heard of, and doesn't want to tangle with.  David, however, persuades Guy to be his bodyguard for a night, until his performance at Mama Tropo's tomorrow.  David, it seems, is a magician.

Quite a magician, apparently, as Guy learns when David helps ward off some Deep One assassins with some fiery magic.  

Guy is wounded in a bout with some more terrestrial assassins, and he and David manage to hide out with a hooker until morning, when they make their way to Mama Tropo's, where Guy gets mauled by another Deep One.  Lang Fu is moments away from capturing them, when Mama Tropo intervenes, insisting that David should be allowed to put on his performance, which he insists is critically important, thus demonstrating whether or not he is the true rightful owner of the item (a talisman, btw).  Lang Fu, strangely, agrees.

David runs through a routine magic act, then produces the talisman, alluding to playing with powers that can wipe out entire cities.  He (apparently) starts summoning Cthugha into the room.   Reckoning that David can't handle the power, Lang Fu magically levitates the talisman out of David's hands and into his own.  Cthugha disappears and David is gorily burned to death.  Guy leaves town for Amsterdam and leads a straight life.

This is an energetically written, pulpish tale (it reminds me of some of R.E. Howard's adventure/Cthulhu crossovers), with an over-the-top evidence on brutal violence (every blow and injury of every fight is described in loving detail) and lowlife shock.  Despite moving along at a nice clip, there's nothing terribly memorable about it.

P.S.  - Lang Fu is an NPC from Chaosium's Fungi from Yuggoth scenario.

"Love Is Forbidden, We Croak and Howl"

by Caitlin R. Kiernan
originally published Sirenia Digest #78, 2010

A ghoul living near Innsmouth spies an Innsmouth girl named Elberith Gilman. It goes to her house at night.  She awakes and sees it at her window.  She lets it in and takes its hand.

Certainly weird, and effectively written.  But this is little more than a vignette.

"Red Goat, Black Goat"

by Nadia Bulkin
originally published Innsmouth Free Press, 2010

In Indonesia, Ina Krisniati (Kris) takes a job as a nanny to the Gunawan family.  She finds the mistress of the house domineering and unfriendly.  The children, Putri and Agus, are strange.  Wild goats roam the property.  They speak often of The Goat-Nurse, who seems to be some kind of powerful spirit.  Kris sees strange apparitions around the house at night.  Mrs. Gunawan's father-in-law visits, and they argue about some kind of deal she has entered into.

The Goat-Nurse, some kind of monster, attacks the house.  Hordes of wild goats converge on the house and the family...

A potent and atmospheric story, with some effective moments.

"Children of the Fang"

by John Langan
originally published Lovecraft's Monsters, 2014

Josh and Rachel grow up in a house in upstate New York, with their parents and their retired grandfather.  An uncle, Jim, disappeared some years ago, mysteriously.

Grandpa is eccentric and mysterious.  He lives in the upper part of the house and keeps certain portions of it off-limits to Rachel and Josh.  He keeps a locked freezer in the basement.

Over the years, Rachel and Josh speculate about his secrets.  When Rachel is in college, they come across some audio recordings of Grandpa talking to their Uncle Jim.  He relates a story of his time spent working in the oil fields in the Saudi desert after WWII.  He and another worker stumbled upon the Nameless City, and the mummified things there.  Their photographs of the place did not turn out, and Grandpa was affected by something he came into contact with in the City, which left him in a coma for some time, and imparted knowledge and understanding to him.

But he did manage to smuggle out an egg.

Josh and Rachel go off to college.  Grandpa has a stroke.  At Christmastime, Josh fails to show.  A police search of his apartment turns up evidence that he had become a pot dealer.  Rachel thinks something else may have happened to him.  She returns to the family home and finds the freezer open.  Something reptilian is inside.  Rachel falls unconscious, then finds herself in the body of the thing from Irem.  She lurches into the house to her grandfather.

John Langan is a young(ish) American horror story author of whom I know nothing but might like to know more.  This particular tale has a lot going for it: a strong, consistent and realistic tone (which makes the Cthulooey parts all the more convincing and disturbing), first-rate characterization, and it manages to work a distinct and updated take on the whole Lovecraft trope of Families With Dark Secrets.  

On the downside, I thought the tale lost it a bit with the ending.  A great build-up leading to a disappointing payoff.  Still this is not a bad tale at all.

"The Dappled Thing"

by William Browning Spencer
Originally published Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, 2011

In some odd, steampunkish England, Lord Addison has built a bizarre vehicle called Her Glory of Empire. which comes armed with mechanical tentacles and other goodies, and hires Sir Bertram Rudge and a crew to pilot her into South America in search of his granddaughter, Lavinia, who has run off with a party led by a man named Wallister.

There they find a strange tribe called the Yami, and monster (a shoggoth?) living in a lake.  The monster tries to take Lavinia and Wallister, but Her Glory of Empire is used to attack it.  Lavinia and Wallister are rescued, but the monster takes over Her Glory of Empire and stomps into the jungle.

Certainly one of the odder Lovecraties I've read.  Not bad at all but hardly a classic.

 

"Cinderlands"

by Tim Pratt
originally published Drabblecast, 2010

Dexter has purchased a fixer-upper house in a rundown, mostly deserted part of some blighted urban landscape.  Besides being generally icky, he has problems with things that scuttle through the pipes, which he takes for rats.  Well, they are - but not normal ones.  One night hordes of mutated, parasite-infested rats pour out of the pipes, being chased by some awful thing, which goes after Dexter.  Space and time seem to bend as it closes in on him.

Plenty of atmosphere, but rather pointless.

"Waiting at the Crossroads Motel"

by Steve Rasnic Tem

originally published Black Wings II, 2012

Walker, an extremely sociopathic drifter, checks into a motel almost literally in the middle of nowhere, for no particular reason known to him.  He cuts himself and discovers his blood can form into an independent creature.

Walker comes to realize that he is descended from something inhuman.  He waits at the motel, not actually knowing why.  He realizes that his children, too, are descended from this or these inhuman things.

Other people come to the motel.  They too are half-human.  They wait in the desert.  Their fathers emerge out of the night.

Somewhat reminiscent of Clive Barker's "Skins of the Fathers", and an interesting, updated take on the spawn of Yog-Sothoth theme.  An evocative but minor story, with very unappealing characters.

"The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife"

by John Hornor Jacobs

originally published The Book of Cthulhu, Nightshade Books, 2011

Maebe and Laura work in a restaurant in a coastal city (presumably Innsmouth).  A handsome guy who's been hitting on Maebe for some time asks her out. This time, the widowed Maebe finally accepts. While he makes love to her, Laura knocks him out.  They drag him out to the shore, castrate him.  Deep Ones, or Deep One-like creatures, including Maebe's husband, come forth to accept the sacrifice.

Very atmospheric in its final scenes, but not much going on here.

"The Same Deep Waters As You"

By Brian Hodge

Originally published Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, 2013

Kerry is the subject of a reality show, a woman gifted with the ability to communicate with animals (ala "The Horse Whisperer").  She had been recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to help with a top secret operation.

Off the coast of Washington, on a rocky island, is a prison that houses those taken during the raids on Innsmouth in the 1920's.  These "people" do not die of natural causes, and have become more and more Deep One-ish.  They no longer communicate in human language, but are making strange noises together, all while facing in a particular direction.  The military hopes to find out what they are doing, and that Kerry can help.

Kerry meets with the oldest Innsmouther, Barnabas Marsh.  She is unable to communicate with him but picks up vague impressions regarding the sea.  Kerry persuades the keepers to allow Marsh to swim in the ocean, on a long chain, with snipers standing by.  Though phobic about the ocean, Kerry swims with him using a snorkel.  While underwater, she picks up impressions of a great structure, built of massive stones.  Marsh lets loose with a sonar call, and is shot to death by the guards.

Escovedo, the commanding officer, shows Kerry some photographs taken by submarine, of a structure like the one she envisioned.  He explains that these have been transmitted by subs, but that all the subs were lost.  She and Escovedo agree that the sound Marsh released underwater reminded them of a distress signal.

That night, an unmanned(?) ship rises out of the sea, crashing into the walls of the prison.  A huge, terrible creature (which is not really described) also rises up and finishes the job.  The Innsmouthers all escape, and most of the guards and wardens are killed.

Kerry takes her daughter and relocates to Innsmouth, where she rents an old house and watches the sea.  One day, she and her daughter take a boat and row out to a rock island nearby.  The Innsmouthers are there to welcome her.

Well, here we have pretty much another riff on the deep ones/Innsmouth theme.  In this case, a somewhat modern one.  Kerry is a well-realized character and her compassion and sympathy for the hybrid Innsmouthers, mixed with her fear of them, is a new sound for a Lovecraft-based tale.  Escovedo is your standard-issue gritted-teeth military man who's not so bad once you get know him type.  The night attack on the prison is effective, capturing the fear and confusion of a catastrophic moment. The story is very well written.  The final paragraphs are eerie and evocative in the same way Lovecraft's finale is in the original "Shadow Over Innsmouth".  This is not a great story but it is a very good one.

 

"The Shallows"

by John Langan
originally published Cthulhu's Reign, 2010

A day in the life of a man living after the return of the Great Old Ones.

Not much of a synopsis and not much to say here, because, though very well-written, the story doesn't make much of an impression.  It echoes a bit with I Am Legend and Stephen King's "The Mist", but there's nothing terribly exciting going on here.