The Feaster from Afar
EVERY two years Sydney Mellor Madison wrote an historical novel.
After six months of careful research, he spent precisely a year writing.
Another six months would be passed addressing ladies’ literary clubs, proofreading, and, toward the end of that period of time, sitting in various bookstores autographing copies of his latest creation.
It was a pleasant life. Madison was known as a bread-and-butter writer.
His books always had a certain assured sale; they were usually reprinted in paperback and in most instances Hollywood provided a first-option pay-ment. After sixteen years, the film moguls had yet to produce a picture, but Madison merely shrugged and pocketed the option money. He was philosophical about such matters.
At times the professional critics nettled him. While they acknowledged the authenticity of his backgrounds, they complained that his dialogue was “stilted”, his characters “puppets pulled by visible strings.”
It wasn’t fair, of course, but as Madison watched his bank account grow from four figures to five and continue on upward, he decided it really didn’t matter. Let the critics go hang; he was living better all the time.
As his wealth increased, he decided that his year of writing ought to be spent without the interruptions which he endured in his city apartment. He told his agent to look up some isolated place where he would be left in peace while he wrote.
Within a few weeks his agent sent him to see a Mr. Conway Kempton.
Kempton had a hunting lodge in an isolated area somewhere up in northern New England.
After shaking hands across his desk, Kempton motioned Madison to a chair.
He sat down himself and leaned back. “Well, I’ll be frank, Mr.
Madison. The hunting’s all shot up there—no pun intended! Been too worked over, I guess. But that won’t bother you! The lodge is in fine con-
dition—completely furnished—and you won’t be interrupted in your work.
I can’t think of a more ideal spot!”
Madison noticed that Kempton was a trifle shifty-eyed and he felt that the lease was too high, but he agreed to drive up and look at the lodge. If he considered it satisfactory, he would move right in and mail back the signed lease along with his check.
So it was that one gray day in early autumn, Mr. Sydney Mellor Madison, the noted novelist, drove into the tiny New England village of Granbury and stopped at the general store. Although Kempton had given him specific directions he wanted to make doubly sure that he took the right road to the lodge. It would soon be growing dark and he was tired after the long drive.
The storekeeper squinted at him over the chipped wooden counter.
“Kempton’s lodge? First road on yer left, past the cemetery. About twelve miles. Best drive slow. That road ain’t in very good shape!”
As Madison steered along the rutted track, he realized that the storekeeper’s comment was an understatement. The road was as bad as any he’d ever driven on.
His eyes were so intent on the ruts, he scarcely noticed the surrounding countryside. He did gather the general impression that it was bleak, uninhabited, and altogether inhospitable in appearance.
Just before dusk, he reached the lodge. It was rough-hewn, but sturdy looking. The big logs were carefully joined together and the recessed windows did not look like the kind that rattle in every wind.
He had been inwardly cursing Kempton for not telling him about the miserable condition of the road, but once he got inside and turned on the lights and heat, he decided he might sign the lease after all. The lodge, rustic though it might appear, was equipped with central heating and all the customary conveniences of a city apartment. The interior looked comfortable. Madison would have preferred somewhat less bulky furniture and a few fine prints affixed to the walls, but then—what could you expect in a hunting lodge?
After a nip of whiskey and a light supper, he took a shower and went to bed.
In spite of his fatigue, he did not sleep well. Vague nightmares— unusual for him—persisted until morning. He awoke feeling edgy and apprehensive.
Madison, however, prided himself on his professionalism. A writer worth his proverbial salt didn’t permit moods to interfere with his work schedule. Promptly at eight o’clock, after a breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee, he settled down at the desk in the lodge study.
After working steadily for nearly three hours, he decided to quit for the day. Ordinarily he worked until twelve—sometimes later—but the drive of the previous day, plus a poor night’s sleep, had tired him more than he had realized. Middle age, he thought to himself with a grimace.
Before lunch, he walked out to the station wagon and carried in the luggage he had left in the car the night before. Slate-colored clouds filled the sky and cold spurts of wind shook the remaining leaves. A few of them, scarlet and ocher, fluttered down onto the roof of the station wagon.
Madison shivered as he closed the door. While he sat over a sandwich lunch, he realized that he had to make a decision. Should he sign the lease— or pack up and go home?
It was mood versus logic and logic won. Madison hated moods; he knew dozens of writers, for instance, who would work only when “in the proper mood.” Most of them ended up as book reviewers, or something equally repellent. One of them he knew had descended to pearl diving in a down-at-the-heels hash joint.
After signing the lease, he wrote a somewhat sharp note about the condition of the road and fixed a stamp to the envelope. Only then did the question of the daily mail confront him. Did a mail truck call, or was he expected to drive into Granbury every day?
He went outside, but could find no mailbox. He decided he had better inquire into the mail situation at once. Muttering to himself, he started out over the rutted road.
The storekeeper, a Mr. Saines, peered at him again over the battered counter. Madison had the weird impression that Saines had been standing behind the counter all night.
“Mail delivery? No siree! There ain’t any. Folks here’bouts picks up their own mail. Where? Well, right here! I run the post office, same as the store. We don’t have a big budget like you city folks!”
Considerably annoyed, Madison handed him the envelope containing the lease. No mail delivery! He’d have to bounce over those infernal ruts every day, if he wanted his mail!
As he started to turn away, Saines leaned forward. “You a huntin’ man, Mr. Madison?”
The noted author hesitated. He was reasonably sure that these yokels had never heard of him. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to. He decided on compromise.
“No,” he replied, “I don’t hunt. I work for a publisher. Lots of— involved research. Came up here to get away from city interruptions.”
Saines’s eyebrows arched. “Won’t be many interruptions. Unless ….”
His voice trailed off.
Madison half turned and then started for the door. These characters would have to understand that his time was valuable. If they couldn’t come right out with what they wanted to say, he wasn’t going to stand around waiting.
Just before he pushed open the door, a voice spoke from the vicinity of a big cracker barrel which was sitting half in shadow at the end of the counter.
“Mebbe yew don’t hunt, mister, but jest be sure yew ain’t the hunted!”
Madison turned and stared at the speaker, who was squatting on the floor next to the barrel. Small, wizened, but bright-eyed, this apparition gazed back silently. He was dressed in clothes so tattered they might have been taken from a scarecrow in one of the nearby fields.
Madison was about to reply, decided not to, shrugged, and went out the door. The cracker-barrel philosopher, he thought wryly. These little New England villages were always plentifully supplied with such specimens, usually lifelong loafers whose sole occupation appeared to be either sitting, or possible playing checkers.
Madison vowed he was going to avoid Granbury as much as possible.
He’d pick up his mail once a week. Royalty checks would keep.
As he maneuvered back toward the lodge over the leaf-strewn ruts of the neglected dirt road, the enigmatic remark of the gnomelike loafer nagged at him. What the devil did he mean?
Madison concluded he couldn’t afford to fret about it, but he did determine to have a stiff drink once he reached the lodge.
One drink led to another. After a hastily prepared meal, he went to bed early, instead of reading as he usually did. Again his sleep was assailed by bizarre nightmares. He blamed it on too many drinks, however, and precisely at eight o’clock sat down at his desk.
He was unable to concentrate properly. For some idiotic reason he kept thinking of that gnomelike creature skulking by the cracker barrel in Saines’s store. What was it he had said? Oh, yes. “Mebbe yew don’t hunt, mister, but jest be sure yew ain’t the hunted!”
He assured himself the remark was meaningless, the random comment of a local crackpot. There were no formidable animals in the area, except a few black bears and possibly a prowling mountain lion. If an escaped convict, or a madman, were lurking in the vicinity, he was sure he would have been notified. In any case, the lodge was equipped with a variety of weapons, securely stored in locked gun cases.
At ten o’clock, however, he quit writing for the day. He had a headache.
Perhaps a walk before lunch would do him good.
Before leaving the lodge, he unlocked one of the gun cases, lifted out a double-barreled shotgun, slipped in shells, checked the safety, and put on his fur-lined coat.
The landscape was even more desolate than he had realized. There were strands of stunted evergreens, alternating with boulder-strewn fields which supported little save random tufts of coarse bunch grass and crunchy patches of dried-out lichens. Cold fingers of wind fumbled through the clumps of grass with a sibilant sound which reminded him of snakes hissing.
He was puzzled by the absence of any animal life. Although he circled about the inhospitable fields for several miles, he failed to flush out so much as a single rabbit or even a small bird. It was, well—rather uncanny.
He returned to the lodge feeling depressed and apprehensive. There was something wrong with the place. Even land as barren and bleak as this ordinarily gave cover to a few small creatures.
As he sat pondering the matter over lunch, he determined to question the storekeeper, Saines, the next time he went into Granbury.
He wrote letters during the afternoon, prepared a hearty dinner, and read until nearly midnight.
Again he slept badly. He experienced a recurrent nightmare in which he was running furiously over the forlorn fields in the darkness while something totally malignant pursued him with deadly intent. Whatever it was, he realized that he could not escape it in spite of his utmost exertions. It appeared to dart and swoop over the stony ground, totally unaffected by the force of gravity.
He awoke, wet with sweat, and brewed black coffee. At eight o’clock, instead of sitting down at his desk, he put on his coat, lifted down the shotgun, and went outside to his station wagon.
As he lurched over the treacherous ruts, he decided that he would pretend the letters in his coat pocket contained messages of importance.
That would give him a reasonable excuse for driving into Granbury early in the morning.
Saines, the storekeeper, greeted him cordially enough and glanced at the letters.
“Stage don’t leave for Pelier till nearly noon, Mr. Madison. These letters urgent?”
Madison frowned. “Uh—yes, urgent in a way. But noon will be fine.”
Saines nodded and leaned across the counter. “How yew makin’ out up to Kempton’s place, Mr. Madison?”
Madison hesitated. He hated confiding in these yokels, and yet— Finally he blurted it out. “There’s something wrong with that whole region, Saines! Did anything—ever happen—up there? I mean, anything real bad?”
He was appalled at his own lack of subtlety, but it was too late now.
Saines eyed him speculatively, scraping his chin with the thumb of his left hand.
“Waal,” he replied at length, “after that last hunter was found with his head riddled, everybody’s kep’ away—even the animal critters, I guess!”
Madison stared at him. “His head riddled? Riddled with what?”
Saines leaned forward with a secretive air. “Them autopsy doctors said it was buckshot. But I heerd different! Warn’t buckshot a ‘tall!”
“What was it, then?”
Saines flicked a crumb off the counter. “I ain’t hankerin’ ta say, but— waal, I’ll tell ye. Those holes in his head was so—funny like—the doctors sawed off the top of his skull—and there warn’t no brain underneath!”
In spite of himself, Madison’s mouth fell open.
Saines bent across the counter again. “Yew know what I think? That poor man’s brain was pulled right out through them funny holes in his head!
Les Carper’s boy—Carper, he’s the undertaker—he saw those holes. He says, ‘They was like somebody took a hundred little corkscrews and drilled right through that hunter’s head!’”
Madison closed his mouth, beginning to wonder if he were being “taken.”
He got a grip on himself. When he spoke, his voice was under control.
“I didn’t see a thing in the papers. Wasn’t there an investigation?”
Saines blinked at him with an expression bordering on contempt. “Not everythin’ gits in the papers, Mr. Madison! And sometimes investigations that turns—complercated—gits hushed up!”
He started to move away, changed his mind, and spoke again, his tones low and ominous.
“I’d git away, if I was yew, Mr. Madison! There’s—suthin’—up in those hills that ain’t safe ta be near. A long time ago—years and years it was—a branch of the Whateley family lived in those hills. Ye’s heerd of them, I expect? Waal, that’s funny, fer a writin’ man. Anyway, the Whateleys drew suthin’ down out of the sky up there—and it ain’t niver left, that is, not fer long! It’s suthin’ spoke about in the Cthulhu Mythos—yew heerd a that, I hope?”
Madison flushed angrily. Now he felt on safe ground. The old fool was pumping him full of rot based on the writing of a magazine hack who had been dead for decades! Of course his work—if you could call it that—was undergoing a sort of revival. Madison had skimmed through part of it with amused disgust.
He turned from the counter with both exasperation and relief. “Oh, yes! I’ve heard of that pulp-magazine scribbler! Wrote for a penny a word— or less! Lovelock or Lovecrop—or something like that. That whole so-called Mythos is a rambling, rubbish-filled fabrication! Not a word of truth to it!”
Saines looked philosophical. “Man’s got a right ta his own opinions, I calc’late. Waal, yew asked me and I told yew. I wouldn’t stay in Kempton’s lodge—nor near it—fer one hour. But that’s yer business now!”
Risking a broken spring or axle, Madison drove back recklessly over the washboard road. Cthulhu Mythos!! What absolute rot! These natives were more gullible than he had believed! He’d put the whole business out of his mind and get back to his novel.
Promptly at eight o’clock the next morning, he sat down at his desk.
But it was only stubbornness and more than ordinary willpower that put him there. The nightmares had been worse than ever. His face was white and lined and his hands trembled as he tried to write.
After an hour, he gave up. He had written a few paragraphs, but on reading them over, he found them weak and ineffectual. He simply could not concentrate.
He finally concluded that a tramp in the cold air might be beneficial.
Cradling the shotgun under his arm, he left the lodge and began walking rather aimlessly across the adjacent fields.
For a few minutes he felt better, but then a depressing sense of apprehension began to grow on him. He put it down to the weather. As he walked, the sky darkened and the wind rose. It whispered and hissed through the tufts of grass as if it were trying to warn him about something.
In spite of his fur-lined coat, he began to feel cold.
Scowling, he headed back toward the lodge. As soon as he got inside, he locked the door, set down the shotgun, and poured himself a glass of straight whiskey.
He sat brooding, forgetting that he hadn’t even taken off his coat.
Although he refused to entertain for one minute the possibility that the storekeeper’s references to the Cthulhu Mythos might have a basis in fact, he was ready to concede that some threat, or inimical aura, hung over the entire area in which the lodge was situated. He tried to convince himself that it was purely atmospheric. It was high, cold, hilly ground and the wind got on a man’s nerves. It was, he told himself, the sense of isolation which overcame him when he walked those deserted fields bordered with wind-twisted clumps of gnarly evergreens. Probably he was more sensitive to the appearance of things than most people. That sensitivity, he assured himself, was what made him such a splendid novelist.
His own stubborn rationalizations, plus a generous dose of alcohol, finally put him in a better mood. He ate lunch almost with relish and sat down to write a few letters.
He managed to finish two and then gave up. He felt unaccountably fatigued.
Sighing with vexation, he pulled a book from one of the lodge shelves.
Perhaps a bit of aimless browsing would be good for him.
He didn’t even notice the title or author of the book, because it opened halfway through where someone had inserted a folded note.
Lifting it out, he unfolded it and read:
And let him who peruses this beware, for Hastur the Unspeakable hath put his seal upon this place. He was summoned and he did come. Verily, he glided out of the cold places of unending night, between the galaxies, and no man standeth before him. Hail to Great Hastur, the Feaster from Afar, for he shall find sustenance!
Madison shivered. He was tempted to bolt out of the lodge, leap into the station wagon, and drive like a madman over the corrugated road which led to Granbury.
But through long and difficult years, he had conditioned himself never to act on impulse. The note must be examined carefully, its fearful message weighed with that kind of objectivity which Madison always forced himself to attain.
There were few clues. The paper was ordinary bond, the handwriting— in fading black ink—crabbed but legible. The folds of the paper were beginning to crack and the edges were turning yellow. Madison concluded that the note had remained pressed in the book for a considerable time.
Then—like a thunderbolt—the solution came to him! What a fool he had been! It was all a plot to force him out of the lodge and collect his lease money for forfeiture! After he had been frightened off, another victim would be found. There seemed little doubt that Kempton was paying off the storekeeper, Saines—and possibly the cracker-barrel scarecrow as well. Their role was to “condition” him by references to the Cthulhu Mythos. The fear they instilled, plus the unquestionable desolation of the area, would drive him out of the lodge, forcing him to break the lease and lose a year’s rental. As soon as he was safely away, Kempton would dangle the bait for another sucker!
Madison smiled grimly. His nerves were in frightful shape, but now he would get a firm grip on himself. Now he knew what he was fighting!
The note troubled him, however. It did look old. How could they get the paper to start turning yellow, the folds to crack, the ink to begin fading?
Humph! What was the matter with him? Any forger worth a farthing could fake such a thing. It was probably routine to those shifty paper-and-ink specialists.
Yet questions nagged at him. How did they know he would find the note, for one thing? He mulled over that for some time, finally deciding that there were other notes—similar or identical—stuck here and there around the lodge. He would be bound to find one sooner or later. Tomorrow, he promised, he would go through every book in the lodge and see how many he found. At the moment he felt too tired for such a task.
After dinner, he sat down with a book and a tall drink. But his mind wandered. He finished only a few chapters and gave up. He kept thinking about that damnable faked note. Suppose—just suppose—it weren’t faked!
Cursing himself for a silly ass, he finally went to bed.
He was restless. He rolled and turned and sighed, but at length he fell into uneasy slumber. Almost at once, the nightmare which he had previously experienced recurred. This time it was far more vivid and terrifying.
Once more he was virtually flying over those inhospitable hills while something wholly alien and lethal lunged in pursuit. Even as he ran, he understood the futility of it, yet he kept on running because the fear which imbued him was so overwhelming that he could not think coherently nor control his own actions.
In the icy moonlight, the lichen-covered hills looked like the terrain of some other planet. Every feature of that eerie landscape was sharply etched.
He ran on like a robot, up and down the silent slopes, not daring to stop nor even turn his head. If a stand of twisted cedar scrub stood in the way, he hurled himself through it, completely disregarding the resultant lacerations.
He felt convinced that his relentless pursuer was merely toying with him, that at any time, if it so wished, it could pounce upon him.
Then, as he staggered on over the endless hills, the horrible truth came to him: He was not dreaming at all. Perhaps he had started to dream, but he no longer was. Some entity, cunning and indescribably evil, had lured him from the lodge, utilizing the guise of nightmare to numb his bewildered senses!
He saw that his feet were bare and bleeding and that he wore nothing save pajamas. He had walked in his sleep, out of the lodge and onto these hills of hell.
In spite of his dress, he scarcely felt the cold. He rushed on like a mani-ac, oblivious to everything except escape.
Even the energy generated by ultimate fear comes to an end, however.
He fell, finally, and lay sobbing with exhaustion and terror near the top of a moonlit knoll.
As the hideous hunter neared, every fiber of Madison’s body seemed to stiffen. His brain no longer functioned normally. He tried to order his body to crawl away, to roll down the side of the knoll, but nothing happened. He might as well have been calcified or bound and weighed down with chains.
He didn’t want to see the approaching horror, but he knew that he would have to. That would be part of the final, mind-searing terror.
He felt it coming. The air grew frigid, as if it blew out of the black interstices of interstellar space. It was a cold beyond comprehension, beyond endurance. But it failed to kill him quickly enough.
When he lifted his head, he did not look back the way he had come.
He looked straight up. And he saw it.
It glided down out of that icy sky like the final concentrated essence of all nonhuman horror. It was black, infinitely old, shriveled and humped like some kind of enormous airborne monkey. A kind of iridescence played about it and its fixed blazing eyes were of no color ever known on Earth.
As it grew close to the knoll, it extended appendages which resembled tentacles tipped with knifelike talons.
Madison, literally insane with fear, began to babble. “Hastur! Great Hastur! Mercy! Mercy!”
Very shortly his speech lost all coherence. He poured out complete gibberish.
The Feaster from Afar glided inexorably downward; its tentacles touched its victim’s head and those knifelike talons went to work.
Madison managed a single scream; it was ripped from his throat in one long, piercing, wailing shriek of abysmal agony and despair. It rang over those desolate hills like a terrible human tocsin. People in Granbury awoke and sat up in their beds.
Presently, the grisly invader from those alien gulfs of space which no other entity can endure arose from the knoll and glided back into the frigid areas of ultimate night.
When a search party found Madison’s body, about a week later, they assumed at first that he had frozen to death. Then they saw the holes in his skull.
The autopsy doctors were again very reluctant to speak out, but according to rumor, Madison’s skull looked as if it had been penetrated by a hundred steel drills.
And when they sawed off the top of the skull, they found no brain underneath. Every vestige of it had been siphoned out of his head.