Bad Dog

There hasn’t ever been a problem with strays in the neighbourhood, until about three weeks ago. A huge, black dog has been seen and has caused all kinds of mischief. Bins have been overturned, cars have been chased and the local children routinely terrified when something sleek and threatening bursts through the undergrowth, teeth barred. Cats refuse to go outside. Nobody’s really gotten a good look at the dog, so its breed hasn’t been identified. Nor has any owner.

Things change when a man is found dead in an abandoned house, savaged and ripped to shreds. The victim is identified as homeless man Ken Charles, and for a time the police comb the area hoping to catch the dog, but have no luck. The predator remains at large and the sound of howling echoes through alleyways, to the terror of man and beast alike.

Possibilities

1 The dog is normal in body, but not in mind. It contains the spirit of a murder who vowed to survive death and return to have vengeance on those who condemned him. The murderer, Wilbert Johns, was a homeless man who shared an abandoned house with Ken Charles and another man, Tom Warburton. Johns murdered Warburton as part of an occult ritual but didn’t realise he was being observed by Charles, who went to the police. Johns died fighting with the officers sent to arrest him, but not before he had put certain plans in place for his survival. He viciously killed Charles by trapping him in the house they’d squatted in, displaying intelligence highly uncharacteristic of a normal dog. The only problem for Johns is that he has to share his mind, that of a coldly psychological killer, with that of a dog, sometimes causing him to act out animal impulses.

2 The dog is a creature of a magical nature (demon, faerie or ghost, etc…) that was attracted to the neighbourhood by the magical energy radiating from the abandoned house which had a powerful artefact hidden away within it. Charles was killed when he disturbed the dog while it was searching the house. The dog isn’t really a large problem, but the artefact is going to start attracting things that are smarter and more dangerous in the hopes of claiming its power.

3 Ken Charles was not a simple derelict, but in fact a disgraced professor who had been researching the possibilities of time travel, requiring isolation to perfect his research. In a secret room in the basement he designed a machine that could facilitate the opening of a portal to the past, but to his misfortune it let through a prehistoric wolf that gravely injured him and ran off into the streets. Charles was able to drag himself into the basement and seal off the time machine room, but didn’t manage to close it off before he died.

© Paul Hebron

Aztec Troubles

In the dusty cellar of a fine restaurant in a close-by city lays a strange clay or stone tablet. It is an Aztec Sunstone and it houses the trapped and dormant spirit of an Aztec Priestess, or so legend goes. There used to be a magic shop in the building and was left behind when the store closed their business in the late 50s. This was a piece of the occult collection that was left behind and long forgotten.

Possibilities

1 The tablet contains the spirit of the Aztec priestess Xiuh-Tu-Nal who, according to ancient Aztec Lore she will be the key to her people’s revenge on the “White men invaders” (the Spanish landfall in the 15th century).

When awakened, Xiuh-Tu-Nal instinctively takes possession the nearest unfortunate victim - but suffers from memory lapses and confusion. She doesn’t speak English and will try to flee unless someone calms her down. As she stays in the possessed body, it warps and transforms into her original form – a process that takes about three weeks.

Before too long, Xiuh-Tu-Nal will remember the ritual for possessing another victim - and will quickly become a body thief, possessing victims and discarding them.

2 The tablet is a valuable Aztec sunstone, worth tens of thousand dollars to collectors. William Fletcher, the son of the former magic shop owner remembers seeing the tablet when he used to play at the shop when he was a kid. He has since seen a similar tablet at auction and stages a ‘bust’ with a couple of his friends. The bust is staged as a gang robbery – however Fletcher’s real goal is not the cash from the register, but the Aztec sunstone.

3 The tablet is sacred to an Aztec cult of cthonian worshippers, and is occasionally the cause for strange tremors. The tremors, when they occur, reverberate throughout the old building. Should the tablet be “used” properly, it will act as a beacon, summoning nearby cthonians.

© Dennis Toepoel

Aunt Joan’s Little Treasure

One of the investigators has a senile, irritating Aunt Joan who has recently died from heart failure. Unfortunately, all the investigator receives from the old crone is her ‘Little Treasure’ – Baldwin the dog. But Baldwin is no normal dog. Although very small--about Jack Russell sized or smaller--he is extremely mean looking, with eyes, a weasel-like snout, coarse fur and needle teeth.

After a few weeks certain things start to go wrong. Other dogs seem terrified of Baldwin, and his breed (a ‘Ti-Hao’, if they recall Aunt Joan’s description) cannot be found in any reference books. Was Aunt Joan right about his breed? And, most worryingly, why does he fly into a frothing rage whenever brought close to a holy place?

Possibilities

1 Baldwin is a unique dog, born through the mating of a normal bitch and an evil spirit; an incubus, forced on the dog’s mother by magic. The cult, known as the ‘Tsi-Hao’, operated across the globe before the second world war, and Aunt Joan acquired Baldwin from a desperate leader on the run in Singapore about ten years ago. Although not aggressive towards the investigator, he senses the supernatural and reacts to magic by biting and snarling.

2 Baldwin is one of a near extinct breed of dog from China. He was acquired by Aunt Joan from a Chinese ‘dog breeder’ about ten years ago. On birth, these placid beasts are blessed by the secretive cult that breeds them in the name of He Who Is Not To Be Named. This ritual transforms them into slavering, eldritch monstrosities at certain solar events - or when threatened. Aunt Joan did indeed die of heart failure - Baldwin, in monstrous form, ate it out during the recent conjunction of Mars and Saturn.

3 Despite his mean appearance, Baldwin is a normal, affectionate dog. However, an earlier brush with the Mythos has left a powerful ability attached to him; those around him start seeing visions of various Mythos beasts and gods in their dreams. These visions gradually mount in clarity and duration (over a period of years), until they are strong enough to send a someone insane. These visions finally killed Aunt Joan; after years mumbling about monsters and ghosts, she was found with her normally-dark hair turned white and her face rigid with terror.

© Rory Naismith

Bad Trip

It is a long, hot, dry summer. News reaches the papers of a late-night bus crash in a mountainous part of the country. While travelling between two small, remote communities, the bus came off the road on a steep incline, crashing through a fence and hurtling down the near-vertical slope of a steep gorge to smash into the rocks at the bottom, where it burst into flames. Anyone on board unlucky enough to survive the horrendous descent was burned to death in the conflagration.

Twenty-two people have been killed, nearly all of them from the small town the bus was travelling to. The bodies have been taken to the nearest hospital mortuary pending identification. Local police have called in expert help from a nearby city to assist the accident investigation.

Possibilities

1 Mi-Go in the area want several healthy human brains for a diabolical project. Intercepting the bus on the remotest part of its route, they remove the tops of their victims’ skulls and take the brains of everyone on board. The skulls are crudely repaired, and the bus and its cargo of brainless dead are crashed into the ravine and set on fire to conceal evidence of the crime.

2 The crash is a genuine accident, a coincidence that draws any investigation to the site of a cave within the ravine, the entrance to which had been concealed by dense undergrowth now burnt to ashes by the fire.

Deep inside the cavern, hidden within a maze of cramped tunnels, is the grave of a sorcerer who once held the native peoples of this area in thrall until a band of warriors gave their lives to overthrow him. Shamans placed his corpse in this deep cave, surrounded by wards to guard against an evil magic that might awaken him once more to walk amongst them. But now their spells are losing their efficacy and the sorcerer’s crazed spirit wanders the caverns, reacting venomously against anyone it comes across, seeking a way to return life to the shrivelled corpse that was once its home.

3 Around here lurks a small pack of werewolves. The crash occurred at the time of the full moon when one of the werewolves, mindless with blood-lust, flung itself on the bus in a savage attempt to get at the succulent flesh within. Not surprisingly this caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle. The werewolf was thrown clear before the bus made its final plunge into the ravine.

Although not killed, the werewolf was injured and, now in human form, is bed-ridden and weakened. Evidence of the werewolf’s attack can be found in a careful inspection of the wreckage: raking claw-marks in the bodywork of the bus and bite marks on one of the corpses (the werewolf smashed through a window to attack the victim before being thrown clear).

© Tony Hickie

An Old Friend

Late Friday evening an old army buddy contacted me. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and now he seemed desperate to meet with me. In secret. He wouldn’t say exactly why, so with an uneasy feeling, and an address scribbled down, I set out to meet with him.

The old rendering plant was smelly, dark, and had apparently been unused in some years. I found a loading door slightly ajar, with an old, but apparently serviceable, truck sitting outside. Inside I overhear a horse whisper, and after a moment I can associate that voice with a dark form accented by the minute glow of a lit cigarette. Even close to him, I can’t see him very well, but I can clearly make out the distinct scent of the cologne that was his signature.

“Here.” He thrust a small leather-bound volume into my hands. It wasn’t any bigger than a paperback novel, but so much heavier. The cover felt rough in my hands, and even though I couldn’t make it out, there felt to be some form of symbol in the leather.

After examining the little tome as much as I could in the minimal light, I was about to ask him what it was, or where he’s been all this time, but he was gone. Simply gone. Not a footstep did I hear. Just the smell of cigarette smoke and cologne.

Possibilities

1 The old friend has been dead for many years. Murdered during his army days and framed for a vile crime he didn’t commit. The journal is that of his murder, also dead. The ghost of the old friend has returned with the journal, hoping that the investigator will find the truth of his murder and set the record straight.

2 The old friend was a combat photographer in the army and has since moved onto independent journalism. The volume is a handwritten manual written by the head of a cannibal cult. It includes graphic depictions of ritual murders, and sketches on how best to prepare the human body for consumption. Inside the back cover is a complex symbol. It is the focus for a magical ritual allowing the creator of the book to summon the volume, and its thief back to the creator.

This time the ritual botched, bringing just the thief back for punishment.

3 The volume itself is not connected to the disappearance, even if that is not immediately apparent. The rendering plant itself is haunted. The invisible beast that makes its residence here enjoys quietly taking its victims deep below the building and torturing them for its entertainment.

© Eric R Provost

An Inconvenience to Travellers

The London Underground is under siege. In the last four weeks three passengers have been murdered, so horribly that the police have initiated a cover up. Public transport executives are concerned that business will be affected if the story comes out. Everyone in the know wants the murderer caught, preferably dead to minimise collateral damage.

Each murder was committed in a fashion mimicking a scene from a horror novel, movie or true crime; the police have yet to make that connection. A note from the killer has was found with each body. Victim 1, female, was stabbed and dissected (Jack the Ripper) whilst waiting for a late train. Victim 2, male, was stunned and tied to the tracks to be beheaded by the early train (Harold Lloyd). Victim 3, male, was assaulted and drained of blood using a syringe and medical tubing (Dracula).

Possibilities

1 Victor Mitchell is an ex-employee of the transit authority who plans on a nice extortion payment to supplement his meagre pension. He now works part time as a security guard but used to be an engineer. He knows the underground warrens exceptionally well, has basic medical training and has no fear of violent situations. The murders are inspired by the trashy novels which he reads on boring night shifts. The trophies are kept in a nigh-inaccessible underground storage area for use in the forthcoming extortion campaign.

2 An insane pathology student, Douglas Drew, is preying on his fellow passengers. The victims all caught their final train at the same stop in the city, as shown by the tickets amongst their personal effects. Drew studies at both the medical school and the library close to the station. He selects his victims for their apparent wealth and social status; he sexually assaults and robs the victims, keeping trophies at his rented accommodation. The notes are rambling subconscious cries for help rather than serious demands.

3 The victims were all members of The Willow Society, a secretive group of occultists and psychics who believe in meditation, positive energies and white magic. Professor Henry Gore, noted pathologist, is President of the Willow Society.

Dr Marcus Laine, a hypnotist, guru and faith healer, was recently debunked as a fake by the Willow Society; in revenge he used real arcane skills to call forth a ghoul to do his murderous bidding. Oddfellow, a recent changeling to ghoul, currently passes as Dr Laines manservant. The terrible twosome are arranging the murders in such a manner that The Willow Society cannot fail to fall under police suspicion. The trophies may be readily found in the basement of the society headquarters, a walled-off detached brownstone mansion.

Oddfellow now has a liking for his new career (he used to be a male nurse at Deadham Sanitarium). He enjoys the thrill of the chase and will soon begin a real campaign of terror in the city. Freedom from Dr Laine will allow him to prey on the train loads of people who use the underground every day; hence the notes placed on each corpse, unsubtle clues pointing at Laine and Gore. The clues are easily deciphered by those who have occult knowledge.

© Peter Devlin

An Apple a Day

An Apple a Day

A short walk across the countryside, far away from the troubles of the city – a perfect way to relax and regain – or perhaps to investigate some hidden mysteries behind the facade of innocent rural life? Whatever lead you here, right now you are walking along a small orchard with ripe, red apples. Plop – right down before your feet falls one of the fresh apples, just if it wants to tell you ‘pick me up and eat me’. Well, an apple a day keeps the doctor away...

Possibilities

1 The apple is not from an ordinary tree. The tree is in fact a direct offspring of the Tree of Knowledge from the garden Eden. How it got here, is unknown – its owner bought a couple of ordinary seedlings on the market, and this year would be the first time to harvest.

A bite from one of the apples will give the eater a prophetic look into past (a view into paradise and the origin of the tree) or future events, good (the correct numbers in the lottery) or bad ones (the eater apparently lying dead in a puddle of blood) or really bad ones (a view into hell itself, that will drive the eater mad).

2 The apple is not from an ordinary tree. The tree is possessed by a paranormal creature (demon, dryad, fairy, evil spirit). Through the creature’s magic, the apple’s seed will sprout inside the eater’s stomach, feasting on its blood with its roots, which causes the eater severe stomach’s pain. The creature might order the eater to obey its command to avoid a death caused by an apple tree bursting out of the eater’s stomach – or just grin and tell the eater of his inevitable doom...

3 The apple is from an ordinary tree. The tree belongs to Mr Jones, a farmer always carrying a shotgun and avoided by his neighbours who consider him to be completely mad. Mr Jones believes in the values of private property. Thieves, including people who steal his apples, are punished by doing hard labour in chains. And so far no one has ever pressed charges against Mr Jones...

© Philipp Mählmann

The Party

A character receives, quite unexpectedly, an invitation to a soirée at the home of one of their old school-friends. The individual, one Humphrey Anderson-Boyd, is known as an international traveller and has something of a reputation as a dilettante and playboy. He is wealthy, handsome, elegant, and an eminently eligible bachelor. The society journals are quick to match him with any woman in whose company he is seen. His parties are said to be wild and debauched.

Humphrey lives in a large and airy house designed by a radical modern architect and located on the fringes of the fashionable city suburbs. The interior is exquisitely furnished and the grand windows overlook the extensive wooded and landscaped grounds. By day the dramatic skies and excellent views make it an idyllic spot, but at night it can feel very lonely and isolated. The house has been designed to be self-sufficient and has its own generator located in the cellars.

Jones, the cadaverous butler, is the only westerner in the domestic staff. The others are all dark skinned, slightly built Orientals who actively shun contact with the guests. They seem under the sway of the cook, an ancient and grossly fat woman who seems to do little except sit in a rocking chair and give orders. All of the Orientals carry slender knives and have a dragon tattoo on their necks. Jones is able to communicate in their tongue and appears to inspire either respect or fear.

Humphrey retains a number of gamekeepers and groundsmen, local men who maintain the gardens, keep down the wildlife, and patrol the grounds against poachers and trespassers. They consider Humphrey and his staff to be ‘queer folk’, but their wages are rather good, they receive a rather generous holiday allowance and Christmas bonus, and as such they are loyal and tight-lipped. The gamekeepers have well trained dogs and carry shotguns, and will see off anyone who tries anything funny. They and their dogs shun the woods, however.

Humphrey’s little bash, which includes among its guest-list writers, musicians, judges, a gangster, and at least one starlet of the silver screen, begins rather more formally than one might expect. The gramophone music is dull and repetitive and the conversation is terrible: this is hardly going to make the best shindig list of ‘Gentleman’ magazine. That is, until Jones fetches the “special” drink. The liquid is contained in a large bronze bowl worked with Chinese characters and intricate skull-and-claw designs, and appears to be luminous green in the dim light. The other guests have no qualms about drinking.

Possibilities

1 The characters have received an invite to the wrong party - the one they were supposed to attend isn’t until next week. The “special” drink is a powerful aphrodisiac made by the cook: it causes the drinker to lose all of their inhibitions - the affair becomes an orgiastic sex romp. If the characters have drunk the potion they will, in all probability, become willing participants in the carnal activities, though they probably won’t remember much of what went on. A number of prostitutes (both male and female) have been hired to ‘start things going’. Anyone with professional employment or a position of trust would be very badly affected if their participation in such activities became public knowledge.

2 The “special” drink is a potion that causes the drinker to fall into a waking trance. Humphrey is a newly created undead, Jones is his sire and mentor, and the Orientals are trusted henchmen. When everyone has succumbed to the effects of the potion Humphrey and Jones move among the guests and tap just a little blood from each, drinking enough during the course of the evening to satisfy their unholy needs. Both are immune to most forms of damage (although fire, electricity, and enchanted weapons work) and are exceedingly violent if they are interrupted: they are lethally fast and highly skilled creatures. Those who have drunk the potion remember little of the evening, but uniformly recall having had an excellent time.

3 Humphrey and Jones, both permanently insane, are the leaders of a small cult that worships Shub Niggurath. The “special” drink is a potion, made by the cook, with two main effects. First, it allows the cultists access to the guests’ psychic energy. Second, it induces a dream-like state that cushions their minds against the horrors they witness (they recall a wild party but can’t remember any details). Humphrey and Jones begin a ceremony that involves everyone performing complex chanting and dancing. At the penultimate moment a sacrifice is brought forth (a suitable victim has been secured and is being held in the cellars until required), and ultimately one or more Dark Young of Shub Niggurath are summoned. The horrifying entities consume the sacrifice (and anyone who hasn’t drunk the potion) then vanish into the wooded grounds.

© Adie Stewart

The Organ Donor

A series of bizarre murders are occurring in Arkham. Unusually, each victim has received donations of organs from the body of a Catholic man – and every single murder victim has the relevant body parts extracted – eyes, heart, bone marrow, whatever they received from the dead man. It may be that this man is not as dead as he seems, and is seeking a complete body, in order to enter heaven.

Possibilities

1 The murders are committed by the dead man himself, who has returned as a zombie-like revenant who seeks to reconstruct his own body after his wife went against his wishes by donating his organs.

2 The donor was not as good a Catholic as was suggested. He was a sorcerer, and his knowledge is much desired by another sorcerer who can resurrect the dead, as in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. However, to avoid getting “the liveliest awfulness” of his victim, he requires all his body parts and has set out to regain every single one.

3 The murders are committed by the donor’s wife. A medium has contacted the victim in the spirit world, where his ghost is trapped because he lacks his complete body. To reassemble the corpse, his wife is stealing the organs from their recipients.

Inspired by the story Donor, from the X-Files comics.

© James David Beard