Short Story

The advert should catch the eye of any aspiring author wishing to make a name for himself in the world of strange fiction. It is entirely possible that past events have gifted the young writer with several ideas for some peculiar tales involving gods, cultists, monsters and magic.

The magazine is genuine. At least, there is a small group of people trying to put one together. However, it is destined for failure and will not survive beyond the first issue.

Possibilities

1 The magazine is being used by cultists trying to gain more mythos knowledge. This is not a very secretive way of going about it, but it may work if ‘investigators’ decide to relate their experiences to the magazine.

2 One of the authors printed in the first issue evidently knows quite a bit about the mythos, and writes a gruesome story featuring some of the gods. If contacted, he will be a useful ally in their battle against the dark forces.

3 An author, writing about a location well known to him, accidentally reveals a possible mythos presence in the locality. The story is a mix of fiction and fact, but there are certain clues and references to things which indicate that things may not be what they seem.

© Steve Hatherley

Grim Justice

Little is known about Grim Justice. He (it?) seems to be a creature of the supernatural, not least in physical aspect. A thing with no face, just a skull and the ability to appear and disappear into the night.

Grim Justice exhibits an uncanny ability to find his victims wherever they choose to hide. To date no less than ten known gangsters and countless lesser felons have fallen to his ‘tommy gun’.

Possibilities

1 Grim Justice is the ghost of Jim Malone, a cop investigating high level corruption and murdered by gangsters in cold blood in front of his family. His tortured soul has risen from the grave and stalks the city, avenging Malone. He is killing those that he believes set him up, from the hoods that pulled the trigger to his boss, Police Chief Nathan Jordan.

Jordan has guessed the force behind Grim Justice and will covertly hire investigators to ‘exorcise’ this menace.

2 Grim Justice is a highly organised and dedicated group of vigilantes. They have agents placed in all walks of life, from the ganglands to the courts, and can trace just about anyone anywhere.

However, the organisation has fascist tendencies and is inclined to target non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) individuals. Attempts to breach their security will be met with violent resistance.

3 Grim Justice is a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia. By day he is plain old Harry Brown, librarian and something of an expert in the occult. By night he is Grim Justice.

Brown was driven insane by the sight of his parents gunned down in cold blood by a lone robber. He has remained stable until recently when he witnessed another killing, pushing him over the edge.

As Grim Justice, he uses his considerable occult knowledge to magic his way to his victims. By night Harry Brown is a powerful sorcerer indiscriminately murdering criminals and gangsters.

© Garrie Hall

Roadkill

This one happens while the investigators are in their car, somewhere out in the country. They are speeding along a shady road, anxious to get from point A to point B to further their researches. Suddenly a man steps out from the trees at the side of the road, directly in front of their oncoming vehicle. There is nothing they can do. The car slams into him.

When they get out to check on the victim’s injuries, a terrible smell assails their nostrils. From the decayed and liquescent human debris smeared across the road it is apparent that the man had been dead for a while before they hit him.

Possibilities

1 The wandering dead man was an experiment on the hoof. A Dr Frankenstein-type has a laboratory in the area, where he is conducting his studies in reanimation in relative seclusion. This one, however, got away. The doctor or his assistants may be in pursuit. The cadaver may have been a one-off, or the first in a series of escapees abroad in the countryside.

2 As the investigator who was driving surveys the splattered corpse, the horror causes them to swoon. As they lift their head, they see the road rushing by, their white knuckles gripping the steering wheel - the whole scene with the undead pedestrian was a hallucination, an REM. dream as they nodded off at the wheel. They snap awake just as the car starts to drift off the road, heading at full speed straight for a large tree.

3 The man they have just run down was a lot older than he seemed. His life had been extended by magick (see Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) or surgery (as per Cool Air). When he was accidentally killed, his body immediately reverted to its correct state of decay. The players may never learn his old secret.

© Mark Morrison

The Old Quarry

The rusting corrugated metal shed sits in a fenced off section of an old quarry, now used as a car park in dismal Northumberland seaside village. Stone was last extracted from the quarry in 1955, and the fenced off land is overgrown with brambles and bindweed. It radiates neglect.


The corrugated metal shed was originally part of the mine workings, but is currently used as storage by the council.

Possibilities

1 The shed houses BANDED GROUSE, one of seven government occult installations located around Britain’s coastline. BANDED GROUSE and similar facilities are the UK’s frontline defence in an ongoing secret magic war. The shed conceals a deep underground bunker, constructed after the government bought the quarry in 1957.

Within the bunker, a small team of intelligence officers serve the three government sorcerers responsible for maintaining the magical wards and barriers that protect the country against her enemies.

2 The quarry never turned a profit. The owners, Neptune Facilities Ltd, invested several million pounds into the project, before closing the quarry down and renting the land to the council in 1955. The council uses the old quarry shed to store highway maintenance equipment.

At the back of a shed is a small office, and beyond that is another space, with no doors. (The council has no record of this space.) In the floor of this space is an old trapdoor, which hasn’t been opened in decades.

The trapdoor reveals a rusty metal ladder which descends 20 metres to a cold, damp chamber. A short tunnel leads to a larger, ornately carved chamber that is filled with what appear to be 36 stone coffins, each sealed with wax. The stone coffins contain the true owners of Neptune Facilities, their families and key advisors. Disturbing them before their allotted waking time is unlikely to be wise.

3 Nobody visits the old quarry after dark, as it is haunted by the ghosts of three workers killed in a quarrying accident. The workers had fallen into a deep shaft that had been opened by the quarrying, and it proved impossible to recover the bodies. The accident was investigated but the true cause (neglected machinery and a callous disregard for life and limb) was ignored.

The quarry owners escaped justice, but a run of bad luck following the accident resulted in the quarry being closed in 1955. Until the owners (or their descendants) atone for their crime, the dead workers’ souls will continue to haunt the quarry.

© Steve Hatherley

Who is the murderer?

Miss Sarah Spencer is convinced that someone is going to murder her but does not know who or why. She needs help and is willing to pay. Two days ago she received a letter with a local postmark. The letter was typed on a typewriter with a missing ‘e’.

She was going to leave it at that but yesterday found a message in the personal column in the newspaper.

There is another message today.

She has left her job and has booked into a hotel.

The messages were telephoned to the paper and paid for by a man giving his name as Robert Cook. Tomorrow’s note in the paper is to read:

Possibilities

1 Miss Spencer is dangerously schizophrenic and quite insane. She is usually Miss Spencer, but at times of stress becomes Robert Cook. Cook is gradually exerting more control and believes that by killing Miss Spencer he will be completely free. He will, but not the way he thinks.

One room in Miss Spencer’s fastidiously neat house is messy and unkempt. This is Cook’s, and pride of place is an antique typewriter with a missing ‘e’.

2 The letter was written by Miss Jane Marsh, jealous ex-lover of Robert Cook. Miss Spencer is now seeing Cook, and Miss Marsh has sworn to kill her and frame him. She knows where Miss Spencer is staying and has posted an invitation to Cook to visit her there. There he will find the mutilated body of Miss Spencer just as the police arrive.

3 Miss Spencer is a deep one before the ‘change’ and is luring the investigators to their death. They have been getting too close. The cliff top hotel she says that she is staying in is old and dilapidated and smells of fish.

© Graham Theobalds

Dark Incal

Possibilities

1 The statue is a representation of the N’Ho, a tribe of sand dwellers making their home in the desert during the time of the Egyptians. A small enclave of the tribe still exists and Pennyworth died at their claws as they recaptured their totem.

2 The statue, with the help of a piece of translated papyrus, was used to summon Anubis. However, without a binding ritual there was nothing to keep the old god at bay. He grabbed the professor and dragged him back to his realm.

3 The professor’s jeep overheated in the desert. Unable to re- start it he set out on foot in the direction he thought his camp lay. He perished in the storm, hugging his prized possession to his chest.

© Perry Okerstrom

The Helmsdon Monster

The papers of 1913 are full of stories about the Helmsdon Monster. It is possible that some similarity between the killings can be reached.

Possibilities

1 The Monster is a ghast summoned by some foolish farmers dabbling in the occult. It came up through the caverns that riddle the area and began slaughtering the sheep. By day it hid in the caverns, by night it stalked the moors.

The farmers were terrified by the thing they had unwittingly called, but were powerless against it. However, the stories in the press attracted a sorcerer who came and bound the ghast to the caverns.

The sorcerer has just recently died, releasing the ghast from its bindings. Once again it is reaching out to the surface and feeding on the sheep it finds. Eventually it will get brave enough to attack individual homesteads.

2 The slaughters are the work of one crazed lunatic who roams the moors, killing the sheep with his bare hands. He is completely insane, and very dangerous.

3 The creature is a large wild dog, a doberman. It is quite canny and will do its best to avoid capture. It was a guard dog at a nearby manor, but was set free during a drunken party. It will attack unhesitatingly.

© Steve Hatherley