Preface by the Editor
The following account was recovered among the effects of Professor Lilian Neill of Miskatonic University. The manuscript — a mixture of typed pages and handwritten notes, in several hands, some smudged by rain and ash — appears to have been set down shortly after her return from Vermont in August of 1930.
It was the judgment of this editor, Silas H. Putnam of Ipswich, Massachusetts, that what follows may not be mere fancy, but a fractured testimony of events best left unspoken. The faculty of Miskatonic had, for reasons unstated, never published official reports of the Cobb’s Corners expedition. I present this work with minimal alteration, save for correcting certain dates and spellings, in the belief that future readers may discern for themselves the nature of the horror hinted at herein.
— S.H.P., 1947
Sometime in April 1930…
In the hushed, academic halls of Miskatonic University, where the scent of aged parchment mingled with the faintest tang of forgotten lore, a chill that had nothing to do with the lingering April snows of 1930 had begun to creep. It was in the Charles Tyner Science Annex, a new, somewhat incongruous structure amidst the older, more venerable campus, that the initial threads of a disquieting venture were spun. Within a staff meeting room, redolent with the faint scent of laboratory chemicals and the nervous hissing and ticking of radiators, a disparate collection of scholars and students found themselves inexorably summoned.
Amongst them was Teddy Harris, an undergraduate of English, whose presence in such a scientific bastion felt, to him, a curious and unsettling misstep. He was accustomed to the musty comfort of books, not the sterile precision of labs, though even here, he recognized a familiar, boisterous spirit in Harry Higgins, a geology student whose rapid-fire Irish brogue was a known quantity about the campus. Another, a snivelly history student, whose name faded from memory like a forgotten dream, also lurked, deemed disagreeable by Teddy’s friend Peter. Then there was Sophia Picado, a late-stage Ph.D. in Chemistry, whose sharp intellect was already tethered to the industrial might of Federated Oil and Chemical. She, at least, understood the dual purpose of their ill-omened expedition: the collection of regional folklore for anthropologists and the search for a mineral called “pasquallium” in the earth for the scientists.
Presiding over this initial gathering was Professor Roger Harrold, a once-esteemed anthropologist now seemingly burdened by an unshakeable sorrow. His gaze, evasive and troubled, betrayed a profound grief, undoubtedly tied to the disappearance of Daphne Devine, a rising star student lost during a previous, ill-fated research trip to Vermont in 1929. Accompanying him was Professor Learmonth, a portly, balding man who seemed to merely echo Harrold’s grim resolve and Professor Neill, an energised young academic with a growing reputation. Robert Blaine, a young man who had been slated for that doomed journey but was spared by a broken arm, also sat amongst the professors, a palpable pallor crossing his face at the mere mention of Daphne’s name. Others filled the room: Clarissa Thurber, Roderick “Little Rod” Block, Lewis Gibbons, William Noakes (an Arkham native, a big strapping lad, who seemed an anomaly amidst the academic types), and Terence Lazlow. The fateful destination was named: Cobb’s Corners, Vermont, some 160 miles distant.
Day One: August 15th, 1930 – Arrival and Whispers of the Eldritch
Their arrival in Cobb’s Corners on August 15th, 1930, was met with a bleak reality. The designated base, the Maclearan Farmhouse, loomed before them: a large, two-story structure, abandoned to the encroaching tall grass and the oppressive shadows of ancient sugar maples. Though lacking electricity, a university telephone line served as their tenuous, almost mocking, link to the semblance of civilization they had left behind. Curiously, the flowerbeds near the house, as observed by Professor Neill, seemed to had clearly been cared for, a detail Robert Blaine curtly and rudely dismissed as mere “plants”. His peculiar attentiveness to Clarissa Thurber, exampled in him helping her from the car while neglecting others, added a subtle, unsettling discord to the group’s dynamic.
Their first taste of local interaction came at Jim’s Grill, where a nosey reporter named Richard Wendell, from the Cobb’s Corners Gazette, immediately accosted them. His questions, laced with morbid curiosity, revolved around the “ill-fated trip last year” and students who wound up dead or missing in the mountains. This unsettling introduction was swiftly followed by the stern, puritanical pronouncements of Sheriff Dan Spencer, who castigated them as potential “inebriated hooligans” and threatened dire consequences should they stir up trouble, a warning that noticeably angered Robert Blaine. His deputy, John Cutter, a friendly, baby-faced youth, offered an apologetic wink and joined them while they ate.
Deputy Cutter, their unexpected and somewhat overly eager guide, led some of them on a walking tour of the dismal town. He pointed out the public library, presided over by Mabel Carruthers, the local Karner’s Goods store, his own office, and the Civil War Memorial with its rusting cannon. He spun a local tale, learned from his father, of an Indian graveyard where “fancy gold” was unearthed, leading to a lingering blood debt paid by the town’s youth through peculiar accidents. Superstitious hokum, he claimed with a nervous laugh, though the notion clung to the air like the damp Vermont mist.
Later that evening, the group gathered around a campfire, which Lewis Gibbons and Harry Higgins had rustled up outside the Maclearan Farmhouse. Deputy Cutter, ever the convivial sort, produced a small, illicit bottle of whiskey, offering it around with a conspiratorial “As long as no one tells the sheriff, of course”. As the firelight flickered, casting grotesque shadows amongst the sugar maples, he regaled the assembly with a local ghost story of Sarah Maclearan, known far and wide as “Sarah’s Shade”. Her spectral presence, he recounted, was blamed for a litany of misfortunes: animal disappearances, inexplicable bouts of sickness, and even the deaths of children over the years. To see her, the Deputy warned with a wry, unsettling smile, meant death would soon be at hand. Teddy Harris, ever the diligent student, felt compelled to scribble down the chilling tale in his notebook by the fire’s dim, flickering glow.
No sooner had the Deputy departed, Harry Higgins, seemingly unbothered by tales of the spectral, reappeared from the farmhouse with a bottle of Irish whiskey, proclaiming his dislike for ghost stories. Professor Lilian Neill, however, was clearly unsettled, remarking with a noticeable volume that she “would assume that our students would want to had a clear head in the morning”. Harry, somewhat apologetically, tucked the bottle out of sight. It was then, as the last of the day’s light faded behind the oppressive sugar maples, that a palpable tension descended. Harry and Teddy both distinctly heard a crunching of twigs and what sounded like somebody moving incautiously away from the woods behind the farmhouse. Sophia, initially dismissing it as merely the wind, observed the sounds peter out, leaving a lingering, primal unease. As the group considered the unsettling incident, Sophia, feeling a burgeoning dread despite her scientific mind, sought solace by retrieving Harry’s whiskey bottle, taking a little nip for courage as one who believed in ghosts and ancestors, before returning it to plain view.
Later that night, as preparations for a troubled sleep began, Sophia and Teddy realised it had been a long while since they’d visited a lavatory. A trip to the crude outhouse was needed. Sophia, bringing her flashlight, stood by as Teddy made his hurried visit, barely closing the door behind him. While Teddy was occupied within that flimsy structure, Sophia, swept the flashlight towards the dark trees where the earlier noises had emanated. For a fleeting, horrifying moment, she saw several pairs of little eyes looking at her, reflected in the beam, before they abruptly vanished into the impenetrable blackness. The swiftness of her relief was prompted, in part, by the eerie encounter and a sudden, atavistic fear of being left alone in the darkness. Back inside, as the camp settled into an uneasy quiet, Professor Lilian Neill, still unnerved by the earlier events, suggested they wedge a chair under their bedroom door, a small, futile comfort against the encroaching unknown. Despite the exhaustion of the day, sleep for some remained elusive. As Lilian and Sophia finally drifted off, they noticed a peculiar and unnatural absence: there were no sounds of crickets, no cicadas, no noise, no insect sounds, despite the time of year. Sophia, seeking a sense of familiarity amidst the burgeoning strangeness, instinctively reached for the rock hammer Gabriel had given her and the test tubes in her valise, finding solace in their familiar forms.
Lilian, for her part, simply did not had a good night’s sleep. The unearthly silence and the recent unsettling events left an indelible mark, hinting at deeper, more insidious secrets within the seemingly tranquil Vermont hills. It was as if the very valley held its breath, waiting.
Day Two: August 16th, 1930 – Unveiling the Bizarre
The lingering chill of late spring had given way to a muggy August in the Vermont hills, a deceptive warmth that did little to dissipate the unsettling undercurrents that clung to Cobb’s Corners. As the first faint, sickly light of dawn crept over the oppressive sugar maples, Professor Lilian Neill, ventured towards the farmhouse’s crude outhouse. The air hung heavy, not merely with the August humidity, but with an unnatural, sepulchral silence; the familiar symphony of crickets and cicadas, so ubiquitous in a rural summer, was still eerily absent. It was in this foreboding quiet that Professor Neill, witnessed a sight that defied all logic, all natural order: a skinny hare, seemingly oblivious, was stalked by a grotesque, tentacled creature, its maw equipped with tiny fangs, resembling nothing known to man or beast. Even more bizarrely, the abomination wielded a tiny dagger. The Professor, a woman of considerable academic and occult knowledge, found no comfort in her studies that could account for such an abomination. Despite her scientific training, the scene left her with a deep-seated, sanity-eroding unease, prompting her later to quickly sketch the impossible form.
Soon thereafter, the expedition leader, Robert Blaine, a man still burdened by the sorrows of last year’s ill-fated trip, divided the company into two teams for the day’s tasks: folklorists and soil surveyors.
Professor Neill, alongside Jason Trent, William Noakes, and Teddy Harris – the latter two carrying the expedition’s unwieldy camera and audio recording equipment – were dispatched to the heart of Cobb’s Corners. Their primary objective: the local library, and its keeper, Mabel Carruthers, a woman said to know every story the valley held. The soil surveyors, including Sophia Picado, headed towards Rice Hill.
In the quaint, if chaotic library, as Professor Neill and her colleagues delved into the region’s grim folklore, Mabel Carruthers, the spinster librarian, called out for her niece and assistant, Amanda. Amanda’s muffled response was obscured by the rows of ancient book shelves and precarious piles of books in the aisles. After a photograph was taken and the recording equipment was set, Miss Carruthers recounted the legend of an Abenaki graveyard, desecrated by the town’s original founders for its cursed gold. She spoke with grim resignation of the youth of Cobb’s Corners, now paying a blood debt through inexplicable, stupid accidents – a chilling echo of the region’s dark, unhallowed past. She then shared the grim tale of a vast mound at the base of Landon Mountain, where, on starless nights, a bull-sized hound with glowing green eyes would appear, its mournful howl serving as a guardian over the murdered pilgrims, reputedly victims of the local Wampanoag, buried within.
All the while, Teddy Harris, the English undergraduate, noted with growing apprehension the peculiar absence of folklore, mythology, or occult texts from the library’s shelves – volumes that should had been present in any collection, however small. When Teddy asked about these books, Miss Carruthers was most perturbed to find the shelves where they should be stocked with other, mundane tomes. She called again to Amanda. The young woman, described as quite homely with lank, oily black hair and poor acne, appeared reluctantly from behind a stack of books. It became apparent, through observation and deduction, that Amanda, despite her denials, knew of the missing books. When pressed by Mabel regarding the whereabouts of these volumes, Amanda put her head down and receded into herself, simply repeating, “I don’t know… I don’t know…”. After a somewhat brash attempt by Teddy Harris’s to intimidate her, striking a raw nerve, Amanda pushed past him and burst through the main door. As she did so, she dropped a satchel she had, leaving a clearly shaken Mabel to stare after her. Unseen by the librarian, Teddy Harris, compelled by an inexplicable urge, picked up the satchel, which contained a hardbound notebook with sketches and handwritten entries, seemingly poetry.
It was amidst this unsettling mystery that Teddy Harris, drawn by an inexplicable compulsion, attempted to subtly acquire a small, old, hardbound novella titled Azathoth and Others by one Edward Pickman Derby he had spotted earlier. Professor Neill, with a quiet, yet firm, determination, ultimately pocketed the strange volume herself, sensing that it was safer with her. This curious collection of Arkham-born poetry, published in Boston in 1919, radiated a dark and compelling aura, its imagery producing an unmistakable chill. Later, when asked if the name Azathoth resonated with her anthropological expertise, Professor Neill found it strangely unfamiliar, despite her worldly knowledge, hinting at a realm of dread knowledge beyond human ken.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the town’s strangeness continued. A visit to Richard Wendell, the nosey reporter at the Cobb’s Corners Gazette, yielded further unsettling insights. Mr. Wendell produced a grainy, obscure photograph taken at night – a blurry silhouette of something flying ominously before the moon. He claimed that such late night photographs, particularly with something in motion, were normally unphotographable, a feat achieved only through his experimental emulsion. Wendell described a droning sound, akin to a mosquito buzzing, accompanying the apparition, and revealed that his darkroom had mysteriously caught fire shortly after he developed the image. This confluence of unseen forces and technological anomalies only served to deepen the growing dread.
The midday sun, now obscured by an increasingly ominous sky, found the folklorist team alongside the ever-inquisitive reporter, Richard ‘Dickie’ Wendell, taking their seats at Jim’s Grill. Jason Trent and Terrence Laszlo, having already dined, sat at the counter, a little out of sorts – having been chastised for their brusk approach when seeking an interview with the town’s doctor. Ann Haggerty, her demeanor efficient but polite, took orders, while her husband, the eponymous Jim, was the unseen force in the kitchen. Dickie decided to take his to go and went up to the counter to chat with Ann.
As the order was placed and while waiting for the food, Professor Neill, with a quiet solemnity, produced the small, black leather-bound book, Azathoth and Others, purloined from the library. Its pages, densely packed with poetry, radiated an unsettling aura; the cadences felt off, the imagery disquieting, pulling them into a deep reverie that permeated the diner with an unmistakable chill, at odds with a muggy warmth of the summer’s day. Ann’s timely arrival with their meals, clanking plates onto the table, snapped them from the oppressive grip of the verse.
Following their lunch, as the day grew darker with the threat of rain, the conversation inevitably turned to the peculiar satchel Amanda had dropped at the library. William, perhaps drawn by a morbid curiosity, produced the hardbound notebook from within, revealing sketches and handwritten entries, seemingly more poetry. One chilling verse, a morbid invocation, reverberated with an unnerving resonance. Professor Neill found the concept of “Summerlands” utterly alien to her anthropological understanding of Christian or even Native American lore, while William’s attempts to connect it to ancient Mesopotamian traditions proved fruitless, leaving the group with a profound, unsettling sense of incomprehension.
While the folklorists delved into the unseen horrors whispered about by the locals, the soil surveyors, including Sophia Picado, had a more mundane day. Despite their diligent efforts at Rice Hill, they found only common materials like magnetite and a combination of talc and dolomite, no trace of the mysterious pasquallium they were ostensibly searching for. The lack of otherworldly findings for the scientists, in stark contrast to the chilling discoveries of the anthropologists, seemed to be a subtle, yet profound, imbalance in the unfolding narrative of Cobb’s Corners.
As twilight fell, their group converged back at the farmhouse, the air thick with heat and unspoken anxieties, a heavy atmosphere with no respite. Sophia, ever the chemist, meticulously analysed the mysterious emulsion obtained earlier from Richard Wendell at the Cobb’s Corners Gazette. She determined it was indeed a photography developing emulsion, noting its slightly bluish tint when held to the light, though she couldn’t identify any unusual additives with her limited on-site equipment. She handed it back to William, hoping someone with photography knowledge could make more sense of it. Back from the dig site, Harry Higgins, in typical fashion, shared smuggled Irish whiskey with William and Teddy. Teddy, however, declined, feeling unwell and experiencing a headache due to the storm coming in and the general heaviness in the air.
Driven by her earlier observations and having overheard Sophia’s discussion of the emulsion, Professor Neill set up her camera for a long exposure near the flower bed, confident in capturing a very steady image due to the lack of wind and hoping the emulsion would help the photographs develop clearly.
The most unnerving event of the evening, however, was the return of the shared, unsettling dreams that haunted both Professor Lilian Neill and Teddy Harris. These dreams were vivid, intense, and filled with strange, fantastical places, trees, and people, with the chilling familiarity of the sugar maple trees as a recurring element. They both experienced a chilling, yet undeniable, erosion of their sanity.
Day Three: August 17th, 1930 – Hypocrisy and Horrors Revealed
The morning dawned under a sky of thick, angry clouds, promising a deluge after the intense humidity. Over breakfast, Sophia vaguely connected the description of the dreams to a child’s drawing she had seen earlier depicting dark, weird trees. Blaine set the day’s agenda: the soil surveyors were to return to Rice Hill, while the folklorists would head into Cobb’s Corners. Blaine indicated he would join the diggers, though the other car refused to starts, so he hitched a lift in the truck.
The folklorists decided to start their day at the First Baptist Church of the Divine Ascension, hoping to meet locals after Sunday service, as they believed people would come to them if they had stories. The church, the only one in Cobb’s Corners, was a whitewashed, single-room building with adjoining living quarters for Reverend Earl Wilson and his family. It overlooks a well-maintained graveyard, a silent testament to the town’s morbid history. Inside, there were eight sets of pews split by a central aisle, and an oak podium with a worn Bible. The folklorists arrived at the church early for service, finding many familiar faces from town gathered outside, including the librarian, Jim’s Grill staff, store owners, the Sheriff, and the Deputy. The service began with the entrance of Reverend Wilson. During the sermon, Wilson was seen to be fiercely dogmatic, delivering fire and brimstone with an almost fanatical zeal. The children present, including his own son, Jacob, were unusually still and well-behaved, their faces unreadable. The service lasted over an hour, and William noted that it felt like a somber celebration with little exuberance from the congregation. The parishioners dispersed quickly afterwards, not lingering to socialize, an unusual behavior that the folklorists attributed to the Reverend’s stifling presence.
Reverend Earl Wilson, who had moved to Cobb’s Corners only two months prior to fill a three-year vacancy, was described as an imposing figure of above-average height and build, giving the impression he could wrestle the Devil… and win. He was prematurely grey and appears to be in his mid-40s. His blue eyes squint, and he had an old scar running down his right cheek, which he attributes to his ungodly days as a youth. He was a puritanical man of God and dogmatic zealot, whose sermons were filled with terrible punishments for sinners. He fervently believes everything he says. William noted he was “moody”. His wife, Martha, was about twenty years his junior, and they had an eight-year-old son named Jacob. Both Martha and Jacob were timid and mousy, seemingly crushed under the Reverend’s oppressive presence.
When the folklorists spoke with Reverend Wilson, he was initially somewhat dismissive. Teddy Harris, with an astute display of Biblical knowledge and references to Isaiah, managed to impress the Reverend and gain his attention. Professor Neill then introduced their purpose as folklorists. Wilson expressed reluctance to had their conversation audio-recorded, preferring good old-fashioned paper notes. Wilson shared that he and Martha had only been in Cobb’s Corners for a few months and that his understanding of the town’s history was very limited. He described some local stories as “fanciful, bordering on foolish”. When Jacob, his son, dropped some biscuits, Wilson clipped him on the ear and publicly chastised him and Martha, revealing a harsh temper before recomposing himself with a chilling swiftness.
Professor Neill attempted to persuade Wilson that folklore often contains a grain of truth, akin to parables in the Bible. Although Wilson holds a literal interpretation of the Bible, he was somewhat swayed by this argument. He then recounted a story about a parishioner’s grandpappy encountering the Devil on a mound in the woods, with a “light coming out of the heavens” to strike the Devil down at the sound of prayers. This part of the story, he liked, but dismissed other tales of strange noises and strange creatures as nonsense stories told by children and spread by simple minds. He suggested everything they needed to know was in the Bible. The conversation concluded with Wilson cutting it short, stating he needed to visit sick in the community. Professor Neill noticed a strong sense that Wilson was an accomplished liar.
Following this unsettling encounter, Professor Neill, Teddy, and William visited Dickie at the Cobb’s Corners Gazette office, primarily to develop the photographs taken the previous night. The results were stark and unnerving: the pictures clearly revealed multiple pairs of white, glowing eyes in the dark woods behind the farmhouse, appearing particularly dense around the outhouse and flower bed. This chilling visual evidence seemed to confirm the eerie sensations from their shared, sanity-eroding dreams. While there, Teddy also took the opportunity to review old newspaper archives, noting a disturbing number of accidents and child deaths over the years, though he attributed this to the reporter’s sensationalism.
Meanwhile, at the Rice Hill dig site, Sophia and Clarissa continued their work, discovering more Indigenous artifacts, including arrowheads made from dolomite and carved bone rings, alongside what Clarissa identified as potential post holes. They did not find the rare pasquallium ore.
The weather soon took a turn for the worse, with heavy rain beginning to fall. Blaine, who had ostensibly joined the diggers, left them, claiming he was going to a nearby farmhouse to use their telephone. After an hour and a half, the survey team, growing uneasy, decided something must had happened and headed back towards the farmhouse in Joe Harlow’s truck.
As the survey team made their return along the Gismend Road, rain lashed the valley with a violence that seemed almost vengeful. The truck laboured under the downpour, its lamps casting feeble cones of light into the swirling dark. The bridge ahead — a narrow span of timber and rusting girders — groaned beneath the floodwaters already clawing at its foundations. Joe urged the truck forward, the engine straining, tyres slipping on slick planks.
Halfway across, the river surged with renewed force, hurling debris against the supports. There came a crack like musket fire, then a grinding shriek as timbers gave way. In that instant the bridge tilted, and the truck lurched sideways. Sophia felt her ribs crushed against the seat as the vehicle slammed through the rail. For one breathless moment they were suspended between sky and torrent, then the truck plunged down into the churning water.
The impact shattered the windscreen and tore the breath from their lungs. Icy water rushed in, filling the cab in seconds. Sophia struck her head against the doorframe, her vision flashing white, before strong hands dragged her free. Clarissa screamed as the current seized her, only to be hauled back by Harry, both of them coughing and sputtering as the flood tried to claim them.
Joe had scrambled free as well, emerging on the far bank, drenched but determined. For a moment he shouted across the torrent, his words lost to the flood, before waving once and striking out along the road. It seemed he meant to fetch help, leaving the others huddled in the rain, their eyes following him until the storm swallowed his silhouette.
They each clawed free, took faltering leaps, but eventually found themselves clinging to the remnants of the bridge and each other, soaked and shivering, they hauled themselves to the riverbank. Every limb ached, every breath burned, yet somehow they had escaped with their lives. Sophia’s forehead was slick with blood, her ribs protesting each gasp, but she forced herself upright.
It was then, as they staggered together into the darkness of the afternoon, that a familiar figure emerged from the rain: Sheriff Spencer, standing grim and immovable at the road’s edge, as though he had been waiting for them. Joe had stumbled upon him doing the rounds when on his way to check the bridge.
The folklorists, having wisely taken a different route unaffected by the washed-out bridge, had already returned to the farmhouse. Blaine had also, somewhat unexpectedly, returned to the farmhouse ahead of the dig team.
Upon returning to the Maclearan farmhouse, cold, wet, and weary from the day’s ordeal, Harry Higgins couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. He was visibly pissed off and put out, especially after Robert Blaine had finally reappeared, hours after leaving the other diggers behind. Harry launched into a furious tirade, primarily aimed at Blaine. He vehemently stated that Blaine had abandoned them in a “bloody monsoon,” claiming to be “right back” yet returning to the farmhouse completely dry. Harry exclaimed, “I got him figured as a jinx. Cursed”. He then recounted the tragic events of the previous year’s Miskatonic University expedition to Cobb’s Corners, where one student died and two, including Blaine’s girlfriend, went missing. Harry pointed out Blaine’s supposed “lucky” escape from that trip due to a broken arm, implying a suspicious pattern. He concluded by expressing a profound sense of unease, stating, “I got a bad feeling about that fella”.
Amidst this passionate outburst, Harry suggested that the group should down tools and wait for Blaine to figure out the next steps, given the challenging circumstances. Sophia, also frustrated, highlighted their precarious situation, noting that the group was now down to only one working car. Harry continued to vent his frustration, cementing the uneasy, almost preternatural mood in the farmhouse for the evening. Food was prepared, but it did little to lift the pervasive gloom.
During the evening, Teddy and William noticed Jason Trent, the secretive student, acting suspiciously with a book, snapping it shut and hiding it away when he realised he was observed. Teddy later glimpsed its faded gold lettering and title: Folklore and Strange Stories of New England and Beyond. Teddy tried to engage Jason, but he dismissed it as “just a fiction story” and quickly retreated upstairs. Teddy suspected it was something that was either precious to him or important to him, hinting at a darker secret.
Later, after an hour and a half of unexplained absence, Robert Blaine reappeared, claiming he’d gone for “Dutch courage” (whiskey) in the woods because he was “a little bit shaken” by what had happened earlier. Professor Neill, however, used her keen perception to deduce he was lying, sensing him to be an accomplished liar. His footprints, when noticed, led not to the outhouse, as he implied, but their true destination was lost to the swirling mud.
Later that evening, Lilian and Teddy dreamt… again their dreams were bad.
Day Four: August 18th, 1930 – Dreams, Bones, and the Whispering Earth
The day began with a pall. At breakfast, faces were drawn, voices subdued. Professor Neill and Teddy Harris spoke haltingly of a dream they had both endured: a descent into a cellar where vines twisted like serpents, binding their limbs and dragging them into a pit whose growls dissolved into mad laughter. Sophia, listening, recalled the unblinking eyes she had glimpsed by the outhouse days before. The silence pressing in around the farmhouse—the absence of birdsong, of insects, of any natural cadence—lent their confessions a chill plausibility, as if the land itself were conspiring in their dreams.
It was Neill who, walking toward the outhouse, noticed something pale beneath the flowerbed. Brushing away soil, her hand closed upon ribs — human ribs, white and unmistakable. A cry brought Teddy, Sophia, and William to her side. William, with a scholar’s detachment, judged them adult but could not say how long they had lain beneath the earth. The incongruity of their placement — bones among flowers — chilled them all.
Blaine was summoned, his usual glib assurances straining against a sudden edge of discomfort. When pressed why such remains had never come to light before, he offered only evasions. Soon Sheriff Spencer arrived, and it was plain that the sight of the bones shook him to his core. Deputy Cutter muttered that they were likely those of Sarah Maclearan — the sheriff’s own sister — whose death had been attributed to consumption a decade past. Sarah, however, had been buried in consecrated ground. How could she lie here, beneath a farmhouse flowerbed?
The sheriff’s face worked as he wrestled rage and grief. He spoke of vengeance upon Jimmy Maclearan, Sarah’s husband. Dr. Perry came in due course with a body bag, his movements clinical, his expression unreadable. Yet to Neill and Teddy he later confided the darker truth: when Sarah’s grave was opened, it held not a woman’s body but the mutilated carcass of a calf. Perry believed Jimmy, distraught and deranged, had buried his wife in his own garden. His voice faltered as he added that Cobb’s Corners had suffered too many strange child deaths, too many inexplicable farm accidents. “There’s something not right here,” he said, as though afraid of naming it.
Blaine, in the midst of this horror, pressed his case again for Broken Hill. He spoke of mineral veins and Indian burials, of pasqualeum and prestige. Yet his eagerness rang false. Neill read something hidden in his motives, and Sophia noticed, with tightening jaw, his eyes linger too long on Clarissa. When she stepped in protectively, Blaine offered no protest, only a thin smile that chilled her more than words.
Later that day, Neill, Teddy, and William turned aside from the main road to visit Agnes Bellweather, the aged midwife spoken of in whispers as a witch. Her garden was a grotesque profusion of wicker symbols, fertility charms twisted into shapes that carried the echo of forgotten rites. Agnes, eighty-eight and housebound, received them with keen eyes that seemed to peer through flesh into marrow. She told them the legend of the valley: that an entire tribe had been wiped out in a single night by evil spirits, their bones buried at the hill’s foot, their curses lingering still. The strange petroglyphs on Rice Hill — stick figures fleeing winged monstrosities — she recognised at once. She spoke, too, of the valley’s peculiar abundance, soil fat and yielding, yet free of predators, weeds, and pests: a balance, she said, kept by a bargain of blood. When shown their photographs of glowing eyes, she murmured of “rats” that leapt through the trees, her voice too certain to be dismissed as senility.
By the time they reached the road again, the day was waning. The car carrying Neill, Teddy, and William blew a tyre on the muddy track. Terrence and Jason stayed behind with it while the others pressed on by foot toward Broken Hill. When they arrived, Harry led them to a grim discovery: scattered bones of men, women, and children mixed with Abenaki artifacts, the clear remnant of a massacre and mass grave. Sophia, with furtive hand, pocketed a small bone for later study; Lewis saw her and frowned, but said nothing. Blaine was gone — vanished hours before. Only then did they understand: his insistence on Broken Hill had been a stratagem, meant to draw them away while he pursued his own ends.
Twilight deepened. Terrence and Jason returned with news: Joe, sent to recover the car, had not returned, the truck’s engine having given out. He had gone one foot for help. Their vehicles were useless; they were stranded. With no recourse, the group pitched tents at the base of Broken Hill. The canvas flapped weakly, the fire smoked and struggled, and a palpable unease hung over them. Watches were set, Harry took whiskey to his lips, and Sophia clutched the bone she had stolen as though it were a talisman. In the darkness Teddy stiffened, ears straining. From the hillside, faint but insistent, came again that unnatural buzzing — insectile, electric, alive — threading the night air, promising that the land itself was not yet done with them.
Day Five: August 19th, 1930 – The Mist and the Sheriff’s Office
The sound grew — faint, at first no more than the rasp of a distant wasp — and grew until it filled the night, a droning, insectile buzzing that seemed to coil inside the skull. At the same time, white vapour crept from the hollows. It thickened swiftly, climbing the slope, rolling into the camp, until the lanterns were pale islands adrift in fog.
From that blankness came the attack.
They struck not as men, nor beasts, but as shapes only half seen: taloned shadows, wings glimmering as if woven from the mist itself. Jason Trent faltered, fell, and was snatched backwards by some winged enormity. William Noakes and Terrence Lazlow went down into a trench; Terrence’s leg broke in the fall. For a heartbeat William bore him up, struggling to rise — then both were taken, dragged into the fog as though by invisible claws. Clarissa’s scream rose, cut short by a wet and crunching sound. Roderick Block cried out as a slash opened his arm and the fog closed upon him too. Harry panicked and bolted for the tents, voice ragged with fear, and did not return. Lewis vanished. One by one, the young were swallowed.
The survivors — Lillian, Sophia, and Teddy — staggered together into the shell of a tent, the canvas thrashing above them, until at last the buzzing ceased and the fog thinned. All was silence. In that silence, they knew they must flee.
By the gutter of their lanterns they struck out downslope. Past Mrs. Bellwether’s place, two low eyes gleamed for a moment before a tabby cat slunk away, some dark morsel clamped in its jaws. Reaching the abandoned vehicles, they rummaged and found their meagre salvation: tinned peaches, two oil lamps, a double-barrelled shotgun with a box of shells. It was near two in the morning when Teddy dared the truck’s ignition. By some cruel mercy it caught on the second attempt, the engine’s roar breaking the valley’s hush.
Yet the way was blocked. The stalled car sat square in the track, facing them. Lillian took the brake, Sophia slid behind the wheel — she had driven trucks in Nicaragua, she said — and Teddy leaned half out the passenger side, shouting direction through the rain. They nudged the car once, then harder, until the truck rammed it aside. Metal screamed; the smaller vehicle toppled into the ditch. The path was open.
So they drove. The truck lurched down the rutted road, tyres skidding in mud, headlamps smothered in mist. The valley seemed endless, each bend another chance to veer off into blackness. Yet at last houses loomed, and the pale lights of Cobb’s Corners flickered through thinning fog.
It was near four in the morning when they stumbled into the Sheriff’s office. Deputy Cutter, bleary-eyed, let them in. Their tale of winged shapes and vanished companions was met not with aid but with suspicion: Cutter drew his pistol and herded them into the left-hand cell. Bars clanged shut.
Later Sheriff Spencer arrived, composed, unsmiling. Behind him came Blaine. The Sheriff listened, then dismissed their words as drunken lies. His scorn was cold, his eyes tired. Blaine, at his side, cast upon them a look of raw dislike. “Sleep it off,” the Sheriff commanded and made a hushed telephone call.
And so they passed the remainder of that dreadful night behind bars, waiting for dawn.
When dawn came, it brought no relief. Cars drew up outside. Doors slammed. And into the office walked the others: Jason, Lewis, Terrence, Harry, Roderick, William, Clarissa — all of them. Their clothes were torn, their faces pale, but Terrence stood on both legs, hale, unbroken. Not one met their eyes. When the missing students filed back into the office, Blaine came with them, rain still clinging to his coat. For a moment he looked on Clarissa with an intensity that bordered on hunger, but when his eyes took in her unchanged face, his expression curdled into open disgust. He turned away quickly, yet the bitterness that twisted his features lingered long enough to chill all who saw it. The returned were shepherded silently into the adjoining cells, their gazes blank, as though each bore a secret they could never tell.
The Sheriff conferred in low tones with Cutter and Blaine, then released Professor Harrold, who he had summoned in the early hours, to fetch the three captives. Soon Lillian, Sophia, and Teddy were escorted to a waiting car, with orders to leave Cobb’s Corners, to take the train from Brattleboro and return to Arkham. They went hollow-eyed, clutching their strange souvenirs: the bone and shells, the occult book, Amanda’s notebook. Behind them the town receded, mist still clinging to its streets.
What they had seen and suffered did not fit into the daylight world. But the buzzing lingered in their skulls, and the memory of shapes in the fog would never leave them.
Editor’s Closing Note
I leave the reader to weigh these events. The official records of Cobb’s Corners were silent. The Gazette of that year reports only storms, accidents, and a failed university dig. The names of those who returned appear in later college registries, their lives unremarkable.
And yet, I cannot dismiss the manuscript. I had read it under lamplight and sworn I heard — faint, beyond the glass — a buzzing that grew louder as I read on.
— Silas H. Putnam, Ipswich, 1947