"Man stands by as friend goes mad in a hole" (Miskatonic Press, Vol. 8)

Miskatonic Press started because I couldn't remember which stories I'd already read in my H.P. Lovecraft anthology. When I finished a story, I would go to the table of contents and write a one-sentence summary of what happened (usually in a humorous way). I would typically phrase them like a newspaper headline or the tag line for a movie. This article is about, "The Statement of Randolph Carter."

Like many of Lovecraft's protagonists, Randolph Carter is the survivor of at terrifying ordeal involving a sketchy piece of literature, weird voices underground, and a friend with questionable hobbies. For the past five years, Carter has been close friends with

Harley Warren, an occultist obsessed with forbidden knowledge. Warren is missing, and conveniently cannot answer for his weird studies.

The story begins with Warren discovering a strange, ancient book in an unknown language. He had many such books and papers, but this book was particularly nasty and mysterious. Influenced by this book, Warren theorised about "why certain corpses never decay, but rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years."

Warren evidently believed the book described something of occult interest beneath the old cemetery in Big Cypress Swamp. He doesn't explain any of his intentions to Carter, who for some reason was still willing to tag along. Lovecraft's description of the swampy graveyard is actually quite beautiful:

Over the valley's rim a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors that seemed to emanate from unheard-of catacombs, and by its feeble, wavering beams I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs, and mausolean facades, all crumbling, moss-grown, and moisture-stained, and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation.

I wouldn't want to build a summer home there...

Together, the two men break open a sepulchre, unleashing a stench that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" fittingly referred to as, "the funk of forty-thousand years." Warren insists on descending alone into the crypt, and goes on for longer than necessary about why Carter should be left behind: "It would be a crime to let anyone with your frail nerves go down there."

Well, Warren's already desecrated a grave tonight, so I would have thought he'd be beyond such qualms about criminality. He has brought a portable telephone line with him to stay in contact, though. Carter waits up above and listens through the device as Warren’s voice becomes increasingly disturbed. I have included some of what Warren said, along with my best guesses about what he saw.

"God! If you could see what I am seeing! Carter, it's terrible- monstrous- unspeakable! No man could know it and live! Great God! I never dreamed of THIS!" (He's being forced to watch David Lynch's Dune).

"Beat it! For God's sake, put back the slab and beat it, Carter!" (It's Michael Jackson!)

"Nearly over now-" (So said the woefully mistaken people watching the Season 5 finale of Supernatural).

"Curse these hellish things- legions- my God!" (He has stumbled upon the Summerfest grounds during a --insert relevant, popular, and divisive music artist here-- concert).

In other words, warren encounters something indescribable and horrible in the darkness. After urging Carter to "beat it" several more times, Warren goes forbodingly silent. Carter remains at the mouth of the sepulchre, glued to the phone like a Gen Alpha influencer monitoring the likes on their most recent reel. He's there for what seems like eons but was probably only a couple of minutes. Then, he hears a voice over the telephone, a voice he described as, "deep, hollow, gelatinous, remote, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied."

The voice says, "You fool. Warren is dead!"

To be honest, we suspected as much. It could have been much worse.

This final line struck me as a bit anticlimactic. In a story dealing with unholy forces beyond human comprehension, death is the most banal fate imaginable. Here are some horrifying alternatives:

• "We've been trying to contact you about your car's extended warranty."

• "What excellent boiled potatoes. Many years since I have had such an exemplary vegetable."

• "We all float down here, and when you're down here with me, you'll float, too."

• "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you."

• "Oh, my gosh. I just love how you wear whatever you want. That takes confidence."

• "Taking a freezing cold shower every morning has changed my life. You should do it, too, and you are an inferior, weak-minded excuse for a human if you don't."

Follow me down the rabbit hole:

• "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft" (Chartwell Classics). This is the edition of Lovecraft that I have at home, and I enjoy it immensely. It's a nice hefty tome with a beautiful illustration on the cover.

• Seth MacFarlane shares Liam Neeson's "Taken" monologue in the voice of Kermit the Frog