Worse Things Waiting

Worse Things Waiting is a Cthulhu Mythos novel written by Brian McNaughton. It was originally published in 1980 as Satan's Seductress (Carlyle Books), and released under McNaughton's preferred title in 2000 by Wildside Press. It is a sequel to 1978's Downward to Darkness (aka Satan's Mistress). Like its predecessor, Worse Things Waiting combines McNaughton's trademark black humour, plentiful gore and pervasive sexuality.
The title comes from a quote from A. C. Swinburne that serves as the book's epigraph:At the door of life, by the gate of breath, 
There are worse things waiting for men than death.
==Synopsis==
Four years after the events of Downward to Darkness, Amy Miniter has returned to Mt. Tabor, Connecticut--and has been identified by local Satanist Howard Ashcroft as a likely vessel for the reincarnation of 19th century witch Mirdath Hodgson. Meanwhile, hack writer Martin Paige has come to town to do a true crime story about the Mt. Tabor massacre--and ends up falling in love with Amy and risking everything to thwart Mirdath's scheme. 
==Characters==
* Amy Miniter, a 20-year-old with a "dreamy nature." When she was a sophomore in high school, she survived the Mt. Tabor Massacre, which took the life of her mother, her only remaining parent. She's now returned to Mt. Tabor and finds herself an unexpected success at her mother's real estate business. She is blonde and blue-eyed, but "the only adjective that ever came to anyone's mind on first seeing her was pale"--so much so that "she began to dress, think, and act palely." She lives by herself in Brooksprite Gardens, a housing development built on the former site of the town dump--which earlier was the gravesite of a notorious local witch.
* Martin Paige, a hack writer from New York City. (He has an address on Great Jones Street in Manhattan's East Village.) He's described as "a bum living by his wits, one step ahead of lawyers, loansharks and tax men, two steps short of middle age." He observes that "he had really become a writer to impress girls, but they remained unimpressed." A "seedy-looking man" at 36 years old, he's said to be "a lookalike for the young Don Knotts," with his "receding, curly hair, his inconsequential build, and...his crazy eyes"--though "he really did have more chin than Don Knotts." He wrote a play called The Wild Hunt (which is mentioned in Downward to Darkness), ghostwrote parts of the successful novel Behold Now Behemoth, and is working on an epic fantasy novel, Swords of Winbourne.
* Mordred Glendower, a wizard born near Cardiff, Wales, in 1560. He was John Dee's secretary when that historic wizard translated the Necronomicon. He later moved to Salem, Massachusetts, fleeing from there to North Berwick, Maine, in 1692--"one step ahead of the rope." He moved from Maine to Mt. Tabor, Connecticut, in 1810, where he became a miller and married Purity Jennings, "the foremost belle of the town." Purity died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Mirdath, in 1812. He was burned to death in 1847, when "three infants were stolen from their cradles in as many weeks." He is recalled as a "proud, solitary and sardonic man."
* Mirdath Hodgson, Mordred's daughter. She combined "her father's pride, unsociability, and intellectual acidity" with "a streak of willful viciousness" and "stunning beauty." At the age of 14, she killed a horse with an ax on Main Street that had splashed mud on her dress. Several young men killed themselves after being spurned by her. In 1830, she began using the name "Hodgson," though no husband of that name was in evidence, and gave birth to a son who was "the very image of his grandfather." She is hanged in 1847, at the same time Mordred is burned up for killing babies.
* Dr. Howard Ashcroft, director of The Institute for Mithraic Studies, a local cult, and a wizard of some power. Formerly a "minor celebrity" who "had appeared on TV talk-shows and had been widely written up ('Saint—or Fiend?') in grocery-store tabloids." He maintains that "he practiced the 'natural' religion of European prehistory that had been persecuted as witchcraft and driven underground by those pesky Christians." Wears a "salt-and-pepper Van Dyke."
* Toni Sloane, Amy's neighbor. Influenced by "the teachings of her mother, a dedicated but selective Marxist," she firmly believes that property is theft. Her boyfriend acknowledges that "she could come up with startlingly acute insights into people and their motivations." She is described as "rosy and full-figured, healthy and tan, with a spray of freckles across her cute nose." She's 22 years old, and from Bridgeport, Connecticut.
* Todd Farmer, Toni's boyfriend and a follower of Howard Ashcroft. Todd is "big and rough-looking and sarcastic, his arms adorned with tattooed skulls and daggers and serpents." (He is one of the few people with "the brains or the class to get tattoos in Latin," he boasts.) A picked-on smart kid, he developed his body to become a bully himself; he "modeled his early life and opinions on Conan, the all-conquering barbarian of Robert E. Howard's heroic fantasies." He spent time in prison for assaulting his high school principal, and got away with killing four people while in prison. He moved from New Jersey to Connecticut and adopted a new name to evade his probation officer. Toni observes that he is "smart enough to read a lot of books, but not smart enough to evaluate them." He has minor paranormal abilities--like knowing who's calling without picking up the phone, and being able to wake up at a precise time--which he hopes to develop by studying with Ashcroft. He works at Pepe's all-night diner on Bridge Street, and is 27 or 28 years old.
* Robert Bamberger, Amy Miniter's former high school English teacher. Now a follower of Ashcroft, he's working as a fortune teller in the seedy part of Mt. Tabor, billled as “R. Bamberger, Reader and Adviser.” He is described as "a beefy, red-faced man...sweaty and sullen and dim."
* Hogarth Zurer, successful apocalyptic novelist whose books feature "fire ants, wayward comets, mutant nutrias, and sewer-spawned alligators"; they are "routinely made into movies and would sometimes cling to the bottom rung of the bestseller lists for weeks." Perhaps best-known for his Behold Now Behemoth, "about a fisherman's duel with a brainy sea-monster." He has a "weatherbeaten but still handsome face," "gold hair waving back from [a] high forehead," and "world-weary eyes." An associate of Ashcroft's.
* Maurice Donovan, chief of police of Mt. Tabor, described as "a puffy and oversized gingerbread man."
* George Spencer, lawyer for the Miniter family. He is thought to have "given up his practice and gone abroad—no one knew exactly where." In reality, his occult studies--a hobby that became an obsession following the massacre--have the led to to the "total and eternal disperson of [his] consciousness into the Host of Ekron,"
==Setting==
Worse Things Waiting, like Downward to Darkness, is set in the imaginary town of Mt. Tabor, Connecticut. It seems to be in the northwestern part of the state; Mansfield is its high-school football rival, and a character in Downward to Darkness listens to a Willimantic radio station. It's described as "snuggling with its church steeple and iron bridge in a pocket of comfortably rounded green hills."
Martin Paige accurately envisions his approach to the town, in many ways typical of New England: "Bad roads would take him through a desolation of abandoned farms until he went down a hill and crossed a stream by means of a dubious bridge"--which turns out to be made of iron, circa 1910. 
Points of interest the Glendower Mill on Pine Hollow Road, site of the Mt. Tabor Massacre, and The Institute of Mithraic Studies, in a "secluded stone house" that is "expensive and well-kept."
Mt. Tabor's Main Street features businesses like the Super Duper Mart ("Parking For Super Duper Customers Only!") and Ken's Komputer Kingdom. Dining can be found at Rocco's Ranch, a steakhouse in a converted mill, or Pepe's all-night diner on Bridge Avenue, a street which "looked as if it hadn't yet bounced back from the Great Depression of 1873." Local kids are found "hanging out at the Dairy Queen, glumly plotting escape." 
The library is "formerly the town's one-room schoolhouse." A history of the town, Rambles Through Historic Mt. Tabor, may be found there. There is a local newspaper that appears to be a one-man show.
Category:Brian McNaughton works
Category:Novels
Category:Expanded Mythos Works