The Return of Zhosph

"The Return of Zhosph" is a short Cthulhu Mythos story by American author Gary Myers.
==Synopsis==
Snurd is a man who studies the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, and lives in the city of Zulan-Thek where necromancy is forbidden and bodies are not to be buried. As such, when the bodies of two people named Klotlei and Shek were dug up in the night by sextons from Gak, he left Zulan-Thek to follow them, believing that the bodies will be used for witchcraft. He followed them through the hippogryph-flanked vine-hidden stone gates and entered a series of catacombs where he discovered a vault where the sextons disposed of the bodies of malefactors from Zulan-Thek including Klotlei and Shek. He realizes through the story of a thaumaturge named Zhosph that he had a retinue of shadows that feasted on Zulan-Thek's palaces and fanes in the night, and that the sextons had some kind of unfinished business. But they discovered things were altered. The hippogryph statues were changed to look smug, He continued following the sextons, the vines misbehaved strangely, disturbing the dwelling rats and scarabs within, and even strangling them, and there was wailing within the catacombs. A man claimed that something has been brought back to life and shifted the tomb, seeing a bat signaling something horrid coming. The sextons approached the dead body of Zhosph, whose skull was split open and whose brain was missing, and a yellowish membrane found as Snurd's body turns inside out, confirming that Zhosph has possessed him.
==Publication History==
First published in the March 1972 issue of the fanzine HPL, "The Return of Zhosph" has also been included in the collections The House of the Worm (1975) and The Country of the Worm: Excursions Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2013).
Category:Gary Myers works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works