Strange Manuscript Found in the Vermont Woods

"Strange Manuscript Found in the Vermont Woods" is a horror short story by Lin Carter, set in the Cthulhu Mythos. It was first published in 1988 in the magazine Crypt of Cthulhu.
== Synopsis==
The narrative consists of the journal of Winthrop Hoag, which has been found inside a briefcase in Vermont in 1936. The briefcase was found partially buried into the frozen ground, as if it had fallen from a great height. It was damaged in some places, as if it had been exposed to both extreme heat and acid, and also had stains of a foul-smelling viscous black substance. The manuscript inside was, in some pages, damaged and unreadable, leaving a few gaps in the narrative.
The journal reveals how Winthrop Hoag inherited a cabin in the woods in the vicinity of Arkham, Massachusetts, after the disappearance of his cousin, Jared Fuller. Hoag moves in, hoping to take advantage of the isolation and work on his thesis. Taking a look at his cousin's books, he passes over foreign titles such as Unaussprechlichen Kulten, De Vermis Mysteriis and Cultes des Goules, and finally locates two which are in English. One is Prof. Copeland's translation of the infamous Zanthu Tablets. The other is an anonymous manuscript called Of Evill Sorceries Done in New-England of Daemons in no Humane Shape.
Seeing that the books are about occultism and witchcraft, Hoag tosses them aside and settles for reading his cousin's diary instead. From it, he learns that Fuller had heard people chanting deep in the woods, repeating the names Ossadagowah and Zvilpogghua, and found the body of a dead man, broken as if he had fallen from a great height and covered in foul-smelling black slime. The description corresponds to other bodies found in similar conditions in the area.
Hoag tries to sleep, but the light of the star Algol shines bright through his window and keeps him awake, as he hears (or imagines hearing) a distant chanting. On the next day, he goes for a walk in the woods and finds a barren spot where no vegetation grows, with a large stone at its center, carved with the image of a winged, tentacled toad-like creature. At night, Hoag sits by the window to try to hear the chanting, as the constellation of Perseus (which Algol is part of) rises in the sky. He glimpses the shadow of some large winged creature. On the next day, when he returns to the site of the great stone, Hoag finds several human footprints, intermingled with those of an enormous web-footed animal.
Frightened, Hoag reads through Fuller's diary and correspondence with a folklorist named Wilmarth. He learns that Ossadagowah and Zvilpogghua are the same entity, the former name meaning "child of Tsathoggua". The monster resides on a world in orbit around Algol, and can be summoned to Earth when the star is high in the night sky, at which point the beast will swoop down and capture prey. When it's done feeding on the prey's blood, it will drop the prey's body from the sky.
Hoag suspects that the Zvilpogghua worshipers had targeted Fuller due to what he had learned, and plans to escape before he himself becomes the cult's next victim. However, the abrupt ending of the narrative and the conditions in which the manuscript was found suggest that he wasn't able to escape.
==Trivia== 
*This story incorrectly identifies Neptune as the seventh planet from the sun, when it is actually the eighth. The same error occurs in "The Feaster from the Stars", Carter's other tale featuring Zvilpogghua. In both cases, it is likely that Carter meant the seventh planet not counting the Earth.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Lin Carter works