The Feaster from Afar (story)

"The Feaster from Afar" is a horror short story by Joseph Payne Brennan set in the Cthulhu Mythos. It was published in 1976 in the anthology The Disciples of Cthulhu.
==Synopsis==
Professional author Sydney Mellor Madison rents a hunting lodge in the small village of Granbury, New England, to work on his next novel. Despite the terrible condition of the road, he finds the place comfortable enough at first. However, he notices that the countryside is barren, not only avoided by humans, but completely devoid of animal life. To make matters worse, he starts to experience nightmares and inexplicable fatigue. When conversing with Saines, the local storekeeper, who asks Madison if he's a hunter, another villager cryptically warns him to "be sure yew ain't the hunted!".
Madison's nightmares get worse, as he dreams of being pursued by some alien creature that glides over the ground. One day, he asks Saines why the hills are shunned, and learns that a hunter has been found dead with his skull punctured by numerous holes, and no sign of a brain inside. Long ago, Saines says, a branch of the Whateley family lived on these hills, and they summoned something from the sky that never left. When Saines explains that such things are spoken of in the Cthulhu Mythos, Madison indignantly retorts that this whole mythology is fiction made up by an old pulp-magazine writer whose name he can't recall.
The next morning, Madison opens a book and finds a note which claims that a cosmic entity named Hastur the Unspeakable has been summoned, and "shall find sustenance". Despite the visible age of the paper, Madison convinces himself that it must be part of a hoax, planted there by Saines or someone else to scare him.
At night, Madison experiences one last dream of dashing over the hills, trying to outrun his pursuer. Even though he cannot possibly escape, fear alone keeps him going, until he comes to realise that he isn't actually dreaming, but awake, having sleep-walked away from the lodge into the wilderness. He continues to run in his pajamas, indifferent to the wounds caused by the stones and branches, until he falls down and finds himself paralysed, unable to look away and forced to see the monster's visage. His dead body is found afterwards, with his empty skull drilled by several holes, as the creature has consumed his brain.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Joseph Payne Brennan works