The Ghonshu Mystery

In 1974, geologist-turned-mystic-turned-paranormal lecturer Andrei Conrad published The Ghonshu Mystery through DAW books.

Conrad presented the feverishly outlandish narrative as fact, and was the butt of humiliation from skeptics and unimaginative reviewers.

The book was poorly received as both a work of science fiction and documentary, and Conrad fell into obscurity.

Mint copies of the volume command respectable prices today, as it is favored by collectors of the unusual.

Queen Sigyn fragment

Fragment

    

    In replendant Velathra, ‘neath lapis vaults and diaphanous shrouds, Queen Sigyn slumbered, and slumbering, dreamt.

The Track of the God-Ape

It is, I‘m told, natural for one to grow nostalgic as one ages. Like many others I look back with wistful fondness upon my youth and childhood. But I have also found myself immersed in reminiscences that are not connected with any events of my lifetime. Visions I would dismiss as daydreams or phantasms were it not for their vividness and the absolute conviction I have that I lived these events as surely as I attended grade school and enjoyed my first kiss. One such vision that forced itself upon me is a memory from when I was Diyang-Buru of the Stork Folk.

Man-I-Pede

….What follows is claimed by Mr. Conrad to be a transcribed from a radio transmission he was party to during his time working with the I-Tech group. Conrad asserts the transmission was one of several made by a “General Blair” from an extrasolar planet named “Ghonshu”.  

I-Tech maintains that Mr. Conrad was engaged in no unusual projects during his employment, and Pentagon sources deny that any “General Blair” was reported missing during the timeframe Mr Conrad claims these various incidents occurred.

...It was probably about sixty, eighty feet long, ten, twelve feet in diameter. It had a hard shell like a lobster.Hard to say what color it was, everything has a bluish tint under Ghonshu’s weird, tiny sun. it had rows and rows of smooth, flabby arms, like a baby’s arms, each with fat, fingers with slimy bulbs on the tips. I want to say it had the head of a man, but that’s not accurate. The head was huge, the size of a VW beetle, bald, mottled and sprouting wart-like growths. It had a long tangled beard that seemed to have moss or fungus growing in it. It’s eyes were wide and rolled about crazilly. It’s mouth hung open and drooled over yellow peg-like teeth. It was gibbering the whole time. Sometimes it might have spoke words. It stunk too. Like mildew and rotting vegetables, but worse, and stronger.
    It had a big metal ring through it's nose, like someone might have led it around like a cow at some point. Best not to think about it.
 

    It sounds comical as I recall the thing, but it was no joke at the time. The locals shot arrows into it and hit it with axes and hammers and whatnot, that just seemed to anger it.

    Finally I had to use five more rounds from the M16 to put it down.

 

Wings out of Hell

Painting by Bob Rothwell.

www.deviantart.com/ustranga

Prologue

Excerpts from the Karkana Fragments, a collection of fifteen partially complete clay tablets housed at the Tokyo National Museum. 

It is claimed by some scholars they were translated to Greek from an earlier, proto-greek language from scrolls dating from 10,000 years B.C.E.:

    … Thus did Nanossuss of Koth with fivescore and twenty spearmen drive headlong into the massed throngs of the Red Brotherhood upon the beach at Velathra.

    Outnumbered twenty to one, and roughly treated by the archers loosing their arrows from the decks of some five hundred triremes thronging the bay, they smashed the pirate rabble and laid them low.
The retinue of Nanossuss slew until their spears were broken, then belabored the corsairs with sword and axe. The waves were stained deep crimson and the beach cluttered with all manner of human detritus.

Anything you can do John Saxon can do better

Anything you can do John Saxon can do better.
So you can do Karate. So what, John Saxon is better than you.

So you are a Terminator robot. Big deal, John Saxon is better at it.

So you are a bootleg liquor hauling redneck. John Saxon is better and he's not even trying to be good at it.

So you survived a nuclear apocalypse in suspended animation and woke up hundreds of years later in a bizarrely mutated world. Who cares, John Saxon did too and he's doing a lot better than you.

In summary, John Saxon is the best.

The Yellow Robed Fiend

(from the war diary of Lt. Guy Linley, United States Army)
August 7, 1899. Cotabato Valley, Phillipines:
They came over the eastern wall last night in a rush, led by a wild eyed devil in ragged yellow robes. The bastard was ferocious as a mad dog and some of the boys gave way and ran from him. I came within pistol range as he was dismembering a private from ohio with his great curved knife, I fired 2 rounds into his upper back and as he turned from his grisly work to face me I fired two more; one of which tore apart his lower jaw and another into the neck which ruptured the large artery. He stared at me for a moment, his face horribly disfigured and the lifeblood gushing from the neck wound, then he fled back to the jungle, scrambling over the 6 foot foot wall in a blur of yellow robes and splattering blood. That broke the attack but crazed chanting continued throughout the night.

August 11:
 Another attack last night, they did not make the walls this time but I spotted the yellow robed man again near the tree line. He had wrapped his lower face in a scarf but by his bearing I know it was the same man, he did not take his eyes from me during the entire episode. I ordered Cpl. Williams to sniper him and I clearly saw the man stagger from the impact of the bullet, however he stayed on his feet. Williams prepared to fire a second round but yellow robe faded into the jungle before he could get a bead on him.
Something is not right here, how yellow robe survived the 4 rounds I put into him is beyond imagining. The .38 long colt is a much maligned cartridge but it will surely kill, and this man should be dead considering the amount of his blood still staining the eastern wall.

August 17:
 Severed head of Williams found near main gate this morning, eye sockets and mouth stuffed with yellow rags. How Williams was killed outside the walls of the fort is impossible to guess. The only logical answer is that he left the camp willingly, there is no way he could have been taken by force unless we have traitors among the scouts.

August 18:
Talked some of the boys who were close to Williams, they told me he had been sleepwalking and was found standing at the wall the last 2 nights before his murder. He proved very hard to wake and mumbled that the yellow robed man was whispering to him from from the jungle.

August 19:
 Some bastard left a yellow rag in my coffee cup this morning. When I find the fellow behind this prank a few days locked in the tool shed should convince him this is no joking matter.

August 21:
 Dreamed of Yellow Robe whispering to me last night, couldn't understand the words but I know he wanted me to come into the jungle.

August 22:
 Sleepwalking last night, dreamed Yellow Robe was calling to me and I attempted to climb the wall. Fought with Morris and 2 others when they tried to restrain me, apparently Morris was forced to give me a crack with a rifle butt to render me completely unconscious. 

August 25:
More dreams last night, but this time I saw where yellow robe wants me to go; it was a clearing somewhere deep in the jungle, yellow robe's followers were wildly dancing around a bonfire while that devil hacked apart some hapless villager and screamed a barbarous incantation at the stars. Williams was among the revelers, his headless body dancing in that same unholy ectasy.
Tonight I will handcuff myself to my cot and give the key to Morris, yellow robe may call but I will not enter that jungle.

(Note: Guy Linley disappeared the night of August 25, 1899. A trail of blood led from his quarters to the eastern wall of the encampment, he had apparently bitten off his thumb to free himself from handcuffs. Missing and presumed killed in action, Linley's thumb was shipped to his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky and given a proper burial.)