Thursday, November 27, 1924 was not a day to be easily forgotten. The Intrepid Investigators had indeed taken Jules Pollack's trusty Model T Ford up to Moose Manor, just northeast of Holderness. The weather was fantastic, and the five compatriots were looking forward to a break from the sleepy town of Arkham. The small town of Holderness seemed to be a perfect place holder for the stunning mountains and Squam Lake, with the exception of vile Mrs. McDougal in the general store. However, the nice Caribbean gentleman in the mechanic's shop was a much more pleasant acquiantance.
The gathering at Moose Manor was socially spectacular, with James Biron and his wife, Sylvia Sasso, entertaining the actress Rita Zann, Dr. Ralph Maynard from Miskatonic University, the journalist Ernest Hemingway and all five of the intrepid investigators. The butler, Mr. Washington, and Mrs. O'Flaherty, the Cook, attended to the guests. But what followed was less than entertaining, not to mention ghastly. Biron was planning to build a ski resort up on Livermore Mountain, and an old Indian chief, George Thunderbid Ward, protested on the grounds that this was a sacred site, a site that was in fact explored, however briefly, by Lake and Pollack. It turned out that Biron had used the day before Thanksgiving to clear the mountain side of the old Indian cairns and standing stones. This led to a very loud argument between Biron and Ward as the snow started coming down hard. Meanwhile, Sylvia Sasso was showing signs of an increasingly nervous disposition, and the attentive observer could notice that her eyes were red and swollen, as if she'd been crying extensively.
Thursday did see a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, even if Mackie MacNamara Went on about pizza. Following the dinner, dessert and digestives, several guests retired while others were dozing in sofas and chairs. They noticed far too late that someone had started several fires all over Moose Manor, and their was a frenzied scramble to get out of the building: some chose the front door, while Mackie and Rita Zann chose the window option. The culprit seemed to be Sylvia Sasso, who was standing in the snow with a box of matches and a colander.
As the guests gathered in front of the towering inferno. it seemed as if poor Mr. Washington had succumbed to the flames. But there were more pressing issues, since the temperature was dropping, there were several feet of snow all over the mountainside, and many of the survivors were lightly dressed. The survivors pressed down the narrow road that wound itself down the mountain next to the Chumbawamba Creek with a drunk and armed Ernest Hemingway taking point.
The horror appeared at the first bridge crossing. Afterwards, the survivors were unsure if they were some form of priimates, or wolves, or something else all together. James Biron was pulled down into the cold waters of the creek as several of the creatures assailed the party. Moira Baker stepped away from the bridge, and flipped the safety catch of her trusty Springfield rifle. The next one to fall was Sylvia Sasso, but as the creature attempted to devour Sasso, Mackie grabbed the colander and started beating the infernal beast. The fight was fierce, and most of the survivors had to endure the vile, cold and slimy claws and teeth of the beasts, often inflicting horrifying wound, A further attack happened in the Chumbawamba ravine, and it was a cold and terrified party that finally reached the covered bridge close to the Asquam House Hotel only to find that the Heavy snow had collapsed the bridge. Carrying the by now unconscious Jules Pollack and the insane Sylvia Sasso over´the raging brook. Yet, the survivors persevered, and they made it safely, if not soundly, to the Asquam House Hotel.
From the Concord Monitor, November 29, 1924:
The well-known art collector James Biron, of Arkham, Mass., was killed as he attempted to escape from a house fire that destroyed Moose Manor, north of Holderness. The fire forced participants of Thanksgiving dinner to flee into a raging blizzard, were they were set upon by the wolves that still prey upon the unwary in the area. The survivors are currently recovering in Holderness.
Several days later, as the Arkhamites were heading back to Massachusetts, Doctor Maynard whispered and turned towards Pollack and McNamara: "Manuscript P is actually the legendary Cultes des Goules by that foul French fellow, Comte d'Erlette. He apparently incuded some study of New World phenomena in his work, which dates back to the early 1700s, and there is mention of the 'Abenaqui' and that one of their tribes, the 'Nanoumqueapoda' had engaged in cannibalism of the most horrendous type over the course of several generations. This eventually changed them fundamentally, and they became, something entirely unhuman, only being driven by their hunger for living flesh. I had only considered these rantings to be figments of imagination, until this Thanksgiving, even if I have read Cultes des Goules. Believe me, it is a truly frightful text. Reading it led to horrific nightmares and quite a dependency on the bottle!" Maynard pulled out a polka-dot handkerchief to wipe his now sweaty brow before continuing: "The book or manuscript is mainly a hypothesis supported by arcane and hoary fragments, but there are hints at these death-eaters having tunnels that burrow for mile upon mile underneath us a s w e s p e a k. The death-eater legends can be found in ancient Egypt, In Bohemia and Moravia, in the foothills of the Himalayas and the fabled Plateau of Leng. Mind you, young Eliot, one of the students at Miskatonic, read the Cultes des Goules, only to develop a sickening notion that modernist painter Richard Upton Pickman's paintings actually depict real, live, ungodly things."
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