Showing results for "The Beast" in Anthologies & Short Stories

As an intern at the Crest City Museum, I was studying an ancient artifact from a lost civilization. Little did I know this artifact would thrust me into a world of shifters, secret histories, and beautiful women. Now, with the power of the Primal Talisman, I can transform into beasts. I'm not the only one who wants the Talisman. And some people are willing to tear up the city to get it.

This collection contains the first three books in the Underworld series: Level Up or Die, Through the Belly of the Beast, and Sanctuary. Elorion has just finished a VR gaming session to find a monster waiting for him. With nineteen other students who have also been kidnapped, he is now subject to the whims of a thousand-year-old succubus and must survive deep under the earth in the lost realm of the Underworld. Gifted with the ability to use magic and advance in power, he is given an ultimatum: Level up or die.

A ship bearing the souls of sinful sailors drifts upon a ghostly sea. An abbey looms as the final defense between mortals and ghouls of the underworld. In the stillness of a throne room, statues stand forever frozen in a moment of terror. Monsters and men stalk their prey deep in the jungle's shadows. A rose blooms in the dead of winter, sheltered in the ruins of an ancient Scottish castle.

Between 1903 and 1908, Lovecraft created many stories and sketches, about which we know nothing today beyond the fact that they existed. Almost all met the same fate: death in the flames at the hands of their creator. Lovecraft saved only two texts – "The Alchemist" (1908) and "The Beast in the Cave." The plot can be summarized in one sentence: a tourist gets lost in a vast cave, where he encounters the titular beast.

Imagine being lost in Mammoth Cave, with no light, and your imagination begins to run wild. You hear footsteps, but they are not the footsteps of a biped. H.P. Lovecraft wrote this short story when he was 14 years old. A harbinger of future genius.

A man touring Mammoth Cave separates from his guide and becomes lost. His torch expires and he is giving up hope of finding a way out in the pitch dark, when he hears strange non-human footsteps approaching him. Thinking it to be a lost mountain lion or other such beast, he picks up a stone and throws it toward the source of the sound. The beast is hit and crumples to the floor. The guide finds the protagonist back, and together they examine the fallen creature with the guide's torchlight.

In this story by H.P. Lovecraft, the line between man and beast is blurred. The Beast in the Cave follows the story of a man who gets separated from his group of tourists. They’ve all come to see the mammoth cave, but the man fears that it might be the last wonder he sees as he continues to wander further from his group. Eventually, his torch runs out of fuel and he is left with no other choice but to fend off approaching inhuman footsteps with the toss of a rock.