User:DoctorWho42/The Hunters from Beyond

"The Hunters from Beyond" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith and was first published in the October 1932 of Strange Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Hunters from Beyond" was first published in the October 1932 issue of Strange Tales. It was included in Lost Worlds (1944), Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, first selection (1946), The Macabre Reader (1959), and A Book of Weird Tales (1960).

Plot
Philip Hastane, who writes weird fiction, visits his cousin Cyprian Sincaul in San Francisco about twice a year. Sincaul is a sculptor but his art is mediocre. Before seeing his new works, Hastane visits a bookstore Toleman's. He goes and looks through an artbook of Francisco Goya's Proverbes. While Hastane peruses the book, a monster appears. Shocked by the monster, he drops the book and it disappears. He goes to Sincaul's art studio to see his latest works. He finds his cousin has a different temperament than before. His cousin remarks Hastane's writing only approaches the occult instead of deal with it directly. Hastane admits he saw something ghoulish in Toleman's. Sincaul unveils his work which shows seven monsters approaching a naked girl. Sincaul calls it "Hunters from Beyond." Hastane is impressed but repulsed by it. The model the statue was based on leaves the studio. Hastane learns from Sincaul that her name is Marta. As he leaves the studio, he runs into Marta in the hallway. Matra pleads with him to convince Sincaul to stop his sculptures. Hastane leaves without committing to her plea. That night in his hotel room, he is again visited by the monster. It leaves after some mental resistance. He receives a phone call from Cyprian announcing Marta's disappearance. At the art studio, Sincaul explains the subject of his sculptures are real and took Marta to their world. Marta reappears and another world shows briefly to Hastane. However, Marta is not her former self and Sincaul destroys his sculptures.