H.P. Lovecraft was a writer who would one day become famous for his eerie tales of the macabre -- filled with ancient beings who ruled the world millions of years before the appearance of the human race.

Robert E. Howard was also a writer whose barbarian character Conan would become a literary legend -- a lone hero in a primitive world overrun by humankind's oldest enemies.

But few know the real story that inspired these masters of pulp fiction. The story that begins on a dark and stormy night. A night tortured by the cries of an inhuman infant child. A child who would open the gates to the most dangerous force in the cosmos -- the ancient god Cthulhu...

And only two men -- two eccentric writers -- can stop him.