Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth Page 3

  After what several of us had witnessed in the cellar below the Marsh mansion, I think we believed we were prepared for anything. But nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

  It was Silas Benson who suddenly called our attention to the river below us. As I have said, the Manuxet was in full flood, but now it teemed with black shapes, swimming upstream against the racing current. That they had come from the sea was immediately obvious. Literally hundreds of them came swarming onto the bank, and one horrified glance was enough to show that these creatures were even less human than those we had stumbled upon earlier.

  Hopping in a manner hideously suggestive of frogs, they clambered up the steep sides with ease. There was no chance of defeating such a multitude, and our only hope of survival was to flee across the bridge and along Main Street. Another bank of natives, surging out of Dock Street, attempted to halt us, and our ammunition was almost spent by the time we broke through them. Four more of our number were killed before we reached the relative safety of my house, where we barricaded ourselves in.

  By now it was abundantly clear that those monsters from the sea had taken over the whole of the town. Sporadic firing could still be heard in the distance, but we all knew that further resistance was futile.

  By the morning of the next day, after spending the night confined to the house, we finally pieced together the full story of what had happened. Obed Marsh and those imprisoned with him had been released. Both of the Federal investigators who had accompanied us to the Marsh mansion had been slaughtered. John Lawrence, editor of the Innsmouth Courier on Dock Street, who had often spoken out against Marsh, had been dragged into the street and murdered. The presses and printing equipment had been smashed and the offices set on fire.

  Thus it was that Obed Marsh now controlled the whole of Innsmouth. His word was law. Within weeks, the old Masonic Temple on Federal Street had been taken over and replaced by the Esoteric Order of Dagon.

  Only a handful of the townsfolk were allowed to leave Innsmouth. These were mostly Lithuanians and Poles. Whether Marsh considered that no one outside Innsmouth would believe anything of what they said about the town or whether, not being descendants of the original settlers, he adjudged them to be of no importance, no one knew. After they had gone, those who remained were allowed to join the Esoteric Order of Dagon. There were few who declined.

  It was not only the gold which made people join this new religion Marsh had brought back with him, nor the fact that, by now, most folk were mortally afraid of him. What persuaded the majority to join was Marsh promised that, if they took his five oaths and obeyed him implicitly, they would never die.

  When I was asked to join, I refused, as did my son. I had read sufficient concerning the rites that had been practised in nearby Arkham during the witch trials to know that similar inducements had been made then—that all who worshipped Satan would be granted eternal life. At the time, I knew it to be nothing more than myth and superstition, merely an enticement to get people to join in their unholy rites.

  Now, however, I know differently. It soon became apparent that Marsh was involved with those deep ones much more deeply than was first thought. In return for their continued aid, he declared that the townspeople must mate with these creatures. He, himself, was forced to take a wife from among them, although she was never seen abroad and no one was able to tell who—or what—she was.

  * * *

  All of that happened almost twenty years ago. More and more of the folk, particularly the younger ones, acquired the same look as many of those natives we had found in Marsh’s cellar and some, as the years passed, were even worse—being little different from those creatures which had come from the sea to take over the town. Almost all of the Marsh, Gilman, Hogg and Brewster families were affected by this ‘Innsmouth look’. Curiously, Ephraim Waite’s family remained untainted, even though he was one of Marsh’s closest acquaintances.

  Rumour had it, however, that Waite had once resided in Arkham and had a reputation as a wizard, some even suggesting that he was the same warlock as was present before and during the witch trials there, two centuries earlier. That this was nothing more than idle gossip, spread by those who were more afraid of him than of Obed Marsh, seemed undeniable.

  It was now becoming more difficult and dangerous for me to keep watch on Marsh’s activities. Even though the deep ones had returned to the sea shortly after Marsh’s release from jail a score of years before, those who bore the ‘Innsmouth look’ were in the majority, and any of the population untouched by it were kept under close scrutiny.

  Only those who belonged to the Order were allowed in the vicinity of the Esoteric Order of Dagon hall. Nevertheless, on a number of occasions I managed to approach within fifty yards of it under cover of darkness. Even on those nights when there was no service taking place, the building was never silent. Strange echoes seemed to come from somewhere deep beneath the foundations—weird sounds like nothing I had heard before.

  But things were worse whenever a service was being held. Just to see some of those who attended made me want to turn and run. Scaled things that wore voluminous clothing to conceal the true shapes of what lay beneath, walking upright like men but with a horrible hopping gait that set my teeth on edge. And the chanting which came from within was something born out of nightmare. Harsh gutturals such as could never have been uttered by normal human throats—croaks and piping whistles, more reminiscent of the frogs and whippoorwills in the hills around Arkham than anything remotely approaching human speech.

  Dear Lord—that such blasphemies as those could exist in this sane, everyday world! I found myself on the point of believing some of the tales spread abroad in Innsmouth concerning some deep undersea city, millions of years old, lying on the ocean floor just beyond Devil Reef. When I had first heard them from Elijah Winton, I had immediately dismissed them as the ravings of a madman. But hearing those hideous sounds emanating from the Temple of Dagon made me think again.

  Something unutterably evil and terrible lay out there where the seabed reputedly fell sheer for more than two thousand feet into the abyssal depths. Whatever it was, from whatever internal regions it had come, it now held Obed Marsh and his followers in its unbreakable grip.

  Then, two days ago, I found myself wandering along Water Street alongside the harbour. What insane compulsion led me in that direction I could not guess. I knew I was being kept under close surveillance all of the way—that eyes were marking my every move.

  Where the sense of imminent danger came from it was impossible to tell, nor was it any actual sound. Rather it was a disturbing impression of movement in the vicinity of Marsh Street and Fish Street. I could see nothing to substantiate this, but the sensation grew more pronounced as I halted at a spot where it was possible to look out over the breakwater to where Devil Reef thrust its sinister outline above the water.

  It was several minutes before I realised there was something different about the contours of that black reef. I had seen it hundreds of times in the past—I knew its outlines like the back of my hand. But now it seemed far higher than normal, almost as if the sea level around it had fallen substantially.

  And then I recognised the full, soul-destroying horror of what I was seeing. That great mass of rock was unchanged. What distorted it was something huge and equally black, which was rising from the sea behind it.

  Shuddering convulsively, unable to move a single muscle, I could only stand there, my gaze fixed immutably upon that—thing—which rose out of the water until it loomed high above Devil Reef. Mercifully, much of its tremendous bulk lay concealed by the rock and the ocean. Had it all been visible, I am certain I would have lost what remained of my sanity in that horror-crazed instant.

  There was the impression of a mass of writhing tentacles surrounding a vast, bulbous head, of what looked like great wings outspread behind the shoulders, and a mountainous bulk hidden by the reef. It dripped with great strands of obnoxious seaweed. I knew that, even from that
distance, it was aware of me with a malevolent intensity. And there was something more—an aura of utter malignancy which vibrated in the air, filling my mind with images of nightmarish horror.

  This, then, was the quintessence of all the evil which had come to Innsmouth—the embodiment of the abomination which Captain Obed Marsh had wittingly, or inadvertently, brought to the town in exchange for gold.

  I remember little of my nightmare flight along Marsh Street and South Street. My earliest coherent memory is of slamming and bolting my door and standing, shivering violently, in the hallway. I had thought those creatures which now shambled along the streets of Innsmouth were the final symbolism of evil in this town, but that monstrosity I had witnessed out in the bay was infinitely worse.

  What mad perversity of nature had produced it, where it had originated, and what its terrible purpose might be, I dreaded to think. I knew it could be none other than Dagon, that pagan god these people now worshipped. I also recognised that I now knew too much, that neither Obed Marsh, nor the deep ones which infested the waters around Innsmouth, could ever allow me to leave and tell of what I had witnessed.

  There is only one course open to me. I have set down everything in this narrative and I intend to conceal it where only my son, now serving with the North in the war which has torn our country apart, can find it.

  Through my window I can see the dark, misshapen figures now massing outside and it is not difficult to guess at their intentions. Very soon, they will come to break down the door.

  I have to be silenced, and possibly sacrificed, so that the Esoteric Order of Dagon may continue to flourish and the worship of Dagon may go on unhindered.

  But I shall thwart whatever plans they have for me. My revolver lies in front of me on the table and there is a single bullet still remaining in the chamber!

  RICHARD RIDDLE, BOY DETECTIVE IN “THE CASE OF THE FRENCH SPY”

  by KIM NEWMAN

  I

  WMJHU-OJBHU DAJJQ JH QRS PRBHUFS

  “ GOSH, DICK,” SAID Violet, “an ammonite!”

  A chunk of rock, bigger than any of them could have lifted, had broken from the soft cliff and fallen on the shingle. Violet, on her knees, brushed grit and grime from the stone.

  They were on the beach below Ware Cleeve, looking for clues.

  This was not strictly a fossil-hunting expedition, but Dick knew Violet was mad about terrible lizards—which was what “dinosaur” meant in Greek, she had explained. On a recent visit to London, Violet had been taken to the prehistoric monster exhibit in Crystal Palace Park. She could not have been more excited if the life-size statues turned out to be live specimens. Paleontology was like being a detective, she enthused: working back from clues to the truth, examining a pile of bones and guessing what kind of body once wrapped around them.

  Dick conceded her point. But the dinosaurs died a long, long time ago. No culprit’s collar would be felt. A pity. It would be a good mystery to solve. The Case of the Vanishing Lizards. No, The Mystery of the Disappearing Dinosaurs. No, The Adventure of the Absent Ammonites.

  “Coo,” said Ernest. “Was this a monster?”

  Ernest liked monsters. Anything with big teeth counted.

  “Not really,” Violet admitted. “It was a cephalopod. That means “head-foot.”

  “It was a head with only a foot?” Ernest liked the idea. “Did it hop up behind enemies, and sink its fangs into their bleeding necks?”

  “It was more like a big shrimp. Or a squid with a shell.”

  “Squid are fairly monstrous, Ernest,” said Dick. “Some grow giant and crush ships with their tentacles.”

  Ernest made experimental crushing motions with his hands, providing squelching noises with his mouth.

  Violet ran her fingers over the ammonite’s segments.

  “Ammon was the ram-headed god of Ancient Egypt.”

  Dick saw Ernest imagining that—an evil god butting unbelievers to death.

  “These are called ‘ammonites’ because the many-chambered spiral looks like the horn of a ram. You know, like the big one in Mr. Crossan’s field.”

  Ernest went quiet. He liked fanged monsters, giant squids and evil gods, but had a problem with animals. Once, the children were forced to go a long way round to avoid Mr. Crossan’s field. Ernest had come up with many tactical reasons for the detour, and Dick and Violet pretended to be persuaded by his argument that they needed to throw pursuers off their track.

  The three children were about together all the time this summer. Dick was down from London, staying with Uncle Davey and Aunt Maeve. Both were a bit dotty. Uncle Davey used to paint fairyland scenes for children’s books, but was retired from that and drawing only to please himself. Last year, Violet showed up at Seaview Chase unannounced, having learned it was David Harvill’s house. She liked his illustrations, but genuinely liked the pictures in his studio even more.

  Violet had taken an interest in Dick’s detective work. She had showed him around Lyme Regis, and the surrounding beaches and countryside. She wasn’t like a proper girl, so it was all right being friends with her. Normally, Dick couldn’t admit to having a girl as a friend. In summer, it was different. Ernest was Violet’s cousin, two years younger than her and Dick. Ernest’s father was in Africa fighting Boers, so he was with Violet’s parents for the school holidays.

  They were the Richard Riddle Detective Agency. Their goal: to find mysteries, then solve them. Thus far, they had handled the Matter of the Mysterious Maidservant (meeting the Butcher’s Boy, though she was supposed to have a sweetheart at sea), the Curious Affair of the Derelict Dinghy (Alderman Hooke was lying asleep in it, empty beer bottles rolling around his feet) and the Puzzle of the Purloined Pasties (still an open case, though suspicion inevitably fell upon Tarquin “Tiger” Bristow).

  Ernest had reasoned out his place in the firm. When Dick pointed the finger of guilt at the villain, Ernest would thump the miscreant about the head until the official police arrived. Violet, Ernest said, could make tea and listen to Dick explain his chain of deduction. Ernest, Violet commented acidly, was a dependable strong-arm man… unless the criminal owned a sheep, or threatened to make him eat parsnips, or (as was depressingly likely) turned out to be “Tiger” Bristow (the Bismarck of Bullies) and returned Ernest’s head-thumping with interest. Then, Dick had to negotiate a peace, like between Americans and Red Indians, to avoid bloodshed. When Violet broke off the Reservation, people got scalped.

  It was a sunny August afternoon, but strong salt wind blew off the sea. Violet had tied back her hair to keep it out of her face. Dick looked up at Ware Cleeve: it was thickly wooded, roots poking out of the cliff-face like the fingers of buried men. The tower of Orris Priory rose above the treetops like a periscope.

  Clues led to Orris Priory. Dick suspected smugglers. Or spies.

  Granny Ball, who kept the pasty-stall near the Cobb, had warned the detectives to stay away from the shingle under the Cleeve. It was a haunt of “sea-ghosts”. The angry souls of shipwrecked sailors, half-fish folk from sunken cities and other monsters of the deep (Ernest liked this bit) were given to creeping onto the beach, clawing away at the stone, crumbling it piece by piece. One day, the Cleeve would collapse.

  Violet wanted to know why the sea-ghosts would do such a thing. The landslide would only make another cliff, further inland. Granny winked and said, “Never you mind, lass” in a highly unsatisfactory manner.

  Before her craze for terrible lizards, Violet had been passionate about myths and legends (it was why she liked Uncle Davey’s pictures). She said myths were expressions of common truth, dressed up to make a point. The shingle beach was dangerous, because rocks fell on it. People in the long ago must have been hit on the head and killed, so the sea-ghost story was invented to keep children away from danger. It was like a BEWARE THE DOG sign (Ernest didn’t like this bit), but out of date—as if you had an old, non-fierce hound but put up a BEWARE OF DANGEROUS DOG sign.

  Being on the shingle wasn’t
really dangerous. The cliffs wouldn’t fall and the sea-ghosts wouldn’t come.

  Dick liked Violet’s reasoning, but saw better.

  “No, Vile, it’s been kept up, this story. Granny and other folk round here tell the tale to keep us away because someone doesn’t want us seeing what they’re about.”

  “Smugglers,” said Ernest.

  Dick nodded. “Or spies. Not enough clues to be certain. But, mark my word, there’s wrong-doing afoot on the shingle. And it’s our job to root it out.”

  It was too blowy to go out in Violet’s little boat, the SS Pterodactyl, so they had come on foot.

  And found the ammonite.

  Since the fossil wasn’t about to hop to life and attack, Ernest lost interest and wandered off, down by the water. He was looking for monster tracks, the tentacle-trails of a giant squid most likely.

  “This might be the largest ammonite ever found here,” said Violet. “If it’s a new species, I get to name it.”

  Dick wondered how to get the fossil to Violet’s house. It would be a tricky endeavour.

  “You, children, what are you about?”

  Men had appeared on the beach without Dick noticing. If they had come from either direction along the shore, he should have seen them.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Come away from that evil thing, at once, now.”

  The speaker was an old man with white hair, pince-nez on a black ribbon, an expression like someone who’s just bit into a cooking apple by mistake, and a white collar like a clergyman’s. He wore an old-fashioned coat with a thick, raised collar, cut away from tight britches and heavy boots.

  Dick recognized the Reverend Mr. Sellwood, of Orris Priory.

  With him were two bare-armed fellows in leather jerkins and corduroy trousers. Whereas Sellwood carried a stick, they toted sledge-hammers, like the ones convicts use on Dartmoor.

  “Foul excrescence of the Devil,” said Sellwood, pointing his stick at Violet’s ammonite. “Brother Fose, Brother Fessel, do the Lord’s work.”