"Excuse me a moment." He touched my forearm gently, and his fingers felt very warm. Then he excused himself to go speak to Marian in a series of short, choppy sentences.
I drank my tea, feeling the warmth swell inside me, and looked around the richly appointed cabin. At first it had seemed like a homey sort of place, but upon further inspection, I saw it was full of oddities. I got up and hobbled around as best I could on one leg and crutches, checking out his boat.
What I'd taken for framed landscapes were in fact exquisite if strange abstract pieces depicting doorways of many different shapes and sizes. All of them were done in the same hand, with the initials "E.O." at the bottom. One in particular caught my eye: a round, black gateway with what looked like green slime that ran from its top down the middle. I reached out my fingers to touch it, then saw something else: a sculpture of some kind, about the size of a gallon jug, sitting on the counter. It had to be an abstract piece, but I thought I could see limbs and fins in its strange curves and folds. The dryer beat out a recurring rhythm. My mind stretched ...
A hand grasped my arm, shocking me back to myself. Ed stood beside me, his expression halfway between anxious and worried. There was a paper bag on the table next to him that hadn't been there before. "Ms. Ceres? Are you all right?"
"Never better, Sugah." I looked away from the statue to where Marian was walking away up the dock, casting the occasional glare in my direction. "Mah apologies. I didn't mean to cause a fuss."
"Maybe I should take you back to my aunt's place," Ed said.
"Maybe you'd best do."
At just that moment, the dryer dinged, signaling my clothes were done.
#
As we walked through the streets of Innsmouth, with the snow-choked buildings drooping around us, I was keenly aware of everyone we passed. Most tourists regarded us with speculative glances--a one-legged woman limping down the street on a gentleman's arm--then looked away. It was the Innsmouth natives I particularly noticed, because they were all looking right at me. Whatever they were doing, from sweeping stoops to chipping ice to emptying garbage cans, they turned silently to stare at me. Unsettling to say the least.
Ed patted my arm in his. "People here don't like me much either," he said, voice soft. He was limping slightly, which explained why he had crutches sitting around in his boat: they were his.
"Guess that's a thing we have in common," I said.
We got to Marian's B&B in just a few minutes, as Innsmouth wasn't particularly large. We paused on the steps, like a couple returning from a day out.
"Strangest first date ah ever had," I said. "And shoot, you already seen mah unmentionables."
"True. Most of my dates don't lose a leg on the first date. You going to be ok?"
I nodded. "Ah'll put on a spare. You need these back?" I offered the crutches, but he waved them away. "Thank ya kindly."
"I'll pick them up later." He flashed me a winning smile. "Dinner? Pick you up at eight?"
"Good Lady willin' an' the crick don't rise." I grinned at his frown. "Means yes, Yankee Boy. See you then."
He nodded and made it down two of the icy steps before he stopped and turned back. "I almost forgot." He held out the slightly crumpled paper bag he'd carried from the boat. "You were holding onto this pretty hard. Probably for science reasons. Figured you'd want it back."
"Thanks." I took the parcel, and instantly felt colder. When I looked up, Ed was heading away faster than I could manage on one leg and crutches. There was a definite limp there, but he was being a gentleman, and I let him.
I got inside the B&B before I looked inside the bag. Sure enough, the desiccated fish hand was in there, torn raggedly away about three inches above the wrist. My breath caught. How had I forgotten about this? I hadn't even asked Ed.
I sensed someone staring at me, and saw Marian looking at me rather suspicious-like. Then again, she always looked at me that way. I gave her one of my best smiles, then headed up the stairs.
Back in the safety of my room, I set the fish hand carefully in a metal tray on the work desk and stood staring at it for a moment. "Well, might as well fish or cut bait," I said, which was very apt.
I dove right in. As I worked, I recorded the dissection on a series of note sheets, then a series of notebooks. In all my studies to complete four doctorates and a smattering of master's degrees, I'd never come across something quite like this. Both a mammal and a fish, in a kind of melding I'd been unable to manage in my own lab. The work was too perfect, as though nature had crafted it, rather than man. The sample seemed simple, but the cellular structure was surprisingly complex, reacting in ways to different chemicals that defied understanding.
At the end of four hours, I still couldn't say what it was, but that made me no less curious. My mind lay open to all possibilities, and I felt like the answer was right on the next page, just waiting, if only I could find a way to turn the page.
I knew I should report in, but what would I say? That I had a sample I couldn't identify? I needed an answer. My mind craved it, even as part of me grew increasingly uneasy.
The truth was buried in this thing, somehow.
#
The sun had set, and the world was black as death outside the window when a knock on the door woke me back to the world. Was it eight already? And here I'd barely showered or done anything with my hair. Momma'd be ashamed.
"Coming!" I called, which was a damn lie. I leaped around the little apartment on my muscular arms, putting on my best--that is to say, least dirty--dress. I put on my spare legs--the blades, which were technically for running, based on a South African design--and hoped my jeans would conceal them well enough to deflect any odd questions. I even gave myself a once over in the mirror for good measure, though I'd never been much for makeup.
The knock sounded again on my door, more insistently, and I hurried to answer. "Now Sugah, just hold on--"
Something big and dark stood on the other side of the door, and it lunged at me out of the shadows. I had the sensation of something striking my forehead--hard--and then my head hit the floor. My vision swam, and I saw the thing looming over me, smiling wide. My mind stretched ...
#
Somewhere water was dripping, an unsteady plink-drip-plink, and I couldn't sleep anymore. I've been given a lot of sedatives in my life, and so I know the feelings of one wearing off: a kind of gradual numbness slowing resolving into a persistent itch, my thoughts swirling around a central concept like water circling a drain. The haze lifted, and I was able to think and see.
I was in a dank, disused sewer chamber, hung heavy with mold and strewn with cords of something foul that dripped from the ceiling. A little bit of light bounced off the walls from a deeper chamber. In the near darkness, I couldn't tell what it was, and probably I didn't want to know. A rusted over metal cabinet on the wall glinted, a few feet out of reach. I pushed myself up, and in the process discovered a heavy iron manacle attached to my left ankle, bunched around my jeans. A short chain attached to a ring set in the wall.
"Well that's just inconvenient," I said.
Whoever had chained me up must not have known my legs were fake, because I just detached the one and left it locked to the wall. I hauled myself over to the metal cabinet, which boasted a mostly mold-obscured "high voltage" warning. Balancing on one leg, I pulled it open and hit the power, and lights buzzed on throughout the complex. Now that I could see the room better, it looked less intimidating, and the strands hanging from the ceiling became not entrails but frizzy ropes stained with grime. Hung beside the box was a cabinet with a sign that said "In case of emergency, break glass." I reckon this counted.
I took off my dress, already dirty from lying in a sewer, and balled it up around my hand, then punched through the glass. The fire axe balanced pretty well in my hands, and worked well enough to hack apart the chain to my blade. Half-clothed, armed, and mobile, I headed out the passage and into the sewer.
I walked through the corridors, axe ready, looki
ng for an exit. Despite the season above, the sewers were remarkably humid, and sweat slaked my skin. Rustling sounds echoed off the walls, flesh against stone, and the hum of ancient light-bulbs. My breathing kept spiraling out of control, and my heart gradually increased its pace until I could barely hear anything else. My thoughts made no sense, bouncing around in my brain like a thousand confused fire bugs.
A light-bulb whined overhead and flickered out, plunging me into darkness. The sounds suddenly became louder and closer. I whispered an unladylike curse and took one hand off the axe to reach up and tap the hot bulb. My fingers tingled with a shock of pain, but I tapped and twisted until the element flared back into life.
A figure loomed out of the shadows.
I fell back a step, overbalancing on the blades, and yanked back the axe. The light-bulb swung crazily, alternately illumining the both of us, one after the other. I managed to focus on the looming figure by the second swing, but it moved away, out of the light, and was gone. I saw movement at the entrance to the next chamber.
Heart thundering, I pressed on that way. Suppose I'm a fool, but I wanted to know.
I came into a large central room, lit by a single flickering light-bulb that hung from the center of the ceiling. It buzzed and faltered in an arrhythmic strobe. Four flowing streams of sewage met here, and it stank fit to make my nose shrivel up in protest. The walls glistened with something green and sweating beads of moisture. My mind flashed suddenly to back when I was a girl in Louisiana, frog-fishing with my grand-daddy, when we watched a school of pollywogs bust out of a clump of eggs.
"You can't be here."
The voice was soft and not at all threatening, but it was so sudden I whirled, eyes wide. Marian stood not five feet from me, wearing what looked like a velvet black robe. It looked hot and uncomfortable, but the landlady hardly seemed to mind. She was staring at me intently.
"What is this place?" I asked. "Who brought me here?"
"This is their home," Marian said, her Swedish accent cold. "The Deep Ones. Put down the axe."
The wall moved. My heart raced, but I'd never been able to turn away from knowledge. I looked closer at the membranous wall, which swelled toward me, stretching like plastic wrap--like the belly of a very pregnant woman. I reached out a hand toward it.
"Circe," Marian said. "Don't--"
As if her warning was a cue, the wall of grime split and an arm, green-black and muscular, snapped out at me. Claws the length and shape of a man's straight razor snapped at my face, and I fell backward out of the way. I overbalanced on my prosthetics, which went out from under me and dumped me unceremoniously into the putrid flow in the middle of the room. Stone struck the back of my head, and everything went blurry.
Hands were grasping at my face, and I clawed them away as best I could until I realized it was Marian. The big woman was kneeling beside me, a worried look on her face. "You all right?"
I nodded, tried to stand, but only succeed in flailing my prosthetics to no effect. The world was still swirling around a drain. "Terrible sorry," I said. "It's just the floor's gone all catawampus."
"I told ya," Marian said. "Deep Ones, dontcha know."
"Ain't no such thing," I said.
"Tell that to them."
Half a dozen things moved in the semi-darkness, the flickering light only partly illumining their horrid features. They looked like four-foot tall frogs with legs and arms, hulking things of muscle and madness. The one that had attacked me slipped out of a fissure in the slick sewer wall like pus from a swollen pimple. It looked at me with maddening eyes.
"Well, if that don't beat the band." I put up my hands in a peaceful gesture, but I really didn't know if the creatures would understand the concept. "We got some sorta plan, Miss Marian?" I looked around and froze. "Marian!"
The woman stood unmoving before one of the frog-men, which looked at her with a swiveling eye that blinked with two sets of lids. She put out a hand, and it touched its chin to her palm.
"These are the Deep Ones, the children of our Lord Dagon and his consort, Hydra," she said. "They have ruled Innsmouth for centuries, and they will rise again. The time is coming when they will pour forth into your world and seize it once more for their own. But first, they need mates."
The frog-man put out its tongue and licked her lips, and Marian shivered with pleasure.
"Thanks, but ah'll pass, if y'all don't mind." I breathed a sigh of relief.
Marian looked back to me. "You don't seem scared," she said. "Or even all that impressed."
"Listen, Sugah." I couldn't help but smile. "Ah turned a platoon a'the South's finest into half-man, half-cheetahs--amphibians ain't all that different. Though ah'm curious how y'all solved the aeration process. And why do they have ears and gills? What kind of amphibian DNA did you use? Ah tried West African frogs once but the rascals had this tendency to--" The nearest fish-man nudged me with its fanged mouth, and I caught myself. "Sorry, ah'm babbling, don't mind little old me. You were saying?"
"And this makes sense to you?" A scowl turned Marian's face into something like a rotted squash. "You don't think I'm insane? Monstrous?"
"Now that's just down right closed minded," I said. "It all makes perfect sense, now don't it? Tourism's in a bit of a slump these last years, what with the Dissolution an' all. So y'all thought you'd combine a little viral marketing with a little mutagenic experimentation. Create yer own Nessie, or Bigfoot, or Ronnie Reagan to stir up some talk. Knowin' local legends, a'course you'd do scary fish things."
Marian bristled. "What I have done, I have done out of devotion to He Who Should Not Be," she said. "The Esoteric Order of Dagon has served our Nameless Lord throughout the ages, and now we return him to a world where the Interloper God has been slain and the heathen Earth Goddess grows weak." Her eyes were fever-bright. "The time of his rise is at hand."
"Huh." I tried not to laugh. "Just 'tween us girls and the fish-people, are you sure y'all ain't doin' all this for purely capitalistic reasons? Can't imagine this Church a' the Dragon thing puts much in the communion plates. 'Cept for sick-up and bones, a'course, an' those don't sell too well, ah reckon."
"Esoteric Order of ... you know what? It doesn't matter." Marian reached out and stroked one of the fish creatures, which rippled and burped a grateful noise. "You're here now--you and all that fancy book learning of yours, dontcha know. Your skills will be invaluable to our profane task."
"Doubt it." I pointed to the tunnel where the light was coming from. "Ah think y'all are gonna let me pass, unless you prefer I don't report into the Bureau and they send a force to conquer Innsmouth, like they did a hundred years ago. Y'all don't remember that, ah reckon, but it's on Wikipedia. The river's even froze over again." I looked around at the Deep Ones. "Your frog-men make great tourist attractions, but how are they against Navy SEALs?"
Marian's confidence faltered. "You'll just report us anyway. Why should we let you go?"
"Wouldn't do nothin' of the sort," I said. "If only out of professional courtesy. An' ah give y'all mah word, as a Southern gentlewoman. Good enough?"
We faced off for a while, all of them trying to stare me to death. Marian considered, then bowed her head. The frog-men around her did the same, their black eyes tracking my movement. I strode through their midst, trying not to think about their black eyes. I was never coming back here. Not ever.
I saw a ladder at the end of a long hallway and headed that way.
About midway along, though, I stopped. The feeling of scrutiny had intensified. All the frog-men had stayed behind in the central chamber. The feeling was coming from a different corridor, where a circular waterfall glowed with greenish light. The humidity drained away, replaced by a chill that drove into my shaking bones.
I took a single step into the corridor, and heard a familiar crooning, which made my bones shiver and my skin crawl. This was no scientific aberration or anything created by nature. This was something else. Something that would make my mind expand beyond my dreams.
"Nuh uh," I said, and turned away from the hallway. It took all of my willpower, but I did it.
#
Out on the street, grainy, soot-blackened snow was falling. Innsmouth squatted around me, desolate and rotting, a sore on the New England coastline. I never wanted to return to this place.
Ed was there, wrapping a blanket around my shivering body. As he led me away, I looked back at the manhole I'd climbed out. Remembering. Dreading.
"What is it?" Ed asked.
"All knowledge is worth having," I said, "but some things y'all just can't handle."
* * *
The controversial bio-engineer Callie-Anne Ceres is a product of her time and tragedy. A child-prodigy born in the waning years of the American Republic, she lost her parents in the great flood that claimed New Orleans in the mid-2000s. She acquired her third degree from M.I.T. at age 15 and made a name for herself creating genetic soldiers for the Confederate forces during the second American Civil War. After a building collapse left her crippled, she went into self-imposed exile for a time but has since begun work with the Northern Intelligence Service (NIS) as a paranormal researcher.
* * *
Erik Scott de Bie hails from the West Coast and a variety of alternate dimensions, all of them much darker than this one. He has written for the famous Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder's Golarion, the Iron Kingdoms of Warmachine, among dozens. Owing to his ability to fold space and especially time, he is publishing three novels this year: a space opera set in the Traveller universe called Priority: Hyperion, the twisted happily-never-after fantasy Scourge of the Realm, and his epic full metal fantasy Shadow of the Winter King. He currently abides in Seattle where he is married with pets.
That Ain't Right: Historical Accounts of the Miskatonic Valley (Mad Scientist Journal Presents Book 1) Page 13