Arkham Horror- The Deep Gate

by Chris A. Jackson

  This place, that unforgiving shore, the familiar desolation and ruin, drove the siren song of the waves home within him. Come to us…come to us…come home… He felt guilty, that was all. Silas had fled Innsmouth barely out of boyhood, unwilling to be pulled down into decay and neglect with the rest of his relatives. Only his mother had pleaded with him to stay, but he’d refused, thinking a life on the sea would fulfill something in him that Innsmouth never could. He’d always longed for the sea, swimming and fishing as a boy, watching the ships ply the waves. The sea meant freedom, and he’d had that freedom for more than two decades.

  And now I’m back… Funny how time makes liars of everyone.

  “Where?” Abigail asked, dredging him out of his hypnosis.

  “There.” Silas pointed to a barn-like structure with an old flatbed truck parked out front. Smoke whipped away from the building’s single metal stovepipe, so he knew someone was working. “That’s a net loft. There’ll be someone there we can talk to.” The real question was, would they listen?

  “Sure.” Abigail pulled over, set the brake, killed the engine, and reached for her newly purchased umbrella.

  “It’s probably best to let me do the talking here, Abigail.” Silas gave her an imploring look. “Folks around here are standoffish. If we start telling them about books that change and prophecies of the end of the world, we won’t get anything but blank stares.”

  “All right.” She didn’t look happy about it but nodded. “What are you going to tell them?”

  “I’ve been working on that.” He shrugged and reached for the door handle. “Just follow my lead.”

  “Okay by me.” She opened her door and stepped out under her umbrella.

  A quick splash through the rain, and Silas stepped inside the open loft door. Rain drummed on the roof, echoing hollowly within. The air hung thick with pipe smoke, the faint reek of fish, and the acrid tang of burnt coffee. Mounded nets, crates, buoys, coils of line, and various fishing gear littered the loft’s periphery so thickly one could barely see the walls. In the center of the cluttered space, wide-mesh gillnets hung from block and tackle overhead. Four men sat on crates there, net needles darting in and out of the mesh, wielded deftly in their thick, calloused hands.

  “Afternoon.” Silas’s greeting drew disinterested glances from three of the men, grizzled old faces beaten into lines of gray by lifetimes on the sea. The fourth, younger, with a wide, pallid face and sloping brow beneath his stocking cap, inspected first Silas, then Abigail with large watery eyes.

  Definitely a Marsh. Silas considered turning on his heel and trying to find someone else to talk to, but stood his ground.

  “Not the day for an outing to the shore.” The young man turned back to his work, his short, spindly fingers handling the mesh with precision.

  “That’s the truth,” Silas admitted, knowing that he and Abigail made an odd pair. He’d worked out a story during the bone-jarring drive that he hoped would sound tempting. “We drove up from Arkham. The lady here works for the university and needs to do some research out on the reef.” True enough, after a fashion.

  “The reef?” The younger man looked up at them again. “What reef?”

  “Devil Reef. I’d take her myself, but my boat’s in Kingsport, and I can’t round Cape Ann in this blow. I’d hoped to rent a boat here.”

  The man stood and picked up an empty tin coffee cup. “What do you know of Devil Reef?” He strode to the stove and poured liquid as black as tar from the pot.

  “I’ve fished there many times,” Silas said with a casual shrug. “I grew up here. My name’s Silas Marsh.”

  The coffee pot clanked down hard on the stove. All four men looked at him, the youngest with his sloped brow furrowed.

  “Silas Marsh?” one of the older fellows asked around his pipe. “Knew yer father. You left some years back to go a sailin’, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. Saw a good part of the world and put enough aside to buy my own boat. I’m working out of Kingsport now.”

  “Why the rush to go out?” the young one asked, taking his tin cup back to his crate. “The reef’s not going anywhere. Why not wait until this storm blows over?”

  “We can’t.” Abigail stepped up beside Silas, clutching her umbrella in both hands. “There’s no time.”

  “Her project’s got a deadline,” Silas added, trying to sound casual. “All we need is a boat for a few hours. It’s all protected waters from here to the reef.”

  “I’ll pay,” Abigail offered. “Ten dollars.”

  That raised some eyebrows. Ten dollars was more than a day’s earnings for the average fisherman.

  “Tch!” With a scornful look, the young man sat back down and picked up his net needle. “Ten dollars won’t buy a new boat. It’s too risky. Come back when the weather’s laid down.”

  Silas opened his mouth, but Abigail stepped forward. “We can’t wait! The time will be passed by then! We have to go now!”

  “Nobody’s goin’ out to Devil Reef today, missy.”

  The gravelly voice from the back of the loft caught Silas by surprise. He peered through the clutter of nets, buoys, rope, and rigging to see two figures, a stooped old woman and a taller man behind her, picking their way forward. There was a small room in the corner, buried in junk, that he hadn’t noticed before. The voice had been the old woman’s, her stringy gray hair and bent posture telling her years. A gnarled stick in her hand, its wood so black it looked like polished obsidian, thumped the floor with each step. Large, rheumy eyes regarded Silas from under a sloped brow, and her wide, thick lips stretched in a disagreeable frown. Her broad-shouldered companion loomed over her protectively, a man so similar to her in features that they had to be kin. Silas knew that look all too well.

  “You’re a Marsh,” he said, a statement, not a question. “One of the main family.”

  “I am,” she said, rapping her stick on the wooden floor as she tottered up to him. “And nobody goes out to Devil Reef without the approval of Old Man Marsh, which you haven’t got.”

  The three older men continued their work without looking up, but the younger now stood as well. The two Marsh men had rigging knives at their belts, and their intimidating glares might have given a lesser man pause, but Silas remained unimpressed. They wouldn’t resort to violence, not against him. However, the old woman’s gnarled walking stick—black coral, not wood, he noted—made his skin crawl. It seemed to change shape under her knobby knuckles even as he watched.

  “And how do we get his approval?” Abigail asked, as dauntless—or clueless—as ever.

  The old woman’s bulging eyes turned to Abigail, thick lids flicking in a reptilian blink. “You don’t, missy.” She looked to Silas and rapped her stick again, and a chill seeped up through the soles of his boots into his bones. “He may be a Marsh, by name if little else, but you’re not.”

  “What’s going to happen out there?” Abigail blurted. “Something is going to happen!”

  “Go back to your books, child. There’s nothing for you here.” The old woman rapped the floor twice more with her stick, and her thick lips parted to reveal rows of jagged teeth.

  Abigail drew a sharp breath and stepped unsteadily back.

  Silas grasped her arm. “Come on, Abigail. Let’s go.” He clenched his jaw to keep his voice steady and faced down the old woman’s smile with the last sour dregs of his courage. “There’s no help for us here.”

  Abigail let him usher her back to the car. She forgot to open her umbrella, and the rain drenched her before he settled her in her seat and closed the door. He cranked the car over and got in the passenger side to find her gripping the wheel in white-knuckled fists.

  “What in the name of—” Abigail’s voice quavered like a loose shutter in the wind.

  “Just drive.” Silas glanced back at the open door to the sail loft. The old woman stood there staring at them, the two Marsh men looming at her shoulders. “Just turn around and drive.”

 
“Yes!” Abigail ground gears and wrenched the wheel hard to the left. They lurched around with astonishing speed, as if the car itself longed to be out of this place.

  Silas couldn’t disagree. He glanced back to see the Marshes still staring at them from the net loft door, watery eyes, pallid faces, wide mouths… What was I thinking to come back here?

  “Now tell me what the…heck just happened!”

  “I’ll explain.” He pointed straight as they rumbled over the bridge “Drive straight along Water Street until we’re out of town, then find a place to pull off. You can see Devil Reef from the beach.”

  “Fine.”

  They bounced along the shore road for a quarter mile. To their left, the raging nor’easter broke hard on the rocks until finally the riprap gave way to a wide, sandy beach. Silas gestured to a turnout, and Abigail pulled the jalopy over.

  Setting the brake, she turned to face him. “Now what—”

  “The old Marsh family’s jealous of their fishing grounds. They don’t like strangers out there.” Silas opened his door and stepped out into the rain, breathing the salty mist in greedy gulps as he stared out over the beach. Breakers curled onto the sloped sand here, their beauty, grace, and power the embodiment of the sea.

  “It has got to be more than that!” Abigail joined him, gripping her umbrella fiercely against the greedy wind. “That woman…her face.”

  “That’s the Marsh family look. The main family, anyway.” Silas clenched his hands and let the cool rain wash away his anxiety. “There are stories…about them, and about Devil Reef. I don’t know how much of it is true and how much is just made up to run off strangers. I’m only third cousin to the main family. They run the only fish processing plant in town, and pretty much call the shots. They came into real money somehow, more than just from fishing, and they own damn near every going concern in town. They’ve been known to run off other fishermen who set nets or longlines along the coast hereabouts. That old woman’s one of the main family.” Silas strode down the rocky incline to the beach, the crunch-squeak of the sand beneath his boots stirring memories from his childhood.

  “But she…” Abigail teetered after him in her impractical shoes. “She seemed to know why we’re here! And why is she so protective of Devil Reef?”

  “That’s it.” Silas pointed across the waves, through the mist-laden air to a thick line of white just below the horizon. “That’s Devil Reef, about two miles out. It protects the approach to Innsmouth from the ocean swells, so there’s no danger taking a boat out from town. But no sensible captain would round Cape Ann in this weather, and she knows it. All she had to do was say no boat would leave the harbor, and we were done here. No Innsmouth fisherman will flout the Marshes, not if they ever want to sell their catch again.”

  “But…how…why…”

  Silas let the roar of the surf drown out Abigail’s questions. It didn’t matter any longer, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. The crashing waves thrummed up through his legs, their rhythm syncopating with the beat of his heart.

  “I swam here as a boy.”

  Come home…

  Silas breathed in the mist like a tonic, taking in the tremulous roar like music, letting it infuse him. “I would swim for hours, just to feel the water.”

  Come…

  “They’re my best memories…being in the sea…feeling the waves.”

  Abigail’s voice yammered on behind him, but it was of no more import than the squawking of seabirds.

  Be with us…your time is nigh…

  Sand squeaked beneath his boots. Yes… Now… Finally…

  A gull screeched—or was it a voice?—but Silas ignored it. Coolness enveloped his feet, his legs, refreshing…welcoming.

  Come home…

  Something tugged at his arm, tearing at his shirt, but he pulled away. The sea…it’s all that matters…it’s the only thing that will endure…forever.

  Pain lanced through his back as something sharp poked him.

  Silas whirled, flinging out a hand to fend off the attack. He snatched the tip of Abigail’s umbrella and stared at her in shock.

  “Silas!” Her eyes widened and focused past his shoulder. She released her umbrella, turned and ran as well as she could, slogging through knee-deep surf in her sodden dress.

  “What the hell?” Silas looked down. He stood thigh deep in the ocean, with no recollection of having waded in. A bone-jarring roar rose behind him.

  Silas ducked into the massive curling wave, but the power of the sea was not to be so easily thwarted. It flung him down like a rag doll, smashing him into the hard sand. He went limp, knowing better than to fight that power.

  Come to us! The call tore through him with the cool embrace of the sea, a vision of welcoming arms, webbed hands…

  He came up sputtering spray and sand. The wave receded, its greedy grasp dragging him back into the sea, but he crawled forward, lurching up to stumble onto the shore, the siren song fading from his mind.

  “Silas!” Abigail was there, gripping his arm, shaking him, terror honing her voice like a knife. “What in the hell were you doing?”

  He coughed and dragged in a breath, glancing back over his shoulder at the sea. Come to us…

  “No! Don’t you dare!” Pain lanced through his shoulder as her nails latched on hard. “Don’t you dare do that again!”

  “What…” Silas turned, rubbing his sore shoulder, then his aching back. She’d attacked him, but… Then he remembered the call, the yearning, his nightmares, the tome, and Devil Reef, and he knew there was a connection. But what connection other than utter madness, he couldn’t fathom. “God in heaven.” His knees folded and hit the hard sand.

  “What happened to you?” Abigail’s hysteria seemed tempered now. “Were you intending to swim out to Devil Reef?”

  “No…I just…lost myself for a second.” She’d never believe him if he told her of his nightmares and the siren song pulling him in. She’d think him stark raving mad. “I remembered swimming here as a boy, and just…”

  “Come on.” She tugged at his arm. “You’re soaked, and you owe me another umbrella.”

  “I…” Silas glanced again over his shoulder at the sea. Its call still pulled at him, but he could resist it now. He staggered with her back to the car and hurled himself into his seat. The door thumped closed, dulling the siren song of the surf. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Well, never mind.” Abigail jammed the shifter in gear and wheeled the car around. “We’ve got to figure out some other way to get out to Devil Reef. Something’s happening around here, and you deciding to take a swim in the middle of a storm corroborates my theory that it’s affecting us both.”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t disagree but had little more to add. They couldn’t get a boat in Innsmouth, and couldn’t take Sea Change around the cape in this weather. They were done. There was nothing to do but go home.

  They drove in silence, Silas’s thoughts running in circles. What would have happened if Abigail hadn’t broken his trance? Would he have drowned in the surf, unable to help himself? Why did he feel that the answer to the connection between his nightmares and the tome’s prophecy was to be found out on Devil Reef?

  “What next?” Abigail asked as Arkham hove into view.

  “Next?” He barked a laugh and wiped the gritty salt from his face with the sleeve of his sodden shirt. “I have no idea, Abigail.”

  “Well, the end of the whole world is looming, and we know where it’s going to start, Silas Marsh. We have to do something! We can’t just run away from this!” Abigail’s old determination was back, and it infected him like a fever.

  No more running… “We need to think.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “And I need a drink.”

  “If you mean something stronger than coffee, I’m with you.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “Really?”

  “Yes.” Abigail swallowed hard and nodded. “The end of the wor
ks of mankind, Silas! Hell, yes!”

  He pointed to a diner as they neared the edge of town. “Join me, then. Maybe we’ll come up with an idea.”

  Chapter Five

  Hibb’s Roadhouse

  Lordy, you two are soaked right through!” the waitress said as she sauntered over. “Need a little something to warm you up?”

  “Yes.” Silas knew this place and knew what to order. “Two sweet iced teas with lemon.”

  The waitress blinked at them, but then winked and nodded. “Comin’ right up, sugar.”

  “Sweet iced tea?” Abigail made a face. “I thought you said—”

  “Trust me.”

  Ordering sweet iced tea with lemon wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but no New Englander would ever request it. Prohibition put the kibosh on the legal sale of alcohol, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be gotten. Speakeasies like this one often used subtle codes to order spirited libation. In this case, “sweet iced tea with lemon” would get you Canadian whiskey on the rocks, and nobody would know the difference.

  The waitress returned in moments holding two tall glasses with lemon wedges perched on the rim. “Enjoy,” she said with another wink as she put the glasses on the table and sashayed off.