Innsmouth Nightmares

  August joined her and took her hand. He was carrying a flashlight, which he flicked on. He and Mia began to walk, kicking up a billow of the seemingly phosphorescent mist while Eric, swearing about the cold and the smell, caught up to them.

  “Your jewelry store is here, right?” Eric said. “This isn’t some kind of joke?”

  “It’s not all like this,” August rejoined. “There’s businesses and people and stuff.” He took a beat, and then he added, “The people are a little weird.”

  “Weird how?” Eric’s voice rose.

  “They just look kind of weird.” August smiled reassuringly at Mia. “But they aren’t dangerous or anything.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Eric said. “Dangerous? You said this was going to be like a treasure hunt. Something fun. This is seriously fucked up, man.”

  “You’ve never had any sense of adventure.” August’s fingers ran over Mia’s beautiful cuff. “Did you think I bought this thing at a mall?”

  That silenced Eric. August slowed and Eric came up beside him on the right, so that August was sandwiched between him and Mia. Which was symbolic of their relationship. Eric didn’t like her. She knew that August didn’t usually date long-term; he hooked up and then tossed you back like a fish. When he had presented her with the cuff, she had held back her emotions, assuming he intended it as bait for the famously untouchable Mia Brienne. Though she hadn’t shown it, the gift had meant something far different to her.

  August took her hand, and her heart leapt. The hard snow crunched beneath her boots as they walked into the town. Windows were boarded up. The ground was littered. A dog barked.

  “Fuck,” Eric blurted.

  “This way.” August pointed to the left, toward the ocean. They approached a cobbled path that angled downward. Beyond the path lay tumbled-down bricks and crumbles of mortar; still farther, beneath, the ocean rolled; the reef was closer now, a platform of rocks surrounded as if by sentries of large, stalwart boulders.

  Mia’s hair streamed in the strengthening wind and she sensed August’s gaze on her. She looked at him, and something glinted in his eye.

  “That’s called Devil Reef,” he told her. “I read up on this place.”

  She nodded because she wasn’t sure what to say. His hand was tight around hers, and he walked briskly. Clouds were moving across what little sun peeked out; the weddingcake spires were wrapped in ribbons of mist.

  “We’re going to the store now, right?” Eric said. “Where they have the cuffs? Because, Jesus.”

  “There are stores down here,” August affirmed. “They make the jewelry here.”

  “Who does? How?” Eric asked. “There’s no one anywhere.” He looked back over his shoulder at the car. “This is bogus.”

  “Do you want one or not?” August asked. “For Jane?” He gave Mia’s hand a conspiratorial squeeze. She tried to squeeze back, but she didn’t manage it. Instead she gazed down at the baroque cuff; if she stared at it for long enough, the swirls and whorls became elongated faces with flat noses and chinless, thick, open mouths that drooped at the corners. Had August seen those faces? Or was it something only she could see?

  “Are you mocking me?” Eric snapped. “What’s the deal, Aug?” Yes, August hooked up with girls and then threw them back, but Eric was always his best friend. His constant. It was no surprise to her that Eric resented her. She had fully expected it. She just hadn’t known how to factor in his hostility—and his constant presence—while attempting to forge something different with August. Her own form of bait, if you wanted to put it that way.

  Using her heart.

  “Eric, come on,” August began. “Everyone knows that Jane—”

  Mia faked a stumble to change the subject. Her hand jerked August’s and he pulled up to keep her from tumbling to the ground.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She smiled gratefully up at him. Eric, with his hands in his pockets, stomped ahead, then slowed and huffed, as if he had realized that there was no value in storming off. He didn’t know the town and had no idea where to go. August had the car keys. August was in charge. Maybe if Eric arranged to slip and slide on the wet stones, he would get the attention he craved, at least for a little while.

  The street continued downward, bringing them closer to the level of the cliff that overlooked Devil Reef. It wasn’t that far out to sea. Geometric shapes like runes had been carved into the rocks, then filled in with something that made them white. Dark streaks and blotches broke up the lines and whorls.

  “There’s a story,” August said, following her gaze, “that a long time ago, the people who lived here performed human sacrifices out there on that reef.”

  “That’s cool. Like in Salem times?” Eric said. “Or earlier, like Indians?”

  August’s trademark smirking-affectionate smile blazed across his face. “It scares me that you’re going to graduate in six months. You don’t really know much, do you?”

  “Hey, fuck off,” Eric said, stung. “I got all As in history.”

  August rolled his eyes. “Public education at its finest. And anyway, the human sacrifices went on until the thirties. Then there was a standoff with the government, and they burned out the leaders of the local cult. Like that stuff with Mormons or whatever.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? What Mormons?” Eric huffed.

  “That guy who was marrying fifth graders.” August looked at Mia as if she could fill in the blanks. “In Arizona or Utah, right?”

  “Something like that,” she said. “I read about it, too.”

  Eric mimicked throwing up. “That’s sick, marrying little girls. They do that in those African countries, but in America?”

  “In America,” August said.

  Eric gestured to Mia. “How old are you? Sixteen? Would you want to marry some old geezer?”

  Eric knew very well that she was eighteen. He’d made all kinds of cracks about her being legal at the Halloween party the night before her birthday.

  “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t. But you know, girls used to get married at eighteen, right out of high school.” She didn’t look at August when she spoke. She didn’t want him to think she was hinting or anything.

  “But not at twelve. I hope they castrated him. That’s disgusting,” Eric said. “How the hell could he have gotten away with that?”

  August shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “Well, he had a shitpile of followers who kept his secret. He told them that anyone who told would die.”

  “He would murder them?” Eric said.

  “Or there would be retribution. I’m not sure. I mean, does it matter?” August smiled reassuringly at Mia. “Anyway, that’s all in the past here in Innsmouth. They had this crazy religion, but the government shut it down, and now all that’s left here is some cool stores. Like jewelry and stained glass and herbs. Hippie stuff.”

  At that moment the sun poked through the cloud cover and illuminated the glint in August’s eye. His face…his smile was not genuine. He was gazing at her the way a cat stares at a mouse.

  He was lying to her. The smile she had thought was so good-humored…it was not. It was mean. It was a leer.

  But when he took her mittened hand and laced their fingers together, his scary smile melted away and he was sweet August again.

  Complex.

  They sidled on down the path; sprinkles of snow were tossed by the wind like confetti. August laughed and did a little dance, completely endearing.

  Eric kept up a litany of nervous complaining; they reached the end of the walk. To the right, as if carved into rock, wooden window frames bordered simple doors with painted signs tacked on them. One read TAVERN; the next one over said INNSMOUTH SOUVENIRS.

  “That’s it,” August announced, and he walked boldly up to the door of Innsmouth Souvenirs and opened it. He started to go in, and then he halted, stepping aside to let Mia enter first.

  The room was poorl
y lit, a flickering Tiffany-style lamp hanging from the rafters. The glass panels were decorated with what appeared to be octopi, but on second glance, resembled the queerly changeable visions of her gold cuff.

  Her boots almost slid out from underneath her as she stepped over the transom. The floor was not only wet but slimy; she grabbed onto August for purchase and he eased her inside. Eric brought up the rear, grousing about the stink. It was no different from what they’d already encountered, simply more concentrated. The walls were painted; sections of a seascape were vaguely visible, huge, bulging eyes staring out from elongated faces.

  A young man with black hair and a cleft in his chin stepped from the gloom and placed his hands on a varnished wood counter. His gaze swept over the threesome, then rested on Mia. He smiled briefly, and then he caught sight of her cuff.

  “Oh,” he said. He looked first at August, then at Eric, and raised his brows. As if on cue, August moved past Eric and turned the lock on the door. The deadbolt slammed shut.

  Eric said, “What the hell?”

  “This is secret. They’re not supposed to sell them to just anybody.” August puffed out his chest. The black-haired man smiled.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Very few can pay the price.”

  “I can.” August darted toward Mia and put his hand around her forearm much as Eric had in the Fiat. He steered her toward the man. “Here. As promised.”

  The man reached for Mia, molding a hand on her shoulder. Eric said, “The fuck? Let go of her!” He turned the lock but the deadbolt didn’t slide back. He stared at August. “What’s going on?” A sound came from the deeper recesses of the darkness, impossible to discern. The man lifted up a section of the counter and pulled Mia through the space. The counter fwopped back down and the distant sound grew louder, more distinct: something that squished and flopped. Something that created suction, then pulled and strained until there was a large pop of released pressure.

  “Oh, my God, what is that? What’s that smell?” Eric doubled over and clamped a hand to his mouth. August’s eyes jittered back and forth and his fists were balled together. Tense, eager. Frightened, resolute.

  “It’s just the ocean, man.”

  But the sounds echoed through the room, slurping and rolling and trundling. Eric threw himself against the door; less certain now, August stared into the darkness. Mia’s heart pounded.

  The smell coalesced around them, became green mist that billowed and contracted like breath. The black-haired man looked at Mia and said, “Not long now.”

  “Fuck this!” Eric shouted, and he whipped out his cell phone.

  “Secret,” August said. Then made a fist, reached back, and slammed it into Eric’s nose. Blood spurted as Eric gasped and fell against the door, his phone sliding across the wet, viscous floor. He tried to get up but he was held in place. August took advantage and kicked him in the stomach, then his face. With a wheeze, Eric collapsed.

  “Easy,” the black-haired man cautioned Mia as she prepared to rush to Eric’s aid.

  August wiped blood off his face as he looked at Mia, too. “I’m really sorry.”

  She remained calm, although her nerves were firing, her hands trembling. She said, “For what?”

  “Well, see,” he said, “they still do all that stuff. The sacrifices.” He looked at the black-haired man. “They promised me gold. Treasure. Like that bracelet. All I needed was to bring someone.” He kicked Eric, who did not move. “I brought them two.”

  “Did you,” said the black-haired man.

  August’s eyes widened. He took a step backward and let out a shriek so loaded with terror that it sounded inhuman. But it was human.

  It was the black-haired man who was not. Not completely. He pulled rubbery appliances off his cheeks and forehead—rubbery things—and from around his eyes—the telltale eyes of the people of Innsmouth, descendants of the Deep Ones—the gods who dwelled beneath the waves and mated with the children of men. Gray-complected, his gills working overtime because he was excited.

  August completely lost it. He screamed and pawed at the door, tripping over Eric’s still form. Slipping in blood and a slime that was seeping across the floor like a living thing.

  In the distance, bells pealed in the weddingcake steeples and Mia closed her eyes.

  The black-haired fish-man raised a long, bronze gun from behind the counter and pointed it at August. He said, “Silence, or I will shoot off your arms.”

  August threw up. The man cocked the gun and walked toward him, aiming it at August’s shoulder.

  “Stop it now,” the man said. “Stop or I’ll do it.”

  Mia lifted up her hand, showing the golden cuff, and said to August, “Where did you find this?”

  August opened his mouth, blinked, shook his head. He began to sob. “I don’t remember. I don’t know! I’m sorry. Jesus, Mia! Jesus! I wouldn’t have really done it. You know me. You know I love you!”

  “Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!” the black-haired man said. He turned to Mia and said, “The Deep Ones called him. And he has answered.”

  She smiled, then, beatifically. She raised her wrist and said, “August, you’re not the one who brought a sacrifice. And it’s not a bracelet.

  “It’s a wedding ring.”

  The colors kaleidoscoping, dervishing. Golden bubbles forming, popping, cobalt silver pearlescent purple acid green swirling, dancing, blossoming. Green mist pouring down from behind her like a warm coat, a waterfall. She was eighteen now.

  Old enough to get married.

  “Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!” she cried.

  Her wedding vow.

  August screamed as tentacles slithered around Mia’s legs and twined around her waist. Green and purple, and black and ochre. Wet and slick, smelling of the world below.

  Her bridegroom.

  “You will be showered with gold, and jewels,” the black-haired man said to Mia.

  “And love,” she whispered.

  Then the appendages and the great weight and the smell overpowered her as she slipped the ring onto her beloved’s appropriate tentacle. Her mate raised into the air and came crashing down on her; the floor gave way and they plunged into the waters that crashed and smashed against black Devil Reef.

  On their honeymoon.

  “You will rise again,” she promised him. “You will be mighty.”

  Beneath the waves, as they dove toward the ruined sea kingdom of Y’ha-nthlei, and all the bells in Innsmouth caroled her joy, and her imminent human destruction.

  Nancy Holder is the New York Times bestselling author of over 80 novels and 200 short stories, essays, and articles. She has received five Bram Stoker Awards, among others, and is the current vice president of the Horror Writers Association. She has written material for Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Beauty and the Beast; Teen Wolf; Smallville; Kolchak the Night Stalker; Sherlock Holmes; the Domino Lady, and others, and edits comic books and graphic novels for Moonstone Books. She teaches in the Stonecoast M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program through the University of Southern Maine. She lives in San Diego, California.

  THE WAVES BECKON

  Donald Tyson

  1.

  “If you ask me, this is a terrible idea,” Nurse Eunice Waite said to Head Nurse Sarah Cork.

  “It’s the Director’s idea,” Sarah told her with a thin smile. “Why don’t you tell him how terrible it is?”

  Eunice sniffed and squared her shoulders. She was a big woman. Her enormous breasts jiggled beneath her white top in spite of her orthopaedic brassiere.

  “I thought not,” Sarah said. “Now get back to work and let me do my job.”

  Eunice leaned over the desk and glared down at the round, fleshy face of her supervisor.

  “I’ll say only this—nothing good comes from hiring outsiders.”

  She turned on the low heel of her sensible white nurse’s shoe and stalked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

  After allowing a dec
orous interval of silence, Sarah got up and opened the door.

  “You can come in now, Miss Bowers. I’m ready for your interview.”

  The woman who walked in from the waiting room was tall and thin, with a long face and a small mouth bracketed by habitual frown lines. Her dark hair was pulled back from her ears in a severe bun. She wore no makeup to accentuate her brown eyes, which were her best feature in Sarah’s opinion. Her drab gray dress looked handmade. A small silver crucifix hung around her neck on a delicate chain. That was her only piece of jewelry. When Sarah accepted her hand in greeting, she felt the fingers of the other woman tremble.

  “Sit down, Miss Bowers.”

  “Please, call me Ruth.”

  “If you wish.”

  She returned to her place behind the desk while the woman in gray perched on the edge of a chair. She kept her small black leather purse balanced upright on her knees in both hands.

  “I’ve been going over your résumé,” Sarah said, indicating the open brown file folder on her desk. “It says you had five years of experience caring for the severely disabled at Arkham Hospital.”

  “That’s right.” The other woman’s voice was surprisingly mild.

  “You didn’t indicate why you left.”

  The woman shifted in her chair and dropped her gaze.

  “I just felt it was time to expand my horizons and move on. I didn’t want my life to stagnate.”

  Sarah nodded, watching her.

  “One of my cousins works at Arkham Hospital. She told me you left under a black cloud. She said there were charges made of gross incompetence.”

  “No formal charge was ever laid,” Ruth said sharply.

  “No, of course not, or you wouldn’t still have your nursing license, would you?”

  The other woman met her gaze defiantly. Sarah heaved a sigh and closed the file folder. She laced her chubby fingers together over it.