Outside, the wind rose to a shriek.
“The girl disappeared. I think sometimes that my father did away with her himself, though he was loath to touch her, having seen the consequences of a night in her bed.” He sat back. Only his outline was visible now. “And so I make visible the purpose behind the children’s story of Donkeyskin. It’s a fairy’s tale, meant to hide the truth from a world that teeters on the edge of madness. Insane fathers and diseased daughters. Glowing ash. Demon donkeys? A well cut straight down to hell? Listen to the storm! Things wait in the darkness! We need stories to recast the truth, lest we go mad.”
The innkeeper was gone. The room had gone black.
“One last word, friend, before you shiver your way to your bed.”
Pizzle moaned somewhere in the dark.
“A few months ago, a traveler sat in your very seat, telling me the news of the county. That is how I learned the true end of my story. Seems that a nobleman, fallen on hard times but still possessing land and some small resources, married his daughter. You see, the father had two daughters—one much younger than the first. And when the younger girl was old enough, the father wedded her. Not in a church, of course. A local magistrate performed the ceremony. The man claimed the girl was a distant cousin, but people knew about her, shut away in the upper story of the house, and gossip travels.”
“So you see,” he finished, “at least the father lived happily ever after.”
In my previous life (and that is no mere figure of speech), I was a graduate student in Biology at the Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. The place has a certain notoriety for unconventional courses of study, but that was of no interest to me. The school had a strong Marine Biology program, founded decades ago, at least partly because of the historic connection of Arkham with the maritime trade. My own lifelong fascination with the sea and its myriad of life forms, so utterly alien to our own familiar mammals, inclined me to the subject, and I was fortunate to live close to an institution where I might pursue it in real depth. My parents died, I am told, in my infancy, and I was reared by somewhat distant but loving relatives, and my financial situation was secure. I suppose I cannot say I loved my mother and father, never having known them, but I have always felt genuine gratitude for their kind provision.
I possessed no real friends, not outside of class anyway, but my studies consumed almost all of my time, so I felt no lack. The one exception was more than a friend. Gloria Wentworth, my fiancée, was the young and pretty faculty secretary, and I encountered her frequently in passing. Before long we enjoyed lunch together most days. Then I found it was not so very hard to pull myself away from my labs and my books to see a movie with her or just to spend a quiet, romantic evening in either of our campus apartments. We quickly became very close, something which frankly surprised me, given my cerebral, almost cold-blooded, preoccupations.
It was thus with reluctance that I bade goodbye to Gloria for what I assured her would be a research trip of only a couple of weeks. She understood the necessity of it and told me, with loving eyes, that she would be counting the days.
My research had taken an unanticipated direction once I stumbled across some scholarly debate over a theory concerning coastal groups of primates somewhere in primal Africa who thrived on fish scooped up from the waves. The existence of such creatures could be safely surmised from fossil evidence. Where the controversy began was over speculation that these proto-humans, some said apes, gradually adapted to the life of marine mammals, exactly in the fashion of manatees, seals, even dolphins and whales. Supporters of the theory appealed to legends and rumored sightings of mermaids. As usual, such suggestions tended to lend the theory less plausibility rather than more, tempting the skeptics to consign the theory to the same rubbish bin as the legends invoked to defend it. Guilt by association.
Something occurred to me as soon as I read of this scholarly tempest in a teapot; instantly my mind flitted to the near-local rumors of strange half-human forms once found in the swollen rivers of Vermont and, closer to home, the “urban” legends of Innsmouth where xenophobic alarm at the intermarriage of town fishermen with Polynesian women gave rise to hysterical claims of miscegenation with aquatic bipeds. On the face of it, of course, it was absurd. Yet there was somehow enough to make me curious. Perhaps had I lived farther away from the Essex County seaport, I might have dismissed the whole matter. As it was, I couldn’t resist the temptation – suppose there had been some sort of genetic funny business? No one denied that many Innsmouth denizens had a pretty strange look about them. Photographs showed recurrent facial and anatomical anomalies that could not be readily accounted for by inbreeding or intermarriage. It wouldn’t hurt to get a firsthand look. So I made my plans, for all the good it did me. As you will see, I was utterly unprepared for what, and whom, I would find.
I took a train and a couple of startlingly decrepit busses to Innsmouth. I regretted my decision to make the trip as soon as I got a glimpse of the town from the filthy bus window. It was surprising that the place was still inhabited given the total dilapidation of it. I had of course read about the submarine attack on the wharfs. I knew of the internment camps, something unthinkable today but quite acceptable back in the 1920s. After all, only two decades later, Japanese Americans were herded into the same confinement. But, compared to present-day Innsmouth, an internment camp would have been an improvement. Many rows of once-charming Victorian and Colonial structures lay in ruins, their fronts standing tenuously like neglected stage sets on a studio lot. Streets were pocked with puddle-filled craters and blocked with scattered bricks and boards, to say nothing of the heaps of moldering garbage. Children wandered between cardboard huts and rusting trailer homes that were placed randomly wherever space permitted, some right in the middle of the streets, some lying across the abandoned foundations of long-demolished houses.
The bus could drive only so far into this wasteland, and so I hoisted my suitcase and clothing zip bag and watched my step as I bemoaned the sight of the bus rattling into reverse and leaving me to take my chances. Why didn’t I just get back on board and return home? Maybe I thought of Kafka’s advice that one ought to press on even once one realizes it is the wrong path. He would have been proud of me.
I found an old hotel shuttered and locked. It had once been called The Gilman House. The sign bearing that name still hung over the lintel, while a later, smaller board had not replaced it but had been merely nailed onto it. It read The Harbor Inn, though I seem to recall it was misspelled. In the street lay a third signboard. The rainwater had diluted the crudely painted letters to the point of illegibility. I kept walking and looking for shelter. I thought I might find some help at a church building. The first I saw turned out to have been repurposed as some sort of Masonic Lodge, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a name redolent of the boyish play-secrecy with which stolid citizens amused themselves in the late nineteenth century. But it, too, was closed down.
I had better luck (as I then considered it) at another clapboard sanctuary with the improbable name of Saint Toad’s. I remembered Minnesota’s St. Cloud, a variant on “Saint Claude,” and wondered where this odd name came from. Possibly some garbled form of “Saint Thaddeus”? But I thought no more of it once a fumbling at the latch answered my knock.
All within was shrouded by shadows, though the declining sunlight managed for a moment to illumine a stained glass window at the far end of the entrance hall. I think it depicted Noah’s flood, but it looked as if some great shapes were surfacing beside the pitching ark. Then the light was gone. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized the reason for the lack of lamplight in the place: my host was blind or very nearly so, his bulging orbs thickly filmed with cataracts. His lips were thick and flaccid and gave an element of theatrical comedy to his speech. He was clad in black with a white collar, a generically clerical garb. His manner somehow straddled a line between avuncular paternalism and uneasy suspicion.
I told him my purpose (in the most g
eneral terms) and my circumstances. The stooped man, not bothering to feign eye-contact, listened attentively, beckoned me to take a seat. Suddenly it dawned upon me that the interior of this building formed the starkest of contrasts with the calamitous ruins of the town outside. Here, even amid the deepening shadows, it was evident that the Victorian furnishings were well cared for, and what I could see of the room was dry, warm, and tidy.
He was a man of few words, but he was quick enough to address my question, my request for lodging. I had not invited myself, but the clergyman, who styled himself Father Merman (a name that struck me as somehow humorous), kindly invited me to stay the night, and longer if it suited me, in a spare room in the rectory. I gratefully accepted and followed his shuffling gait down a dimly lit hall. I was cordial with the wrinkled old man, but I felt strangely reluctant to inquire as to his denominational affiliation. But it mattered little, I told myself, as he was manifestly practicing the true religion of charity to strangers.
As I unpacked my necessities and settled in, stretching out on the fresh bed, I began to review my situation and to lay plans for the morrow. My research was necessarily ill defined, but I began to try to delineate my goals in light of the puzzling contrasts I had witnessed this day. There was plainly a segment of Innsmouth society, what remained of it, that retained social and economic privilege. I thought of the medieval priests who reigned like aristocrats over their dirt-poor flocks—until the latter had finally had enough and rose up against them. Was Innsmouth possibly teetering on such a fault line? I could not imagine the street urchins and vacant-eyed scarecrows I had passed in the street rejoicing in the comforts of their clergy. It was pretty clear that little or none of the resources at the disposal of the priesthood was making its way to the indigent of Innsmouth. Of course, I was an outsider and had no real right to judge. Perhaps I would learn more tomorrow. It was none of my business, but I did want to avoid causing any offense that might hinder my inquiries.
I was tired both physically and emotionally. Ready for sleep, I looked for my cell phone to tell my Gloria of my safe arrival. And I saw that I had forgotten it. Perhaps I could borrow the church office phone the next morning.
I awoke to the shining of the dawn, then washed and dressed. I left my room and found my way to the parlor, where I was in for quite a surprise. There, in the light of day, a semicircle of chairs held the well-dressed bottoms of what appeared to be the aristocracy of Innsmouth. I would have taken them for wealthy merchants, bankers, and other community leaders, as presumably they must have been, but for the manifest fact that the town I saw could not possibly harbor banks, stores, or functioning community institutions. It appeared to be on the losing side of a devastating war. And then I thought again of the Federal assault on the town decades before.
These men, and they were all men, were quite odd looking. One did not notice this at first because all of them belonged. They were birds of a feather. Or perhaps fish of a… fin? Frogs of a… well, why belabor it? Their limply hanging suits belonged to earlier decades. All were bald or balding, like the reverse of those clubs where all the members agree to grow beards. They had, really, a family resemblance. Perhaps I had been premature in dismissing inbreeding as the origin of the infamous “Innsmouth look.” Their similarity was impossible to ignore, but it was the elephant in the room. One dared not mention it.
On the other hand, this might be the perfect entry point for my study of the Innsmouth population and its genetic peculiarities. I would try to bring up the matter as discreetly as possible as soon as an opportunity might arise. But now, in this peculiar moment, what could these town elders want with me? Were outsiders so unwanted that an unwelcome wagon would turn out in force?
The clergyman rose. “Mr… I believe you said your name was, ah, Ephraim Stanley? Yes, well. Mr. Stanley, we have some idea why you’re here. It’s, ah, we know some people at Miskatonic. After what you told me last night, I checked with them…”
Here I held up my hand. “Excuse me, but that reminds me! When we’re done here, I wonder if I might use your telephone…”
The man seemed puzzled. “Er, we don’t have telephone service here. It’s rather primitive, I’m afraid.” Now it was my turn to be puzzled. A different man, staring without real focus, spoke up as the priest sat down in deference.
“We hear you are well studied in ja… ja… genetics. Is that right?”
Who could they have been talking with? And overnight?
“Well, my field is more general than that, though I do know a bit about genetics, but I’m afraid my focus is on aquatic and marine animals. I confess, I am interested in knowing about your unique… heritage here in Innsmouth. I hope that is not offensive to you…”
A third man spoke up, his voice struggling and gurgling in a sickening way. He spoke as if unaccustomed to speaking, though not unfamiliar with the language. Not exactly a foreigner, but a stranger in some more profound sense.
“No, no, Mr. Stanley! We are quite pleased. Your arrival here is fortuitous. We would much appreciate your help.”
“I, I’m not a licensed physician…”
“But you are a man of science, no? I believe we can offer you a unique opportunity to plumb the depths. Of your interest.”
Needless to say, I was immediately and thoroughly intrigued. And I told them so. I knew I was stumbling through a door to the unknown, but was that not ever the case with pioneering science?
In the days that followed, they promised, an amazing new world would be opened to me. The secrecy, even the paranoia, of Innsmouth was well known. What could account for this astonishing reversal? Here I was, a virtual unknown to the Innsmouth elders, and they took me into their utmost confidence. I quickly learned that there was ample reason for this exceptional treatment. Though they pledged to initiate me into wonders undreamt of by the common run of mankind, I must swear never to reveal any of it afterward. I readily assented, even though it meant a significant sacrifice. I was to be vouchsafed a momentous scientific revelation that would otherwise afford me professional notoriety. But it was better to gain knowledge that I must keep to myself than to remain ignorant.
After a round of strangely damp and flaccid handshakes, looking into unblinking and almost expressionless faces, I sat down to breakfast over heaping platters of kippers (I think) and some sort of batter-dipped crustaceans. There was nothing offensive or distasteful about this fare, but it did seem a slightly odd menu. There was neither coffee nor milk. No fruit juice, either. Just pitchers of water, water with a faint tang. The rubbery-faced gentlemen seemed about as animated as they could get, for their business was urgent. Let me summarize.
It seemed that the clannish inhabitants of this shunned and isolated fishing village were indeed a unique population, hybrids or mutants. Just looking at them made that clear. And this is why the subsequent disclosures were not as shocking as one might have expected. The facts were undeniably tangible before me, so that, once forthcoming, their explanation struck me as less of a mystery than a resolution of one. Thus can even wonders unimaginable be rendered almost anticlimactic. And that is a good thing.
The old men held a firm belief that sounded to me like any one of a hundred origin myths one might find repeated around the campfires of primitive tribes. It was surprising to hear it from the lips of these modern men, however strange in manner and appearance. They held as scientific fact that, only a few generations ago, their forbears had interbred with roughly human intruders from the ocean depths off Polynesia whose kindred then followed the mariners home and commenced wholesale intermingling. Of course, I recognized these tales, which I mentioned earlier. I had regarded them as the derogatory slurs of fearful outsiders, and it surprised me to hear the same thing from the objects of that mockery. And yet something extremely unusual certainly lurked in the genetic past of Innsmouth. And then there were those hypothetical sea-apes—who were starting to seem less hypothetical all the time.
The Innsmouthers believed themselves direc
tly descended from ichthyic or amphibian creatures, with whom, however, their human forbears should never have been reproductively compatible. There was yet more to it, for which they did not yet think me ready, but the basic problem was that the unnatural intercourse between the two species, while viable and fruitful for several generations, had gradually run dry. Innsmouth females (they did not use the word “women”) could no longer bear young. In fact, the original interbreeding “experiment” had been necessitated because the original, unmixed “Deep Ones” had mysteriously lost the ability to procreate. Some unknown factor (I guessed pollution of the oceans from the surface world) had rendered the females of the species barren en masse. Thus the fish-men sought out the women of Innsmouth in a desperate bid to perpetuate their threatened species. What else had they to gain?
In short, they hoped I might find some way to reinvigorate the Innsmouth genome. And to this end they promised to put all their resources at my disposal. Silently I mused: what resources could they be talking about, given the primitive destitution of the town?
The group arose as one and beckoned me to follow. We entered the nave of the unlit church, then paced up the carpeted steps to the chancel. Behind the altar table was concealed a trap door. I thought momentarily of the panel door that opened to the attic in my family’s home. We used to store the boxed-up Christmas ornaments up there. I wondered what secrets awaited us down the stone steps now revealed.
My strange new friends and I descended by the wavering light of a greenish flame far below us. I could not tell how old the architecture was. Parts of the walls bore chipped rows of glyphs, others featuring bas relief murals swarming with eerily life-like aquatic creatures, though none that I recognized from any conventional zoology or mythology. We plodded on in hushed silence.
I suppose I half-expected eventually to come upon some cobwebbed alchemist’s den. The sight that greeted my light-startled eyes was instead a modern scientific facility complete with glittering instrument banks and shiny steel lab tables and gurneys. At once I knew where the wealth of Innsmouth had been directed. I gaped for a few moments, then took tentative steps around the vast chamber, examining the equipment. Finally I turned to the waiting committee.
A Mythos Grimmly Page 20