Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

by Stephen Jones

  “Yes, there’s a hotel in Innsmouth—called the Gilman House—but I don’t believe it can amount to much. I wouldn’t advise you to try it. Better stay over here and take the ten o’clock bus tomorrow morning. Then you can get an evening bus there for Arkham at eight o’clock. There was a factory inspector who stopped at the Gilman a couple of years ago, and he had a lot of unpleasant hints about the place. It seems they get a queer crowd there, for this fellow heard voices in other rooms that gave him the shivers. It was foreign talk, but he said the bad thing about it was the kind of voice that sometimes spoke. It sounded so unnatural—slopping-like, he said—that he didn’t dare go to sleep. Just kept dressed and lit out early in the morning. The talk went on most of the night.

  “This man—Casey, his name was—had a lot to say about the old Marsh factory, and what he said fitted in very well with some of the wild stories. The books were in no kind of shape, and the machinery looked old and almost abandoned, as if it hadn’t been run a great deal. The place still used water power from the Lower Falls of the Manuxet. There were only a few employees, and they didn’t seem to be doing much. It made me think, when he told me, about the local rumours that Marsh doesn’t actually make the stuff he sells. Many people say he doesn’t get enough factory supplies to be really running the place, and that he must be importing those queer ornaments from somewhere—heaven knows where. I don’t believe that, though. The Marshes have been selling those outlandish rings and armlets and tiaras and things for nearly a hundred years; and if there were anywhere else where they got ’em, the general public would have found out all about it by this time. Then, too, there’s no shipping or in-bound trucking around Innsmouth that would account for such imports. What does get imported is the queerest kind of glass and rubber trinkets—makes you think of what they used to buy in the old days to trade with savages. But it’s a straight fact that all inspectors run up against queer things at the plant. Twenty odd years ago one of them disappeared at Innsmouth—never heard of again—and I myself knew George Cole, who went insane down there one night, and had to be lugged away by two men from the Danvers asylum, where he is now. He talks of some kind of sound and shrieks things about ‘scaly water-devils’.

  “And that makes me think of another of the old stories—about the black reef off the coast. Devil’s Reef, they call it. It’s almost above water a good part of the time, but at that you could hardly call it a real island. The story is that there’s a whole legion of devils seen sometimes on that reef—sprawled about, or darting in and out of some kind of caves near the top. It’s a rugged, uneven thing, a good bit over a mile out, and sailors used to make great detours just to avoid it. One of the things they had against Captain Marsh was that he used to land on it sometimes when it was fairly dry. Probably the rock formation interested him, but there was talk about his having dealings with demons. That was before the big epidemic of 1846, when over half the people in Innsmouth were carried off. They never did quite figure out what the trouble was, but it was probably some foreign kind of disease brought from China or somewhere by the shipping.

  “Maybe that plague took off the best blood in Innsmouth. Anyway, they’re a doubtful lot now—and there can’t be more than 500 or 600 of them. The rich Marshes are as bad as any. I guess they’re all what people call ‘white trash’ down South—lawless and sly, and full of secret doings. Lobster fishermen, mostly—exporting by truck. Nobody can ever keep track of em, and state school officials and census people have a devil of a time. That’s why I wouldn’t go at night if I were you. I’ve never been there and have no wish to go, but I guess a daytime trip wouldn’t hurt you—even though the people here will advise you not to take it. If you’re just sightseeing, Innsmouth ought to be quite a place for you.”

  And so I spent that evening at the Newburyport Public Library looking up data about Innsmouth. When I had tried to question natives in the shops, the lunch room, and the fire station I had found them even harder to get started than the ticket agent had predicted, and realised that I could not spare the time to overcome their first instinctive reticence. They had a kind of obscure suspiciousness. At the YMCA the clerk merely discouraged my going to such a dismal, decadent place, and the people at the library shewed much the same attitude, holding Innsmouth to be merely an exaggerated case of civic degeneration.

  The Essex County histories on the shelves had very little to say, except that the town was founded in 1643, noted for shipbuilding before the Revolution, a seat of great marine prosperity in the early nineteenth century, and later on a minor factory centre using the Manuxet as power. References to decline were very few, though the significance of the later records was unmistakable. After the Civil War all industrial life centred in the Marsh Refining Company at the Lower Falls, and the marketing of its products formed the only remaining bit of major commerce. There were very few foreigners; mostly Poles and Portuguese on the southern fringe of the town. Local finances were very bad, and but for the Marsh factory the place would have been bankrupt.

  I saw a good many booklets and catalogues and advertising calendars of the Marsh Refining Company in the business department of the library, and began to realise what a striking thing that lone industry was. The jewels and ornaments it sold were of the finest possible artistry and the most extreme originality; so delicately wrought, indeed, that one could not doubt but that handicraft played a large part in at least their final stages of manufacture. Some of the half-tone pictures of them interested me profoundly, for the strangeness and beauty of the designs seemed to my eye indicative of a profound and exotic genius—a genius so spectacular and bizarre that one could not help wondering whence the inspiration had come. It was easy to credit the boast of one of the booklets that this jewellery was a favourite with persons of sophisticated taste, and that several specimens were exhibited in museums of modern craftsmanship.

  Large pieces predominated—armlets, tiaras, and elaborate pendants—but rings and lesser items were numerous. The raised or incised designs—partly conventional and partly with a curious marine motif—were wrought in a style of tremendous distinctiveness and of utter dissimilarity to the art traditions of any race or epoch I knew about. This other-worldly character was emphasised by the oddness of the precious alloy, whose general effect was suggested in several colour-plates. Something about these pictured things fascinated me intensely—almost disproportionately—and I resolved to see as many original specimens as possible both at Innsmouth and in shops and museums elsewhere. Yet there was a distinct element of repulsion mixed with the fascination; proceeding, perhaps, from the evil and silly old legends about the founder of the business which the ticket-agent had told me.

  [P. 17:]

  The door of the Marsh retail office was open, and I walked in with considerable expectancy. The interior was shabby and ill-lighted, but contained a large number of display cases of solid and capable workmanship. A youngish man came forward to meet me, and as I studied his face a fresh wave of disturbance passed over me. He was not unhandsome, but there was something subtly bizarre and aberrant about his features and vocal timbre. I could not stifle a keen sudden aversion, and acquired an unexplained reluctance to seem like any sort of curious investigator. Before I knew it I found myself telling the fellow that I was a jewellery buyer for a Cleveland firm, and preparing myself to shew a merely professional interest in what I should see.

  It was hard, though, to carry out this policy. The clerk switched on more lights and began to lead me from case to case, but when I beheld the glittering marvels before me I could scarcely walk steadily or talk coherently. It took no excessive sensitiveness to beauty to make one literally gasp at the strange, alien loveliness of these opulent objects, and as I gazed fascinatedly I saw how little justice even the colour-plates had done them. Even now I can hardly describe what I saw—though those who own such pieces or have seen them in shops and museums can supply the missing data. The massed effect of so many elaborate examples was what produced my especial f
eeling of awe and unrest. For somehow or other, these singular grotesques and arabesques did not seem to be the product of any earthly handiwork— least of all a factory only a stone’s throw away. The patterns and traceries all hinted of remote spaces and unimaginable abysses, and the aquatic nature of the occasional pictorial items added to the general unearthliness. Some of the fabulous monsters filled me with an uncomfortable sense of dark pseudo-memory which I tried

  [P. 21:]

  the taint and blasphemy of furtive Innsmouth. He, like me, was a normal being outside the pall of decay and normally terrified by it. But because he was so inextricably close to the thing, he had been broken in a way that I was not yet broken.

  Shaking off the hands of the firemen who sought to detain him, the ancient rose to his feet and greeted me as if I were an acquaintance. The grocery youth had told me where most of Uncle Zadok’s liquor was obtained, and without a word I began leading him in that direction—through the Square and around into Eliot Street. His step was astonishingly brisk for one of his age and bibulousness, and I marvelled at the original strength of his constitution. My haste to leave Innsmouth had abated for the moment, and I felt instead a queer curiosity to dip into this mumbling patriarch’s chaotic store of extravagant myth.

  When we had brought a quart of whiskey in the rear of a dismal variety store, I led Uncle Zadok along South Street to the utterly abandoned section of the waterfront, and still farther southward to a point where even the fishermen on the distant breakwater could not see us, where I knew we could talk undisturbed. For some reason or other he seemed to dislike this arrangement—casting nervous glances out to sea in the direction of Devil Reef—but the lure of the whiskey was too strong for him to resist. After we had found a seat on the edge of a rotting wharf I gave him a pull at the bottle and waited for it to take effect. Naturally I graduated the doses very carefully, for I did not wish the old man’s loquacity to turn into a stupor. As he grew more mellow, I began to venture some remarks and inquiries about Innsmouth, and was really startled by the terrible and sincere portentousness of his lowered voice. He did not seem as crazy as his wild tales would indicate, and I found myself shuddering even when I could not believe his fantastic inventions. I hardly wondered at the naive credulity of superstitious Father Iwanicki.

  THE QUEST FOR Y’HA-NTHLEI

  by JOHN GLASBY

  IN THE AUTUMN of 1927, the United States Federal Authorities were approached by Professor Derby of Miskatonic University concerning certain incidents occurring in the seaport town of Innsmouth as told to him by a Robert Olmstead. It had been known for some time that a trade in gold articles existed between Innsmouth and the neighbouring towns of Arkham, Rowley and Ipswich, such items occasionally turning up as far afield as Boston.

  However, Olmstead further claimed that illegal immigrants were also present in the town, that a large number of murders had been committed and several people known to have visited Innsmouth had unaccountably disappeared, leaving no clues as to their vanishing.

  Acting on this information, two Federal investigators were sent to Innsmouth to look into these claims. When neither man returned, it was decided that an armed raid was to be organised to determine the truth behind the stories of smuggling, murder and the disappearance of a number of individuals.

  What happened in February 1928 was never released to the public. The testimony of three agents who accompanied this force into Innsmouth, given in three official reports, has been kept under lock and key on the orders of the Federal authorities. All subsequent inquiries as to the contents of these reports have been met with the same answer. There never were such documents, the raid was merely to arrest certain individuals for tax evasion, and any suggestions to the contrary are simply pure invention and speculation on the part of the newspapers of that time.

  Until now, it has proved impossible to establish whether such reports do indeed exist and, if they do, what is set down in them. The account that follows is based upon photographic copies of the TOP SECRET documents, which have lain in the archives of the Federal Building for more than seventy years.

  How they come to be in my possession is not only irrelevant but also highly dangerous for certain individuals, including myself. Likewise, the name of the person who obtained them must be protected since, were it to become known, he would certainly face a long period of imprisonment or, like those in Innsmouth, simply vanish off the face of the Earth.

  It is true that the events described herein occurred more than half a century ago, that they are so bizarre that few will believe them, and that others will describe them as a deliberate hoax. Yet all were written within two weeks of the raid on Innsmouth by sober, competent agents, all of whom were warned of dire consequences should they speak about the incident to any member of the public.

  The decision to publish them now, more than seventy years after the event, has been taken because it is deemed essential that the world should be aware of the lurking horror that may, at any time, emerge and overwhelm mankind.

  I

  NARRATIVE OF FEDERAL AGENT JAMES P. CURRAN: FEBRUARY 27, 1928

  My first acquaintance with Innsmouth was in early January, 1928. Prior to that I had never heard of the town, nor could I find it marked on any map or listed in any gazetteer. My superiors had instructed me to accompany a colleague, Andrew McAlpine, from the Treasury Department, to Arkham where we were to question a certain Robert Olmstead who wished to give specific information concerning the town.

  The drive from Boston to Arkham took the best part of an hour and, with McAlpine at the wheel. I spent the time going through the file that had been given to us. Apparently, Innsmouth was a small seaport town on the north coast of Massachusetts, isolated from, and shunned, by its neighbours. Once a flourishing port, it had decayed and degenerated over the last half century and was now a backward community which kept itself to itself.

  Rumours concerning Innsmouth were legion. There were reports of smuggling and the importation of certain natives from some island in the South Seas during the mid-19th century, presumably part of the slave trade. There was certainly a small, but significant, trade in gold items for many of these pieces were on show in Arkham, most of them produced at the Marsh refinery situated on the banks of the Manuxet River.

  Reports of murder and unexplained disappearances were also catalogued in the file, although whether these were on the scale believed by residents in Arkham and Rowley had not been verified. More recently, during the preceding autumn, two agents from the Treasury Department had been sent to Innsmouth to report on tax evasions and possible contraband passing through the town. Neither agent had returned and this had brought things to a head as far as the Federal authorities were concerned.

  The decision to raid the town had been taken at the highest level and a date set for February. Very little accurate information on conditions inside the town was available. However, an urgent telephone call to the Bureau from Professor Derby of Miskatonic University had resulted in our being ordered to go to the Federal office in Arkham, to interview Robert Olmstead, who claimed to have recently escaped from Innsmouth and who had important information for us.

  Olmstead turned up at the office a little after 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. He wasn’t at all what I had expected. Approximately twenty years old, he gave an address in Cleveland and my first question was why he had travelled such a distance just to visit Innsmouth.

  Initially, he seemed oddly evasive and kept fidgeting in his chair for a full two minutes before replying. The gist of his response was that he was attempting to trace his ancestral history back to Arkham and had discovered that, prior to moving there, his maternal family had originally come from nearby Innsmouth.

  “Are you aware that Innsmouth has been under close surveillance by the Federal authorities for some months?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I know nothing about that,” he declared. “My only reason for going there was to trace any of my maternal relatives who might still be li
ving in Innsmouth.”

  “Then if that was your only reason,” McAlpine put in, “why did you have to flee for your life as Professor Derby has informed us?”

  I could tell at once that Olmstead was hiding something from us; that something had happened there which he either didn’t want to tell us, or was sure we wouldn’t believe.

  Then he cleared his throat nervously. “I spoke with one of the inhabitants, Zadok Allen, who told me things about Innsmouth which the townsfolk don’t want the outside world to know. He warned me that if they suspected I’d spoken to him, they’d kill me rather than let any of this information get out.”

  “Then I think you’d better tell us what you know,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t believe a word of it,” he muttered.

  “Try us,” McAlpine said.

  Moistening his lips, he went on. “First you have to know there are no religious denominations left in Innsmouth except for one. All of the others were shut down sixty years ago by Obed Marsh who ran the town then. Seemingly, he brought back some pagan religion from some island in the South Pacific, along with a large number of natives. Now they’re all members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.”