by Brian Lumley
My clothes were not wet, but only slightly damp, which told me that I had been out of the water for some time. Nevertheless, I knew that I was not far removed from the sea, for I could still hear the hush, hush of its incursion on the land, though somehow the sound seemed strangely hollow and mechanical, as if I heard it through some amplifying medium, or as if I myself now occupied an enclosed space which gave the sound a metallically amplified ring. The surface on which I lay was not solid: that is to say it had a certain resilience, now stretched almost to its limits by my weight and the additional pressure of whichever appliance held me immobile. In short, I lay upon a fairly wide bed of one sort or another.
Sudden panic gripped me. A bed? It felt more like an operating table, or maybe a couch specially constructed to withstand the furious strength of a madman. And no sooner had this thought occurred to me than I further pictured myself in some sort of cell—a padded cell—in the sanatorium on the beach!
For a few moments I struggled wildly against my bonds, until a sort of cold and calculating calm began to creep over my mind and I forced myself to relax. Patently I was the captive of … someone. Of people or beings of some sort. Or, if not their captive, then … their ward? Inmate of some institute for the mentally deranged? The horrible fact of the matter was that the latter alternative was not at all out of the question. I had seen and experienced things which simply could not be in any sane or ordered universe; I had suffered subconscious hallucinations, nightmares which had carried over into my waking hours; and, finally, I had apparently become the victim or captive of beings which I had believed were born purely of the imaginings of others, themselves deranged.
Or could it be that all my previous conclusions were incorrect? That Sarah Bishop’s story was a wholly true version of the way things were and that her friends and companions at the place on the beach were not mental patients at all but … something else? For surely the mere fact that I could now lie here and attempt some sort of rationalization was adequate proof of my own sanity; and yet, on the other hand, if I were sane how might I explain that living, sentient pile of sludge I had seen on the beach? Whatever other anomalies I might eventually find myself obliged to accept, that thing would never number amongst them!
Then, breaking in on my confused thoughts, from somewhere fairly close at hand there came the low mechanical cough of an engine starting up, followed by its steady purr as muffled pumps began to labour. Seconds later, I heard the gurgling of water and felt a dull vibration that reached me through the surface on which I lay. Before I could consider the meaning of these new sounds or return to my previous train of thought, a light went on immediately above me in the darkness, momentarily blinding me.
I closed my eyes at once, turning my head to one side and peering through shuttered lids until my eyes became accustomed to the glare. A little while later, I could see that I was in … some sort of tank?
A tank, yes, a metal room—a windowless room, the interior of which wore the dull grey sheen of metal—in the walls of which were rounded, protruding heads of rivets and thickly welded seams where panels had been joined. Apart from its cubical structure, the cell might well have been the interior of some great ship’s boiler; plainly it had not been designed to house human beings.
Set flush in the far wall I saw an inlet pipe of at least nine inches in diameter from which, even as I watched, a trickle of water began to enter the tank. Rapidly the flow increased until the water actually gushed from this large inlet. Then, turning my head even further and craning my neck to stare at the metal floor, I saw that the water was filling a sunken area of the tank which was all of four or five feet deeper than the floor space where stood my bed or platform. As of yet, of course, the purpose of the whole set-up completely escaped me, but it seemed unlikely that the intention was to drown me. That could have been achieved earlier and far more easily.
Turning my head in the other direction and avoiding the glare of the single bulb that hung unshaded from the ‘ceiling’, I saw in the nearer wall an oval metal door similar to the type found below decks and between bulkheads in ocean-going vessels. On my side of the door, however, there did not appear to be any mechanism for opening it. A wooden chair stood beside my bed, and in one corner I could see a portable lavatory of the kind used in caravans. Other than these few items the tank was quite bare and empty. The ceiling was perhaps nine feet high (thirteen in the sunken area) and the walls were square in plan, about fifteen feet in length.
Having studied as much as I could of the tank, I next turned my attention to my bonds, and was in the futile process of once more trying my muscles against them when there came a grating sound that drew my eyes back to the oval door. The grating stopped, was followed by a loud clang as of metal against metal, and slowly the door began to open. Well oiled, the hinges were soundless as the heavy door swung inward to reveal—Sargent!
With surprising agility for one who had previously seemed little more than a shambling hulk, the man stepped over the raised portal into the tank. In his hand he carried a heavy flashlight, which he switched off before approaching me where I lay. He blinked his eyes in the glare of the single bulb. Wherever I was, it had to be dark outside. Sargent came closer, nodding, offering me his emotionless smile. Then the not-quite-vacant grin slipped from his face as he tested my bonds and checked to see that I was completely immobilized.
While he was engaged in this task, I took the opportunity to study him closely, looking particularly at his face (especially his eyes) and at his large, rough hands. What it was I sought I could not have said for a certainty at that time. I only knew that somewhere deep within me a seed of apprehension had blossomed into a loathing—a morbid dread—of certain types of human physiognomy.
Sargent had that look, or at least something of it, for in him it did not seem quite … complete. Semple had it, too, but again unfinished. Now my thoughts flashed back to the car park at the top of the cliffs above the club, to the American car which had pulled away as I had arrived with Semple. I saw again the lumpish, shadowy, pallid-faced figures whose round eyes had gazed at me in the moment that their car drove off, and I knew now what it was that had so disturbed me about them.
It was that look which all of these people shared, the one thing above all others that they had in common and which had been carried to the ultimate degree in the monstrous form of the creature that snatched me from the boat! Though I could not have known it then, these characteristics I had come to fear so greatly were known as the “Innsmouth Look”, and they were a stigma born of a primal evil which—
But that is to go ahead of myself…
Apparently satisfied that I was well and truly tied down, Sargent offered me his simpleton’s smile and said: “The doctor is coming, Mr. Vollister. No need to worry. You’re one of the lucky ones.”
Until now, I had been silent, staring at him in a stony fashion, unwilling to display any sign of fear. His words, however incongruous, now broke my dam of silence and I railed at him:
“Doctor? I don’t need a doctor, Sargent. I’m not a patient—I’m a prisoner! No need to worry, you say! And I'm one of the lucky ones, am I? Man, you’ll know what the words lucky and unlucky mean before I’m through. I’ll have the police down on this place quicker than you can say—”
“Police?” he cut me off, that hideous smile disappearing in a moment. “No police, Mr. Vollister. You're with friends.”
“Friends?” I exploded, gritting my teeth as I again strained at my bonds. “Did you say friends, Sargent? What the hell are you? A pack of crazy people—or worse than crazy—to tie me down and lock me in this damned … tank? My friends, you say? When I get out of this place, I'll—”
“No,” again he cut me off, shaking his scraggly head of hair slowly from side to side. “No, you don’t get out, Mr. Vollister. Not for a long time. Before very long you won't want to get out, and that’s best. You’re with friends.”
I stared hard at him, trying to divine his expression, his
meaning, but his face was now completely blank. No, there was an expression of sorts there, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Could it possibly have been—envy? But how might anyone have envied me in my position? I might have questioned him then, or at least attempted to talk to him in a more reasonable manner, but even as I began to consider my approach there came the tread of feet on boards from beyond the oval metal door.
In another moment the darkness outside was slashed by the probing beam of a torch, following which a dark—suited figure appeared at the door, peering into the tank before entering. A squat man, froggish in figure but not (I was happy to note) in feature; his face, head, and hands looked normal, or at least comparatively so. In one hand he carried a bag—a doctor’s bag—and certainly his manner was that of a professional physician.
“Ah, Mr. Vollister,” he said. "We meet again, and sooner than either of us had suspected, eh?” He chuckled, a perfectly normal chuckle, and reached to check the pulse in my wrist. Instinctively, I tried to pull back from him. He paused, pursed his lips, and made tut-tutting sounds. “Nerves, Mr. Vollister?”
I could stand no more of it. “Look,” I almost shouted, “what’s going on here? For God’s sake, what’s it all about? You look normal enough—which is more than I can say for anyone else around here—so can’t we just hold a normal conversation?”
He released my wrist. “Of course we can,” he answered, beaming delightedly and seating himself on the wooden chair. “Indeed, we’ve been waiting until you were more receptive. Now, at last, it seems you want to know about us. Fine! Do you have questions? If so, ask away.”
“All right,” I answered, feeling hysteria rising in me like a wind. “Who the hell are ‘we’, exactly, and what is this place? And for heaven’s sake … I saw something on the beach—something horrible—a Thing! And the shells—those conches in their thousands!” Now I babbled unashamedly and struggled once more to break free of my bonds.
“Am I mad or something?” I yelled. “I don’t understand what’s going on! Is this an asylum or isn’t it? Damn you—damn you all!—what have I done to you? Who the devil are you, anyway?”
While I raved, the “doctor” had taken a hypodermic from his bag. Now he tested it and, as I once more tried to shrink away from him, said: “Calm yourself, Mr. Vollister. All of your questions will be answered … soon. But at the present time you’re simply too excitable. Of one thing, however, you may rest assured, which is that you are among friends. And you are most certainly not mad!” He nodded to Sargent, who came forward and quickly rolled up my sleeve.
I caught my breath as my eyes fixed upon the glinting needle the doctor held. Then I cried: “Keep that filthy thing away from me!”
“A sedative, Mr. Vollister.” He tried to calm me. “Only a sedative. And when you wake up there’ll be someone here to tell you all you want to know.”
“But how? … What? … Who?” I whispered, feeling the sting of the needle as it went home. He leaned closer, and in a matter of seconds his face became blurred and distorted. Through lips already numb I managed to ask: “Who are you?”
“We are your friends,” he answered from a million miles away, his voice echoing down a long, long tunnel. “Your friends, the Deep Ones!”
Whatever the nature of the doctor's “sedative”, its effect could not be denied. And yet it did not produce total unconsciousness in me, merely a sort of drowsy numbness through which I was dimly aware of my surroundings but incapable of any sort of movement or even of constructive thought. On the other hand, my memory was only marginally affected, so that later I was able to recall almost everything of visits made to the tank and of conversations held over me or in my presence.
I especially remembered Sarah coming to see me, but such was the erotic nature of her visit that I later assumed myself to have dreamed that particular episode. It was too absurd, I thought, to be anything other than a dream: that this young woman should come to me, alone, release my fetters and rouse me to a pitch of sexual desire in order to make love to me!—and all this while I was a prisoner, drugged, and only dimly aware of what she was about. Oh, yes, certainly a dream.
Of the other visits, however, I was less certain. There was inherent in them a certain stealth, and to the whispered conversations which accompanied them a sinister element that reached me even through the fog of drug-induced lethargy which deadened my senses and perceptions. I heard the peculiar and distinctive voice of Sarah’s father, together with the unctuous tones of “the doctor”, and felt hands upon me that turned me this way and that while examining me minutely.
During one such discussion I suffered a probing of expert fingers in the region of my neck, following which there was a mention of ‘undeveloped buds’ (which I took to be a reference to the subcutaneous nodules I have had since boyhood, produced by continuous gland troubles in my teens), while an examination of my hands and feet seemed to produce evidence of ‘a retarded but not inconsiderable webbing’.
And that was not all. My eyes were subjected to bright lights and my skin to a certain abrasion—not to mention a series of punctures by needles whose purpose I was incapable even of trying to guess—following which a blood sample was taken and the initial phase of my ordeal was over. Then, over a period of what must have been several hours, slowly my body was allowed to fight off the gradually diminishing effects of whichever drugs I had been subjected to and I was allowed to surface to the grim reality of the tank. Conditions, however, seemed to have improved.
I was naked of clothing now, but warm, dry, and comfortable between clean sheets and beneath soft blankets. My clothes were folded neatly and lay in a small pile at the foot of my bed. The light was on, shaded now, and by its light I saw that Sarah was with me, sitting on the chair beside me.
I looked at her through half-lowered lids, noting the pensive look on her face and the tension in her hands where they held one of mine. She seemed lost in thought and was not aware of my return to consciousness until I withdrew my hand from hers. Whatever her feelings for me, and however real her concern, she was obviously in league with my gaolers and therefore an enemy. Surely she must know that I would reject any pretensions of friendship? If so, then the look of pain which crossed her face as I withdrew my hand was marvellously well feigned.
Then, as I opened my eyes fully to stare at her accusingly, she masked her feelings to ask: “John Vollister, why on earth did you have to precipitate things by coming back here—along the beach and at that time of night?”
“I came to get my shell back,” I lamely answered, finding my throat dry and painful and my voice unexpectedly weak. “And I came to offer my apologies, not only to you but to the others here, and also to … oh, there were reasons enough. But I certainly didn’t expect to be taken prisoner and locked in this place!”
She gave me that curious look of hers. “Why did you really come, John? Because of our argument, our quarrel? Did you come to see me?”
I grunted in answer, unwilling to admit that she had probably hit upon the truth. “That was part of it, I suppose,” I eventually agreed. “I wanted to make sure that you were, well, all right, here. I thought that—”
“That we were all mad?” Her voice, not unkind, was nevertheless full of barely restrained amusement. “Doctor Waite said as much. He also said you had many questions to ask, and that he believed you would now be more receptive to the truth.”
“The truth?” I laughed hoarsely. “But that’s all I’m interested in!”
“John, why don’t you just listen to me,” her tone changed, becoming almost pleading as she again took my hand and squeezed it, “and this time try to accept what you’re told. One way or the other, you will accept it in the end. So far, you’ve incurred no penalties, you owe us no penance, but if you persist in resisting our every—”
“Penance?” I broke in. “Am I some sort of criminal, then? Have I broken the law? Funny, I was feeling more sinned against than sinner! As for my "resistance”: does it really sur
prise you that I object to being kept in captivity?”
She pursed her lips. “Why are you so stubborn? If only you’d listen!”
“I keep listening!” I almost shouted, trying to sit up and discovering that, while my bonds had been removed, my body was now as weak as my voice, far too drained of strength to effect any sudden or violent movement. “I keep listening,” I repeated more quietly, collapsing back on to my pillows, “but nothing I hear makes any sense. Why not just tell me where I fit into all of this—whatever it is you’re doing—without any sort of embroidery?”
“You’ve already been told the truth—” she answered, “or at least the basic facts—if only you would accept them …”
“You mean all of that … all you told me about a subaqueous race of—”
“Amphibious,” she quickly corrected me.
“Right, a race of amphibians, dwelling for the most part in the sea, with their own submarine cities and religions and
“All of that, yes,” she once more broke in. “But listen, John, this is getting us nowhere. I’m not the best qualified person to explain everything. They tried to tell me that before, but I wouldn't listen. David Semple is the expert.”
“Semple? What about him?” I asked, revulsion flooding over me as I thought of the man and of my first impressions of him.
“He’ll be coming to see you after I leave,” she told me, “and you’ll be able to study under him. As to why you’re being kept here—“against your will”, if you insist—it’s simply that we can't afford to let the outside world know too much about us or get the wrong picture of us just yet. And you’ve already seen things you weren’t supposed to know about until much later. In modern jargon, we’re still very much a "minority group”, and we know the sort of opposition we’d be up against. We just can’t afford to let you go running free and perhaps bring all sorts of people down on us. Don’t you see? They would be no more willing to understand, believe, or listen to us than you have been.”