Innsmouth Nightmares Read online

  Sea water.

  We descended into the cellar. It lay below the waterline. The bodies had been carted away to the morgue, though the sheriff was vague on the details. Truman’s request to see them was rebuffed, albeit politely. The blood had been soaked by rags and washed away. The room smelled of brine. In the center stood the black stone.

  “Ah, yes,” Truman said, casually—too casually. I saw his eyes drawn almost reluctantly to the stone. It was made of some volcanic rock, roughly hewed, a head shorter than Truman was. When I touched it, the surface felt warm. When I squinted, I thought I could make out tiny, faded inscriptions, in some unknown script, etched into the face of the stone.

  “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu!” Truman said. “R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

  The sheriff turned his head sharply. Truman was transfixed on the spot, his eyes fixated horribly on the faded, ancient inscriptions. His lips moved now without sound and a white foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. “Truman!”

  He collapsed soundlessly at the base of the rock before I could reach him. He lay there, a small, pathetic figure, like a rag doll thrown down in a fit of rage. “Truman!” We knelt beside him, the sheriff and I. Truman didn’t stir. I felt the warmth of the rock beside us like something alive, breathing. Its presence seemed to fill the room. And it made me think of eggs, of reptilian things hatching in cold blood.

  “Truman? Truman, wake up!”

  His eyes opened, but they didn’t see me. They were blinded to the day, saw into a dark chasm I could not picture. “The family,” he said. Whispered. His voice was hoarse. I felt his hand trembling in mine. I looked at the sheriff. We had to get Truman out of there. “They weren’t murdered,” Truman said. “They were sacrificed.”

  And with that he sank back into unconsciousness.

  4.

  In my dream that night, the water of the harbor rose and continued to rise. A gibbous moon shone down on wet flagstones, on green moss that undulated in an unseen current, as though the town were already underwater. Shapes came out of the sea and into the town. They came not with stealth but with a mastery, as though it were already theirs: as though it had been theirs all along. I stood at the window and watched them, and I saw Truman step out of the doors of the hotel and come to greet them. I felt an overwhelming need to rush out to him, to take his hand, the way I had when we were children, to lead him away to safety. Dagon, Dagon. All is water. In my dream I heard the call of the deep, where dread Cthulhu lies dreaming. And I saw Truman look up at my window, and smile.

  5.

  Days, weeks had gone by. We spent mornings interviewing those few residents who would talk to us, nights dining alone in the hotel served by the taciturn Gilman. No other visitors, no other journalists. For all intents and purposes Innsmouth did not exist beyond itself.

  After the incident in the cellar, the sheriff avoided us. We assumed he was in on the conspiracy. One day we rowed out to Devil Reef. It was a cold evil day. The water choppy. Truman threw up into the water. When I peered over the rim of the boat, I imagined lizard-like creatures lurking down below, watching us with huge deformed eyes. I wondered about the origin of our myth of the mermaids and shuddered. When we reached the reef, we saw the remnants of fires, ash still warm, but nothing else. Truman’s eyes shining so brightly. Fevered. I begged him to leave. We would not solve this murder. Begged him to go back to New York, to his real career. Begged him to write another novel. He dismissed me with a shrug.

  My own novel was taking bizarre and unexpected turns. Boo Radley performing obscene rituals behind the closed doors of his house. Jem found a severed hand on Miss Maudie’s porch. When the kids went into the forest beyond the town they found the drunk, Bob Ewell, sacrificed upon a stone altar, his blood drained on the ground, his naked face open in a savage grin. The church ladies gathered to talk of missionary work in the South Seas, but their talk disturbed Scout, and they were no longer Baptists but members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. My novel was fragmenting before my eyes, had become a Gothic romance out of the pulps. My dreams were filled with grotesqueries and stagnant water.

  More and more, too, we became aware of a shadowy man following us at a distance. It began soon after we’d arrived. Perhaps it was when we came out of the cellar that I first noticed him properly. He wore a long coat, a wide-brimmed hat. He watched us from across the street. He followed us when we went on our long, futile rounds. I had the sense he wanted to talk to us, but didn’t dare approach. When I pointed the man out to Truman, his eyes shone with a predatory glint. He’d noticed our shadow, too.

  It became obvious to us the investigation by the sheriff would lead nowhere. Whoever murdered the Marshes was not an outsider, a drifter intent on robbery. It was done by someone who knew them, someone who lived nearby. A townsman. Cables came from The New Yorker, asking where Truman’s copy was. But there was no copy. He had not written a single word in all that time.

  6.

  An old, deformed man, he was.

  We’d cornered him at last. It had taken us weeks. When we did, we came on him unexpectedly from both sides, by the drugstore, startling him. He tried to flee, and when he did, his hat fell off and his elongated skull was revealed. It was bald of all hair, the skin fine and almost translucent. He stopped and faced us, then. He wore a scholar’s glasses, and his mouth had difficulty forming words.

  “You are Robert Olmstead?” Truman said. His voice was kind. The creature—for surely that’s what he was!—looked at us and blinked myopically. “Yes,” he said. “How did you—”

  “It was you who visited Innsmouth in 1927,” Truman said, interrupting him. “And it was you who first contacted the federal authorities regarding the town, resulting in the deadly raid a year later. Is it not so?”

  “Yes!” said the creature. “Yes, it is!”

  “Come,” Truman said. He put his hand to the creature and, a moment later, the creature took it. “Come with me.”

  It was a touching gesture; it had reminded me of the young Truman, when I first met him. He was capable of the deepest of affections, just as he could be devious, cold, ruthless in pursuit of what he most desired. I did not understand that, then. Or perhaps I did, and I lied to myself, unwilling to believe in the ends he pursued. Regardless, that evening, for the first time, there were three of us, not two, dining in the Gilman House. And I have recorded the confession as best I can.

  7.

  Truman (cutting into fish flesh): “I found your diary in the archives of Miskatonic. You did not sign it.”

  Olmstead (sucking bones hungrily—he looked famished): “The Shadow Over Innsmouth? I thought I had destroyed it.”

  Truman: “I understand your memory has…altered, since that time?”

  Olmstead: “The dreams—they were getting worse—for a time all was blank—the call of the deeps—the Deep Ones, you know—him!”

  Truman: “Cthulhu?”

  Olmstead: “Do not say that name!”

  Truman (munching on a crispy bit of skin): “Your uncle, Douglas. He shot himself.”

  Olmstead: “Yes. He was afraid he was going mad. But he knew. Deep down, he knew!”

  Truman: “Your family came from Innsmouth.”

  Olmstead: “Yes. We had intermarried with the Deep Ones. I saw—I saw! Shoggoths, Mr. Capote!”

  “Shoggoths?”

  Olmstead (shivering): “You have not seen them yet, then. In your dreams.”

  Truman: “Who says I see anything?”

  Olmstead (laughing): “You see! You see!”

  Truman: “Tell me about your cousin. He was incarcerated?”

  Olmstead: “Yes. They kept him in a madhouse. But he was not mad. He went farther than me. He was ready.”

  Truman: “You attempted to free him.”

  Olmstead: “Yes.” (laughs). “We traveled together to the town. It had been destroyed! The houses blown open to the wind, the locals scattered or arrested and kept in pens. The government knew—it was my fault—t
hey held them all, they experimented on them!”

  Truman: “What happened?”

  Olmstead: “We came to Devil Reef. We stood upon it and performed the ritual. And they came. Mr. Capote—they came!”

  Truman: “The Deep Ones?”

  Olmstead: “My kin. And they took him, my cousin—yet they left me on the shore!”

  (Olmstead cried bitterly and Truman sucked clean the remains of the fish. I bit into an apple—all I could stomach).

  Truman: “They left you.”

  Olmstead: “Yes.”

  Truman: “And you have been here ever since?”

  Olmstead: “Yes…yes!”

  Truman: “Rejected by the world you craved, too changed for the world you left behind you.”

  Olmstead: “Yes, damn you—yes!”

  Truman: “And then they came back.”

  Olmstead: “Yes.”

  Truman: “The Marshes.”

  Olmstead: “Yes. They came! The town returned. And I am doomed to walk amongst them, hated, despised, but their kin still. They know me.”

  (His look changed, his eyes darting sideways then rapidly flicking in the other direction.)

  Olmstead: “We can still get there. It can still work. I could go—I could take you with me!”

  Truman: “You called to them, didn’t you.”

  Olmstead: “I had to. I had to see Y’ha-nthlei, the city under the sea. I am dying, Mr. Capote. I must go under, must go deep, or I shall perish.”

  Truman: “Is that why you did it?”

  Olmstead: “But I had to, don’t you understand?”

  Truman: “You had to kill them?”

  Olmstead: “Yes. No! I made them free.”

  (The Gilman man came and removed the dishes at this point. We were all silent. He gave Olmstead a look of pure loathing but said nothing. He knew. When he left we resumed).

  Truman: “You killed them. You tied them up and bled them, against the stone.”

  Olmstead: “It is an old foundation stone from R’lyeh. It called to them, to him. Only blood, Mr. Capote. Only blood sings to blood. I killed them, the girl first to stop her screaming, and then the parents, the boy last. He knew. I saw R’lyeh reflected in his eyes as he died. I saw…Please. I can take you with me.”

  Truman: “Tell me how.”

  (End of transcript).

  8.

  “Truman, no!” I said, horrified. “You mustn’t!”

  His eyes shone fever-bright. “I must, Nelle. I must know.”

  “This is madness,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Isn’t that how it always ends? The mind, having stared too long into the dark abyss, finds shelter in insanity. But it is no use, Nelle. I can hear them now. I hear the call of the deeps. They call to me. Who knows, Nelle? Who knows if the Faulks or the Persons—” he was referring to his parents’ families—”were not somehow related to the Marshes of Innsmouth?” His mouth formed a smile though it was absent from his eyes. “I see impossible things, Nelle. A city built of non-Euclidean geometry. A vast shape, tentacular. Eyes like pale moons, rising…”

  “Truman, this man is a murderer!” I said. “He is mad, he would lead you to your doom.”

  “That is a risk I must take.”

  “I won’t allow it!”

  “It is not your decision to make.”

  We were arguing in low voices. Outside, I could hear a murmuring sound, like surf against the shore. The murderer, Olmstead, was standing meekly by the doors, looking out. The Gilman man was nowhere to be seen.

  “Be rational,” I said. “There are no Deep Ones. There is no R’lyeh, no Cthulhu—these are impossible things!”

  “Who is to say what is impossible, Nelle? In a decade or two man might land on the moon. And what would he find, when he got there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “and more to the point, I don’t care. Truman, listen to me!”

  Perhaps I got through to him, then. He smiled like his old self. I said, “Just sleep on it.”

  “All right, Nelle.”

  His meekness should have been my clue, but I was distraught. I saw him to his room. The murderer remained below. I did not find it reassuring. Yet I knew the sheriff would not arrest him, and he would never be convicted of a crime. The town was gripped in the force of a shared delusion. Tomorrow, I vowed, we would leave—leave it and never come back.

  How wrong I was!

  9.

  At night I awoke as though from a dream and into another. The window was open, and a briny wind rattled through the room. The same sound of murmuring, of surf. I went to look.

  As in my first nightmare, the square was full. The townsmen and townswomen stood there as they had before, but this time they were bare-faced. I saw them as they truly were: the hybrid race of humans and aquatic beings, alien, frightening, obscene.

  And yet as I watched, I saw them differently, too. There was something beautiful, vital about the way they moved, and I could sense a deep longing hidden within them, for the sea, for the depths of the ocean. Who is to say what lives miles below the waves? What alien beings, what magic long thought lost, a fable? I watched, without surprise, a small, rotund figure, a scarf wound around his neck, step jauntily from the doors of the hotel. Truman stepped amongst the fish-men of Innsmouth, and they parted silently before him, acknowledging him as one of their own. He had never felt comfortable where he was, was always the outsider. Perhaps here, at last, he had found where he belonged.

  Behind him came the murderer, Olmstead. A sad, pathetic figure, and I saw that he truly was pitiful, that he belonged nowhere: even here he was an outcast. He followed Truman meekly, almost reverentially. He had murdered those people, had sacrificed them, as Truman had claimed. And for what? I thought of the girl, Nancy, and what her aspirations might have been, who she wanted to become and now never could, and a loathing for Olmstead filled me, almost bursting.

  I felt I was in a dream. I remained standing, watching out of the window. Truman passed a street light, and as the light hit him he turned, looked up at my window, and smiled his old boyish smile.

  Together, he and Olmstead went to the water and into a waiting boat. They sailed out to Devil Reef and there, on an ancient stone raised from the deep, Truman cut Olmstead’s throat with an ancient blade on which cuneiform letters unknown to humankind were cruelly etched.

  The murderer’s blood fell down into the sea.

  10.

  It rises. It rises from the waves.

  11.

  In the morning, when I woke up, Truman was gone.

  Afterword

  It has been many years now since I visited Innsmouth. The town is still there, I am told, though it is not much more than a curious ruin, and few dwell there.

  The story of the Marsh family’s murder remained unwritten. The article for The New Yorker was never written, and while Truman’s disappearance caused a national stir, for a time, interest in the mysterious fate of the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, for which he remains best known today, eventually waned.

  As for myself, in the morning, I caught the empty bus out of town. I went to Arkham first, and there boarded a train to New York. I live still in the small apartment in the East Village, and work still as a booking agent for British Airways.

  On my return from Innsmouth, I attempted to continue work on my novel, but To Kill a Mockingbird never again took flight. At last I threw the pages from the window of my apartment, and let them flutter down to the ground below.

  I often wonder if Truman found what he sought. I am still plagued by dreams of the sea and, more and more often now, I, too, hear the call of the deeps. Perhaps he’ll come for me, when the time arrives. I will step out of my apartment block and walk to the riverbank, and there he’ll be, Truman Capote, with that old, mischievous smile. We shall swim out on the Hudson river and to the open sea and, past Liberty, dive down into the black abyss and unimagined miracles, and dwell together once more like we did when we were children.
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  Lavie Tidhar is the author of A Man Lies Dreaming, The Violent Century, and the World Fantasy Award winning Osama. His other works include the Bookman Histories trilogy, several novellas, two collections, and a forthcoming comics mini-series, Adler. He currently lives in London.

  FEAR SUN

  Laird Barron

  Click.

  Wow, this is exciting.

  BOO-ooom! goes the green-black surf against green-black rocks that jut crookedy-wookedy as the teeth of an English grand-uncle of mine. FAH-whoom! Ba-room! go the torpedoes bored into the reef like bullets from God’s six-shooter (in this case a borrowed nuclear submarine). Then the dockside warehouses on stilt legs fold into the churning drink. Fire, smoke, death. On schedule and more to come in act two of Innsmouth’s destruction. Daddy would have a hard-on for this action. Perhaps, in his frigid semi-after life, he does. I bet he does.

  The red light means it’s on, lady. Let’s hurry this along. All hell is breaking loose as you can see on the monitors. You don’t need the gun, I’ll speak into the mike. We’ve never met, but I know who you are and why you’ve come. I like you, chick, you’ve got balls. My advice, run. This won’t lead anywhere pleasant. The Black Dog is loping closer. Gonna bite you, babe. Smoke on the water hides worse. Okay, okay, ease back on the hammer, girlfriend. I’ll satisfy your curiosity even though you’ll be sorry.