What October Brings Read online

  When I first arrived in town, like everyone I suppose, I began hunting for the “Innsmouth Look” in the faces of the inhabitants—traces of a batrachian ancestry, beasts from the sea and their hybrid offspring. But it soon became clear that the majority of the modern population came from somewhere else. There is plenty of work here now. Innsmouth is up there with Salem and Arkham as a tourist destination. There’s a huge welcome sign on the main road in, sporting a cheerful fish man waving at new arrivals with webbed hands, claiming “Welcome to the Darkest Corner of New England”. I forced myself not to buy a luridly-green, batrachian plushie thing from the gift shop I passed, even though I could imagine the toy sitting on my work station and how well it would go with my other fetishes. But regardless of the kitsch appeal, I felt it was more of an abomination than anything that might have happened here in the past. Yet despite the gift shop and the welcome sign, the place is still recognisable as the town that fell to ruin early in the twentieth century. The famous old landmarks remain, even if a couple more cafés have been added to the main square. The Gilman House Hotel, the largest hostelry in town, has been renovated to a state of shabby chic—it’s now fit to house guests. Those who run Innsmouth must be aware that the greater part of the town’s allure—and therefore their livelihoods—derives from what it was and that must not be obliterated.

  Of course, I had to stay at The Gilman House. Even though other guest houses in the area had interesting names, Obed’s Rest, Sumatry and Eliza Orne’s Cottage, I doubted the people who worked in them were natives to the area.

  I registered in the lobby, which was hung with plaited ropes of dwarf corn cobs dyed different shades of red, orange and gold. Before the desk was a pile of plump pumpkins carved into grimacing faces.

  When I entered my room, it smelled of spiced soup and candy, undoubtedly courtesy of a seasonally-themed air freshener.

  Now, I gaze out of the window. Innsmouth is quite beautiful in the light of the fading day. I wish, though, I was closer to the sea. I’ll eat dinner in the hotel, and afterwards will take my initial steps into the town, without baggage; the true start of my exploration. I prefer to absorb the atmosphere of a place, attune to it with my senses, before capturing its soul through my camera. Sniper shots on my phone, however, are allowed.

  The Gilman House lies on the Town Square and my first pictures are taken from my window. There’s a fountain in the middle of the square now, with wooden benches around it. Children are playing there. Immense stone fishes with mad eyes vomit water into the wide, sea-shell bowl.

  The old families of Innsmouth were supposed to have died out or been killed, but over the years off-shoots of these lines have appeared from other, often distant places. Perhaps they are charlatans, but they have reclaimed their ancestral homes with the blessing of the town council. They too are now part of the tourist industry, even if their eyes don’t bulge, and they have discernible chins, the necks beneath disappointingly lacking gills.

  According to Olmstead, when he visited this town, he eventually had to escape it, pursued by monstrous inhabitants. I suppose he could have been driven out of town, but surely only because the community was closed, undoubtedly inbred, and resented outsiders poking about. It’s likely many of them had been deformed because of their heritage. Maybe the legendary sea captain Obed Marsh did bring strange ideas back with him from his voyages to Polynesia. But had the inhabitants of Innsmouth bred with fish people? Much as the idea is appealing for someone who loves mystery and strangeness, I don’t think so. I accept it’s possible they worshipped gods of the sea and believed the agents of those gods were fishlike beings that could come onto the land. The Esoteric Order of Dagon, whose temple still stands, was undoubtedly an offshoot of Freemasonry that embraced the new religion Marsh brought to the town. The people believed in it and their town—particularly their fishing—flourished; the power of suggestion is a powerful thing. Believe something hard enough and you can make it true.

  There’s no doubt that something shady went on that inspired the government to raid the town in 1927. The official report claims this was bootlegging and no doubt it was. The bootleggers fought back, and many were killed. Perhaps they hid some of their booty beneath the sea, which accounts for the explosions that allegedly took place near Devil’s Reef.

  There is truth there, I’m sure, but also fantasy and wishful thinking.

  Still, I must open myself to all possibilities and search. I’ll expose myself to the ambience of Innsmouth, sniff out its soul.

  The elegant dining room of the Gilman House Hotel is Edwardian in theme. The staff are quiet yet pleasant. The dinner they bring me is seafood, exquisitely cooked. I wonder what the ghost of Robert Olmstead would think if he was sitting here with me, observing this lovingly reimagined building. It’s easy to picture him there, opposite me. He appears somewhat surly in a shabby dark suit.

  “You see, Robert,” I tell him silently, “all your efforts did no good. The town did not sink into the sea. The notoriety you enhanced has made it this. The food is very good.”

  Remembered as being an ascetic, if not a miserly man, he no doubt disapproves of the luxurious fare.

  I often create invented beings to accompany me on my travels. I see them as tendrils from the deepest pools of my mind that are able to communicate with me. I decide to take this idea of Robert with me on my walks. I’ll allow him to talk to me, see what comes out of my imagination.

  We take the main road across the river, Federal Street, which has the largest bridge. Below us, towards the harbour, the waters throw themselves over the lip of the falls, eager for the sea. The air is full of mist and the perfume of the land—water, wet rock, the tang of salt.

  On the bridge across the Manuxet, which feels flimsy above the rowdy waters, I pause to take in the scene. I take a few shots on my phone, place-markers for the future.

  Robert is uncomfortable, perhaps afraid.

  “It was a long time ago,” I tell him. “Nothing can harm you now, not even memory.”

  It’s recorded that, when he died, Robert Olmstead firmly believed he was living in a palace beneath the ocean, so perhaps my tulpa of him fears the recent changes in Innsmouth more than its history.

  On the other side of the Manuxet, we turn east into River Street and follow this until we reach Water Street and the harbour. Everything looks ancient and faded, but not derelict—a deliberate effect. The tide is in, and the fishing boats rub against one another in the docks. I wonder whether they are still used for fishing or merely for ferrying tourists, perhaps not even that. Along the sea front, there are cafés and fish restaurants, yet more gift shops, and a small maritime museum. There are piles of pumpkins here too, most of them for sale, heaped outside the small shops. Their smell soaks the air, mingling with the aroma of the sea. Seagulls hang in the air, uttering cries that conjure inexorably the boundless summers of childhood. Families stroll up and down the harbour. A child skips by me, wearing a witch’s hat and holding a green balloon with a picture of a fishy face on it.

  In the water, a few heads of corn are bobbing—an accidental spill from a shop crate or a local custom? I photograph the scene on my phone.

  The harbour is constructed around a cup-shaped cape, with the open side to my right. A spit of land can just be discerned across the water. Beyond that, the ocean will be wild, untamed, unlike this waterfront calm. Perhaps the far side will be more like the original Innsmouth. As I stare at it, the place exudes a greater sense of desolation.

  As the night draws in and the temperature drops, a grey veil of mist rises from the prowling sea, but I think I can just about make out the dark smudges of the reef emerging from the far waters to the northeast of the cape, the smash of waves against them.

  Robert is being stubborn. When I invite him to talk all he can repeat in my head is “I cannot be made to shoot myself.”

  Perhaps I should discard him as a companion fo
r a while.

  Leaving him to mutter at the water, I head back across the bridge towards the old wharfs, which are picturesquely decayed. A mass of brightly-painted small boats cluster around them, rising and falling restlessly on the high tide, like gulls waiting to be fed. But then I see they are chained together and held to the land with locks and keys. According to a painted sign on the boardwalk, again with cartoon representations of cheery fish people, these vessels can be hired by tourists. In addition, organised trips in larger boats will ferry people out to Devil Reef, where you may peer into the waves and hope to see something scary peering back. I might go there tomorrow.

  I find the wharfs beautiful. They have not been overly “prettified” and their sagging boards feel restful rather than an unsettling reminder of inevitable decay.

  I wander along the boardwalk, soaking up the atmosphere, taking a few shots on the phone now and again. There are few other people here, as most tourists no doubt prefer the attractions of the harbour and the centre of town.

  Eventually the boardwalk sinks into gritty sand, tufted with coarse dune grass. There is a strong salty smell. The twilight comes down and I see there is a figure at the water’s edge. It wears a long bulky coat and appears to be poking around in the rock pools. This person is awkward somehow, their movements those of a self-conscious teenager not yet at home in their skin.

  The figure pauses as I approach, and I sense within them an urge to flee.

  “Hi,” I say—not too enthusiastically, hardly more than a sigh, really.

  I see it’s a woman before me; as yet I can’t determine her age, but she doesn’t feel old to me. She grunts and sidles away. All I see is the gleam of an eye through the lank dark hair that hangs over her face. She’s different. She’s wary. What’s she doing out here?

  “Do you live here?” I ask her.

  She straightens up and stares at me. She has huge round eyes in a long face, but her jaw is firm and well-sculpted, her lips somewhat thin. She is young, perhaps in her early twenties. She doesn’t have the “look”, as it’s described, yet to me she’s… other. Her long coat hangs open revealing a fisherman’s jumper and trousers tucked into waterproof boots. She carries over her arm a basket filled with shells and stones. “What do you want?” she says in a heavy accent that has a foreign lilt to it.

  “I’m a photographer, and I’d like to take your picture.”

  She coughs out a short laugh then. She knows my sort, doesn’t have to say so. She’s not conventionally photogenic, so my reasons for capturing her must be voyeuristic in a sense other than sexual. Freak.

  But she’s not hideous. If anything, she’s striking: her long hair drifting like strands of seaweed on the breeze, her gaze steady and dark. I can see her in a picture and it would be a good one. It wouldn’t be a picture of a freak.

  “My name is Maisie Horne.” I fish out a card from my jacket pocket. It’s turned to felt at the edges from living in my coat too long, but I hold it out to her.

  She looks at it without moving.

  “When I photograph a place, I seek its inner life, its soul, if you like. I look for interesting people who have stories in their faces…”

  I trail off. It sounds ridiculous.

  The woman takes the card from me, holds it close to her eyes to study it. “Do you pay?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I answer at once, even though my funds aren’t that healthy at the moment.”I pay twenty-five dollars for a few shots.”

  She sniffs. “Fifty. Take it or leave it.”

  I can tell she won’t negotiate, but the price is still cheap, of course. I nod. “OK. I can stretch to that if you give me a full hour. Tomorrow?”

  She puts my card in her pocket. “Has to be morning. Early. Around seven. Have things to do.”

  “That’s fine.” I pause. “Would you let me have your name?”

  “Kezia.”

  I’m itching to point my phone at her, but sense this is not part of our agreement; it would seem too eager.

  “I’m staying at The Gilman. Would you meet me there?”

  “I’ll be outside at seven,” she says and turns her back to me.

  I stand there for some moments, because although our scene has ended, we’re both still standing in it. It’s awkward. I’ll go and look for Robert. “Goodbye,” I say, but she doesn’t respond.

  I find Robert sitting on a memorial bench at the harbour. He’s staring moodily out to sea. I’ve seen photos from his medical records, but the man before me now is shape-shifting, perhaps becoming more like what I find interesting rather than what he really was. He’s dark, ascetic-looking, but attractive in a gaunt, Gothic way. No one would believe his anguished stories. He’s tragic.

  “Let’s go back to the Hotel,” I say to him. “You must sit downstairs in the bar alone, but you have plenty of money and can drink there.”

  When I’m creating imaginary people, I try to give them some autonomy, the permission to exist when I’m not there. Whether this is effective or not, I of course have no idea.

  I meet Robert at breakfast. He’s sitting at one of the tables and appears to have been waiting for some time. He’s irritated. I sit down and say good morning. A waitress comes to take my order—no buffet meals here. Today is the Eve of the Hallows, the day when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is reputedly thin. Perhaps this is true. Robert is vivid across the table from me.

  “I’m going to take photographs of a young woman this morning,” I tell him. In my mind, I’m talking aloud, but naturally it’s not advisable to talk to invisible people in public. Our conversations must remain private, silent. “I want you to come with me and tell me what you think about her.”

  Robert doesn’t speak but stares at me, blinks once.

  “I want to believe she’s a descendant of an original inhabitant,” I say. “Perhaps you’ll have more idea about this than me.”

  He shrugs, then says, “Why do you keep me here?”

  “Because you’re a witness. You can help me. I’m here for two days, then you can go.”

  He looks at me with contempt, so I visualise the waitress bringing him a breakfast and he has to eat it. His miserliness won’t allow him to let the food go to waste.

  After our meal, when we go outside, Kezia is standing hunched on the hotel porch, her hands thrust into the pockets of her coat, which hangs open and looks somewhat damp and mildewy, as does the long black woollen dress she wears beneath it. Her feet are encased in workman’s boots. “Can I have my money?” she asks.

  “When I’ve taken the pictures,” I reply, then add, “I need to go to the bank. I have no cash.”

  “Where you want to go?”

  “Well, let’s just walk, shall we? You must know the streets that are least touched by… change.”

  I notice she glances to the side of me, where Robert is standing. For a moment I think she can see him, then realise she must be looking into the hotel lobby, which is no doubt a place she’s never been.

  She jerks her head to indicate I should follow her.

  After calling at the bank, where she waits outside for me, we head down to the waterfront, but not to the harbour. We traverse one of the six bridges across the river into a residential area. There are fewer tourists here, even though a fair percentage of the buildings are now guest houses. The decorations on the doors are traditional—woven dried grasses, elaborate wreaths of foliage and dried fruit, with the inevitable cackling pumpkins squatting on the porches.

  “This town is lucky, in a way,” I say to Kezia. We have walked most of the way in silence, with her only occasionally pointing out areas of interest to me.

  “How do you figure that?” she asks.

  “Well, because of its history, for a long time it was… shunned. This means it wasn’t gutted and mauled by town planners. What remains has been renovated with
at least some dignity or left alone completely. Have you lived here all your life?”

  “It’s my home.”

  “Let’s take some shots here.”

  I position her before the tall, gambrelled buildings of Washington Street, but she doesn’t look comfortable. This isn’t her area; at one time it was affluent, before it was abandoned, and now it’s affluent again. I realise I’m imagining she’s lived here since the 1920s, which is clearly not the case. She’s no ghost, and if she were really that old, she would’ve transformed into a denizen of the sea, as the elderly Innsmouth inhabitants were said to do. “Isn’t that right, Robert?” I ask silently.

  “That’s what happened,” he says. He’s oddly unmoved by Kezia. I was hoping for fear, surprise… something.

  “If you were to be photographed in the place you felt you most belonged, where would it be?” I ask her.

  “Out by the sea,” she says.

  “The wharfs?”

  “The place I love is the far side of the cape. It’s wild. No one goes there.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I say.

  “It’s a long walk.”

  “That’s OK.”

  On the way, I take pictures of the houses and occasional shots of Kezia when she’s not aware. She feels increasingly to me like a teenager who wants to appear rebellious or different. She’s not told me her surname and I realise I’m not going to ask for it; I’ll imagine it’s Marsh, Waite or Eliot, or another belonging to one of the old families, not a name from somewhere else, somewhere new.

  We walk down Martin Street towards the sea and eventually come to Water Street, which follows the harbour all the way round the inner rim of the cape. Gradually the buildings become fewer and shops and cafes are no longer to be seen. As we reach the farthest side, the quays are more widely-spaced, and the boats moored there are mostly dilapidated. Sheds huddle in exhausted groups. A cold wind blows over the land, which is flat and sandy, but for the rise of dunes on the seaward side, and covered in a dry kind of grass that is almost colourless. The only trees are bent and spiny like hunched crones, maledictory branches pointing like fingers. Water Street persists, but is now a sodden boardwalk, occasionally covered by sand. Bleached wooden picket fencing staggers beside it, almost upright in places, but mostly fallen, with grass growing over it.