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  PRAISE FOR SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH

  “If you love Lovecraft then this anthology is a must have. Story after story presents you with situations and characters that Lovecraft himself could have created. I’m hard pressed to think of another effort that stays so true to the original.”

  SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE

  “To readers who are already Lovecraft fans I can recommend it unreservedly. To anyone less familiar with his work I would still recommend it as being a first-rate collection which showcases a number of considerable talents and at the same time provides an introduction to one of the greatest of fantasy genres.”

  BRUM GROUP NEWS

  “Shadows Over Innsmouth is a very strong anthology, buttressed by some outstanding art by Dave Carson, Martin McKenna and Jim Pitts”

  THE SCREAM FACTORY

  “British horror abounds in Shadows Over Innsmouth... Three British illustrators have also provided aptly ghoulish drawings.”

  PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

  “The individual authors have been free to employ a wide variety of approaches.”

  NECROFILE

  “Fans of Lovecraft’s Mythos will enjoy the stories.”

  SF SITE

  “Shadows Over Innsmouth is good, slimy fun.”

  SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

  “A fascinating idea for a horror compilation.”

  LANCASHIRE EVENING PRESS

  “This is an intelligent, witty anthology”

  THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE

  “Lovecraftians will rejoice.”

  BOOKLIST

  Other macabre collections of Lovecraftian horror available from Titan Books

  BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU

  Coming Soon From Titan Books

  WEIRD SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH

  BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU, VOLUME TWO

  ACOLYTES OF CTHULHU

  THE MADNESS OF CTHULHU

  SHADOWS OVER

  INNSMOUTH

  SHADOWS OVER

  INNSMOUTH

  Edited by STEPHEN JONES

  Illustrated by

  DAVE CARSON

  MARTIN McKENNA

  JIM PITTS

  TITAN BOOKS

  SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781165287 • E-book edition ISBN: 9781781165317

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan Books edition: September 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Stephen Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Copyright © 1994, 2013 by Stephen Jones

  Original hardcover edition published 1994 by Fedogan & Bremer

  Illustrations © 1994, 2013 by Dave Carson, Martin McKenna, and Jim Pitts

  ‘Introduction: Spawn of the Deep Ones’ copyright © Stephen Jones 1994, 2013.

  ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ originally published in The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Visionary Publishing Co., 1936).

  ‘Beyond the Reef’ copyright © Basil Copper 1994.

  ‘The Big Fish’ copyright © Jack Yeovil 1993. Originally published in Interzone No.76, October 1993 (as by Kim Newman). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘Return to Innsmouth’ copyright © Guy N. Smith Associates 1992. Originally published in Reminiscon 40 Souvenir Programme. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘The Crossing’ copyright © Adrian Cole 1994, 2013.

  ‘Down to the Boots’ copyright © D.F. Lewis 1989. Originally published in Dagon No.26, October-December 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘The Church in High Street’ copyright © Ramsey Campbell 1962. Originally published in Dark Mind, Dark Heart (as by J. Ramsey Campbell). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘Innsmouth Gold’ copyright © David A. Sutton 1994.

  ‘Daoine Domhain’ copyright © Peter Tremayne 1993. Originally published in Aisling and Other Irish Tales of Terror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘A Quarter to Three’ copyright © Kim Newman 1988. Originally published in Fear No.2, September-October 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘The Tomb of Priscus’ copyright © Brian Mooney 1994.

  ‘The Innsmouth Heritage’ copyright © Brian Stableford 1992. Originally published in The Innsmouth Heritage. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘The Homecoming’ copyright © Nicholas Royle 1994.

  ‘Deepnet’ copyright © David Langford 1994. Originally published in Irrational Numbers. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘To See the Sea’ copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 1994.

  ‘Dagon’s Bell’ copyright © Brian Lumley 1988. Originally published in Weirdbook No.23/24, 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  ‘Only the End of the World Again’ copyright © Neil Gaiman 1994.

  ‘Afterwords: Contributors’ Notes’ copyright © Stephen Jones 1994, 2013.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For

  JIM, DAVE, and MARTIN

  who give form to our dreams, and substance to our nightmares

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction

  SPAWN OF THE DEEP ONES

  by Stephen Jones

  THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

  by H.P. Lovecraft

  BEYOND THE REEF

  by Basil Copper

  THE BIG FISH

  by Jack Yeovil

  RETURN TO INNSMOUTH

  by Guy N. Smith

  THE CROSSING

  by Adrian Cole

  DOWN TO THE BOOTS

  by D.F. Lewis

  THE CHURCH IN HIGH STREET

  by Ramsey Campbell

  INNSMOUTH GOLD

  by David A. Sutton

  DAOINE DOMHAIN

  by Peter Tremayne

  A QUARTER TO THREE

  by Kim Newman

  THE TOMB OF PRISCUS

  by Brian Mooney

  THE INNSMOUTH HERITAGE

  by Brian Stableford

  THE HOMECOMING

  by Nicholas Royle

  DEEPNET

  by David Langford

  TO SEE THE SEA

  by Michael Marshall Smith

  DAGON’S BELL

  by Brian Lumley

  ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD AGAIN

  by Neil Gaiman

  Afterword

  CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  SPAWN OF THE DEEP ONES

  HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT is probably the most important and influential author of modern supernatural fiction. Lovecraft was born in 1890 and was a life-long resident of Providence, Rhode Island, until his untimely death in 1937. Lovecraft’s poems, essays and infrequent fiction received popular acclaim in the amateur press and through such pulp magazines as Weird Tales and Astounding Stories.

  Many of his tales are set in the cosmic vistas that exi
st beyond time and space or in the fear-haunted towns of an imaginary area of Massachusetts. ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ is indicative of the latter.

  An integral part of several loosely connected stories that have since become identified as the “Cthulhu Mythos” (named after one of the gods of Lovecraft’s eldritch pantheon), ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ was written in 1931 and, at some 26,000 words, is one of the author’s longest works.

  The story re-introduces the reader to the decaying coastal town of Innsmouth (first mentioned in Lovecraft’s early short tale ‘Celephais’), founded by merchant captain Obed Marsh who, in the 1840s, brought back a strange wife from the South Seas with a peculiarly fishy look. It is revealed that the Marshes intermarried with an ocean-dwelling race of humanoid beings called the Deep Ones, creating a species of batrachian hybrids, and the once-prosperous New England seaport has been gradually undermined by a decadent cult called The Esoteric Order of Dagon, committed to the service and ultimate resurrection of Great Cthulhu and other dark gods.

  Lovecraft wasn’t particularly pleased with the finished story, and in his usual self-deprecatory manner described it as “my own verbose and doubtful swan-song... as a sort of grand finale to my present prose period.”

  Despite the enthusiasm of his literary prodigy, August Derleth, who considered the tale “a dark, brooding story, typical of Lovecraft at his best,” other correspondents were more critical, and the despondent author put the manuscript away and turned to other projects.

  The typescript remained unpublished until 1936, when Lovecraft gave it to William L. Crawford, a friend of his from the United Amateur Press, who was starting his own imprint, the Visionary Publishing Company of Everett, Pennsylvania.

  “Crawford has at last issued my ‘Innsmouth’ as a lousily misprinted and sloppily bound book,” the author complained in a letter. “The printed errata slip doesn’t cover half the mistakes.”

  Crawford produced 400 copies of The Shadow Over Innsmouth and had half of these bound as a slim book containing four illustrations by Frank A. Utpatel. Initially this volume was sold for $1.00 apiece, but Crawford managed to distribute only about 150 copies before he ran out of money and had to end his short publishing career. The unbound sheets were subsequently destroyed.

  “It did not bring Lovecraft the recognition I hoped it would bring him,” the publisher later admitted.

  Nowadays it’s not surprising that this book is a great rarity amongst collectors of Lovecraftania and commands high prices whenever a copy is occasionally offered for sale.

  The story eventually reached a wider readership in Weird Tales for January 1942. Since then it has been published extensively and is today justly regarded as one of Lovecraft’s finest tales of the macabre.

  During his lifetime, Lovecraft strenuously encouraged other writers to develop themes from the Cthulhu Mythos in their own work, and over the years such authors as Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Stephen King, Frank Belknap Long, Brian Lumley, Clark Ashton Smith and Colin Wilson, to name only a few, have explored and enhanced his original concepts.

  Many diverse hands have individualised ideas to be found in Lovecraft’s fiction, and although a number of these stories have used the Deep Ones and their marvel-shadowed dwelling place, there has never before been an attempt to relate a fictional history of Innsmouth and its ichthyoid denizens.

  Using H.P. Lovecraft’s original novella as inspiration, the all-British contributors to this volume—including established masters of the genre and newer names at the time—depict the dreadful decline of the Massachusetts seaport since the late 1920s: through the war years, the rock ’n’ roll era, and the late 20th century political upheavals in Eastern Europe, into the modern scientific age and beyond.

  In these stories, as the decades pass, Dagon’s spawn spreads out from the American East Coast to cast its shadow over the British Isles and European mainland, while Innsmouth itself undergoes a metamorphosis both startling and unexpected.

  And as strange as these tales may be, trust me when I say that there are more Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth to come...

  Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!

  Stephen Jones,

  London, England

  THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

  by H.P. LOVECRAFT

  I

  DURING THE WINTER of 1927-28, officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting—under suitable precautions—of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Unenquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major dashes in a spasmodic war on liquor.

  Keener news-followers, however, wondered at the prodigious number of arrests, the abnormally large force of men used in making them, and the secrecy surrounding the disposal of the prisoners. No trials, or even definite charges, were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed. Innsmouth itself was left almost depopulated, and is even now only beginning to show signs of a sluggishly revived existence.

  Complaints from many liberal organisations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent. Newspaper men were harder to manage, but seemed largely to co-operate with the government in the end. Only one paper—a tabloid always discounted because of its wild policy—mentioned the deep-diving submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil Reef. That item, gathered by chance in a haunt of sailors, seemed indeed rather far-fetched; since the low, black reef lies a full mile and a half out from Innsmouth Harbour.

  People around the county and in the nearby towns muttered a great deal among themselves, but said very little to the outer world. They had talked about dying and half-deserted Innsmouth for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more hideous than what they had whispered and hinted years before. Many things had taught them secretiveness, and there was now no need to exert pressure on them. Besides, they really knew very little; for wide salt marshes, desolate and unpeopled, keep neighbours off from Innsmouth on the landward side.

  But at last I am going to defy the ban on speech about this thing. Results, I am certain, are so thorough that no public harm save a shock of repulsion could ever accrue from a hinting of what was found by those horrified raiders at Innsmouth. Besides, what was found might possibly have more than one explanation. I do not know just how much of the whole tale has been told even to me, and I have many reasons for not wishing to probe deeper. For my contact with this affair has been closer than that of any other layman, and I have carried away impressions which are yet to drive me to drastic measures.

  It was I who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16, 1927, and whose frightened appeals for government inquiry and action brought on the whole reported episode. I was willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and uncertain; but now that it is an old story, with public interest and curiosity gone, I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumoured and evilly shadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not simply the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind regarding a certain terrible step which lies ahead of me.

  I never heard of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first and—so far—last time. I was celebrating my coming of age by a tour of New England—sightseeing, antiquarian, and geneal
ogical—and had planned to go directly from ancient Newburyport to Arkham, whence my mother’s family was derived. I had no car, but was travelling by train, trolley, and motor-coach, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport they told me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticket-office, when I demurred at the high fare, that I learned about Innsmouth. The stout, shrewd-faced agent, whose speech showed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic toward my efforts at economy, and made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered.

  “You could take that old bus, I suppose,” he said with a certain hesitation, “but it ain’t thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth—you may have heard about that—and so the people don’t like it. Run by an Innsmouth fellow—Joe Sargent—but never gets any custom from here, or Arkham either, I guess. Wonder it keeps running at all. I s’pose it’s cheap enough, but I never see more’n two or three people in it—nobody but those Innsmouth folks. Leaves the Square—front of Hammond’s Drug Store—at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. unless they’ve changed lately. Looks like a terrible rattletrap— I’ve never ben on it.”

  That was the first I ever heard of shadowed Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not shown on common maps or listed in recent guide-books would have interested me, and the agent’s odd manner of allusion roused something like real curiosity. A town able to inspire such dislike in its neighbours, I thought, must be at least rather unusual, and worthy of a tourist’s attention. If it came before Arkham I would stop off there—and so I asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate, and spoke with an air of feeling slightly superior to what he said.

  “Innsmouth? Well, it’s a queer kind of a town down at the mouth of the Manuxet. Used to be almost a city—quite a port before the War of 1812—but all gone to pieces in the last hundred years or so. No railroad now—B&M never went through, and the branch line from Rowley was given up years ago.

  “More empty houses than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of except fishing and lobstering. Everybody trades mostly either here or in Arkham or Ipswich. Once they had quite a few mills, but nothing’s left now except one gold refinery running on the leanest kind of part-time.