The Shadow Over Innsmouth - H. P. Lovecraft (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

Then I would loaf near the fire station in apparent casualness, and fall in with old Zadok after he had started on one of his frequent rambles. The youth had said that he was very restless, seldom sitting around the station for more than an hour or two at a time.

A quart bottle of whiskey was easily, though not cheaply, obtained in the rear of a dingy variety-store just off the Square in Eliot Street The dirty-looking fellow who waited on me had a touch of the staring “Innsmouth look”, but was quite civil in his way; being perhaps used to the custom of such convivial strangers - truckmen, gold-buyers, and the like - as were occasionally in town.

Reentering the Square I saw that luck was with me; for - shuffling out of Paine street around the comer of the Gilman House - I glimpsed nothing less than the tall, lean, tattered form of old Zadok Allen himself. In accordance with my plan, I attracted his attention by brandishing my newly-purchased bottle: and loon realised that he had begun to shuffle wistfully after me as I tinned into Waite Street on my way to the most deserted region I could think of.

I was steering my course by the map the grocery boy had prepared, and was aiming for the wholly abandoned stretch of southern waterfront which I had previously visited. The only people in sight there had been the fishermen on the distant breakwater; and by going a few squares south I could get beyond the range of these, finding a pair of seats on some abandoned wharf and being free to question old Zadok unobserved for an indefinite time. Before I reached Main Street I could hear a faint and wheezy “Hey, Mister!” behind me and I presently allowed the old man to catch up and tab copious pulls from the quart bottle.

I began putting out feelers as we walked amidst the omnipresent desolation and crazily tilted ruins, but found that the aged tongue did not loosen as quickly as I had expected. At length I saw a grass-grown opening toward the sea between crumbling brick walls, with the weedy length of an earth-and-masonry wharf projecting beyond. Piles of moss-covered stones near the water promised tolerable seats, and the scene was sheltered from all possible view by a ruined warehouse on the north. Here, I thought was the ideal place for a long secret colloquy; so I guided my companion down the lane and picked out spots to sit in among the mossy stones. The air of death and desertion was ghoulish, and the smell of fish almost insufferable; but I was resolved to let nothing deter me.

About four hours remained for conversation if I were to catch the eight o’clock coach for Arkham, and I began to dole out more liquor to the ancient tippler; meanwhile eating my own frugal lunch. In my donations I was careful not to overshoot the mark, for I did not wish Zadok’s vinous garrulousness to pass into a stupor, after an hour his furtive taciturnity shewed signs of disappearing, but much to my disappointment he still sidetracked my questions about Innsmouth and its shadow-haunted past. He would babble of current topics, revealing a wide acquaintance with newspapers and a great tendency to philosophise in a sententious village fashion.

Toward the end of the second hour I feared my quart of whiskey would not be enough to produce results, and was wondering whether I had better leave old Zadok and go back for more. Just then, however, chance made the opening which my questions had been unable to make; and the wheezing ancient’s rambling took a turn that caused me to lean forward and listen alertly. My back was toward the fishy-smelling sea, but he was facing it and something or other had caused his wandering gaze to light on the low, distant line of Devil Reef, then showing plainly and almost fascinatingly above the waves. The sight seemed to displease him, for he began a series of weak curses which ended in a confidential whisper and a knowing leer. He bent toward me, took hold of my coat lapel, and hissed out some hints that could not be mistaken,

“Thar’s whar it all begun - that cursed place of all wickedness whar the deep water starts. Gate o’ hell - sheer drop daown to a bottom no saoundin’-line kin tech. Ol’ Cap’n Obed done it - him that faound aout more’n was good fer him in the Saouth Sea islands.

“Everybody was in a bad way them days. Trade fallin’ off, mills losin’ business - even the new ones - an’ the best of our menfolks kilt aprivateerin’ in the War of 1812 or lost with the Elizy brig an’ the Ranger scow - both on ‘em Gilman venters. Obed Marsh he had three ships afloat - brigantine Columby, brig Hefty, an’ barque Sumatry Queen. He was the only one as kep’ on with the East-Injy an’ Pacific trade, though Esdras Martin’s barkentine Malay Bride made a venter as late as twenty-eight.

“Never was nobody like Cap’n Obed - old limb o’ Satan! Heh, heh! I kin mind him a-tellin’ abaout furren parts, an’ callin’ all the folks stupid for goin’ to Christian meetin’ an’ bearin’ their burdns meek an’ lowly. Says they’d orter git better gods like some o’ the folks in the Injies - gods as ud bring ‘em good fishin’ in return for their sacrifices, an’ ud reely answer folks’s prayers.

‘Matt Eliot his fust mate, talked a lot too, only he was again’ folks’s doin’ any heathen things. Told abaout an island east of Othaheite whar they was a lot o’ stone ruins older’n anybody knew anying abaout, kind o’ like them on Ponape, in the Carolines, but with carven’s of faces that looked like the big statues on Easter Island. Thar was a little volcanic island near thar, too, whar they was other ruins with diff’rent carvin’ - ruins all wore away like they’d ben under the sea onct, an’ with picters of awful monsters all over ‘em.

“Wal, Sir, Matt he says the natives anound thar had all the fish they cud ketch, an’ sported bracelets an’ armlets an’ head rigs made aout o’ a queer kind o’ gold an’ covered with picters o’ monsters jest like the ones carved over the ruins on the little island - sorter fish-like frogs or froglike fishes that was drawed in all kinds o’ positions likes they was human bein’s. Nobody cud get aout o’ them whar they got all the stuff, an’ all the other natives wondered haow they managed to find fish in plenty even when the very next island had lean pickin’s. Matt he got to wonderon’ too an’ so did Cap’n Obed. Obed be notices, besides, that lots of the hn’some young folks ud drop aout o’ sight fer good from year to year, an’ that they wan’t many old folks around. Also, he thinks some of the folks looked dinned queer even for Kanakys.

“It took Obed to git the truth aout o’ them heathen. I dun’t know haow he done it, but be begun by tradin’ fer the gold-like things they wore. Ast ‘em whar they come from, an’ ef they cud git more, an’ finally wormed the story aout o’ the old chief - -Walakea, they called him. Nobody but Obed ud ever a believed the old yeller devil, but the Cap’n cud read folks like they was books. Heh, heh! Nobody never believes me naow when I tell ‘em, an’ I dun’t s’pose you will, young feller - though come to look at ye, ye hev kind o’ got them sharp-readin’ eyes like Obed had.”

The old man’s whisper grew fainter, and I found myself shuddering at the terrible and sincere portentousness of his intonation, even though I knew his tale could be nothing but drunken phantasy.

“Wal, Sir, Obed he ‘lart that they’s things on this arth as most folks never heerd about - an’ wouldn’t believe ef they did hear. lt seems these Kanakys was sacrificin’ heaps o’ their young men an’ maidens to some kind o’ god-things that lived under the sea, an’ gittin’ all kinds o’ favour in return. They met the things on the little islet with the queer ruins, an’ it seems them awful picters o’ frog-fish monsters was supposed to be picters o’ these things. Mebbe they was the kind o’ critters as got all the mermaid stories an’ sech started.

They had all kinds a’ cities on the sea-bottom, an’ this island was heaved up from thar. Seem they was some of the things alive in the stone buildin’s when the island come up sudden to the surface, That’s how the Kanakys got wind they was daown thar. Made sign-talk as son as they got over bein’ skeert, an’ pieced up a bargain afore long.

“Them things liked human sacrifices. Had had ‘em ages afore, but lost track o’ the upper world after a time. What they done to the victims I ain’t fer me to say, an’ I guess Obed was’n’t none too sharp abaout askin’. But it was all right with the heathens, because they’d ben havin’ a hard time an’ was desp’rate abaout everything. They give a sarten number o’ young folks to the sea-things twice every year - May-Eve an’ Hallawe’en - reg’lar as cud be. Also give some a’ the carved knick-knacks they made. What the things agreed to give in return was plenty a’ fish - they druv ‘em in from all over the sea - an’ a few gold like things naow an’ then.

“Wal, as I says, the natives met the things on the little volcanic islet - goin’ thar in canoes with the sacrifices et cet’ry, and bringin’ back any of the gold-like jools as was comin’ to ‘em. At fust the things didn’t never go onto the main island, but arter a time they come to want to. Seems they hankered arter mixin’ with the folks, an’ havin’ j’int ceremonies on the big days - May-Eve an’ Hallowe’en. Ye see, they was able to live both in ant aout o’ water - what they call amphibians, I guess. The Kanakys told ‘em as haow folks from the other islands might wanta wipe ‘an out if they got wind o’ their bein’ thar, but they says they dun’t keer much, because they cud wipe aout the hull brood o’ humans ef they was wiliin’ to bother - that is, any as didn’t be, sarten signs sech as was used onct by the lost Old Ones, whoever they was. But not wantin’ to bother, they’d lay low shun anybody visited the island.

“When it come to matin’ with them toad-lookin’ fishes, the Kanakys kind o’ balked, but finally they larnt something as put a new face on the matter. Seems that human folks has got a kind a’ relation to sech water-beasts - that everything alive come aout o’ the water onct an’ only needs a little change to go back agin. Them things told the Kanakys that ef they mixed bloods there’d be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more’n more like the things, till finally they’d take to the water an’ jine the main lot o’ things daown har. An’ this is the important part, young feller - them as turned into fish things an’ went into the water wouldn’t never die. Them things never died excep’ they was kilt violent.

“Wal, Sir, it seems by the time Obed knowed them islanders they was all full o’ fish blood from them deep water things. When they got old an’ begun to shew it, they was kep’ hid until they felt like takin’ to the water an’ quittin’ the place. Some was more teched than others, an’ some never did change quite enough to take