Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

“I’m well aware of that, Agent Tarpey. There’s nothing in my orders about going to the bottom. There are ten torpedoes on board this vessel. Once we reach the designated position, these are to be fired straight down and then we get out of here.”

“How long before we reach that position?” I inquired. The feeling of claustrophobia, which had made itself felt the moment I had come aboard was now beginning to tell on my nerves. A small number of the men also appeared to be similarly affected.

Lowrie checked his watch, holding it close to his eyes in the dim light. “Another twelve minutes,” he said briefly. He called Lieutenant Commander Westlock and gave him orders for the torpedoes to be made ready for firing.

While this was being done, I returned to the periscope. Not that I expected to see anything even though the vessel was now descending slowly, but at a steeper angle than before, into the inky blackness of the abyss.

Yet there was something.

At first, my vision refused to take it in. A wavering phosphorescence far below us. I knew that certain deep sea creatures emitted a fluorescent glow—but what I saw covered a vast area and would have required a shoal of millions of such creatures to produce such an effect. Furthermore, there seemed to be an odd regularity about the masses of palely glimmering light. Although it seemed impossible, to me they held ineffable suggestions of structures utterly unlike anything I had ever seen. Squinting, I struggled to imbue them with some form of normality.

How high those alien configurations loomed above the distant ocean floor, it was impossible even to guess, for the glowing radiance seemed to come only from the lowermost regions. But even this was sufficient to show the sheer alienness of their overall outlines.

Had they been nothing more than amorphous masses, it would not have offended my sense of perspective to such a degree. But there were vast bulbous appendages and oddly truncated cones, which intermeshed in angles bearing no relation to Euclidean geometry and I felt my eyes twist horribly as I tried vainly to assimilate everything in my field of vision.

But even this outrage of nature was not the worst. Just before I removed my eye from the periscope, I saw something black and monstrous outlined against the flickering light of that vast city far below. To describe it as tentacled or winged would be to ignore completely the quintessential horror of that slowly ascending shape. I had seen pictures of giant squids reputed to haunt the midnight depths of the ocean but this was far larger, far more abnormal, to belong to that class of creature.

Hearing my sharp exclamation, Commander Lowrie thrust me hurriedly to one side and took my position at the periscope. Clasping the handles in a white-knuckled grip, he turned it slowly. Then, without moving his head, he barked, “Increase the angle of descent. Ready all torpedoes for immediate firing.”

Once his orders had been carried out, he turned an ashen face in my direction. He seemed to have some difficulty in finding the right words. Finally, he muttered, “What in God’s name is that down there?”

“Y’ha-nthlei, perhaps,” I replied. “I can’t think of anything else. God knows how old that place is. And don’t ask me what that— thing—is. All I know is that it’s coming this way and the sooner we get this over with and surface, the better.”

I could not analyse the reasons for my certitude that whatever that monstrous creature was, we were its target and there was not a moment to be lost if we were to extricate ourselves from this horrible predicament. From what little I had seen, I knew that monstrosity was ten, maybe even twenty, times larger than the submarine and if it succeeded in reaching us, it could drag us down into those alien depths with ease.

In front of me, Lowrie stood, tensed and rigid, at the periscope. I knew he was seeing exactly what I had seen and I firmly believed that the mere sight of that incredible horror might have driven a lesser man over the edge. But he did not flinch. His features set into a mass of grim determination, he waited until he judged the torpedoes would find their mark, then gave the order to fire.

From where we stood, there was little to indicate that the torpedoes were on their way. Five minutes passed with complete silence inside the submarine. Then there came a slight, but distinct, shudder as the detonation waves hit us.

When I stepped forward at Lowrie’s gesture to take my last look through the periscope, I was trembling all over. At first, my eyes refused to focus properly. Sucking in a deep breath, I forced myself to remain calm. Slowly, everything became clear.