Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

He helped Jennifer with the food they’d brought, and the Sewells with their gear—because Mary Sewell weighed at least 250 pounds— and by the time he carried his own things into the cabin, the others were already in the bedrooms, getting set up for the night. What they should do, Reverend Beckford said, was have a bite of something to eat because it was already past five o’clock, and then get busy on what they’d come here for.

There were two bedrooms in the place, along with a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a big front room with a fireplace. The Reverend, Howard Lindsay and Keith had one bedroom; Jennifer and Mary Sewell and Mary’s boy Davey had the other. The beds were cot-size bunks built into the walls.

“Just what are you planning to do here, Reverend?” Keith asked while making up his bed. The Reverend was about fifty years old and easily six-foot-three but so skinny he might disappear through a floor-crack at any minute. A nice fellow, though, except he got so intense about things sometimes.

“Pray,” he said.

“I see.”

“No, you don’t see. But you will, soon as we’ve eaten.”

“There may be other people in some of the cabins along here,” Keith pointed out. “You plan on asking them to pray with us?”

Howard Lindsay said, “Yes, some of my people are out here this weekend. I checked in town before we left.” Lindsay was a broadshouldered, brawny fellow, just the sort you’d expect to want a cabin in a wilderness. The paint factory he owned seemed to make him a good deal of money.

“It’s a bit late to call on people this evening,” the Reverend said. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Keith finished getting his bed ready and went into the kitchen, where Jennifer and fat Mary Sewell—Big Mary, folks called her—were starting supper. They’d brought along food already cooked, Jennifer explained, because they hadn’t known how much free time they might have with all the praying to be done. After lighting the propane stove so they could heat things, Keith turned on the faucet in the sink and reached for a glass to get himself a drink of water.

“Use that,” Big Mary said, pointing to a plastic jug of store-bought water. “Deacon Lindsay says the river water’s clean and we’re crazy, but the way this poor world is headed, you can’t trust nothing any more.”

Keith said okay and drank bottled water and then went out to sit on the back steps and think about the story he would write. Noting how dark it was getting, he looked at his watch, then held his wrist to his ear to make sure the watch was still running. In town, with daylight-saving time in effect, darkness would still be a long way off. But here in the gorge, with its high, sheer walls shutting out the light, the day was already dying. Made a fellow feel a bit strange, like he was in another world. There’d be a near-full moon tonight, though, he remembered. The gorge should be something to see with moonlight pouring down into it.

He finished thinking and went back inside, where he helped set the table for a fine supper of Boston baked beans and ham and home-baked bread. After the Reverend asked a blessing that seemed a bit too long with everyone so hungry, they ate. Then the Reverend pushed his chair back and said, “We men ought to do the dishes, I expect, since you ladies did the cooking. But first let’s get started on what we came here for.”

He led them out to the river’s edge, where it was almost totally dark now. Even the shallow, twenty-foot wide stream was more heard than seen as it rushed past over its bed of boulders. With the Reverend telling them what to do, they formed a circle and held hands. Then in his deep, throaty voice he began praying.

“Lord, look down on this troubled Earth, please, and see what’s happening here. It isn’t pretty. All over this once-beautiful planet people are doing things they shouldn’t ought to be doing. Like polluting our rivers and lakes so we’ll soon be short of drinking water. And wantonly killing off whole species of the wonderful creatures you put here to share your bounty with us. Look, Lord, at how people are stupidly cutting down the forests we need to keep clean the air we breathe, and how they are further making the air unbreathable by poisoning it with smokestacks and automobile exhausts.

“Lord, the few of us that see what’s going on and want to put a stop to it need your help now in the worst way. Yes, we do. By ourselves we can’t make much of a difference because we’re so outnumbered by those who don’t care. Take a good look at what’s going on down here, Lord. See for yourself the ever-greater numbers of people using drugs—especially young people. Note the drug-related murders and the child abuse. See the number of people openly admitting they’ve turned away from you and are worshipping Satan.