Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

“Lord, the Devil is on the warpath again, as you must know. We’ve got whole nations here that are stockpiling things like hydrogen bombs and planning to use chemical- and germ warfare against their innocent neighbours. It’s frightening, I tell you. It’s scaring the living daylights out of those of us who aren’t too blind or selfish to see what it’s likely to lead to. But Lord, you beat old Lucifer once before in a wilderness like this, and with your help we can whip him again. So look down on us here and tell us what to do, we beseech you. Tell us before it’s too late. Amen.”

Reverend Beckford prayed along those lines for another half-hour or so, then opened his eyes. “There,” he said with a heavy sigh, “I’m sure we all feel some better already because we know He heard us. We can go inside now. But at daybreak we’ll talk to Him again.”

When the men had done the dishes by lamplight, Howard Lindsay built a fire and the group sat by the fireplace, talking. Mary Sewell’s boy Davey played some hymns on a harmonica he’d brought along. The others exclaimed at how good he was and asked for more. Then the moon came up, filling the gorge with a shimmering mist of quicksilver, and Keith reached for Jennifer Skipworth’s hand.

“How about a little walk?” Keith suggested.

She smiled at him and they went out together, telling the others they’d soon be back.

* * *

The moonlight must have been responsible for what happened then. For more than two years Keith had known he was in love but hadn’t quite been sure he wanted to be tied down in marriage. After all, Jennifer Skipworth was a bit heavy on the church-going at times, even for Innsmouth, and even now, this expedition into Deeprock Gorge for a confrontation with Satan was on the spooky side. But before they had walked a hundred yards downriver he heard himself blurting it out. “Hey... why don’t you and I stop fooling around and get married, huh? Like soon, I mean.”

Then before she could answer, the moonlight did something else. Just ahead of them, at the water’s edge, a stone moved. Or if not a stone, a living thing that looked like a stone. It suddenly turned itself into a beetle or bug or insect the size of a dinner plate and with a loud hissing sound went waddling into the water, where it vanished.

Jennifer froze in her tracks and gasped, “What was that?”

Keith forgot about wanting to be married. His fingers tightened their grip on her hand and he went slowly forward, one careful step at a time, pulling her after him, until they reached the place where the thing had been. Smelling something, he dropped to his knees, still cautiously, and sniffed at the empty pocket of black sand. It had an odour of—what? Spoiled meat?

“Must have been some animal,” he said, rising. “A possum, maybe? But hurt, somehow. You want to go back?”

Jennifer thought about it. He’d asked her to marry him. The stupid possum or whatever it was had interrupted her answer. She wanted to marry this man. She wanted to tell him so, right here in this wilderness with the moon pouring its blessing down on them. “Let’s go on a bit more,” she said.

But then, right away, other things began to happen. Where the stream had been softly and romantically whispering along beside them, it acquired a new voice. Lots of new voices. Still holding Jennifer’s hand, Keith stopped short and scowled at the water and said, “Now what the hell...?”

The night began to fill up with weird noises. With snarly sounds and hissings and whimperings apparently being made by strange, unaccountable shadow-shapes that were appearing in the water. Every now and then one of the shapes surfaced enough to be halfway visible in the moonlight.

They were creepy-crawlies of one sort or another, Keith decided. Insects, bugs, water-spiders—about what you’d expect in such a stream. But they were bigger than any he’d ever seen before. Bigger than they had any right to be.

“Keith, what’s happening?” Jennifer whispered, hanging onto him. “What’s going on here?”

Keith didn’t know how to answer her. As they stood there staring wide-eyed at the stream, the unnatural sounds got louder and they saw more shadow-shapes that didn’t make any sense in such a place. It was as if the whole river had suddenly come alive in some weird, threatening way. As if many of the tiny, harmless creatures that normally lived in such streams had all at once grown in size and were either angry or confused about what had happened to them.

Then all at once Keith and Jennifer heard their names called and saw Reverend Beckford hurrying down the gorge toward them.

“Wait!” the Reverend shouted, waving at them. “Wait for me!” His yell bounced off the walls of the gorge in a string of echoes as, out of breath, he hurried to catch up to them. When he did that and got his breath back, he said, “I’ve decided to call on the people in the other cabins now, this evening, so they can join us at prayer in the morning. I’d be pleased if you two would come along.”