Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Olmstead turned up at the office a little after 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. He wasn’t at all what I had expected. Approximately twenty years old, he gave an address in Cleveland and my first question was why he had travelled such a distance just to visit Innsmouth.

Initially, he seemed oddly evasive and kept fidgeting in his chair for a full two minutes before replying. The gist of his response was that he was attempting to trace his ancestral history back to Arkham and had discovered that, prior to moving there, his maternal family had originally come from nearby Innsmouth.

“Are you aware that Innsmouth has been under close surveillance by the Federal authorities for some months?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I know nothing about that,” he declared. “My only reason for going there was to trace any of my maternal relatives who might still be living in Innsmouth.”

“Then if that was your only reason,” McAlpine put in, “why did you have to flee for your life as Professor Derby has informed us?”

I could tell at once that Olmstead was hiding something from us; that something had happened there which he either didn’t want to tell us, or was sure we wouldn’t believe.

Then he cleared his throat nervously. “I spoke with one of the inhabitants, Zadok Allen, who told me things about Innsmouth which the townsfolk don’t want the outside world to know. He warned me that if they suspected I’d spoken to him, they’d kill me rather than let any of this information get out.”

“Then I think you’d better tell us what you know,” I said.

“You wouldn’t believe a word of it,” he muttered.

“Try us,” McAlpine said.

Moistening his lips, he went on. “First you have to know there are no religious denominations left in Innsmouth except for one. All of the others were shut down sixty years ago by Obed Marsh who ran the town then. Seemingly, he brought back some pagan religion from some island in the South Pacific, along with a large number of natives. Now they’re all members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.”

“Dagon?” McAlpine inquired.

“Some kind of fish deity. They all believe he lives in some sunken city in the deeps off Devil Reef.”

I nodded. “We’ve come across people like this before. Weird cults in the bayou country. But it seems to me that what you’re suggesting here might be something more than that.”

“Take my word for it,” he said, and there was no doubting the earnestness in his tone. “This is far worse than anything you’ve come up against before. This heathen worship is bad, but there’s even worse than that in Innsmouth.”

“Worse?” I prompted, as he hesitated again.

“Much worse. I’ve seen them and even those I saw aren’t as bad as those they’ve got hidden away in the big houses on Washington, Lafayette and Addams Streets. You can hear about it from the people in Arkham. They call it ‘the Innsmouth look’. It comes from the time when those foreigners were brought into the town by Obed Marsh.

“Seems he called up others from the sea off Devil Reef and forced the folk in Innsmouth to mate with them. Call their offspring hybrids, or whatever you like, but they change. Bulging eyes, wide mouths, ears that change into gills. They often swim out to Devil Reef, maybe beyond, and when their time comes, when the change is complete, they leave Innsmouth and go down into the really deep water and remain there for ever in their sunken city they call Y’ha-nthlei.”

I threw my colleague a quick glance at that point. Closing the file in front of me, I said, “Well, Mister Olmstead, thank you for your information. We’ll certainly pass it on to the proper quarter. It will then be up to our superiors as to what action, if any, needs to be taken.”

When he had gone, McAlpine and I sat looking at each other in silence. I had little doubt that something had occurred in Innsmouth to have frightened Olmstead so much that it had sent him running for his life along the abandoned railway line to Rowley.

Once our report had been sent to the Bureau, we heard nothing more until I received orders to report to a Major Fenton, a war veteran, in Boston where I was to place myself under his command.

He turned out to be a short, stocky man in his late forties with dark hair already showing signs of grey.

Taking me aside, he said gruffly, “I’ll expect the fullest co-operation from you. You’ll already know something of what’s been planned. I also understand you know a little about Innsmouth.”

“Only what I’ve read in the preliminary file and what I’ve learned from Robert Olmstead,” I told him.

Without making any further comment, he signalled to one of the officers accompanying him.