Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Lacey stares for a moment at the dusty bones of a sabre-tooth cat mounted near the mammoth’s feet. “You bet,” she says. “I’m terrified. But maybe it’ll at least bring in some new funding for the museum. We could use it.”

“Perhaps,” Dr. Hanisak replies uncertainly and she folds her hands and stares at the box. “You never can tell how these things will turn out, in the end.”

“I suppose not,” Lacey says, and then she looks at her watch and thanks Dr. Hanisak again. “I really have to get going,” she says and leaves the woman standing alone with the skeletons.

EXCERPT FROM

FAMOUS FILM MONSTERS AND THE MEN WHO MADE THEM

BY BEN BROWNING (THE CITADEL PRESS, SECAUCUS, NJ, 1972]

Certainly there are several interesting stories floating about Hollywood regarding producer William Alland’s inspiration for the story. The one most often repeated, it would seem, recounts how Alland heard a tale during a dinner party at Orson Welles’ home regarding an ancient race of “fish-men” called the dhaghon inhabiting remote portions of the Amazon River. Local natives believed these creatures rose from the depths once a year, after floods, and abducted virgins. Naturally, the person telling the story is said to have sworn to its veracity. Another, less plausible, source of inspiration may have been a tradition in some parts of Massachusetts, in and around Gloucester, of humanoid sea monsters said to haunt a particularly treacherous stretch of coast near Ipswich Bay known appropriately enough as the “Devil’s Reef”. Rumour has it Alland knew of these legends, but decided to change the story’s setting from maritime New England to the Amazon because he preferred a more exotic and primeval locale. At any rate, one or another of these “fish stories” might have stuck with him and become the germ for the project he eventually pitched to Universal.

3:47 P.M.

Through the peeling red door and she follows the old man down long hallways dimly lit by bare, incandescent bulbs, wallpaper shreds, upstairs and downstairs, and finally, a door he opens with another silver key. A steel fire door painted all the uncountable maroon-brown shades of dried gore and butcheries and it swings open slow on ratcreaking hinges, pours the heavy scents of frigid air and formaldehyde at their feet. There’s light in there, crimson light, and Lacey looks at Dr. Solomon Monalisa and he’s smiling a doubtful, furtive smile.

“What am I going to see in there?”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he says and holds one skinny arm out like a theatre usher leading her to an empty seat.

“I asked you a simple question. All I wanted was a simple answer.”

“Yes, but there are no simple answers, are there?”

“What’s waiting for me in there?”

“All things are but mirrors, Miss Morrow. They reflect our deepest preconceptions, our most cherished prejudices—”

“Never fucking mind,” she says and steps quickly across the threshold into a room as cold as the back of the Ford van. And the room is almost empty, high concrete walls and a concrete ceiling far overhead, banks of darkroom red lights dangling on chains, and the tank, sitting alone in the centre of it all.

“You’re a very lucky woman,” Dr. Monalisa says and the steel door clicks shut behind her. “Have you any idea, my dear, how few scientists have had this privilege? Why, I could count them all on my left hand.”

The tank is at least seven feet tall, sturdy aquarium glass held together with strips of rusted iron, filled with murky preservative gone bloody beneath the lights, and Lacey stares at the thing floating lifeless behind the glass.

“What do you see, Miss Morrow?”

“My god,” she whispers and takes another step towards the tank.

“Now that’s a curious answer.”

Neither man nor fish, neither fish nor amphibian, long legs and longer arms, and its bald, misshapen skull is turned upwards, as if those blind white eyes are gazing longingly towards Heaven. Solomon Monalisa rattles his keys and slips the handcuffs from her aching wrists.

“Grendelonyx innsmouthensis—that’s what I thought you’d see, Miss Morrow. Grendel’s claw—”

“But it’s impossible,” she whispers.

“Quite,” Dr. Solomon Monalisa says. “It is entirely, unquestionably impossible.”

“Is it real?”

“Yes, of course it’s real. Why would I show it to you otherwise.”

Lacey nods her head and crosses the room to stand beside the tank, places one hand flat against the glass. She’s surprised that it isn’t cold to the touch. The creature inside looks pale and soft, but she knows that’s only the work of time and the caustic, preserving chemicals.