Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

“Alien geometry,” he answered, limping as fast as he could back down the rubble canyon where we had met, then turning into a lesser side-street canyon. And panting, he explained: “They say that where the Hounds come from—Tindalos or somewhere—something?—there are only angles. Their universe is made of angles that let them slip through space, and they can do the same here. But London has lost most of its angles now, and with the buildings reduced to rounded and jumbled heaps of debris, the Hounds have trouble finding their way around. And whether you believe in Him or not, still you may thank God for that!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I told him, sure that he told the truth. “But where are we going?”

“Where I intended to be going anyway,” he replied. “But you most probably won’t want to—for which I don’t blame you—and anyway we’re already there.”

“Where?” I said, looking left, right, everywhere and seeing nothing but heaped bricks and shadowy darkness.

“Here,” he answered, and ducked into the gloom of a partly caved-in iron and brick archway. And assisted by a rusted metal handrail, we made our way down tiled steps littered with rubble fallen from the ceiling, now lying under a layer of dust that thinned out a little the deeper we went.

“Where are we?” I asked after a while. “I mean, what is this place?” My questions echoed in a gloom that deepened until I could barely see.

“Used to be an old entrance to the Tube system,” he told me. “This one didn’t have elevators, just steps, and they must have closed it down many decades ago. But when these alien things went rioting through the city, causing earthquakes and wrecking everything, all that destruction must have cracked it open.”

“You seem to know all about it,” I said, as I became aware that the light was improving; either that or my eyes were growing accustomed to the dark.

The old man nodded. “I saw a dusty old plaque down here one time, not long after I found this place. A sort of memorial, it said that the last time this part of the Underground system was used was during World War II—as a shelter. It was too deep down here for the bombs to do any damage. As for now: it’s still safer than most other places, at least where the Hounds are concerned, because it’s too round.”

“Too round?”

“It’s a hole in the earth deep underground,” he replied impatiently. “It’s a tunnel—a tube—as round as a wormhole!”

“Ah!” I said. “I see. It doesn’t have any angles!”

“Not too many, no.”

“But it does have light, and it’s getting brighter.”

We passed under another dusty archway and were suddenly on the level: a railway platform, of course. The light was neither daylight nor electric; dim and unstable, it came and went, fluctuating.

“This filth isn’t light as you know it,” the old man said. “It’s Shoggoth tissue, bioluminescence, probably waste elements, or shit to you! It leaks down like liquid from the wet places. Unlike the hideous things that produce it, however, those god-awful Shoggoths, it’s harmless. Just look at it up there on the ceiling.”

I looked, if only to satisfy his urging, at a sort of glowing mist that swirled and pulsed as it spilled along the tiled, vaulted ceiling. Gathering and dispersing, it seemed tenuous as breath on a freezing cold day. And:

“Shoggoth tissue?” I repeated the old fellow. “Alien stuff, right? But how is it you know all this? And I still don’t even know why you’re here. One thing I do know—I think—is that you’re going the wrong way.”

Having climbed down from the platform, he was striking out along the rusting tracks on a heading that my sense of direction told me lay toward—

“The north-east!” he said, as if reading my mind. “And I warned you that you wouldn’t be safe coming with me. In fact if I were you I’d follow the rails going the other way, south. And sooner or later, somewhere or other, I’m sure you’d find a way out.”

“But I’m not at all sure!” I replied, jumping down from the platform and hurrying to catch up. “Also, it’s like I said: you seem to understand just about everything that goes on here, and you’re obviously a survivor. As for myself, well I’d like to survive too!”

That stopped him dead in his tracks. “A survivor, you say? I was, yes—but no more. My entire family is no more! So what the hell am I doing trying to stay alive, eh? I’m sick to death of trying, and there’s only one reason I haven’t done away with myself!” By which time the catch was back in his voice, that almost-sob.

But he controlled it, then swung his small, heavy, battered old suitcase from left to right, changing hands and groaning as he stretched and flexed the strained muscles in his left arm, before swinging the suitcase back again and visibly tightening his grip on its leather handle.

“You should let me carry it,” I told him, as we began walking again. “At least let me spell you. What’s in it anyway? All your worldly possessions? It certainly looks heavy enough.”