Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Feeling I had to stop him before he broke down completely and did himself some serious harm, I grabbed his arm to slow him down where he was staggering about in the debris. And I shouted over the tumult of the water: “Hey! Old man! Slow down and try to stop babbling! You’ll wear yourself out both physically and mentally like that!”

As we cleared the heaped rubble it seemed he heard me and knew I was right. Shaking as if in a fever, which he might well have been, he came to a halt and said: “So close, so very close… but God! I can’t fail now. Lord, don’t let me fail now!”

“You said something about not intending to surface here,” I reminded him, holding him steady. “About maybe having to swim?”

At which he sat down on a block of concrete fallen from the ceiling before answering me. And as quickly as that he was more or less coherent again. “I wouldn’t even try to surface here,” he said, shrugging his thin shoulders. “No reason to do so. And anyway there’s far too much water up there—and too many of those monsters that live in it! But we must hope that the rest of the system, between here and Piccadilly Circus, is in better condition.”

“Okay,” I said, grateful for the break as I sat down beside him. “Piccadilly Circus is our destination. So how do we manage it? And will it mean we have to get down in the water?”

Swaying a little as he got to his feet, he looked over the rim of the platform before answering me. “Are you worried about swimming? Well don’t be. The water here isn’t nearly as deep as I thought it might be… I think it must find its way into the depths of the shattered earth, maybe into a subterranean river. So even though we won’t have to swim, still it appears we’ll be doing a lot more wading; knee-deep at least, and maybe for quite a while. So now for the last time—even though it’s already far too late—I feel I’ve really got to warn you: if you want to live, to stand even a remote chance, you have to turn back now. Do you understand?”

“I think so, yes,” I told him. “But you know, Henry, we’ve been lucky so far, both of us, and maybe it’s not over yet.”

“I can’t convince you then?”

“To go back? No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to do that. And the truth is we all have to die sometime, whether it’s at Piccadilly Circus under the Twisted Tower or back there where those—those beings—were splashing about in the water. I mean, what’s the difference where, why, or how we do it, eh? It’s got to happen eventually.”

“As for me,” he said, letting himself down slowly over the rim of the platform into water that rose halfway up his thighs, “it is a matter of where I do it, where I can be most effective. My revenge, you said, and at least you were right about that. But you: you’re young, strong, apparently well-fed, which is a rare thing in itself! You probably came in from the woods, the countryside—a place where there are still birds and other wild things you could catch and eat—or so I imagine. So for you to accompany me where I’m going…” He shook his head. “It just seems a great waste to me.”

There was nothing in what he’d said that I could or needed to answer; so as I let myself down into the water beside him, I simply said, “So then, are you ready to move on?” And since his only reply was to lean his bony body into the effort—for the flow of the water was against us and strong—I added, “I take it that you are! But you know, Henry, pushing against the water like this will soon drain you. So may I suggest—only a suggestion, mind you—that you let me carry the case? If you want to do the job you’ve set yourself, well okay, that’s fine. But since I’m here why not let me help you?”

He turned to me, turned a half-thankful, half-anxious look on me, and finally reached out with his trembling arms and gave that small heavy suitcase into my care. “But don’t you drop it in the water!” he told me. “In fact don’t drop it at all—neither that nor bang it around—or damage it in any other way! Do you hear?”

“Of course I do, Henry,” I answered. “And I think I understand. I’ve seen how you take care of it, and it’s obvious how crucial it must be to your mission, however that turns out. Perhaps as we move along you’d care to tell me about it… but it’s also fine if you don’t want to. First, though, if you don’t mind, could you get my cigarettes and lighter out of the top pocket of my parka?” For even though we were well above the water level, still I was hugging the case to my chest with both hands. And I explained: “The water’s very cold and a drag or two may help to warm us up—our lungs, anyway. So light one up for yourself and one for me.” And when he had managed that: “Thanks, Henry,” I told him out of the corner of my mouth, before dragging deeply on the scented smoke.

He smoked, too, but remained silent on the subject of the suitcase… in particular its “secret” contents, as he seemed to consider them.