Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

We had entered or been enveloped in a fold in the irrationally angled wall, a sort of priest’s hole in the flowing, alien cinder-block construction. And there in a corner—I’ll call it a corner anyway, but in any case “a space”—was Henry Chattaway’s device, its components contained in four more small suitcases arranged in a sort of circle with a gap where a fifth (the one we had been keeping from damage during this entire subterranean journey) would neatly fit. The cases were connected up with electrical cables, left loosely dangling in the gap where the fifth would complete the circuit; while a sixth component stood central on four short legs, looking much like the casing of a domed, cylindrical fire extinguisher. In series, obviously the cases were a kind of trigger, while the cylinder—the bomb—would have contained anything but fire retardant! And affixed to the cylinder at its domed top, standing out vividly against the metal’s dull gleam, sat a bright red switch which, apart from the warning manifest in its colour, looked like nothing so much as an ordinary electrical light switch. The cylinder and its switch—a deadly however inarticulate combination, as the bomb had recently been—told a story all their own, but one which was now a lie!

Quickly kneeling, Henry opened his case, reached inside and carefully uncoiled a pair of cables which he connected up to the dangling cables on both sides. And now all was in order, or so he thought, and he was ready.

Screwing up his face and half-shuttering his eyes (I imagined in anticipation of a moment’s pain), he reached a trembling hand over the circle of wired-up suitcases, his index finger hovering over the red switch… until, remembering something, he paused and glanced at me. And then, to my dismay because I do have something of a conscience after all, he said:

“I’m so sorry, Julian, but I did give you every opportunity to leave.”

“Yes, you did,” I replied, kneeling beside him and, before he could stop me, flipping open the lid of one of the suitcases. “And I’m sorry, too,” I told him. “But as you can see, I knew I really didn’t have to leave.”

His jaw fell; his mouth opened wide; he gurgled for several long seconds, and finally said: “Empty!”

“All of them,” I nodded. “Especially the cylinder—the bomb.” But even then the truth hadn’t fully sunk in, and he said:

“I don’t understand. No one—nothing, not a single damned thing—ever saw me here. Not once. And this isn’t a spot where anyone or thing would think to look!”

“You weren’t seen here, no,” I replied with a shake of my head. “But you were seen leaving—just the once, by Deep Ones at Green Park—the last time you made a delivery. You were correct about their telepathy, Henry. Despite the confusion, the fear in your mind, or maybe because of it, they saw something of what you had been up to and a search was made. Otherwise no one or thing might ever have come in here. But once Bgg’ha had discovered your secret he wanted to know more about you and anything else you might be doing, and how and with whom you were doing it. So you see, they do care about us—or shall we say they’re at least interested in some of us—especially those of us who would try to kill them. And so I was sent out to look for you. Or to ‘hunt’ for you, if you prefer.”

Hearing that and finally, fully aware of the situation, the old man snapped upright. His eyes, however bloodshot, were narrowed now; the dazed expression was gone from his face; his gun was suddenly firm in his hand, its blued-steel muzzle rammed up hard under my chin. I thought he might shoot me there and then, and I wished that I’d called out to them sooner.

“God damn!” Henry said. “But I should pay more attention to my instincts… I knew there was something wrong about you! But I won’t kill you here; I’ll do it out there in the open—or what used to be the open—so that when you’re found with your face shot off they’ll know there are still men in the world who aren’t afraid to fight! Now get moving, you treacherous bastard! Let’s get out of here.”

But as we moved from the drift and slide of the continually mutating wall to the even greater visual nightmare of the Twisted Tower’s leg’s interior, and when I was beginning to believe I could actually feel the old fellow’s finger tightening on the trigger, then I cried out:

“Henry, listen! Do you really intend to waste a bullet on me? I mean, look what’s coming, Henry…!”

They were Shoggoths, two of them, under the direction of a solitary Deep One. They came into view apparently from nowhere, simply appearing from the suck and the thrust to glide toward us… at least the Shoggoths approached us, while the Deep One held back and kept his watery great eyes on his charges, making sure they carried out their orders—whatever those might be—to the letter. But of course I knew exactly what they had been told to do.