Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Something scratched along the alley. A ball of newspaper. The breeze stiffened and in a minute, other bits of lightweight garbage came tumbling along. Couple of paper cups. More paper. Discarded bags.

I heard something far overhead, a distant roar. Maybe there was a storm brewing up. Very sudden. But what the hell, it was October.

I had my Beretta out, catch off. My nerves were dancing. More scraping sounds behind me. I swung round, aiming the gun. A tin can rolled, followed by more paper, a crushed cardboard box. The breeze was a light wind now. I could feel its strength growing, cold on the face. It kept cuffing stuff down the alley like it was a wind tunnel.

At the end of the alley was a mesh fence, eight feet high, beyond it a pile of crates and other junk, heaped up so that the fence bulged at its base, fit to burst. There were broken tea chests and tumbled stacks of newspaper this side of the fence. The wind was driving more captive garbage towards them, a growing procession.

Moving on down the alley, I fetched up against some metal bins, beyond which was a door into the warehouse. It didn’t look like it had been opened in a long time. I reached for the rusting handle.

“You don’t want to go in there, Mr. Stone,” called a soft voice from across the alley. I recognized it. The Fed from Fat Duke’s.

I was instantly down on one knee, partially masked by the bins, gun trained at the shadows across the way. I could already imagine the slug smashing into me.

“Easy, Mr. Stone.” He was well hidden, but I could see half of him. And a gun. Either he or one of his companions had killed Shivers. “I told you we would take care of this.”

I shifted back a little, getting more of me behind the bins. I was getting angry again.

The wind abruptly rose a tone or two, gusting down the alley, rolling another wave of litter forward. It struck me for the first time that there was something freakish about the moving garbage. There seemed to be an unusual amount of it.

“There’s still time for you to leave,” came the voice.

Sure, and take a bullet like Shivers had. I wasn’t planning on making the first move. And I wasn’t going to make polite conversation.

“You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with, Mr. Stone.”

“Suppose you enlighten me.”

“I can’t do that. It’s a case of—”

He didn’t get to finish. Near to the shadows that hid him, a pile of the litter seemed to erupt upward, cartons and cans and paper all bursting every which way. The Fed swung his gun arm round as if he would start pumping shots into the mass of paper. It was all I needed.

My Beretta spat once. At that range I don’t miss, never mind the poor vision. I heard the bullet smack into flesh and bone across the alley. The Fed’s gun spun from his grasp and clanked as it hit the ground. He gasped, his forearm shattered, and crashed back into the recess behind him.

The pile of garbage revealed itself to be some poor wino whose drunken stupor had been interrupted by the arrival of the Fed and me. Arms flapping like a scarecrow, he gabbled and shrieked something unintelligible and sat down hard among the huge pile of garbage that was his home. A half-full bottle of something rolled from his fingers into the middle of the alley. A few thin beams of light played on the moving contents inside it.

I was across the alley quickly, picking up the Fed’s gun and pocketing it. I was risking that he only carried one. He’d gone quiet. I guessed he’d passed out.

The wino suddenly started to blubber, shouting something crazy about the garbage trying to eat him. I watched as the wino, no more than a filthy bundle of old rags, leapt to his feet, beat at himself as if he was on fire, then tried to run off back up the alley. Paper clung to him like a cloud of huge moths.

I looked down at the bottle. The wino must’ve been totally freaked out to leave it.

I pulled out my lighter and snapped it on. I needed to see the Fed. Cautiously I went toward him. In the flickering glow I could just make him out. He was conscious, his good arm tightly clutching his bad, very bad, one. That was no flesh wound. He’d need attention pretty soon.

But I was in no hurry. Obviously I didn’t want his death on my hands, but there would be time yet to call the medics.

I held my gun up, aimed at his forehead. “You want to tell me why you tried to kill me? Why a man is dead instead of me?”

He shook his head, eyes shutting and opening against the pain in his shattered arm.

“You’re going to have to talk to somebody. If not me, the cops. I’m a man who likes to trade. Tell me about Zeitsheim and you can go back to your buddies in one piece.”

The wind was now howling overhead. I hadn’t been taking any notice. But again I got the feeling something was really freakish about it. More litter came rolling and tumbling down the alley, like a paper wave breaking on a beach. I turned to the Fed, about to step up our little chat. But something even more weird was going on.