The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos Read online

  Then, almost an hour after we had lowered ourselves into the depths, a sound did reach us from directly ahead. It began as a faint slithering sound, followed by hoarse croaking gutturals, which bore no resemblance to human speech. Corlson uttered a sharp warning and we immediately switched off our torches, pressing ourselves hard against the slimy, moisture-running walls as we struggled to pinpoint the exact location of the sound.

  Soon it became obvious that a large party of creatures were moving rapidly in our direction and a moment later, I picked out more normal sounds superimposed upon the obnoxious mutterings; the shouts of men and guessed that part of the force which had landed on the beach were close on the heels of these unnatural abominations.

  A couple of minutes later, stabbing torchlight showed along the walls of the tunnel, highlighting the large group of Deep Ones now almost upon us. In the confined space of the tunnel with a squad of our own men at the rear, we were unable to open fire on the creatures. Using their bayonets and the butts of their rifles, the Marines clubbed most of them as they struggled to break through our lines. Caught between the two forces, they were speedily overcome. The pitched battle lasted for less than ten minutes.

  At the end of that time, seventeen prisoners had been taken, the remainder lying dead on the floor of the tunnel. Three of our force had been killed, their throats slashed.

  Linking up with the group from the seaward end of the tunnel, we moved back to where we had left the other prisoners with their two guards. Here we came upon a scene of utter carnage.

  It was all too clear what had happened. Those creatures which had escaped us by diving into the pool had returned and clearly in overwhelming numbers. The captives were gone but more than a score of the creatures lay dead on the rocks where the guards had cut them down before being overwhelmed. Of the two men, however, there was no sign. Evidently they had been overpowered after their ammunition had run out and had been dragged into the water.

  Corlson gave a muttered oath as he surveyed the scene. “I should have foreseen this might happen,” he gritted. “God knows, there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of those creatures somewhere out there in the deep water.”

  I tried to reassure him. “You weren’t to know this might happen,” I told him. “None of us were given any warning of the scale of this infestation. They’re like rats in the sewers.”

  For a moment I thought that, in his anger at what had happened to his men, he was about to give the order to shoot those captives we had. Then he regained his self-control, rigid discipline took over, and he signalled us to make our way back to the surface.

  Once in the town square, we paused to take stock of the situation. Large fires were now burning out of control at several sites but the streets radiating from the square seemed oddly deserted. Either the majority of the citizens were now concealed in the deep cellars across town or had somehow succeeded in fleeing Innsmouth.

  Sporadic firing could still be heard but for the most part the town seemed deathly quiet. Over towards the sea, the entire waterfront was now a mass of flame, the conflagration spreading rapidly inland as the fire consumed the ancient wooden buildings.

  Corlson gave the order to his men to convey the prisoners to the trucks waiting at the north side of Innsmouth.

  Once they were gone, he turned to me. “I reckon you’ll have to put in some kind of report to the Federal Bureau, Darnforth.”

  Nodding, I said, “Whatever I put in it, there aren’t going to be many who’ll believe a single word. I can’t believe most of it myself. All of those nightmare creatures living here or coming up out of the sea! It’s against all nature.”

  “We’ve got those captives,” the Lieutenant retorted grimly. “People will have to believe the evidence of their own eyes.” He threw a swift glance to where the last of the men were disappearing along Federal Street. “But what in the name of God are those—things? Where could they possibly have come from? One thing’s for sure, they’re not normal inhabitants of this town, no matter how much in-breeding there may have been in the past.”

  “I guess the only way any of this makes sense is if you believe in the stories that have been legion in this area concerning Innsmouth for nearly a century,” I told him. “If it wasn’t for what I’ve witnessed tonight, I’d have said they were nothing more than pure myth and superstition. Now I know different.”

  Corlson took out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to me, then nodded. “You seem to know a little more of this whole affair than I do,” he muttered, blowing smoke into the cold, still air. “Just what are these odd tales?”

  I shrugged. “All I really know is what’s given in the file I got and what little I picked up in the last couple of weeks, talking to folk in Rowley. Seems some sea-captain, Ober Marsh, brought back this pagan religion from some uncharted island in the South Pacific back in the 1840s and, somehow, converted almost the whole town. Most of the creatures in Innsmouth are hybrids as a result of enforced mating with these natives and with those others, the Deep Ones, who supposedly live in some sunken city—Y’ha-nthlei —that lies on the ocean bottom off Devil Reef.”

  “So these Deep Ones also interbred with the town’s inhabitants?” Corlson sounded incredulous.

  “So they reckon. And they all worship this sea deity—Dagon.”

  “God Almighty. This is far worse than anything we’ve come across before.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. In spite of the chill, he was sweating. “So what do you figure the government will do with these prisoners?”

  “Keep them all locked up somewhere is my guess. Somehow, I doubt if much of this will ever be released to the general public.”

  When we pulled out of Innsmouth five hours later, many of the old buildings and all of the wooden warehouses along the waterfront, were still burning. More than three hundred of the citizens had been taken prisoner.

  Later, we heard they had been transferred to special, isolated camps where they were to be interrogated and kept under constant observation. No details as to the exact whereabouts of these camps were to be released.

  III.

  Confidential Report of Federal Investigator Walter C. Tarpey: March 5, 1929

  Following special orders received on February 12, 1928, I proceeded by train to Boston, Massachusetts, where I was informed that the government had decided to launch an armed raid on a small fishing port named Innsmouth, some distance along the coast from Arkham. Reports of bootlegging and smuggling of illegal immigrants had apparently been received from several quarters and my orders were to join a submarine, which was to patrol the coast of an island known locally as Devil Reef. This mission was to be coordinated with a land raid upon the town and our task was firstly to prevent any inhabitants escaping by sea (this in conjunction with three vessels of the coastguard) and second, to dive into the deep water off Devil Reef and carry out a survey of the ocean bottom in that region.

  It was late afternoon when we were piloted out of the harbour and heading out to sea. Conditions inside the submarine were Spartan, and cramped with little room in which to move. We rode on the surface, accompanied by the other three vessels, the convoy heading north within sight of the coast.

  Commander Lowrie had seen service during the war, as had several members of the crew. Apart from myself, however, no one on board knew any details of our mission when we set out, Lowrie having been given sealed orders not to be opened until we were at sea.

  Once we arrived offshore from Innsmouth, three of the crew were ordered above, one to man the machine-gun and two others to act as lookouts for any of the townsfolk attempting to escape by boat. With Lowrie’s permission, I accompanied them, struggling to maintain my balance against the rolling of the vessel. There was an unusually heavy swell between the shore and Devil Reef, the latter an irregular mass of rock about two miles from the distant harbour.

  The night was very still but bitterly cold and I was glad of my thick parka. Despite the darkness, the sky was clear and it wa
s just possible to make out a scattering of lights in the town and at least three fires had been started among the shadowy warehouses that stood along the waterfront.

  A sudden hoarse shout from one of the lookouts near the conning tower brought me swiftly around. He was pointing urgently, not in the direction of the town, but out to sea. For several moments, I could make out nothing in that direction to account for his actions. Then, dimly, I saw numerous black shapes in the water, heading towards us from Devil Reef.

  Somehow, O’Brien managed to turn the unwieldy machine-gun. Not a moment too soon, he opened fire, swinging the weapon expertly from side to side in a wide arc. Several of the shapes disappeared beneath the waves although it was impossible to determine whether they had been hit. Others still came on and, for the first time, I made out something of their outlines. Those I could see were not even remotely human in appearance. More like fish, but with humanoid bodies and legs, they came surging through the water in a relentless, black tide.

  “Get down below!” Somehow, I managed to force the numbness of shock from my round and get the words out. “You can’t possibly stop them all, even with that weapon.”

  The men obeyed me instantly, lowering themselves quickly through the hatch. Closing it swiftly, O’Brien stared at me in the dim light, an incredulous expression on his bluff features.

  “What in the name of all that’s holy are those things?”

  Before I could reply, there came a clamourous hammering on the hull. It sounded as though there were hundreds of them battering against the tough steel.

  Moments later, we heard the Commander’s voice giving the order to dive. Hanging on grimly to keep my balance, I experienced a sudden chill as we began to descend. With an effort, I made my way forward.

  Here, I found Commander Lowrie at the periscope. He turned and listened grimly as I briefly explained what had happened and what we had seen. Strangely, he didn’t appear as surprised as I had expected when I described those creatures, which were now attacking the submarine. It was almost as if he had anticipated something of the kind.

  “I’ve read my orders,” he said harshly. “Clearly there’s some truth in the odd tales which have come out of Innsmouth over the years. Some of them speak of hybrid creatures spawned in the town during the last century and others of the Deep Ones, denizens of some city on the sea bottom. Seems they can exist both on land and in the water.”

  “Surely that’s not possible,” I said.

  “I’m just going by what I’ve been told. Obviously there’s something out here that defies commonsense. But until I find out otherwise, I have to accept these stories, no matter how weird they may seem.”

  “What are our orders?” I asked. The battering against the hull had now diminished appreciably. “Most of those creatures seem to have gone now we’re going down.”

  “We’re to remain at a depth of eighty feet and head west, skirting that reef and head into open water. Then we go down as far as we can and, depending on what we find there, I’ll have to make a decision regarding firing the torpedoes we have on board.”

  “Then you reckon there may be something down there which has to be destroyed?”

  “Maybe.” He paused, then added as an afterthought, “I’ve been in the Navy for nearly thirty years and I’ve seen some strange things in that time, believe me.”

  He motioned towards the search periscope, which, unlike the normal one, had a wide angle of vision. “We have a very powerful searchlight mounted forward on the hull. Hopefully, we’ll be able to use this periscope to see something of what’s down there.”

  “You won’t have much latitude,” I remarked.

  “No, but in the circumstances, it’s the best we can do.”

  Levelling off at eighty feet, we edged slowly oceanward, skirting the reef to the south.

  “We have a hydrophone operator on board,” Lowrie explained, “and he’s listening out for obstacles since we don’t know accurately how far that reef extends below the surface.”

  Twenty minutes later, we had safely navigated the southern edge of the reef and were soon in deeper water. Now, the submarine angled more steeply downward and Commander Lowrie remained at the search periscope, using it for the first time underwater in an attempt to pick out anything visible in the beam from the searchlight.

  In this manner, we proceeded to within thirty feet of the ocean floor, then assumed a more even keel. Motioning me forward, he indicated I could take a look at the scene outside. At first, even with my eye pressed hard against the lens, I could see very little. The searchlight beam, powerful as it was, scarcely penetrated more than ten feet into the inky black water. Then something suddenly flashed across my field of view. I caught only the barest glimpse of it before it vanished but that had been sufficient to recognize one of those creatures we had spotted on the surface.

  It was followed, instants later, by another and this time I almost cried out at the sight. Whatever it was, I doubted if that creature could ever have been human. It seemed octopoid in outline with tentacles rather than two arms, yet the rest of the body was almost like that of a man!

  Beside me, I heard the Commander issue a terse order. The next moment, we began to descend once more and now, through the periscope, I was able to discern the seabed some thirty feet below. It sloped gradually downward but two minutes later a black, almost straight line of utter darkness appeared directly in front of us, stretching away in an unbroken line in both directions.

  I recognized immediately what it was; the dark abyss at the edge of the shallows around Devil Reef, a fathomless deep whose depth we did not know.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I relinquished the periscope to the commander and heard his muttered exclamation as he, too, saw it.

  “How far down is it possible for us to go without cracking the hull?” I asked.

  “Certainly not more than three hundred feet,” he replied. “More than that I wouldn’t like to attempt.”

  “That’s still a good distance above the bottom if the reports about the depth of this area are accurate.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Agent Tarpey. There’s nothing in my orders about going to the bottom. There are ten torpedoes on board this vessel. Once we reach the designated position, these are to be fired straight down and then we get out of here.”

  “How long before we reach that position?” I inquired. The feeling of claustrophobia, which had made itself felt the moment I had come aboard was now beginning to tell on my nerves. A small number of the men also appeared to be similarly affected.

  Lowrie checked his watch, holding it close to his eyes in the dim light. “Another twelve minutes,” he said briefly. He called Lieutenant Commander Westlock and gave him orders for the torpedoes to be made ready for firing.

  While this was being done, I returned to the periscope. Not that I expected to see anything even though the vessel was now descending slowly, but at a steeper angled than before, into the inky blackness of the abyss.

  Yet there was something.

  At first, my vision refused to take it in. A wavering phosphorescence far below us. I knew that certain deep sea creatures emitted a fluorescent glow—but what I saw covered a vast area and would have required a shoal of millions of such creatures to produce such an effect. Furthermore, there seemed to be an odd regularity about the masses of palely glimmering light. Although it seemed impossible, to me they held ineffable suggestions of structures utterly unlike anything I had ever seen. Squinting, I struggled to imbue them with some form of normality.

  How high those alien configurations loomed above the distant ocean floor, it was impossible even to guess, for the glowing radiance seemed to come only from the lowermost regions. But even this was sufficient to show the sheer alienness of their overall outlines.

  Had they been nothing more than amorphous masses, it would not have offended my sense of perspective to such a degree. But there were vast bulbous appendages and oddly truncated cones, which intermeshed in angles b
earing no relation to Euclidean geometry and I felt my eyes twist horribly as I tried vainly to assimilate everything in my field of vision.

  But even this outrage of nature was not the worst. Just before I removed my eye from the periscope, I saw something black and monstrous outlined against the flickering light of that vast city far below. To describe it as tentacled or winged would be to ignore completely the quintessential horror of that slowly ascending shape. I had seen pictures of giant squids reputed to haunt the midnight depths of the ocean but this was far larger, far more abnormal, to belong to that class of creature.

  Hearing my sharp exclamation, Commander Lowrie thrust me hurriedly to one side and took my position at the periscope. Clasping the handles in a white-knuckled grip, he turned it slowly. Then, without moving his head, he barked, “Increase the angle of descent. Ready all torpedoes for immediate firing.”

  Once his orders had been carried out, he turned an ashen face in my direction. He seemed to have some difficulty in finding the right words. Finally, he muttered, “What in God’s name is that down there?”

  “Y’ha-nthlei, perhaps,” I replied. “I can’t think of anything else. God knows how old that place is. And don’t ask me what that—thing—is. All I know is that it’s coming this way and the sooner we get this over with and surface, the better.”

  I could not analyze the reasons for my certitude that whatever that monstrous thing was, we were its target and there was not a moment to be lost if we were to extricate ourselves from this horrible predicament. From what little I had seen, I knew that creature was ten, maybe even twenty, times larger than the submarine and if it succeeded in reaching us, it could drag us down into those alien depths with ease.

  In front of me, Lowrie stood, tensed and rigid, at the periscope. I knew he was seeing exactly what I had seen and I firmly believe that the mere sight of that incredible horror might have driven a lesser man over the edge. But he did not flinch. His features set into a mass of grim determination, he waited until he judged the torpedoes would find their mark, then gave the order to fire.