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

  He stared at me, his wrinkled face twisted into a scowl of indecision and was silent for so long that I thought he had no intention of answering me. Then, lowering his voice to little more than a hoarse, wheezing whisper, he muttered, “Nobody knows what happened. At the inquest, they said it was accidental death, that she’d been washed overboard in the storm.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I believe.”

  “But you think that Shirley’s ghost still comes back to haunt him? Is that what you’re hinting at?”

  Rohan shook his head slowly. “There’s more to it than that,” he said enigmatically.

  “More?”

  “Ben was a changed man after that night. He weren’t just like a man who’d lost his wife. It were more’n that. He never went out fishing again.”

  “That must have been hard for him.”

  “It were. That’s his craft yonder.” He pointed towards the end of the jetty.

  The vessel he indicated was quite large. To my layman’s eye, it looked more like a yacht, twin-masted, unlike all of the others, which were engine-powered, it clearly relied on the wind. The wheel was in the bow, open to the elements and, judging by its size, I wondered how a single man could have handled it, even in calm seas.

  “A strange craft,” I said.

  “Aye. But Ben could make her do anything he wanted.”

  “Then why doesn’t he sell it if he no longer goes out to sea?”

  “Ah, I didn’t say he never goes out to sea, just that he no longer does any fishing. He’s been known to take her out at night and only when there’s a storm brewing. You see, there’s only one thing he wants now. To die out there in the middle of a storm, just as she died twenty odd years ago. But she won’t let him die!”

  I swallowed hard, trying to understand the implications of his words. “What do you mean—she won’t let him die?”

  “Just that. He wants to join her, out there in the sea. But no matter how hard he tries, she waits for him and always brings that boat back safely to shore.” His mouth parodied a faint grin at my bewildered amazement.

  “You’re saying that his wife’s ghost brings him back to harbour every time he sails out there in the middle of a storm?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I reckon that’s her revenge, to make sure he stays alive with that guilt on his soul. There are folk in the village who’ve seen that boat coming in with the lightning flashing all around it and Shirley standing at the wheel, guiding it through them rocks yonder, hair flying in the wind and the face of a demon.”

  “Have you ever seen it?”

  “Once,” he muttered after a long pause. “Only once. And I never want to see it again.”

  Somehow, I had the feeling he was telling the truth, that he had seen something. Whether it was a ghost, or simply something conjured up by a vivid imagination, I couldn’t be sure.

  Before I could question him further, he rose unsteadily to his feet, mumbled something under his breath which sounded like “I reckon I’ve said too much,” and walked off.

  By now, this strange tale had intrigued me to the point where I knew I had to find some answers. A woman who had vanished at sea in mysterious, and possibly sinister, circumstances; stories of a ghost guiding a boat through the storm; and a man filled with guilt who wanted to die but couldn’t because of some restless, vengeful spirit which refused to allow him to do so.

  I walked down to the end of the jetty to where Trevelyan’s boat was moored. The name SHIRLEY was just visible on the bow in large black letters. In places they were almost totally obliterated and it was evident that few repairs had been carried out on the craft for many years. I could see where a couple of deck planks were missing and others split. Much of the metalwork was pitted and rusted.

  It certainly didn’t appear seaworthy to my untrained eye—and this was the vessel Ben Trevelyan reputedly took out beyond those gaping rocks whenever there was the possibility of a storm. It would be a miracle if she remained afloat by the time the boat was more than a hundred yards from the harbour.

  The more I examined it, the more convinced I became that this weird tale was nothing more than superstitious bunkum made up deliberately for my benefit. No doubt Rohan and Trevelyan were secretly laughing between themselves at how easily they had duped this stranger who had come to the village.

  Yet back in my room at the hotel, I had the odd feeling that, despite the picturesque tranquility of Corvellan, some dreadful secret from the past still lingered there.

  I went to bed early that night, feeling more tired than usual. I could not rid my thoughts of the notion that my probing into this bizarre affair had, in some way, awakened more than just memories in Corvellan. Staring up at the ceiling, I tried to relax. But it proved impossible to sleep. The small room was hot and stuffy and shortly before retiring, I had stepped outside the front door to smoke a cigarette, looking westward to where the sun had just set.

  It had been then that I’d noticed the long banks of dark cloud gathered along the horizon and guessed that the hot, sultry day was about to break with thunder. A taut sensation of impending disaster took a firm hold on me.

  After an hour of vainly trying to sleep, I got up and went to the window, opening it with difficulty. Outside, the still air was warmer than inside the room. My earlier suspicions were also confirmed when a deep-throated roll of thunder echoed in the distance across the bay.

  A wind had got up but it brought no welcome coolness. There was a pale wash of yellow moonlight lying across the cottage roofs but I knew it would soon be extinguished once the storm broke in earnest. Already, ominous black clouds were piling up towards the zenith.

  I lit a cigarette and smoked it nervously. The entire village was utterly silent as if holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. I could just make out the white splashes of foam where the sea was beginning to lash against the stone finger of the jetty.

  The clock in the tiny church chimed midnight, the final echoes being completely drowned out by a thunderous roar as a vivid bolt of lightning seared across my sight. Jerking back involuntarily, I stood with my hand pressed tightly against the wall, then leaned forward again, oblivious to everything but the sudden, unexpected movement, just visible on the far side of the street.

  For a moment, I was sure I had been mistaken. But then I caught a second fragmentary glimpse of the dark figure and I instantly recognized the man who was undoubtedly making his way down to the harbour.

  Ben Trevelyan!

  But where on earth was he going at that ungodly hour? Then I recalled what Hedley Rohan had told me, something I had not really believed at that time.

  Did the stupid fool really intend to go out in that leaking old vessel in the teeth of this storm?

  The shape disappeared into the dark shadows near the end of the street and I found myself tensing nervously as I shifted my gaze to where the length of the jetty was just visible.

  I could clearly make out the shape of the Shirley moored at the far end, the masts swaying from side to side as the tide caught her side-on. When the dark, indistinct figure came into view alongside the boat, I was almost expecting it. There was something oddly frightening about the slow, purposeful way the figure moved, stepping awkwardly onto the deck of the pitching vessel.

  A sudden lightning glare lit the scene in brilliant monochrome. I saw Trevelyan hoist the sails and then the darkness came rushing in again with only a vivid green haze dancing in front of my straining vision.

  When I could see clearly again, the Shirley had been cast off and was away from the harbour, moving slowly towards the narrow gap in the encircling rocks, heading out to sea.

  By the time I let myself out of the hotel, the rain was coming down in torrents. With my way lit by vicious lightning flashes, with the thunder roaring like a demon in my ears, with the howling gale tearing at my sodden clothing, I made my way down to the jetty.

  There was a solitary figur
e standing there with his back to me and for a moment, I thought it was Trevelyan. Then I saw it was Rohan. He turned as I came up to him.

  “You’ve seen him? Ben Trevelyan,” he shouted hoarsely. “He’s gone out again, hoping it will be different this time. But he can’t escape his fate, no one can.”

  I gripped him by the arm. “Goddamnit, man; I’ve seen that boat. It’s all rotten. He’ll never survive.”

  “If she wills it, he’ll survive. Only to go through with it again and again whenever the storms come.”

  Towards the ocean, there was very little visible. Huge waves pounded the beach. Spray stung our eyes as we tried to peer into the pitch blackness.

  “He’ll not come back yet,” Rohan yelled. “He’s out there somewhere, riding the storm, waiting for her and hoping against hope that the boat founders and he goes down with her. But she won’t let him.”

  We must have stood there for almost an hour watching the white horses rolling in from the ocean, hammering against the jetty until it seemed that even the obdurate stone must surely crumble.

  Then Rohan’s hand gripped my shoulder as he pointed a shaking finger towards the sea.

  “There!” he shrieked. “Do you see them?”

  Dashing the teeming rain from my eyes, I stared in the direction of the rocks. For several seconds, I saw nothing. Then the entire sky lit up in a glaring sheet of white and I saw everything.

  The sails were merely long shreds of cloth, flapping like pennants around the masts. Trevelyan was there on the deck, his hands around the wheel.

  And there was another figure beside him.

  It was the slim figure of a woman, dressed all in white, her long hair streaming in the wind. Both were struggling violently on the canting deck, hands clamped around the wheel; one striving to turn the vessel onto the rocks and the other, her dress billowing in the gale, struggling to guide it through the narrow gap so that Trevelyan might continue to live with his endless burden of guilt.

  “She’ll win,” Rohan screamed in my ear. “She always wins.”

  Darkness rushed in to blot out the hideous scene, to erase it temporarily from my sight. I could only stand and try to visualize what was happening just beyond the clawing barrier which waited to tear the bottom out of any hapless vessel unfortunate enough to smash into it.

  I could no longer doubt the veracity of the old tales circulating in Corvellan. I knew I was not hallucinating or imagining what I had seen, limned in that lightning glare. Somehow, that boat would drift safely into harbour and Ben Trevelyan would have to live with the memory of cold-blooded murder on his soul.

  But then, even above the banshee shrieking of the gale, we heard a sound that neither of us expected. It was the unmistakable splintering of wood. When the next flash came, it revealed only the raging turmoil of the ocean, funnelling between those two narrow headlands.

  Rohan made a curious sign with his left hand, then turned and made his way back along the jetty. I followed him quickly, not wanting to stay another minute in that accursed place.

  The next day, I decided to cut short my holiday and leave Corvellan. Something very terrible had happened there two decades earlier and the final act in the drama had been played out the previous night.

  In the clear light of day, on that fine, sunny morning, it all seemed like a bad dream. Had I really seen that second figure or had I, in those few seconds when that lightning flash had lit up the scene, merely imagined it? Had it been nothing more than an image conjured up by my overwrought mind, already filled with a chaotic confusion of thoughts brought on by everything I had been told, After packing my things, I went down to the jetty for one last time. By now, the sea was calm and the tide almost out. There was nothing to remind me of what had happened during the night.

  Then, just as I was about to retrace my steps, I noticed something in the water. It was nothing more than a plain piece of wood, bobbing gently in the swell. But then an incoming wave suddenly flipped it over and I saw what was on the other side.

  It was part of the bow of Trevelyan’s boat. But what sent a sudden chill through me and had me hastening from that terrible place, was the name now etched upon it, stark and clear. In deep letters, as if gouged by long, sharp, ragged fingernails—SHIRLEY’S REVENGE!

  UNDERSEA QUEST

  In the autumn of 1927, the United States Federal Authorities were approached by Professor Derby of Miskatonic University concerning certain incidents occurring in the seaport town of Innsmouth as told to him by a Robert Olmstead. It had been known for some time that a trade in gold articles existed between Innsmouth and the neighbouring towns of Arkham, Rowley and Ipswich, such items occasionally turning up as far a field as Boston.

  However, Olmstead further claimed that illegal immigrants were also present in the town, that a large number of murders had been committed and several people known to have visited Innsmouth had unaccountably disappeared, leaving no clues as to their vanishing.

  Acting on this information, two Federal investigators were sent to Innsmouth to look into these claims. When neither man returned, it was decided that an armed raid was to be organized to determine the truth behind the stories of smuggling, murder and the disappearance of a number of individuals.

  What happened on February 1928 was never released to the public. The testimony of three agents who accompanied this force Into Innsmouth, given in three official reports has been kept under lock and key on the orders of the Federal authorities. All subsequent inquiries as to the contents of these reports have been met with the same answer. There never were such documents, the raid was merely to arrest certain individuals for tax evasion, and any suggestions to the contrary are simply pure invention and speculation on the part of the newspapers of that time.

  Until now, it has proved impossible to establish whether such reports do indeed exist and, if they do, what is set down in them. The account that follows is based upon photographic copies of the TOP SECRET documents, which have lain in the archives of the Federal Building for more than seventy years.

  How they come to be in my possession is not only irrelevant but also highly dangerous for certain individuals, including myself. Likewise, the name of the person who obtained them must be protected since, were it to become known, he would certainly face a long period of imprisonment or, like those in Innsmouth, simply vanish off the face of the Earth.

  * * * * * * *

  It is true that the events described herein occurred more than half a century ago, that they are so bizarre that few will believe them, and that others will describe them as a deliberate hoax. Yet all were written within two weeks of the raid on Innsmouth by sober, competent agents, all of who were warned of dire consequences should they speak about the incident to any member of the public.

  The decision to publish them now, more than seventy years after the event, has been taken because it is deemed essential that the world should be aware of the lurking horror that may, at any time, emerge and overwhelm mankind.

  I.

  Narrative of Federal agent James P. Curran:

  February 27, 1928

  My first acquaintance with Innsmouth was in early January 1928. Prior to that I had never heard of the town, nor could I find it marked on any map or listed in any gazetteer. My superiors had instructed me to accompany a colleague, Andrew McAlpine, from the Treasury Department, to Arkham where we were to question a certain Robert Olmstead who wished to give certain information concerning the town.

  The drive from Boston to Arkham took the best part of an hour and, with McAlpine at the wheel. I spent the time going through the file that had been given to us. Apparently, Innsmouth was a small seaport town on the north coast of Massachusetts, isolated from, and shunned, by its neighbours. Once a flourishing port, it had decayed and degenerated over the last half century and was now a backward community which kept itself to itself.

  Rumours concerning Innsmouth were legion. There were reports of smuggling and the importation of certain natives from som
e island in the South Seas during the mid-nineteenth century, presumably part of the slave trade. There was certainly a small, but significant, trade in gold items for many of these pieces were on show in Arkham, most of these produced at the Marsh refinery situated on the banks of the Manuxet River.

  Reports of murder and unexplained disappearances were also catalogued in the file although whether these were on the scale believed by residents in Arkham and Rowley had not been verified. More recently, during the preceding autumn, two agents from the Treasury Department had been sent to Innsmouth to report on tax evasions and possible contraband passing through Innsmouth. Neither agent had returned and this had brought things to a head as far as the Federal authorities were concerned.

  The decision to raid the town hade been taken at the highest level and a date set for February. Very little accurate information on conditions inside the town was available. However, an urgent telephone call to the Bureau from Professor Derby of Miskatonic University had resulted in our being ordered to go to the Federal office in Arkham to interview a certain Robert Olmstead who claimed to have recently escaped from Innsmouth and who had important information for us.

  Olmstead turned up at the office a little after two that afternoon. He wasn’t at all what I had expected. Approximately twenty years old, he gave an address in Cleveland and my first question was why he had travelled such a distance just to visit Innsmouth.

  At first, he seemed oddly evasive and kept fidgeting in his chair for a full two minutes before replying. The gist of his reply was that he was attempting to trace his ancestral history back to Arkham and there had discovered that, prior to moving there, his maternal family had originally come from nearby Innsmouth.

  “Are you aware that Innsmouth has been under close surveillance by the Federal authorities for some months?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I know nothing about that,” he declared. “My only reason for going there was to trace any of my maternal relatives who might still be living in Innsmouth.”