Those of you who have been paying
attention will realise that there is no cemetery in Innsmouth that caters for
the majority population. Not at all. Anyone living here, with connexions to the
Esoteric Order of Dagon, knows that life is an adolescence of variable length
on land before the Change is complete, and thereafter, an eternity of life in
the glory of Y’ha-nthlei, beyond Devil Reef. Even those who meet an untimely
death are sent out for burial at sea. However, since 1928, other folk have come
to the town and some of them have made homes here; not all of them have – how
shall I put it? – the worship of Dagon in their blood. Therefore, to the north
of the community, just back from the coast, there is a small burial ground for
outsiders. I had completely forgotten about its existence; most likely, no-one
on my trail would think of it either.
Dawn had come but the rain wasn’t
letting up. It had developed that blunt, bone-chilling cold that comes after a
full night without the sun to warm it, and I was soon drenched to the skin. I
made my way along the Manuxet banks, past the old gold refineries and down to
the beach; I forded the river where it meets the Atlantic and set about
trudging along the sand close to the water’s edge. Away towards the eastern
horizon, a waterspout dropped its swirling liquid tentacle down from the clouds
and lightning flashed in its wake. I kept my head down and my pace steady: not
all of the people who would be looking for me would be in the town; certainly,
many of them would be in the water...
Distant cliffs appeared ahead of
me and I made for the rain-spattered dunes. Wet through as I was, slogging
through the loose sand didn’t help me to set any land-speed records, but here
amongst the coarse grass and sea-wrack, I had a little more cover to play with.
Eventually, I exited the sandhills and stepped out onto the ocean road behind
the beach. Here, at its northern end, it was little more than a dirt track: to
the south it turned to gravel and then to bitumen, until it ran past what once
had been my home. I wondered if I’d ever be seeing that home again.
I crossed over and hopped a
post-and-rail fence into the salt marshes on the other side. A hundred yards
ahead, on top of a slight rise and surrounded by an iron fence topped with
rusty spikes, was a huddle of headstones and decrepit tombs, many of which had
seen no maintenance since the turn of last century. I made a beeline for it,
slogging through cold, black mud, and worked my way along the fence-line until
I came to the gate. A curving metal sign over the entranceway read “Foreigners’
Graveyard” in steadily dripping letters. I shouldered my cylinder and scanned
the grey horizon in all directions: for what it was worth, I couldn’t see
anyone, so I made my way inside.
Within, the ground was only
slightly less boggy than outside the fence’s perimeter. Headstones and other
grave markers sagged and teetered in the mire, choked with overgrown thorn
plants and wayward grass. Towards the centre of this sombre isle, several
ponderous tombs leaned against each other, their sculptured finishes cracked
and tumbled. The earth was pitted and hummocked, where subsidence down below
dropped the sod on those nestled within.
The rain gathered itself for
another assault. I dropped my cylinder and sank down under the wings of a
headless angel. I fumbled in my pockets for a cigarette and gratefully lit up,
cupping my hands around my lighter. I was tired and hungry, and I needed to
rest somewhere before exploring the options available to me here.
While thus occupied, I noticed a
light coming from the largest of the tombs. My heart sank and I groaned: surely
the E.O.D. wouldn’t post a watch for me here? My presence was a fluke, a lucky
accident generated by a random and freaky dream, unless... I looked towards the
coast. Maybe a pair of eyes out beyond the breakers had seen me and spread the
word?
I flicked my smoke out into the
weather where it fizzed into silence. Hefting the heavy leather tube over my
shoulder, I stood up wearily: I was going to have to take a look at whatever
was waiting for me and see if it posed a threat.
My shoes were soaked through, so
I didn’t bother trying to avoid the puddles; I just moved circumspectly towards
the tomb’s gaping entrance by the most discreet and direct route possible.
Several granite steps led up to the entryway and a morbid inscription over the
door declared in Latin that we were nothing but shadows. Just beyond the
threshold, out of the downpour, was a well-used hurricane lamp generating a
friendly yellow light.
I stepped inside and the sound of
the rain diminished greatly. Within, was a stone room lined with shelves,
stocked with crumbling and decrepit coffins. Opposite the entrance, some dark
stairs led downwards toward a distant, unseen, second source of illumination.
Picking up the lamp, I headed
over to the stairs and peered down. A stone door stood open and flickering
candlelight flooded out. I could hear movement coming from beyond, objects
clinking and rattling, and a tuneless, breathy whistle accompanying it all. I
took a couple of cautious steps downwards and my foot struck something sitting
on the stairs: raising my lamp, I saw a crude pottery bowl wobbling on the
stonework; within was a thick, brown gravy, dribbling around a hand with many
of the bones exposed.
‘Whoopth!’ said a lisping voice,
‘Thorry about that: thilly of me to leave my breakfatht lying about!’
The creature – there is no other
word for it – that stood before me was confronting indeed. It was vaguely
human. That is, the lineaments of humanity clung to it; however, apart from
this rudimentary foundation, the balance was decidedly alien. Its face was
dog-like, with a forward-thrusting muzzle filled with sharp teeth which made
its attempts at speech difficult; it was covered all over – as far as I could
see – in matted and dense dark fur; its legs were those of an animal with
strange, half-hooved paws at the extremity. But for the fact that it was
wearing a shirt and waistcoat, covered by a sturdy, much-stained apron, and a
pair of pince-nez, I probably would
have been less inclined to hang around. It reached down jauntily to scoop up
the forgotten meal and then, holding this at its side as if it were nothing of
any consequence, held out its other hand for me to shake.
‘My name’th Alphonthe,’ it said
brightly, ‘I wathn’t exthpecting you to get here tho quickly.’
I blinked, then slowly took the
extended hand. ‘I wasn’t otherwise occupied - Alphonse?’ He smiled warmly at
me, showing all his crooked teeth.
‘I’d athk you in,’ he said
turning to the room beyond, ‘but it’th forbidden for you to enter.’ He began
busily bustling about: inside there was a large table beneath the curving low
arch of a cavern. The walls were burdened with shelves, upon which sat bottles
and jars and various items of brass and wood construction; in one corner stood
a furnace with an anvil and blacksmith’s tools alongside. It looked for all the
world like how a wizard’s workshop is supposed to look.
‘I altho won’t athk you to join
in my repatht,’ said Alphonse returning to the doorway, ‘but here’th thome
cheethe and bread. And thome beer.’
He passed to me a wooden bowl
with a loaf in it and a wedge of hard cheese with a knife sticking out of it.
With this came a hefty, rustic-looking jug with foaming suds slopping over the
sides. My stomach growled unrepentantly - I sank down on the bottom step and
immediately tucked in.
‘I thuthpected that you might
need that,’ smirked Alphonse. Grabbing a three-legged stool, he plonked himself
down in the doorway and proceeded to light up a pipe. He sat there blowing
smoke rings while I chugged down everything I could get my face around – it had
been a long time since that measly fruit cup.
‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ I
belched when I was finished. My host gave a nod of the head by way of response.
‘Now,’ he said, tapping his pipe
on the stone floor and then scraping its bowl with his claw, ‘you have
quethtionth that need anthwerth...’ he raised his eyebrows and stared at me
with his golden, canine eyes.
I organised my thoughts, then
pointed a finger at the room behind him. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘what’s all that?’
Alphonse waved a dismissive hand.
‘All thith,’ he said, ‘ith me doing a favour for thomeone elthe, by
thpethifically coming to your athithtanthe. You met him before. But I think you
have other, more prething conthernth.’
‘Alright,’ I said, frowning, and
adding this information to the other bizarre conundrums locked in my head,
‘let’s go right back to the beginning: there was a stranger in town; who was
he?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alphonse,
shrugging, ‘I’m not pthycic. What can you tell me about him?’
I rummaged around in my pockets.
Pulling forth the intricate lumps of metal and the hexagonal plates, I dropped
them on the floor before him.
‘He looked like a cockroach with
a bad case of acne; and he had these with him.’
Alphonse sniffed, and pawed at
the assembled doo-dads. He rolled the lumpy metal thing carefully to one side.
‘That’th a weapon,’ he said. ‘Careful where you point it. Thith,’ he lifted up
the metal rod, ‘ith dangerouth, altho. Thtick the pointy end in the ground and
all hell will break loothe.’
He picked up the metal plates and
scrutinised them closely, holding them up to the light. ‘I figure they’re some
kind of instructions,’ I said, ‘information maybe? Mission parameters?’
He nodded, contemplating.
‘Pothibly. Pothibly...’ he murmured. He slid them together in a stack and
turned to me.
‘Thith thtranger,’ he said, ‘ith
a member of an alien thpethieth from the far edge of the Tholar Thythtem. They
call themthelveth by variouth termth, but thome people here on Earth call them
the Mi-Go.’
‘“Mi-Go”? As in “Me Tarzan; You
Go?”’
‘It’th a Himalayan dialect
actually,’ Alphonse continued, ‘They had a bathe there many yearth ago, and
there were dithputeth with the indigenouth population. If one of them ith here,
then it’th very bad.’
‘Oh, he’s not gonna be troubling
anybody anymore,’ I said, smiling grimly.
Alphonse tipped his head back to
look at me through his glasses. ‘Well, good,’ he said. ‘Now you’ll want to know
what he wath doing around thethe partth.’
I pulled out my cigarettes and
lit up. ‘Enlighten me, Alphonse.’ I blew a cloud of smoke to one side.
Alphonse leant back and rested
his head against the door lintel, narrowing his gaze.
‘Thethe creatureth,’ he began,
‘had a colony not far from here to the north. Thentral to their community and
itth practitheth was a thtone, which wath taken from them by a man who
dithcovered too much about them and who began revealing their prethenthe here on
thith planet.’
‘A stone?’ I immediately thought
back to my session with Mrs Pettifer and the crazy utterances of Madame Klopp.
‘Yeth,’ continued Alphonse, ‘a
thtone which wath brought from their dithtant planet of Yuggoth. Thome people
think that Pluto ith Yuggoth, but it’th actually a different rock altogether.
Anyway, thith man thent the thtone to a colleague in Arkham in the care of hith
thon, but the lad wath ambuthed along the way by a devotee, a human agent, of
the Mi-Go.’
‘Wait: people work for these
critters? That’s messed up.’
Alphonse nodded. ‘Humanth can be
thwayed by all thortth of promitheth,’ he said, ‘very few of which need to be
made good on.’ He pulled out his pipe once more and began packing it with
tobacco.
‘Well, the human agent dethided
to hide with the thtone,’ he went on, ‘I gueth he wath thtarting to mithtrutht
hith Mi-Go mathterth. He came here, figuring that it wath off the map and
fairly thecluded.’ I leant forward with my lighter and lit his pipe. He sucked at
the stem a few times and then blew a pall of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘The trail goeth cold at that
point,’ he said. ‘Thith fellow came here and then – poof! – he’th gone.’ He
gave me a sidelong look: ‘I’ll bet you can offer a theory ath to what happened
to him...’
I took a long drag at my smoke
and narrowed my gaze at him.
‘Yep,’ I answered, ‘yep. As a
stranger to Innsmouth, he would’ve been marked as soon as he set foot in town.
He would’ve been rounded up and either scared away – if he was no threat – or
he would’ve been made to disappear if he was.’ I stubbed out my cigarette on
the step. ‘We’re not really a welcoming community.’
‘Tho, you mutht have thome idea
of where the thtone ith at thith point?’ Alphonse regarded me levelly.
I nodded. ‘I’ve got a pretty good
idea,’ I said. Alphonse puffed at his pipe. I looked at him and then dragged
out the leather cylinder from the step behind me.
‘One thing more,’ I said, ‘what
are these? And how do they figure in all this mess?’ I popped the cap on the
tube and slid one of the hexagonal bars out for him to look at. I turned it
around so he could see the teeth marks I’d made on one end.
‘Interethting,’ he said drawing
it forth and inspecting it closely. ‘I believe I know what thethe are, but let
me do thome tethtth.’
He stood up and pattered across
to his anvil. Taking a pair of grunty clippers, he adroitly snipped a piece off
the end of the bar, making a rough, disfigured disc of the metal. This he threw
into a small dish on the table. Then, taking a glass phial from off a shelf, he
poured a clear liquid over the sample, at the same time holding a paw over his
snout. Smoky white fumes issued forth and Alphonse flapped them away expertly.
Then he picked up a set of pincers and lifted the sample out to regard it
carefully. Walking over to the doorway, he showed me the shiny piece of metal
steaming in the pincers’ grip.
‘It’th platinum,’ he said, ‘which
raitheth a few quethtionth...’
‘Yeah,’ I growled, ‘what in this
town is worth 19 three-foot long bars of platinum to a bug from outer space?
And who’s naming the price? The bug was here on a goddam' shopping expedition!’
Alphonse dropped the pincers and
their sample back on the table and picked up the remainder of the bar from the
anvil. Coming back to the doorway he handed it to me and said:
‘Find the thtone, you’ll find
your anthwerth...’
To Be Continued...
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