Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

He looked suddenly close to tears, as if my saying this had somehow confirmed what he was fearing. “No,” he said. “I wanted to wait as long as possible. I wanted to ask you…” His voice tapered off, perhaps as he realised how pathetic he sounded.

“Allow me,” I said, and swept past him, into the Officer’s Quarters. Ralph was sitting on one of the sofas, his knees drawn up to his chin, trying not to allow the little boy through, but failing miserably. He looked alarmed, forlorn, lost. I tried to smile at him, but the muscles in my face were still stiff from the journey—I must have looked anything but optimistic to him; he turned away.

I managed to get through to the island police office and informed them briefly of the situation and our whereabouts. They told me to stay where we were, and that an officer would be with us within the half-hour.

I went straight to my suitcase and pulled out the small bottle of Jura I’d brought with me to help keep the nip from my bones. I poured two glasses and handed one to Alastair. He eyed the whisky with suspicion but swallowed it down in one gulp. He sighed. “Thanks,” he said. “That was good.”

I sipped my own drink in a more leisurely fashion, perched on the edge of the kitchen table while he sat with Ralph and tried to comfort him. When I’d finished I pulled on my coat and went up to the gate and peered through the hatch, trying to make out any kind of movement on the causeway, or the hills leading off in the direction of Bray. After about five minutes I saw headlights following the ruined road towards the causeway.

Ambient light, most probably from the fort’s floodlights, picked out the reflective stripes on the side of the car. I unlocked the gate as it pulled up in the small parking space and two uniformed officers climbed out.

We didn’t speak. I merely led the way and indicated Alastair’s whereabouts. The officers thanked me with the kind of sad, formal smile that heralds no good news.

I listened, a hand over my mouth, as the officers went through the motions. We’re very sorry to have to inform you… terrible news… your wife, Penelope, was found this morning… she died as a result of her injuries…

It was decided that he and Ralph should leave immediately in order to identify the body. I told Alastair that I would help in any way possible and he thanked me, though I imagine he barely heard what I said to him. I gave Ralph a pat on the back and told him to be strong and look after his dad, but he was in a terrible state, unable to hold the tears back any longer.

What a terrible, terrible ordeal. Losing my own wife had no bearing on this whatsoever. We’d both had time to come to terms with what was happening and Clarissa’s demise, though premature, was as near to what one might term a ‘good’ death as one could hope. I wished Alastair and his boy might find some form of closure. It was pale comfort, I suppose, but at least a body had been found. If the rocks had not snagged her, she might never have been seen again.

I had another glass of whisky in a bid to ward off the maudlin thoughts jostling for attention, and to blunt my senses against the realisation that I was now alone in this remote outcrop. My skin prickled with the thought of Mr. Gluckmann emerging from the water like a sponge that has been chewed beyond recognition. I thought I still smelled the residue of our meeting the previous night in the tips of my fingers and felt my gorge rising. I managed to reach the bathroom before I was sick, and I was bizarrely grateful for the hot stink of whisky fumes to mask that other odour.

Back in the Soldier’s Quarters I showered and brushed my teeth, and fell into a weak, feverish sleep invaded by Gluckmann, who was once again naked, his skin looped and pale like something molten. What looked like organic baskets were stitched into the flesh around his waist and slung over his shoulders like bandoliers. Each basket was topped by a scalp, to keep covered whatever lay inside.

He came out of the shadows and the moonlight, where it touched him, made him translucent, and I discerned shadowy joins in the skin, like little blisters. They shimmered in a peristaltic motion, chasing each other over the immense surface area of his body like shoals of fish jinking this way and that to confuse a pursuer. The ‘baskets’ I noticed were translucent too. Each contained something craven in attitude, hunched in on itself as if trying to hide. Something limbless, yet budding, with a network of veins feeding, and leaving, a soft, red heart beating at the centre. Something unformed, vaguely human, yet riddled with teeth and spines.

I woke up cold and frightened and close to tears. I had wet the bed.