The Innswich Horror

by Edward Lee

© 2010 by Edward Lee

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Foremost, the author must thank the late, great H. P. Lovecraft for providing thirty years of horrific wonder and demented influence. I must also thank the late Brian McNaughton for early influences. Also Tim McGinnis, Bob Strauss, Richard Chizmar, and Ian Levy. I am further in debt to authors S. T. Joshi, Darrell Schweitzer, and Anthony Pearsall for their various preeminent books on the life and works of HPL. Please forgive any misrepresentations and/or errors.

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For Wendy Brewer. Be my Cthulheena.

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1.

The motor-coach noise provided an aural mental backdrop: I imagined myself as the Master, and fancied I could see what he would see beyond the drab window. Not common fields, unremarkable treelines, and a typical New England summer sky but scenes much more sinister. Blasted heaths pocking malnourished meadows and dying scrubland, trees twisted and lightning-scarred, and a sky onerous and swollen with menace. And there—yes!—over the rusted iron railing-work of a decades-old bridge, my gaze was commandeered by the sluggish Miskatonic, in whose depths God knew what lurked or lay bloated in death or states worse than death. The prosaic bus window was no longer a simple transparent pane but a prism-obscura, a looking-glass to eldritch sights, nether-chasms, and leaky rives betwixt dimensions and inconteplatable horrors. Then I blinked—

—and slumped with a smile. It was just the rushing and very healthy Essex River below and, to either side, an endless rise of pine and oak. No, though God had possessed me with an ample grasp for learning, I was not so possessed by even an irreducible fraction of the Master’s imagination. I suppose that’s why I delighted so in his tales. Imagination, indeed, was a gift better reveled in by true scribes of the fantastical.

Scribes such as Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

I shared the bus with but a half-dozen other fellows, men of hard labor, judging by their appearance; and I dared wonder if Lovecraft himself had ever ridden this same bus. If so: Which seat? Which window did he gaze past to titillate his muse? It was a funny thing, such reverence to this manner of fiction. Just as HPL was obsessed with everything from the cosmos to colonial architecture, I, it seems, am obsessed with his work.

My name is Foster Morley, thirty-three years of age, brown-haired and brown-eyed. I suppose Lovecraft might describe me as nondescript and unobtrusive, but he would likely be amused by a certain parallel. Like so many of his protagonists, I come from solid English gentry and family means, wealthy by legacy, and hold an unutilized degree from Brown University. I occupy a 180-year-old manse in stately Providence, near the Athenaeum, where my family bloodline migrated to before the Revolution. That family is now deceased, I the only offspring. Hence, by the grace of my Creator, my days are dreams in which I want for nothing, and when I am not philanthrophising… I read. I read Lovecraft, over and over again, for never have mere words on paper been able to transport me to other, more interesting worlds. Worlds not akin to this one at all—with its financial depression and its unfathomable wars. No, but instead worlds of dreadful wonder and daedalic terror.

Oddly, I was never aware of Lovecraft until I read an obituary in the Providence Evening Bulletin over two years ago, in March of 1937, commenting on the local academic fantasist’s passing and strange career. Curiosity piqued, then, I lucked upon the June, 1936, issue of the magazine Weird Tales and pored over “Shadow Out of Time.” From that point, I was duly habituated, after which I expended minor sums but fastidious effort in making everything the Master wrote a constituent of my library. My obsession was at hand, and more than that—perhaps my salvation. Though content in my companionless solitude, I now had something bereft to me for so long: mental substance, a trip to lost terrascapes every night, rather than counting tedious hours of vacuity.

I took to re-reading his work at the tree by his grave at Swan Point Cemetery; I strolled weekly past his rooming-house in College Street and would always stop to peer out upon Federal Hill and spy St. John’s Catholic Church, his model for his last tale in earnest, the brilliant “Haunter of the Dark”; I’d prowl Angell Street and Benefit, hoping that some psychic lingering of the icon might brush by me—or somehow bestow a macabre, ethereal blessing; I’d even shop weekly at the Weybosset’s Store where he so often spent his pittance on food. More than once, too, I railed to New York, to stare up in awe at the squalid Flatbush rowhouse where the Master lived off and on with his wife; most recently I lit a votive at St. Paul’s Chapel on Broadway, where they married. I took to traveling where he traveled: from Marblehead to the District of Columbia to New Orleans, from Wilbraham, Massachusetts, to Dunedin, Florida—and exclusively by steam-train or motor coach, for this afforded me to see what he saw on the same long and clattering jaunts. That process—seeing—was most crucial to me, seeing and being where he had been. I once stood at the foot of Poe’s grave in Baltimore, only because I knew that Lovecraft had stood there once as well. I even tried to purchase the looming gable-manse at 135 Benefit Street but the owners would not sell, even for the preposterous price I offered, this being, of course, the nefarious, lichen-enslimed “shunned” house.

Obsessed? Without doubt. An alienist, I’m certain, would label me with some syndrome close to clinical, something analytically Jungian. Through Lovecraft’s words I know that I was desperately in search of something, and I’ll only know what that something is when I find it.

Er, pardon me. I should say that I’ve already found it—in Innswich—perhaps to my eternal turmoil.

I’d left the servants in charge—they were quite used to my junkets of inexplicable travel by now—and had decided to retrace the fictive journey of one of his characters, that character being the unnamed protagonist of my very favorite tale, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. HPL’s own notes, according to his confidant August Derleth, name the hapless fictional character as Robert Olmstead, though the name never appears in the actual story. It is not difficult to see, however, Mr. Olmstead’s mirror-image to Lovecraft himself: an antiquary and architectural aficionado, traveling the depths of New England always by the least costly mode possible, to pursue his own obsessions.

This, then, would serve as my summer outing. Robert Olmstead departed Newburysport for Arkham on July 15, 1927, with the intention of perusing the witch-haunted town’s archives and Colonial structure. Hence, my own desire to duplicate Olmstead’s trip, again, to see what Lovecraft saw. Therefore, ever the stickler for detail, I commenced with my own sojourn on July, 15, 1939, leaving Newburysport from the same bus stop in front of the very real Hammond’s Drug Store for the town of Salem, which was HPL’s blueprint for Arkham.

I’d selected the forward-most seat on the coach, on the right-hand side, which afforded a spacious view through the windscreen. Several miles past the Essex now, the scenery seemed to denigrate in a manner that eludes sensible description; suddenly, the woods looked impoverished, the vegetation lost its summer luster, and even the road, paved only by crushed oyster shells, elicited the word sallow, though I know this sounds preposterously non-schematic. It was something, however, that existed beyond that month’s record-breaking drought. An unchecked darkness settled in my spirit for reasons I cannot define.

Finally, through the windscreen, I took refreshing note of some sign of humanity: a rundown wood-slat shack—obviously a domicile—next to what appeared to be a smokehouse. A hog-pen, too, caught my eye, bounded by crude chicken wire and surrounding less than half a dozen swine. Something smelled appetizing, though, which I thought could only be from the smokehouse. Lastly a sign and roadside vending stand came into view. The sign read: ONDERDONK & SON. SMOKEHOUSE — FISH-FED PORK. At the same instant we passed, the driver seemed to grunt.

“Fish-fed pork?” I queried the driver. “I’ve never heard of that. Have you ever happened to try it?”

The driver’s face remained forward, and at first I thought he had no intention of answering. “T’ain’t nothin’ I’ve ever et nor ever will. Same five hogs in that pen damn near year-long. More like fish-fed skunk, knowin’ the Onderdonks. He and his kid—they’se furren. Don’t like ‘em, an’ they’se don’t like us.”

A second of cogitation translated furren as foreign. I couldn’t resist: “Us as in whom?”

“Don’t matter!” the driver snapped. “Me, I’m just doin’ my job. But them Onderdonks don’t dare try to sell past the loop.”

By now I had no conceivable idea what founded the driver’s displeasure. “The loop?” I said more to myself.

“They sell that slop you call barbeque to migrants and plain folk who happen to be travelin’ from New’bry to Salem, but they never take the loop in to town.”

The perplexion steeped. I thought I’d best keep my queries to myself yet I also knew that the map showed no other town between Newburyport and Salem. “The town? You must mean Salem, but surely we’re still an hour off at the least.”

“No,” he grumbled. Only now did I take notice of the driver’s features—first recounting Lovecraft’s story and the motor-man named Joe Sargent, cursed by that “Innsmouth look”: narrow-headed, flat-nosed, crease-necked, with unblinking, over-protuberant eyes. Sargent’s appearance causes in the mind of Robert Olmstead a spontaneous aversion. This fellow here, however, though surly in demeanor, was just a commonplace workingman.

“Olmstead,” he said, “and here’s the loop now.” He veered aside and took a fork in the road, past a sign that read OLMSTEAD - 2 MILES - POP. 361. “This the only bus that goes there’n it’s a fifteen-minute time-point.”

It wasn’t the fact that we were suddenly embarking toward a town I’d not heard of (not to mention a town not displayed on the map) but something else altogether. “Olmstead?” I pressed the word. “You’re telling me there’s an uncharted town called Olmstead?”

The question perturbed him. “It’s on the time-table. We had a devil of a time tryin’ to get the county to let us put in a bus stop; they made us incorporate, whatever that means ‘sides havin’ to pay a fee. Had to do the same to get mail delivery. T’ain’t right that Olmsteaders shouldn’t have no way to get to the bigger towns, especially the economy bein’ the way it is,” and then an abrupt thumb jerked over his shoulder to gesture the six other passengers sharing the coach with me. “Weren’t for the fishin’,” he added, “we’d be sunk.”

Though these men must’ve heard the driver, their faces remained blank. They were unkempt, shabbily attired—fishermen, I saw, for they each had an armful of new fishing rods, plus several rolls of nets. It was clear they’d traveled to Newburyport to purchase these supplies. Still, though, the distraction of these rough but normal men didn’t suffice to sway my major focus…

This is something. An arcane notion told me that mere coincidence wouldn’t suffice to explain this. A town—Olmstead—sharing the name of Lovecraft’s very protagonist in The Shadow Over Innsmouth…

The road narrowed, and grew more runneled, as my olfactory senses told me we were nearing the water. Suddenly an excitement usurped all other thoughts. Though Lovecraft traveled extensively his entire adult life, none of his travel logs that I knew of mentioned a town called Olmstead. Had this town given Lovecraft the name of his main character? I so hoped. And if so, what would the town be like?

The answer would be soon at hand.

2.

It was an assailing disappointment that first swept me as the smoke-belching coach stopped in what I presumed was Olmstead’s town-center. In fantasy, I thought I’d made a unique discovery: that I’d stumbled upon the true model for the Master’s most masterful tale, and that at any moment now, I’d be envisioning Innsmouth’s evilly-shadowed alleys, crumbling wharfs, and oddly angled, steep-roofed buildings rife with decrepitude and that “wormy decay” so ably conveyed by the tale’s creator.

Instead I was greeted by nothing of the sort. Olmstead clearly owed its architecture to the utilitarian government block-house designs that came with the subsidized renewal projects of the late-‘20s to early-‘30s. What a let-down! Olmstead, indeed, was generic, not singular.

The bus seemed to hiccough smoke a full minute before the motor shut down. The half-dozen shabby fishermen stood from their seats simultaneously, then filed out, carrying their rods, tackle, and nets. “Fifteen minutes, in case ya want a breather and a stretch,” informed the driver without looking at me. “You’re goin’ on to Salem, right?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” I said and followed him off. He headed across the sterile street, toward a shop.

The smell of fish and low-tide gushed down the street from the direction I knew must be shoreward. Nothing at all like the aghast reek that so nauseated Robert Olmstead in the tale. The town-center left nothing particularized to describe, just block building after block building. Some must be apartments, for out from their windows hung laundry to dry; others must be businesses, though I detected not much in the way of local commerce. Now I had to smile at my overzealousness. The coincidence of the hidden town’s name was clearly just that. And this place, I thought, was no more a creative influence to Lovecraft than it would be an influence to any traveler: lackluster, unfeatured, insipid.

When rising footsteps signaled me from this juvenile plunge of disappointment, I expected to find the chilly driver returning but instead looked up into the smiling face of a spry, good-conditioned man about my own age, or perhaps slightly younger, sharply dressed in conservative suit and tie, with dark-brown hair neatly combed. He carried a briefcase, and wore one of the smart beige Koko-Kooler hats, which were all the fashion rage among younger men these days. His expression seemed, oddly, one of relief, though I was certain we’d never before met.

“How do you do?” he greeted.

“I’m quite good, and hope you are as well.”

“Sorry to intrude, but its just that your face seems a bit more welcome than the other men I’ve met here.” His eyes glimpsed the cumbersome coach. “I take it you’re traveling?”

“Why, yes. I’m going on to Salem. The name’s Foster Morley—”

“William Garret,” he returned and heartily shook my hand. Then he whispered, “Some odd ones in this town, eh?”

“None that I’ve yet noticed,” I admitted. “Haven’t seen anyone else about, other than you, I mean. You’re obviously not an ‘Olmsteader,’ to use the driver’s designation.”

“No, I’m not. I’m from Boston, an accountant—er, I should say an unemployed accountant. So you haven’t seen a blond fellow walking about, have you?”

“I’m sorry, no. I’m just taking a stretch before the coach is off again. Why do you ask?”

Now his deportment shifted to something more intense. “It’s my friend, you see—his name’s Poynter. We worked in the same accounting firm but both lost our jobs when this depression—as they’re calling it—got the best of our business. He came here a month ago and recently wrote me. He found a job, I should say, but now I can’t find him.”

“Is that so? Did he say who’d hired him on?”

“One of the fisheries, down at the point, to keep records,” and then he turned and gestured the source of that wispy fish and tide smell. “There are several there but none I’ve found know anything of my friend, and none are hiring accountants.”

“Perhaps your friend Poynter didn’t care for his new job and has already left town,” I suggested.

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He was expecting me.”

My next question seemed the most logical. “Where did he direct you to meet him once you arrived?”

Now Garret pointed to a multi-storied blockhouse across the street. “The motel there, the Hilman House. I took a room—only fifty-cents a night, so I can’t complain about that—but the strange thing is…” He paused though an aggravation. “When I checked myself in, the clerk said that Leonard Poynter, my friend, had indeed rented a room there, and was currently still a guest. The problem is I can’t for the life of me find him.”

So obvious was Mr. Garret’s enigma but now I possessed an enigma of my own. That excited fugue-state came back into my head, and I knew that I’d discovered something for sure. First a town called Olmstead and a character called Olmstead, and now?

In Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the protagonist checks into a motel called the Gilman House, and now here I stood looking at a motel called the Hilman House. I’m sorry, but this was more than coincidence. It had to be. Something about this tedious town, without a doubt, impressed Lovecraft enough to at least borrow some names from it, and I was suddenly convinced that there must be more influences waiting to be divulged.

Garret peered close, concern in his eyes. “Mr. Morley? Are you all right?”

His voice snapped me out of my mental revel. “Oh, sorry. Something sidetracked me. But, you know what? I think I’ll be staying on for a few days after all.”

“Splendid!” He whispered again, through a tight smile. “It’ll be good to know that I’m not the only normal person in town.”

I laughed distractedly but before I could say more…

“Hello, gentlemen,” a soft voice greeted.

We both turned to take wide-eyed note of a commonly attired yet perfectly attractive woman. She strolled down the walk, arms full of groceries, and grinned more than typically at the two of us.

Garret tipped his hat. “Miss…”

“Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” I plodded.

“Oh, yes it is,” and that was the extent of our discourse.

“There’s a looker,” Garret whispered.

“I should say so,” I remarked, actually a bit ashamed, for this woman’s over-typical good looks gave me cause peer more than I should’ve. Her bosom could be described as raucous, as she was not only endowed but appeared un-brassier’d. The respect I had for my Christian faith reminded me what Jesus said regarding lust, but not in enough time to avert my eyes.

“As they say in England,” chuckled my friend, “there goes the apple-dumpling cart,” but then he leaned closer to denote discretion, “but that’s another queer thing about this little town.”

“That being?”

“I’m serious, man. I’ve never seen so many pregnant women in one place in my life.”

“Preg—” I began, and when I gave myself another yet more distanced glance, the more than moderate gibbosity of the woman’s abdomen told all. “Well, I’ll be. You seem to be correct.”

“Four or five months at least, and it’s not the first biscuit in that one’s oven, either.”

I looked dismayed. “How on earth can you tell that?”

He elbowed me with a grin. “You saw the jugs on her. They’re still filled up from the last one.”

The uncultivated talk was making me uneasy, for it wasn’t my bent. “But, really, what did you mean when you said you’ve never seen so many—”

“This town—I’m serious. I’ll bet that’s the dozenth pregnant woman I’ve seen since I’ve been here, and I’m telling you, most of them have been lookers.”

“Really… Still, it’s a good thing, if you don’t mind my opinion. The government is wise to encourage propagation since the Spanish Flu epidemic of ‘18. We lost half a million in that, they say, and almost all of them young men.”

Garret nodded grimly. “And right after losing—what?—another hundred-some thousand more men in that devilish war with the Huns. I agree with you. America needs more birthing, especially if we have to get into this next one with Germany, like so many believe.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt on this subject; I tended to trust authority. “But the President just declared neutrality in the European War.”

“It doesn’t give me much comfort, I’ll tell you. Right after Germany and Russia signed the non-aggression pact, look what happens. Russia invades Finland. And don’t believe that Brit Neville Chamberlain either. Peace in our time? Hitler’s pulling the wool over the whole world’s eyes. And what are the Japanese doing in the meantime? Invading Manchuria.”

“Let’s pray God that men can find a diplomatic solution.” It was my nature not to engage in political conversation, though the man had some points that perhaps gave me cause to feel naive. “But getting back to our previous, if not a bit too earthy topic, we must be fruitful and multiply—”

“Just as it says in the Good Book, yes. And I tell you,” he went on, “I’m not too pleased about Congress striking the Comstock Act—when was that? Last year?”

“No, no, it was ‘36, and we agree again, William. Barrier prophylactics should remain illegal except when prescribed by a physician for the prevention of disease. An open market for such things really does circumvent nature—”

“And God’s will, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Not at all,” but then we both looked at each other and laughed. “Not exactly everyday conversation, eh?”

“No, my friend, it isn’t, but it’s still invigorating to find someone who shares my doctrines,” he said.

“Likewise. So now I suppose you’ll be returning to your search for your friend, Poynter. I’m going to check in to the Hilman and then take a stroll about. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for your friend. Let’s meet for dinner tonight. If I happen to find your friend, I’ll bring him. Say, seven o’clock?”

“A terrific idea, Mr. Morley—”

“Call me Foster, please. And where’s a suitable restaurant?”

Again, he pointed just across the street, to the small restaurant I’d noticed earlier, Wraxall’s Eatery. “It’s not bad, and large portions for a slight price.”

“Good. Seven—I’ll see you then.”

Garret walked off, a spring in his step now that he had a “normal” confidante. I, on the other hand, had a new exhilaration to feed my Lovecraftian obsession. Though the town looked nothing like the Master’s Innsmouth, what little tidbits of recognition might I find in its details?

I fetched my valise from the coach, and when I returned to the street, the driver stood sullenly before me. The look on his face might be called hateful. “Why ya got your bag? We’ll be takin’ off for Salem now. Ya t’ain’t staying in Olmstead now, are ya?’

“Actually, yes,” I told him. “I’ve changed my mind and decided to stay a few days.”

At first, he appeared about to object, as though the prospect offended him. After all, I wasn’t an “Olmsteader.” It occurred to me just now how small his mouth seemed. The little twist of lips turned. “Now’s I thinkin’ on it, you might like Olmstead.” Then the fleshy twist merged into something like a smile. “And Olmstead might like you.”

He climbed back aboard the bus, and drove off in a smoke-chugging clatter.

So Olmstead might like me? I mused. Of that I cared little. But clearly something about it had impacted Lovecraft to blend some of its peripheries into his shuddering tale of inbred fish-people and pseudo-occult horror.

Just like in the story, the vested, elderly clerk at the Hilman’s front desk seemed pleasant and conventional enough; he was all too happy to let me a room. Without much pre-cognizance, I blurted, “Would a Room 428 be available?” for this—as astute readers will know—was the room Robert Olmstead rented in the story.

“So you’ve been here before!” the man seemed to delight in a neutral accent. “That can only mean you like our accommodations. See, since the rebuild, Olmstead looks quite nice and’s got some fine amenities.”

I didn’t spoil his assumption by revealing that I’d never previously visited, but instead I evaded by inquiring, “The ‘rebuild?’”

“Ah, yes, sir. 1930, ‘31 thereabouts, government contractors put up all these nice, sturdy block buildings. Fire-proof, storm proof, like they done lots’a places. When the Great Storm hit last September, there weren’t no damage at all. But Olmstead of the past was a sorry sight. Just an old rotten wharf town fallin’ in on itself. God bless Roosevelt and Garner!”

This came as no surprise. Soon after the stock market collapsed in ‘28, the Federal Re-Employment Act hired on thousands of jobless for reconstruction purposes, paying a dollar a day. Many towns in disrepair were rebuilt. Now, however, inspired by the new information, I couldn’t help but feel sure that what Olmstead looked like before this rebuild had to be the visual picture Lovecraft painted for his readers in The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

My work’s cut out for me, I thought, thrilled by the promise. Certainly, behind Olmstead’s new face there must remain some vestiges of its old face. I was determined to find the crannies and cracks that would lead me to them.

Room 428 proved quite comfortable: well-furnished, a new bed, even its own bathroom complete with Cannon brand towels. Nothing like the dingy hovel that happenstance had forced Lovecraft’s character into. The bathroom, in fact, offered brand new cakes of Lux Toilet Soap, the best national brand. I was also impressed by the RCA Victor Console radio provided as well; it was similar—though not quite as fine as the pricier model I owned in Providence. The room’s metal-framed windows offered a view of the seaward rise, a formidable sight. If anything unnerved me, it was the room’s newness. The entire building, in fact, felt barely used, as though it were a facade, feigning an appearance of prosperity that didn’t truly exist.

But what an absurd thought!

As I made my exit from the room, I caught sight of a maid leaving another room, but she wasn’t pushing the expected cart full of brooms and linens. She was hefting a suitcase. She couldn’t be a guest: her outfit left no doubt as to her duties. The scenario simply seemed odd, but what alarmed me right off was her most obvious trait.

She was pregnant.

“Miss!” I called out, rushing down. “You mustn’t carry that in your current state! Let me take it for you.”

When I’d approached her directly, I was smiled at by a comely, youthful face framed by luxuriant tousles. A more roguish observation might be to say she was one of Garret’s “lookers.” Shapely legs flexed as she lifted the case, while her gravidness—like the woman on the street—had enhanced her bosom to dimensions that would cause even the most steadfast gentleman to glance more than covertly.

“Oh, that’s very kind, sir, but it’s not heavy at all,” she gently replied.

“I insist. You’re with child and shouldn’t be carrying—”

“Really, sir.” She giggled playfully. “It’s light as a feather. And my doctor told me moderate exercise is good for the baby.”

I couldn’t very well argue. Even pregnant, though, she was strikingly physiqued. She couldn’t be much more than twenty, and I guessed her to be late in her term. Something about her proximity to me felt rejuvenating, some impalpable element of her smile, gender, and youth. I considered what she symbolized: vitality, a brimming life blossoming with still more life… All which served to remind me of the counter-productivity of my own indulgent existence. Suddenly my mind raced to maintain conversation, if only to continue in her presence a moment more.

“An acquaintance of mine—Mr. Garret—is searching for his friend, a Leonard Poynter. He’s apparently taken a room here. Have you had a chance to see him?”

The maid’s eyes suddenly seemed weary in spite of her youth and beauty. “No, I’m afraid not, sir,” she spoke more quickly now, her full lips glistening. “It’s not my place to learn our guests’ names.”

“Oh, I see,” but still I struggled for more to say. “What’s your opinion of the menu at the restaurant across the street, miss? I’m to meet Mr. Garret there later.”

“Oh, Wraxall’s, it’s quite good, and Karwell’s opens at eight o’clock, if you’re one to imbibe since the repeal of Prohibition. The people there are nice. Our little town doesn’t seem very big but there’s actually a good many folks passing through—workers and salesmen—between the bigger towns and cities.”

“That’s good to hear, and, yes, it is a nice town indeed—”

“But I really must be going now, sir,” she hastened. “It’s been pleasant talking to you.”

“The pleasure’s been all mine…”

I watched her turn with a downcast smile, yet couldn’t escape the impression that she was slightly uncomfortable.

She disappeared down the stairs, and I urged myself to wait a moment before I proceeded down myself; I couldn’t have her thinking I was being a nuisance or worse, caddish. After a minute, however, I entered the stairwell myself. The maid’s descending footfalls could be heard echoing in the well; when I peered over the rail, I saw she’d already stopped on the landing and was taking the suitcase through the door. The door’s shutting echoed briefly.

Something immediately began to bother me as I took the steps down myself, and I knew what it was when I arrived at the landing she’d stopped at: it was not the lobby door she’d gone into, it was the door to the second floor.

Why would she be taking a guest’s suitcase to the second floor?

I tried the knob and found it locked.

A guest had simply changed rooms, I reasoned next. That was all.

Several clerks and presumably a maintenance man busied themselves in the lobby, all quite congenial, and back out on the street now I spied several shop keepers through windows, a fellow sweeping the cobblestoned main road, and a postage carrier. All smiled and nodded to me. When I strolled down the street, still more local persons met my eye, and not one of them failed to speak a greeting or nod cordially. This forced me to recall Garret’s observation: Some odd ones in this town, eh?

What could he mean by that? Other than the churlish driver and perhaps the several furtive fishermen on the bus, there was nothing at all odd about anyone I’d encountered. He’d mentioned interviewing for jobs at some of the waterfront fisheries; perhaps that’s where he’d been treated oddly. Watermen were known to be a sullen and protective lot as a rule.

I’d brought along my copy of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, for after a bit of strolling, I was sure I’d want to re-read it, perhaps beneath a shady tree, or in the park if there was one, or maybe the waterfront. It was a copy of the only hardcover of Lovecraft’s work to be bound and published in his lifetime, the Visionary Publications edition. It cost one dollar plus postage. I was almost certain now that Lovecraft had indeed been in Olsmstead and had been quite influenced by the place. Knowing this would make the re-reading all the more fascinating.

Now. Find a quiet place to read, I thought.

Across the street, passing a flag circle, a youthful woman bounded by, and she too smiled quite generously at me. Her prettiness equaled that of the maid, but there was another similarity: she, too, was pregnant.

Not that there was anything unseemly about encountering three pregnant women the same day, regardless what Garret believed. It merely seemed coincidental.

Coincidences, though, were the cause of my being here, and when I remembered that, my previous zeal was refreshed. Now I could embark on my quest to uncover more topical parities between this very real town of Olmstead and Lovecraft’s very fictitious Innsmouth.

I walked over to the Ethyl Gas Company station, whose sign boasted gasoline for 9 cents per gallon, a penny lower than the city. There I purchased a pack of my favorite Beechies chewing gum with pepsin from a pleasant proprietor but was told that no local maps could be had, just county and state. I was informed, however, that there were benches along the waterfront where I could read comfortably.

A block down, a motion-picture theater advertized Gene Autry’s latest: Prairie Moon. I now laughed at my fantasies: Lovecraft would’ve been appalled to find such modern conveniences in the town that was once the model for the crumbling Innsmouth.

Before I could cross the street, engine-roar startled me with some suddenness, and I turned to see a sizable truck rumble by. Its doors read IPSWICH FISH CO., and it was clearly heading north, to its city of provenance. The back of the truck—I could see as it passed—was stacked full with iced-down fish. The anomaly sparked at once: why would a large fishery such as Ipswich be buying fish in Olmstead? It should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? Olmstead didn’t strike me as large nor involved enough to compete with the big fisheries and, besides, the papers made it plain that fishing in this part of Massachusetts had dropped off due to silt disturbance from the Great Storm and higher river salinity caused by the summer’s drought.

When a finger tapped me on the shoulder from behind, I flinched and spun. Smiling before me in a work apron and plain cotton dress was a bright-eyed short young woman, no more than thirty. Even more so than the maid, her prettiness radiated, and not even the clumsy workboots and unbecoming hairnet could take from it. The hair seemed caramel-blond beneath the net. “Come in for an ice-cream, sir. They’re only five cents, and we make it fresh here. See, we’ve just got our own machine!”

She seemed to communicate the information with an overflow of pride; I was nearly taken aback when she grabbed my hand outright and gestured me into the shop which only now did I discern to be Baxter’s General Store and Postal Annex via stenciled paint on the window-glass.

The bell rang as we passed through. “My name’s Mary Simpson, sir,” she brimmed and rushed around the counter. “I suppose you’re only passing through but you really must have an ice-cream.”

My amusement was intensified by the aforementioned prettiness. “A chocolate, please. I’m Foster Morley, Miss Simpson, and you’re correct, I am just passing through, a bit of a traveling holiday, exploring new parts and such. Plus I’m an avid reader. But I hope to be staying at least several days. I’ve a room at the Hilman.”

“Oh, good. It’s a nice motel now, and so is everything else since the rebuild.”

“Mmm, yes, so I’ve been told by the desk clerk…,” but at once I was seized by an abrupt beguilement: I saw now—now that I’d had chance to make a more definitive visual surveillance—that the bright and bubbly Miss Simpson was not only very attractive and very amply bosomed but also very pregnant. I could detect this quite plainly by the protrusion of her apron. “I’m finding Olmstead most interesting,” I continued. “A successful example of President Roosevelt’s social refurbishment program.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Olmstead was barely fit to live in before that. But now we’ve got all new buildings, a library, a new warehouse district and fire station; we even have an ice-factory on the waterfront, like what they have in the big ports.”

“As a matter of fact, I just saw a truck bound for Ipswich loaded with iced fish. I take it the fishing’s in good repair here?”

She passed me my bowl with a spoon. “It’s never been better, sir—”

“Please, call me Foster, Mary, and please allow me to buy you an ice-cream as well.”

This smidgen of generosity delighted her. “Thank you, sir—er, Foster,” and then she fixed a bowl for herself. “But the fishing, yes, it’s the backbone of the town. We’re actually selling fish to many towns, even Boston, while in the past if we wanted fish, we’d have to buy it from them. Fishing’s better here now than anywhere else. In Olmstead, you’d scarcely know there’s a depression.”

Since she’d made the observation, I suddenly had to agree. I saw only clean streets, fine buildings, and smiling people since I’d arrived, not disheartened breadlines, uncollected garbage, and collapsing homes. In addition, I saw another Lovecraftian parallel: Innsmouth, like Olmstead, was an unusually thriving fishing town.

“See,” she continued with her professional pride, pointing her spoon to the shiny white machines. “We have Westinghouse meat-keepers, too, and our own delivery truck that’s almost new. And—”

I waited for her to finish but instead her eyes merely widened in silence.

“Is something the matter, Mary?”

“What a coincidence!” she squealed. “Your book, I mean!”

I’d set my copy of Innsmouth on the counter when I’d taken the bowl. Her recognition amazed me. “Don’t tell me you’re a reader of the great H.P. Lovecraft?”

“No, Foster, only because I never learned to read much. I recognize the name because when I was only eighteen, Mr. Lovecraft stayed in Olmstead for a short time.”

I very nearly dropped my bowl. “Mary. You didn’t happen… to meet Mr. Lovecraft, did you?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t get that privilege, but here’s something interesting. Back then, Baxter’s was a First National Mart, and my brother, Paul—he was seventeen at the time—he actually waited on Mr. Lovecraft in this very store you’re standing in now. Mr. Lovecraft wanted directions about town, so Paul drew him a map.”

This shock of shocks almost put my knees out. The attractive woman’s brother had met the Master! What precious conversation must have taken place. And now this: the reference to her brother’s map! Surely this had founded Lovecraft’s early scene in the story where a congenial “grocery youth” had provided Robert Olmstead with just that: a map of Innsmouth. Like most writers, HPL had used an ordinary factual occurrence in which to dress the fiction.

“Foster, why, you look—”

“Dumbstruck?” I laughed. “It’s true, Mary. I know it might seem peculiar but the work of Lovecraft is my foremost hobby; I pursue it with a passion as well as any information about his life in general. And this is such a stroke of luck. You could very well help me in my indulgence. Please allow me to take you and your brother to luncheon sometime. Aside from your wonderful company, of course, I’d just like—Paul, is it?—I’d like to ask him a few questions about Lovecraft’s visit—” but then the bungle hit me like a physical blow. “Pardon me, Mary, but of course I meant you, your brother, and your husband.”

Mary didn’t balk at the comment; she merely replied, “Oh, I’m afraid my husband turned out to be not much of one. He left me for another woman, ran off to Maryland.”

“I truly regret to hear that, Mary. You deserve better than an irresponsible lout like that.” It infuriated me, that any real man could abandon a pregnant wife.

“Oh, it’s all right. It’s one of life’s lessons,” came a surprisingly cheerful reply. “My stepfather says the hardest lessons serve us best.”

“How true.”

“And I do have a good life. I have good work and live in a good town. I feel very blessed.”

“A selfless and commendable attitude. Too many these days take so much for granted,” I amended.

“And my brother, Paul”—her glance cast down for a moment—“he’s not well, I’m afraid, and wouldn’t be able to manage an outing.”

I didn’t know how to respond other than topically. “Oh, that’s too bad. I hope he recovers quickly.”

“But I’d be happy to talk to you about Mr. Lovecraft at any convenience. You see, Paul quite took to the man, and related to me everything they talked about while Mr. Lovecraft was here. ”

“Then, please, we must do that, Mary.”

She gave the faintest coy smile. “That is if your wife doesn’t mind you taking another woman to lunch.”

“I’ve never married,” I blurted, only now aware of the slightly sticky situation. She was pregnant, after all—with a stumblebum’s child.

“You can’t be serious!” Came her exclamation after another spoonful of ice cream. “A handsome, well-mannered gentleman like you? Never married?”

I prayed I didn’t blush. “I fear I wouldn’t be suitable for any woman,” and then I played it off with a laugh. “I’m far too indulgent.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that!”

“But, yes, I’ll stop in tomorrow morn and you can tell me a time convenient for you.”

“That would be fine, Foster. I’ll look forward to it.”

By now I felt a bit guilty admitting this attraction to a woman with child but, of course, my only interest was strictly of the platonic variety. That aside, this was a great opportunity. What Mary could convey of Paul’s conversations with the Master would be of joyous interest to me. I was about to continue conversation when the bell rang again and the door opened.

“Oh, hi, Dr. Anstruther,” greeted Mary.

“Hello, my dear…”

“Dr. Anstruther, meet Foster Morley. He’s here on vacation.”

I turned to face a distinguished, well-suited man with iron-grey hair and beard. “How do you do, sir?” I shook a soft but strong hand.

He grinned broadly. “I’m splendid, Mr. Foster. How are you liking our little town?”

“I’m intrigued by it, sir, a very clean, self-respecting prefect, indeed.” I glanced minutely to Mary. “And such nice townsfolk.”

“Oh, yes. Perhaps you’re not aware, but you’re sampling the wares of Olmstead’s very first ice cream machine. It caused quite a row when it was first installed.”

“God bless such luxuries!” I tried to joke.

“We’re prospering where other towns are going by the wayside—quite a feat in these economic times. We’ve been very fortunate of late.” He turned to Mary, handing her a stub of paper. “Dear, check this claim number, please. I’m expecting a delivery of some urgency. Mrs. Crommer should be going into labor any day now.”

“I completely forgot,” Mary remarked, checking a shelf of boxes, then finding one. “Will it be her tenth?”

“Her eleventh,” the doctor redressed. He glanced to me. “Stock for the future, as the President says.”

“Uh, yes. So true,” I practically stammered. But this information? A woman expecting her eleventh child? And thus far I’d seen several other expectant mothers. Olmstead is certainly a virile town…

Mary opened the box on the counter, and Dr. Anstruther withdrew its contents: four securely packed quart bottles of caramel-colored glass. Each was clearly labeled: CHLOROFORM.

“No safer anesthetic for difficult births,” Anstruther commented, and replaced the bottles.

“American medical technology,” I offered, “seems more burgeoning now than ever before. I’ve read they’d found a near-cure for schizophrenia, via electric current.”

“Not to mention bone-marrow transplantation, for patients with blood problems, and coming breakthroughs against poliomyelitis. America’s leading the way by leaps and bounds. Judging by the current global political climate, though, I fear we’ll be focusing our prowess of knowledge and industry on war rather than peace.”

“Let’s pray that’s not the case,” I said. “This man Hitler does seem sincere in his promise to annex no more land after Austria. Plus there’s his pact with the Soviets.”

“Time will tell, Mr. Foster. And now, I must go.” He shook my hand once more. “I’ll hope to see you soon.”

“Good day, doctor…”

“As fine a small town doctor as you could ever ask,” Mary complimented after he left. “Seems what he’s doing most of these days is delivering babies. He’s delivered all of mine too.”

I hoped it wouldn’t be too abrupt a departure from good manners to ask, for the question was somehow irresistible. “How many children has God blessed you with, Mary?”

“Nine”—she errantly patted her swollen abdomen—“counting this one.”

Nine children, and with no husband to bear half the responsibility, came my regretful thought. Truly, she was a strong woman. “It must be very difficult for you, being on your own, I mean.”

“Oh, my stepfather helps out a lot. It’s just that he’s getting so old now. And, Paul… well—”

Suddenly there came a thunk from the back room, and what I could only perceive as an accommodating human grunt. “What’s he done now?” Mary whined. “I’ll be right back, Foster.” She scurried through a door behind her.

I couldn’t help but overhear:

“Can’t you wait?” Mary’s muffled voice complained.

“Not-not much longer, I can’t.” A male voice, one in some distress.

“But there’s a nice man out front, and he’s asked me to dine with him! Now—” A pause, then what seemed a grunt on her part. “—get back in your chair! You’ll just have to wait! I won’t be long—”

“I’ll try…”

Mary returned with a sheepish smile, then came close to whisper, “That was Paul, just trying to get attention, I’m afraid.” She seemed to be tempering herself against an inner rage. “The reason it wouldn’t do to have you meet him is because of his injuries. He’s very self-conscious—he had a terrible accident several years ago.”

A selfish notion, I know, but it made me cringe to realize that the true-life model for Lovecraft’s “grocery youth” was on the other side of that door and not accessible to me. And what of these injuries? There was no genteel way to inquire.

“I let him stay in the back while I’m working, so he doesn’t get too lonely. Sometimes he even sleeps here when no one can give him a drive home.”

“Oh, I see. It’s, um, good that you can do that,” was all I could muster to say, but what else could she have meant by her insistence, Get back in your chair—? That and the remark about drives home?

She could only mean a wheelchair.

The moment had struck an awkward note but it was that same selfishness of mine that sufficed to turn the subject. “Before I’m on my way, I have a question.”

She leaned over, elbows on counter, chin in fists, and smiled in a way that struck me as dreamy, though I couldn’t imagine that my presence solicited the look. “Ask me anything, Foster. You’re really an interesting man.”

Did I audibly gulp? I hope not! “I’ve decided to find a quiet place outdoors to read,” and then I held up my book. “See, reading the story whose setting Lovecraft formed by his direct impressions of this very town strikes me as fascinating; it’s my favorite story of any, and re-reading it here will allow for an entirely new perception.”

“I think I know what you mean,” she said. “But the Olmstead you’re seeing today is nothing alike what Mr. Lovecraft saw when he was here so many years ago.”

“That’s my point!” I exclaimed of her perceptivity. “Would you by chance have a photograph of Olmstead before the rebuild? I’d love to compare it to Lovecraft’s descriptions in the book.”

“We’ve never had a camera, but…” She held a finger up. “There is a man you could try talking to. Er, well, maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

Was she teasing me now? I absolutely quailed. “Mary, I implore you, please—”

“There’s a townsman who used to be a photographer; he trained in New York even, and took pictures for newspapers. He even took a picture of Mr. Lovecraft standing on the New Church Green with Paul. You can see the entire waterfront in the background, the harbor inlet and lighthouse, the old Larsh Refinery, and the town dock, which they used to call Innswich Point back then.”

I could’ve collapsed by these new parallels! Innswich: obviously a variation of Innsmouth. The dead lighthouse which overlooked the notorious Devil’s Reef from whence came the batrachian Deep Ones. And the Larsh Refinery: in Lovecraft’s grand tale, it was at the Marsh Refinery where the gift of gold trinkets bestowed to human worshipers by the Deep Ones was melted down and sold on the market. I MUST see that picture! I determined.

“Please, Mary. How can I find this photographer? It’s imperative, truly—”

Her chin slumped in her palms. “How can I say no to you? I only mean that it’s not a good idea. The man’s name is Cyrus Zalen. He’s about forty but he looks sixty, and you can’ miss him. He always wears the same long greasy black raincoat. He smells horrible and he’s… well, he’s just not nice. He lives at the poorhouse behind the new fire station.”

Cyrus Zalen. Presumably a breadliner or, to use Lovecraft’s term, a “loafer.” In Providence, they called them “bums” and “rummies.” “An unfortunate turn of fate for a newspaper photographer,” I remarked.

“He was a fine photographer… before he got mixed up with the heroin. In New York he got hooked up with ex-soldiers who’d become addicted to it when they went on leave in France, a city called… Marcy? I can’t remember.”

“Marseilles,” I corrected. I’d read of these places there called heroin laboratories where they converted the resin from opium poppies into this devastating new drug. “Still, I’ll have to find Mr. Zalen.”

The prospect seemed to worry her. “Please don’t, Foster. He’s not a nice man. He’ll try to connive money out of you, and he may even be a thief. He’s known to do… immoral things, but it would be unladlylike for me to explain. And this was so many years ago, at least ten, I guess. I’m sure he doesn’t have the photo anymore anyway. Really, Foster, don’t go there.” She leaned even closer. “It’s a dirty place where he lives—there’s probably diseases. A woman died of typhus there several years ago.”

I didn’t take her warning lightly, actually flattered by her concern for my well-being. But if it was money that Mr. Zalen wanted for his old pictures, then money he would have. My wallet was chock full.

“You needn’t worry, Mary. I’m of hardy enough stock. I survived the outbreaks of 1919 and 1923, and, in fact, I’ve not been sick a day in my life. I’ll be very careful when interviewing Mr. Zalen, and I can’t thank you enough for your guidance.”

She gripped my forearm with some determination. “At least make a deal with me, Foster. I think Paul has an extra copy of the photo. If so, I’ll get it for you, if you promise not to go to Cyrus Zalen’s.”

I was touched to the point of amusement by the vigor with which she insisted I not meet this man. “All right, Mary. I promise.”

She beamed a smile, then gave me a sudden hug which almost made me flinch. The all too brief contact brought my cheek to hers. The scent of her hair was luxuriant.

“And I can’t thank you enough,” I went on, “for your acceptance of my invitation for luncheon tomorrow. Oh, and here—for your wonderful ice cream.” I put five-dollars on the counter.

“But it’s only five cents—”

“Keep it, please. You can buy a special treat for your stepfather and children.”

The moment lengthened. Her eyes held on mine. “You’re very nice, Foster,” she gushed. “Thank you…”

“Until tomorrow, then!” and I was off.

I left in a blissful rush, not only quite taken by the cherubic and lovely girl but also by this new and surprising kindle to my obsession.

I knew at once that I must break the promise I’d made. Her concern was obviously exaggerated, and I couldn’t very well deprive her brother of a photograph that must mean a great deal to him. The poorhouse behind the new fire station, I recalled, and—there! A sign right before me read FIREHOUSE with an arrow pointing west. A sudden uproar startled me, when several more fish-laden trucks hauled around the cobblestoned circle, but when they passed I noticed that the westernmost road entry was cordoned off and closed—sewerpipe workers were digging—so I thought it best to cut around behind the row of block buildings that housed Baxter’s General Store, Wraxall’s Eatery, and the others. The alleyway gave wide birth and I was pleased to find it clean, free of garbage and its attendant stench, and absent of vermin. I was halfway along, though, when I heard a voice so wee I thought it must be my imagination.

I stopped, listened…

“Bugger. You did that on purpose. I know you did. You want to mess things up for me.”

True, the voice was oh-so-faint but unmistakably the voice of Mary, and when I turned I noticed a narrow window opened just a crack.

It was not my nature at all—please, believe me—but something connatural in my psyche forced my eyes to that crack…

Time seemed to freeze when my vision fully registered the macabre scene within. A thin, haggard man sat troubled in a wheelchair—Paul, no doubt. Either age or despair ran lines down his face like a wood-carver’s awl; his hair was a shaggy tumult. But the severity of his overall physical state trivialized the ramshackled appearance and uncleanliness.

I felt wounded appraising him…

His legs ended at the knees, leaving sleeves of empty denim.

His arms ended at the elbows.

My God, I thought. I’d never imagined that the accident Mary referred to could’ve been so calamitous. My spirit was left tamped when the thought impacted me: that this ruined twig of a man had just over a decade ago been the energetic seventeen-year-old “grocery youth” who’d generously prepared Lovecraft/Robert Olmstead with a hand-drawn map of the town.

And what was now taking place was a pitiable site, indeed.

The girth of Mary’s belly made it difficult for her to bend over, yet bend over she did, after fiddled at Paul’s trousers. It was clear now what his problem had been earlier. A bucket in the corner of the office told me that’s where he’d been struggling to when he’d flopped himself out of the chair: for the purpose of urinating, a task not easily accomplished given his disabilities. I could only presume that his trousers were left perpetually open for such emergencies.

Distaste plainly stamped on her face, Mary held a tin can betwixt the poor man’s legs, into which he now voided his bladder.

Her wince intensified. “For goodness sake, Paul! You go more than a horse! Hurry!”

Another full minute lapsed when finally the void terminated and Mary aversively emptied it in the small sink. “You just want attention anytime you know I’m getting some.”

“I do not,” he said forlornly. “I had to go and you weren’t here.”

She sat with some effort in a fold down chair, cradling the distended belly. “I’m doing all of this for you and step-dad, you know. Working two jobs and carrying another baby. I’m tired of you taking me for granted. You’re lucky to be alive, you know, and you wouldn’t be, Paul, if it weren’t for me.”

Paul railed, elevating his stumps. “Oh, yeah, I’m so lucky to be alive! Thanks very much!”

“Don’t talk like that,” she said in a lower and somehow darker tone. “We could have it a lot worse. Both of us.”

“He wanted to talk to me, not you,” Paul objected, spittle on his lips and tears in his eyes. “I knew Lovecraft better than you, and just because—”

“That’s enough,” came her tempered retort, then she rose from the chair, but before she could exit—

“Mary, wait! Please!” the invalid implored.

“What?” she nearly growled.

“I need you to…”

“You need me to what?”

Now his voice degraded to a pitiful peep “You know… With your hand…”

A hot glare raged on her face. “No! It’s dirty and sinful! It’s disgusting!”

My brows rose high.

Paul’s forlorn whine continued. “But it’s so hard to do it myself. I get lonely back here, and…”

“No!”

“At least-at least… can I see? I’ve got nothing else, Mary. Please. Let me see, just for a second…”

Mary’s comely visage was now a mask of disdain. “No! I’m your sister, for goodness sake!” then she left the room in a whir and slammed the door.

First, the blaring sight, then, second, the implications, left me agog at the window. Yet when my eyes fond their way back to the unfortunate Paul, I heard my very soul groan…

He sat now in a desperate hunch, his back to me, his shoulders moving as his forlorn whimpers drew on. I did not need to see to know that he was attempting to masturbate with his elbow stumps.

What a tragedy, I thought.

My secret gaze retreated. Though the situation offended my outer sensibilities, I did not issue judgments, but what a sorry plight life left to so many. The poor girl, pregnant while having to work two jobs to support an invalid brother and most likely an invalid stepfather. While the poor brother himself has only… this as his only accessible mode of pleasure. The grim reality only served to reflect more of myself back into whatever sense of self-awareness I possessed. I was the indulgent, filthy rich, having never had to work in my life, while these people.

I knew that before I left this town, I would do something quite generous for this destitute family…

The alley’s exit conducted me to a crossroad, when I turned westward and followed the sign. Clean block buildings lined one side of the street, stands of dense trees lined the other. I set my quiet despair behind me, to re-attended my task.

I MUST locate this Cryus Zalen…

Sunlight sifted through high branches while from the east a gentle surf touched my ears. I wondered if Lovecraft had ever walked this particular street and so hoped that he had. I knew that I was seeing what he saw as his mind worked on the pieces of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

A crunch to my left stopped my gait. I turned, scanned the crush of trees, but saw no one where I was sure someone must be. The sound I’d heard was unmistakable: a footstep crunching down on the drought-withered detritus of the woods.

After several more paces, the crunch resounded again.

“Hello there!” I called when I saw the figure shamble through the trees. A figure, yes, adorned in a long, ruined black raincoat. “Mr. Zalen! Please! I’ve dire need to speak with you!”

The figure disappeared as quickly as if it were part of the woods. I could only wonder now just how debilitated Mr. Zalen had become via the rigors of opiate addiction and impoverishment. The latter stages of such misfortunes regularly left its victims incoherent or fully mad. Should this be the case with Zalen, my trek could well prove pointless.

A ten-minute stroll left me standing before the new fire station where several men chatted amiably while they washed and polished the grand, new pumper truck. Not half a block on, I found what could only be the poorhouse.

The single-floored length of small apartments looked pressed down by adversity, as though soullessness were as salient a feature as the compartments’ peeling paint and rag-stuffed broken window panes. From them issued the smells of urine and rotting food. An elderly man sat slumped and glassy-eyed before one dingy-doored room, to the effect that I thought he might be deceased until he shivered once, and hacked. An obese blind woman with a white cane sat just as dejected at the next unit. She looked up sightlessly when she’d no doubt heard my passing, then rose from the milk crate she used for a chair, tapped back to the doorway, and went in. The door slammed.

The end unit struck me as darker than all the rest, though the sunlight here shone evenly across the entire length of apartments. A doorless postal box revealed no occupant’s name, and I noticed a grease-stained garbage bag sitting roadside filled with stubs of burned down candles, expended flash bulbs, and empty food cans aswarm with flies. A cracked walkway led me forward until I stopped, forced to eye a curious door-knocker mounted in the beaten door’s center stile, a queer oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth or nose, no additional features.

I wrapped hesitantly with the knocker, staring uneasily at the name plaque posted just above: C. ZALEN.

3.

What the door opened to show me was more of what I expected: a thin, pallid man demonstrating every sign of physical squalor. He still wore the ruinous black raincoat, which hung open to show him shirtless, sunken-chested, slat-ribbed. Frayed trousers torn off at the knees were what he wore below the waist, as well as rotten shoes. His already sunken eyes appeared nearly non-existent by the smudge-like crescents beneath them. I made every attempt to smile and seem unfazed.

“Ah, Mr. Zalen. My name is Foster Morley. I saw you cutting home through the woods but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

The man frowned. Longish black hair had been slicked back off his brow by either tonic or, more likely, the natural oils from his scalp that had accreted from not washing often. “What do you want?” he asked in a voice that sounded more hardy than I would expect from such a dilapidated unfortunate.

“You’re the photographer, correct? The newspaper man, or have I been informed in error?”

“That was a lifetime ago, but I guess if you’ve been informed about me, you’re either police or a client… and you don’t look like police so I guess you better come in.”

So he must still have some clients for his photography business, I reckoned. Which meant he had some money coming in. He invited me inside to a living room in worse repair than the exterior: a legless couch, the sparsest furniture, and one of those large wooden cable spools on end, to serve as a table. A chemical scent in the air suggested the solutions of photo development. Before he closed and bolted the door, he peeked both ways outside, as if suspicious of something. He oddly reached behind a bookcase whose shelves dipped at their centers, and withdrew a simple folder.

“Fifty cents each, Mr. Morley,” he told me, and handed me the folder. “I can tell by the way you dress you’re not on the outs like a lot of folks these days. You want to buy, not sell.”

I couldn’t imagine what he meant but I could tell by viewing the folder’s side what it contained: a hefty stack of photographs. An instantaneous thrill made my nerves buzz at the prospect. Mary, even in her disapproval of the man, must’ve called ahead to tell him what it was I sought. I nervously took a seat, and flung open the folder…

What a horror the times have turned this world into. I could’ve gagged at the repellent images that leapt up at my eyes from the glossy surfaces of the photographs. These were neither pictures of Lovecraft nor of Olmstead in days past. It was, instead, outright pornography.

The scenes depicted in the few sheets I looked at need not be described. I can only say that the photography itself was strikingly vivid and every bit of expert.

“But the ones with the white girl making it with the colored fellas are a buck each,” he continued. He skimmed off the tattered raincoat and hung it up on a nail in the wall. “If you’re into kids, they’re two bucks each.”

I thrust the evil folder back to him. “This is… not… what I came for.”

“Oh, so you’re a seller? Well, you gotta pay me up front for the film and developer, and I get half of what I can sell ‘em for. But keep in mind, if they ain’t pretty enough, I won’t bother ‘cos I can’t sell the pictures. And the more you can talk ‘em into doing, the more I can sell ‘em for.”

Through a dazedness of incomprehension, I merely replied, “What?”

He shot me a glare sharp as a dagger. “It’s the business, man! You got a couple cute daughters and you want me to snap ‘em nude or fuckin’ guys, right?”

I stared. “No,” I croaked. “I have no children.”

“Then what do you want, Morley?” he suddenly yelled. “I need money, and you’re wasting my time! Get out of here!”

Bleary-eyed, I gave him a ten-dollar bill.

“What’s the sawbuck for?” his rant continued after snapping the bill from my fingers. “I don’t turn tricks, man! I’m no swish! You want to fuck a girl, fine, I got one here, but don’t bullshit around! You’re starting to scare the shit out of me—” and then he yelled at what was presumably the door to the bedroom. “Candace! Come out here!”

Before I could object, the door opened, and out stepped a timid and very naked woman in her twenties. One hand covered her bare pubis; her other arm attempted to cover two very swollen breasts. What she couldn’t cover at all, however, was the belly stretched out tight and huge from a state of pregnancy that had to be close to the end of its term. Obliquely, I made out a radio tune from the other room, “Heaven Can Wait,” I believe, by Glen Gray.

The girl smiled crookedly at me through a gap in the hair falling over her face. “Hi. We-we could have a nice time together, sir…”

More of the real world I didn’t care for at all. By now I’d managed the shock of this horrendous miscalculation, and produced a frown of my own which I directed immediately to Zalen. “I gave you the money so you needn’t feel your valuable time is wasted. I’m not interested in prostitution nor pornography.”

Zalen chuckled. “Come on, Mr. Morley. You ever had your tallywhacker in a pregnant girl? Bet’cha haven’t.”

“You’re a profane vagabond!” I yelled at him.

“—and it’s not like you can knock her up.”

I wished that looks could kill at that moment, for my look of utter loathing would surely have shorn him in half. “I’m interested in a particular photograph I’m told you’re in possession of, and if this is the case, I’ll pay you one hundred more dollars for it.”

Zalen looked agape at my words, then flicked a hand at the girl, to shoo her back into the bedroom. “A hundred dollars, you say?”

“One hundred dollars.” Now I noticed what first appeared to be splotches of pepper inside the man’s elbows but my naivety wore off in a moment and told me they were needle scars. “My patience is growing thin, Mr. Zalen. Do you or do you not have a photograph of a writer by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft?”

For the first time Zalen actually smiled. The couch creaked when he sat down and crossed his thin, white legs. “I remember him, all right. Had a voice like a kazoo, and all the guy ever ate were ginger snaps.” He jumped up quickly, and slipped something from the bookcase. He showed it to me behind his gap-toothed smile.

It was a copy of the Visionary Publications edition of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I removed mine from my jacket pocket and showed him likewise.

“I didn’t think anybody even read that guy, but I’ll tell you, after this came out, a lot of folks did, and they weren’t too happy with what he had to say about our town. Most of Olmstead back then was moved down to Innswich Point, so the guy changes the name to Innsmouth. Christ. Changed all the names but only a little, you know? Like he wanted us to know what he was really writing about.”

“For God’s sake, Mr. Zalen,” I countered. “He merely used his topical impressions of this town as a setting for a fantasy story. You’re practically accusing him of libel. All writers do things like that.” I cleared my throat. “Now. Do you have the photograph?”

“Yeah, I got it, but only the negative. I can have it developed for you tomorrow.” His smile turned slatternly. “But I’ll take the hundred up front.”

I am not a man given to confrontation or brusqueness, but this I would not stand for. “You’ll take five dollars for processing fees, and the remaining ninety-five when I have what I want,” I told him and thrust him another five.

He took it all too eagerly. “Deal. Tomorrow, say four.” His eyes turned to cunning slits. “Who told you I had the picture?”

“A friend of mine,” I snapped. “A woman named Mary Simpson—”

An abruptitude pushed him back in his seat; he nearly howled. “Oh, now I get it! She’s a friend of yours, huh? I guess you’re not the goodie-two-shoes I pegged you as.”

I winced at the remark. “What on earth do you mean?”

“Mary Simpson used to be the town slut. Now, this town was full of sluts but Mary took the cake. She was a whore, Mr. Morley, a whore of the first water, as my grandfather used to say.”

“You’re lying,” I replied with immediacy. “You’re merely trying to incense me because you’re resentful of people with means. I see your frowsy smile, Mr. Zalen, but I’ve a mind to wipe it right off your face by canceling any further business with you and seeing my way out of this den of drugs and iniquity you call your home.”

“But you won’t do that, Mr. Morley, because guys like you always get what they want. You’ll be back tomorrow, and you’ll have the rest of the money. You just don’t want to know the truth.”

“And what truth is that?”

“Not too many years ago? Mary Simpson was the top dog dockside whore in all of Innswich. Christ, she’s had, like, eight or ten trick babies, man. She made a lot of money for me.”

Now it was my turn to smile at the bombast. “I’m supposed to believe you’re her panderer? Er, what do they call them now? Pimps?”

“Not is, was. About five years ago the bitch got all high-falutin’ on me.”

“I still don’t believe you. She enlightened me of her plight, regarding her husband who abandoned her. Certainly, the man was of less repute even than you.”

“Husband, Jesus.” He shook his head with the same grin. “If you believe that, you probably believed that War of the Worlds broadcast last October.”

Of course, I hadn’t believed a word of it; I’d read the book! But for what Zalen was inferring now? It’s just more of his loser’s game, I knew. “And now I suppose you’re going to tell me she was a drug addict, like you.”

“Naw, she never rode the horse, she was just crazy for cock.” He raised a brow. “Well, cock and money.”

“And this I’m supposed to take on the authority of a drug addict who would stoop so low as to sell pictures of innocent young pregnant women to degenerates.”

“There are a lot of ‘degenerates’ in the world, Morley. Supply and demand—there’s what your capitalism’s caused.” He looked directly at me. “You’d be surprised how many sick fellas there are out there who like to look at pregnant girls.”

“And you’re the purveyor—to support your narcotics habit, no doubt,” I snapped. “Without the supply, there becomes no demand, and then morality returns. But this will never happen as long as predators such as yourself remain in business. You sell desperation, Mr. Zalen, via the exploitation of the subjugated and the poverty-stricken.”

This seemed to ruffle a feather or two. “Hey, you’re just a rich pud, and you got no right to make judgments about people you don’t know. Not everybody’s got it easy like you do. The government’s building battleships for this new Naval Expansion Act while half the country’s starving, Mr. Morley, and while ten million people got no jobs. Redistribution of wealth is the only moral answer. What an apathetic military industrial complex forces me, or the girl in the back room, or Mary, or anyone else to do to survive is nothing you have the right comment on.”

An unwavering sorrow touched me with the self-admission that, on this particular point, he was correct. Perhaps that’s why his truth urged me to despise him all the more. Though obviously a proponent of Marx and Ingles, Zalen had quite accurately labeled me. A rich pud. I didn’t bother to point out my many acts of philanthropy; I’m sure an alienist in this day and age would diagnose my acts of charity as merely attempts to alleviate guilt. Eventually I replied, “I apologize for any such judgments, but for nothing else. Even if what you accuse Mary of is true, I could hardly blame her, for reasons you’ve already stated. I believe that she and millions of other downtrodden… and even you, Mr. Zalen, are essentially victims of an invidious environment.”

“Oh, you’re a real treat!” he laughed.

I knew I must not let him circumvent me, for that would only refresh my despair, in which case he would win. “I’m here for business regarding my pastime. Let us stick to that. I’ll also pay—say, five dollars apiece—for any quality photographs of this Innswich Point that you may have taken before the government renewal effort.”

His insolent grin returned, and that cocksure slouch. “You sure that’s all you want, Mr. Morley?”

“Quite,” I asserted.

“But, why? Back then, all of Olmstead, especially the Point, was a slum district.”

“Though I’d never expect you to understand, I’ve an interest in seeing the town as Lovecraft saw it, when it sparked the creative conception for his masterpiece.”

“So that’s your hobby, huh?” he mocked.

“Yes, and one, I’d say, quite harmless when compared to yours.”

He laughed. “Don’t knock my hobby, Mr. Morley. You know, pretty soon I’ll have to take a bang.” He slapped the inside of an elbow. “You should stick around to watch. It’d do someone like you good to see something like that, to look real hard right into the face of the only salvation that capitalism and all its hypocrisy leaves the poor.”

“Stop blaming your weakness on the American economic program,” I scoffed at him.

“And this book—” He held up Innsmouth again. “Pretty damn stupid if you ask me.”

“The likes of you would probably say the same of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ Mr. Zalen.”

He clapped in amusement. “Now you’re talkin’! Coleridge was a junkie too! But Lovecraft’s Innsmouth tripe? He got the town all wrong.”

“It wasn’t about the town,” I nearly yelled back. “It was an intricate and very socially symbolic fantasy.”

“And he should’ve at least done a better job changing peoples’ names.”

I sat up more alertly. “Why do you say that? I thought it mostly the names of places he altered.”

“No, no, damn near everyone in town he insulted with all that. Remember the bus driver from the story, Joe Sargent? The real man’s name was Joe Major, for God’s sake. And the town founders, the Larshes, he changed to the Marshes. And then there’s always Zadok Allen. What did Lovecraft call him? A ‘hoary tippler’?”

“Zadok Allen was the piece’s most preeminent stock character, a 96-year-old alcoholic who knew all of Innsmouth’s darkest secrets.”

Another grinning stare. “You’re not very perceptive, are you? The real man’s name was Adok Zalen. Does that last name ring any bells?”

The implication astounded me. “Zadok Allen-Adok Zalen, and… your name, too, is Zalen.”

“Yeah, he was my grandfather. Lovecraft got him drunk near the docks one night with some rotgut he bought at the variety store behind the speakeasy. My grandfather died the next day—of alcohol poisoning from the booze your hero Lovecraft gave him.”

Could this be true? And if so, it begged the further question: how much of Lovecraft’s invention might be the actual invention of Adok Zalen?

“Did the world a favor, though,” Zalen prattled on. “Christ, my grandfather was older than the hills and not worth a shit. He was a liar and a thief, and it was time for him to go.”

“I commend you for the respect you have for your relatives,” I said with a thick sarcasm.

“Lovecraft was a hack. Seabury Quinn was a much better writer.”

I could’ve hemorrhaged! “He was nothing of the sort, Mr. Zalen!” My shout of objection sounded near-hysterical, for now Zalen’s deliberate hectoring was taking its toll. This was my literary idol, after all, and I would not stand to hear his name and talents sullied by this denizen pornographer. “Now do you have the pictures of the old town or do you not?”

“I got ‘em. Wait here,” and he got up and loped into the back room.

The nerve of him, I thought, truly riled now. What could he know about quality fantasy fiction? The more I speculated, the more I preferred to dismiss his accusation that Lovecraft may have contributed to Adok Zalen’s demise. He’s simply asserting these lies for the purpose of a negative effect. No different from his lies about Mary.

I nearly moaned when my stray glance showed me a slice of the bedroom. He’d left the door open, and what I first noticed was a large-format camera on a tripodular stand. And then… something else…

Sitting awkwardly on an unsheeted bed was the pregnant prostitute—Candace, I believe he’d called her. She remained naked, and the mammarian effect of her pregnancy had stretched her areolae to pale pink circles. The great, gravid belly only added to the difficulty of what she was doing…

A cord girded her upper arm, to distend the veins at her elbow’s apex, and into such a vein she was now injecting something through an eyedropper fitted with a hollow needle. The devil of a man’s got her addicted as well, to maintain his exploitation of her…

Zalen, though rummaging out of view, could easily be heard. “You’re doing too much,” he complained to the girl. “It’ll ball up the kid. Remember what happened to Sonia?”

“But I can’t help it!” she whined.

“If that kid comes out dead, you’re in a world of trouble…”

I didn’t even want to conjecture what he might mean by such a statement. They probably planned to sell the baby to an adoptionage.

The scenario and its implications were sallowing my spirit. I was not in my element, and I hoped this would be a lesson to me.

Reappearing, he pulled the door closed behind him, bearing another manila folder. “All I had were these five, Mr. Morley,” he continued to impudently emphasize. “But it’s a hundred for the lot. Take it or leave it.”

“I won’t be extorted, Mr. Zalen,” I assured him. Such leverage was to be expected, though. Now that he knew my addiction, he would seek as much remuneration as my indulgence would tolerate. “I said five apiece, so it’ll be five apiece, and that’s only if they’re precisely what I’m looking for.”

“If you like ‘em, then pay me what you feel they’re worth. How’s that?”

“Fair enough,” and then I opened the folder.

The first photograph took the wind out of me: a seaward panorama of the town which showed a declining sweep of sagging gambrel rooftops, half-collapsed gables, and smokeless chimney pots. Closer to the sea rose a triad of lofty steeples, two of which were missing their clockfaces. My God, I thought. It’s nearly straight from the text: Robert Olmstead’s first glimpse of Innsmouth from Joe Sargent’s bus window. A second photo depicted the crumbling waterfront, its half-fallen wharves, fishing boats with ruptured hulls, and mountains of disused lobster traps. A row of sullen factories and processing plants—long abandoned—rose behind this scene of decrepitude and neglect, but again, it was straight from HPL’s grimly vivid description in the book. The third photograph showed a low-roofed stone building surrounded by Doric pillars; its outer walls looked eroded by age. Two large double lancet doors stood open, showing depthless black.

“That’s the old Freemason Hall,” Zalen informed.

And then it hit me. “Of course! It was this building that Lovecraft fancied the Esoteric Order of Dagon, where the crossbred priests held services of worship. They wore flamboyant raiments and tiaras of gold.”

“Now turn to the last picture,” he goaded.

But the next photo would be the fourth, and I’d thought Zalen said that five comprised the lot. Nevertheless, I turned to the next and was stunned by the vision of a macabre sunset over the harbor inlet. The effect made the water look molten. Past more decayed wharves and flanks of leaning, boarded-up shacks whose roofs looked fit to fall in was a vista of the sun-touched channel and what barely noticeably existed a mile or so beyond: an irregular black line just above the water’s surface. A dead lighthouse seemed to look northward.

“Lovecraft’s Devil’s Reef,” I knew at a glance.

“Um-hmm. Nothin’ devilish about it, though,” Zalen said. “It’s not really even a reef. It’s just a sandbar.” He rubbed his hands together. “But they’re good pictures, right?”

“They are,” I admitted. “It’s a pity how you’ve chosen to vitiate and hence debauch such a laudable talent for the art of photography.”

I still felt rocked by the impact of the photos—the truth that they assured in their depiction of the town so long ago. “When, exactly, were these taken, Mr. Zalen?”

“Summer of 1928, July, I’m pretty sure. The only reason I took them was because Lovecraft wanted them. I did it gratis because I thought maybe he’d recommend me to some of those freaky pulp magazines he wrote for. Never did, though, the cheap bastard.”

Knowing this even spurred my interest to a new height and as such they were worth considerably more than five dollars apiece. But I was offended by this attempt at extortion. “I’ll give you fifty dollars for the set, but not one hundred.”

“It’s a hundred,” he stood firm. Then came that frowzy smile again. “But you haven’t seen the last picture, Mr. Morley.”

“Oh. That’s right.” I flipped to the final photograph.

I stared down, unblinking. Many seconds ticked by like this. Then I closed the folder, rose, and gave Zalen a hundred-dollar bill. “Good day, Mr. Zalen.”

“Tomorrow at four, then?”

“Rest assured I’ll be here.”

“With another hundred for the Lovecraft picture.”

“Another ninety-five.” I headed for the door. “Please don’t disappoint me, Mr. Zalen.”

He laughed. “They only way I could do that is if I shoot up a hot shot tonight with the horse I’m gonna buy with the cash you just gave me. Leading cause of death for junkies, you know.”

“If you’re going to die via an overdose, Mr. Zalen, please don’t do it by tomorrow.” My hand found the dirty doorknob. “But the day after tomorrow would be fine.”

“That’s the spirit!”

I stepped out of the fetid, chemical-smelling room and felt welcomed into the overly warm light of day. Zalen’s squalid apartment had been as dark as his heart.

His near-emaciated form hung in the doorway. “Going back to your room now, huh? To pursue your hobby?”

Even in light of what I’d just purchased, the implication via his tone couldn’t have offended me more. “My hobby, Mr. Zalen, as you know, is the work of H.P. Lovecraft.”

“Right. So I guess you’ll walk around town now… to see what Lovecraft saw.”

“That’s precisely what I’m going to do, not that it’s any of your business. I’m going to Innswich Point.”

“It’s pretty dull now, Mr. Morley. Just block buildings and a cement pier.” Did he snigger? “But don’t go there at night.”

I frowned on his moss-blotched front step. “Really, Mr. Zalen. The Deep Ones will get me? The acolytes of Barnabas Marsh will offer me up to Dagon?”

“Nope, but the rummies and fugitives will have a lot of fun with a guy like you. Drug runners hole up there.”

“Good friends of yours, no doubt.”

“They bring it in by boats.” The ungainly man scratched the inside of an elbow. “And my grandfather wasn’t lying when he told Lovecraft about the network of tunnels under the old waterfront. They go back to the 1700s. Privateers and smugglers would use them as hideouts.”

This was of interest, though I didn’t let on.

“And if you want a real treat, take a hike up the main road north and have a look at Mary’s place,” he snidely continued. “It’s a real slice of life. It’s just shy of the Onderdonks.”

My wince communicated my inconvenience, but suddenly I was curious, as to where Mary lived in her life of travail and the burden of so many children she was raising all without the help of a man. “Onderdonks,” I repeated. “Oh, the roadside stand I saw?”

“Yeah. And try the barbeque,” though this time, I wasn’t sure how to decipher his belligerent tone of voice.

I was determined to leave now; I would allow no further badgering but as I commenced, he added, “And you might want to read that book a little more closely, too.”

I turned on the cracked walk. “Surely you don’t mean The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”

“What did you think?”

“I’ve read it dozens of times, Mr. Zalen, with great attentiveness. I can likely quote most of its 25,000 words verbatim, so whatever do you mean?”

The sun highlighted the coarse details of this utterly corroded man. “In the story, what happened to outsiders who did too much nosing around, Mr. Morley?”

I walked away, almost amused now by this final, cheap attempt at melodrama.

“And tonight?” he called after me, “when you’re fucking Mary for a couple of bucks? Tell her the father of her third or fourth kid says hi…”

So much for my amusement. The man was intolerable, and perhaps he was working on my psyche with a bit more effect than I’d care to admit. The only thing I hated more than him was what his manipulation had caused me to do.

When I found a secluded recess of trees, I opened the folder and looked at that fifth picture beneath the photos of the town. It was a photograph of Mary, of course, in depressingly expert resolution and lighting. She was naked, yes, and—worse—pregnant, yet even in this state she managed a gracile posture for Zalen’s wretched lens. It was some horrendous collision of opposites that had triggered my instantaneous purchase. But I knew, I knew for the life of me and for the love of God, that I WAS NOT one of Zalen’s degenerate clients. It was the shock of the aforementioned collision that forced me to buy it: loveliness wed to a revolting design, the grace of beauty hand in hand with the balefulness of womanhood subjugated. It occurred to me now that Mary was so beautiful, I could’ve cringed. I would’ve guessed her to be five years younger in the picture but if anything her current beauty shined even more intensely. So what if a portion of Zalen’s salacious slander was, in essence, fact? Even if, in dimmer times, she had been a prostitute, who was I to judge?

I would not. For time immemorial, women have been exploited within the grips of a man’s lustful world; Mary’s past deeds mattered none to me, because I know that God forgives all. I could only pray that He would forgive me.

Back toward the town’s center, I found a bargain shop which had precisely what I needed: a small briefcase. I made my purchase from yet another amiable Olmsteader, a Mr. Nowry, who was very gracious over my tip. “Where might I find the most direct route to the waterfront?” I asked.

“Just follow the main cobble out front, sir,” he pointed. “That’ll take ya straight to the water. And a beautiful waterfront it is.”

“Yes, I’m certain, and thank you.”

“Just make sure,” he rushed to add, “you’re not there after dark.”

The kind warning didn’t set well. “But Olmstead hardly seems—”

“Oh, yes, sir, it’s a fine town’a fine people. But any town, mind ya, has got its bad apples.”

True enough. Before I left, I noticed whom I presumed must be his wife in a back office, scribbling on papers.

Her overlarge frock-dress made no secret of the fact she was pregnant.

Another woman with child, I thought, and I tried with difficulty at first to cogitate my concern. True, I’d encountered what seemed to be an undue number of pregnant women in the little time since I’d arrived, but then I had to remind myself I was essentially a cosmopolite in a new and quite blue collar little village. In truth, I supported the government’s initiatives to encourage population-growth. These small townships were more close-knit and, obviously, more conceptive, which was all for the greater good in the long run. Remembering this, I reconsidered my initial reaction to the number of expectant mothers I’d seen. Surely, it was not as undue as I’d thought.

As I leisurely approached the waterfront, though, I noticed a short open blockhouse in which I could see a full dozen women contentedly shucking and canning fresh oysters. Most of them were pregnant.

Zalen’s assessment of the town’s industrial hub rang too true. I saw at once, in spite of the gorgeous, surf-scented vista of the harbor, that Innswich Point was indeed a very dull sight to behold. But, oh, to have seen it as Lovecraft did! At least Zalen’s photo would allow me a facsimile of the privilege. Now all that remained was the partial name that the Master had borrowed. More disappointment struck me when I gazed out to the reef but then recalled that it was no reef at all but a ho-hum sandbar. Workers about the Point’s many fish processors and boat docks were mainly strong, plain-faced men, much like the few I’d shared the bus with. I wouldn’t say that they glared at me, but their cast was not particularly welcoming. This, for sure now, was the impetus for Garret’s condemnation of the male populace; he was referring to these surly watermen.

The blockhouse of the ice-making facility clattered and roared, loud trucks coming and going. From a higher window in one of the fish plants, though, a pretty faced woman smiled at me, and as I left, several more women in another open blockhouse smiled at me as well. They sat at long tables, repairing fishing nets.

Most of them were pregnant.

I left the innocuous scene and its every day toil behind me. An appetite had built up since my ice cream with Mary, and suddenly I was so looking forward to my luncheon with her on the morrow. Nor had I forgotten my dinner appointment with the high-spirited Mr. William Garret, though I regretted I had gleaned no news of his misplaced associate. When a distant bell tolled three times, I knew I’d never last another four hours till dinner so, next, I found myself strolling north up the main road, exiting the town proper.

By now the day’s heat got to me. I placed my suit jacket and tie in the briefcase, then continued along. Like Lovecraft, I was accustomed to walking considerable distances daily. Perhaps the Master strolled this same road as well, I pondered. Trees lined both sides of the lane. The scenery’s tranquility was much welcome after the unpleasant affair with Cyrus Zalen.

Ah! I thought, noticing the mailbox at the end of a long dirt drive on the westward side of the road. The name on the box was Simpson, and all at once, I was tempted to follow Zalen’s queer advice and go and introduce myself to Mary’s stepfather and children, but then thought better of it. Mary had implied that her stepfather wasn’t well. Better to wait, came my sensible decision. If destiny would have me meet her stepfather, Mary should be present.

Perhaps the sudden seclusion created the notion, but as I continued along, I received the most aggravating—and most proverbial—impression that I was being watched. Through the woods on the shoreward side I could see quite deeply; I could even see the edges of Innswich Point, but easterly? The woods loomed deep and dark. Just at the fringes of my aural senses I could swear I heard something moving, enshrouded. Just a raccoon, more than likely, or simply nothing more than imagination, but immediately the most appetizing aroma came to my nostrils. The roadside stand and smokehouse was just ahead, and now the ragtag sign beckoned me: ONDERDONK & SON. SMOKEHOUSE — FISH-FED PORK. Large penned pigs—five of them—chortled as a youth in his early teens filled their trough with boiled smelts and other bait fish. I was happy to see several bicycles and two motor-cars parked on the roadside, their owners standing in line at the stand. It was always good to witness a prospering enterprise.

When my turn came in line, I was attended by a weathered, overall’d man wearing a crushed train-worker’s hat, whom I presumed to be the business’ namesake. “What’ll be, stranger?” came a gravel-voice inquiry tinted with European accent.

I saw no menu board. “It all smells so wonderful. What items do you offer, sir?”

“Pulled-pork sam-itches, or hocks with greens. What most folks git’re the pulled pork. Best yuh’ve ever et, and if it ain’t, it’s free.”

“A worthy confidence!” I delighted. “Let me have one,” and within a moment I was handed a sandwich heaped with said barbeque and half-wrapped in newspaper.

“Take a bite ‘fore ya pay,” Onderdonk reminded. “Then tell me it ain’t the best yuh’ve ever et.”

One bite verified the guarantee. “It’s pre-eminent, sir,” I told him. “I’ve sampled pulled pork from Kansas City to the Carolinas, and even in Texas, and… this is superior.”

Onderdonk nodded, unimpressed. “‘S’what a fishman’s gotta do when he can’t fish proper. I think the word is ingenuity. It was me who thought’a feedin’ the swine fish. Makes the meat moister, so’s you can smoke it slower and longer.”

“It’s certainly a recipe for success,” I complimented. I insisted he keep the change from my dollar for the twenty-five cent sandwich. “But… you’re formerly a fisherman?”

“Like my daddy’n his daddy, and so on.” The roughened man suddenly soured. “Can’t get no fish no more. Ain’t right. But this works just fine.”

My curiosity was fueled. “You can tell, sir, I’m not from these parts, but what I’ve noticed in Olmstead—the Innswich Point area—is that fish seem to be more than abundant.”

“Sure, it is—for Olmsteaders, which me’n my boy ain’t, even though we’ve owned this bit of land since way back.” The topic had clearly struck a bad chord. “We’se outsiders far as they’re concerned. Anytime me’n my boy been out for a proper day’s fishin’, they run us off. Rough bunch, some’a them Olmstead fellas. Can’t have my boy gettin’ beat up over fish.”

Territorialism, I knew at once. It was more widespread than most knew; in my own town, lobstering families were known to feud, and clammers, too. “It’s regrettable, sir. But the proof of your ingenuity has created an alternate market that I’m sure will prosper.”

“Mmm,” he uttered.

“So I take it this matter of territory forces you to buy the fish with which you feed your pigs.”

“Naw, that we can catch ourselfs—see, every night me’n the boy sneak out to the north end’a the Point, throw a few cast nets, then sneak back right after. We ain’t more’n ten minutes on the water, then we’re gone. It’s only enough time to pull up a bucket or two’a bait fish, but that’s all we need for the swine.”

“Well, at least your system is working,” I offered.

“Yeah, I s’pose it is.” The man’s young son, at this point, came to stand by his father. Onderdonk patted his shoulder. “He works hard for a little shaver, and I want him to learn right. It’s the American way.”

“Indeed, it is,” I said and smiled at the boy, but then to Onderdonk I asked, “I happen to be quite given to pork ribs as well. Are they ever on your menu?”

“Ribs? Aw, yeah, but we only do ‘em twice weekly. They sell out in a couple’a hours. You come back two days from now, and we’ll have some up.” He gestured the pig pen. “Soon the boy’n me’ll be puttin’ Harding in the smoker. Harding’s that fat ‘un there.”

I presumed me meant the largest of the pigs. But I had to laugh. “But you haven’t named your pig after America’s 29^th president!”

“That I did!” the working man exclaimed. “And am damn proud of it. ‘S’was Harding’s lollygaggin’ and that Tea Pot Dome business that done led to the stock market crashin’ and leavin’ all of America the way it is!”

Of this I could hardly argue but was still amused.

“Took an honest fella—Calvin Coolidge—to give respect back to the nation’s highest office, yes sir!” He winked. “Ya won’t see none’a my swine named Coolidge, now. But in that sty we also got Taft, Wilson, Garner, and that socialist FDR!”

My. The man certainly had political convictions, odd for a rough-handed working man. “So,” I jested. “I’ll return day after tomorrow to sample some of Harding’s smoked ribs!”

“You do that, sir, and ya won’t be disappointed!”

I bade my farewell, then patted the silent boy on the head and gave him a dollar bill. “A gratuity for you, young man, for doing such good, hard work for your fine father.”

“Thank you, sir,” the boy peeped.

“A good day to ya!” Onderdonk reveled, and then I walked off.

It did my spirits good to see the working class persevere even in the low economic times. The man was to be admired. Being unfairly barred from the plentitude of local fishing, he’d contravened the obstacle, to succeed nonetheless.

Back down the road I strolled, a mixture of thought now elevating my mood. Certainly, the fine meal, and the equally fine day; the knowledge that tomorrow I would own a rare photograph of H.P. Lovecraft; the likelihood of another fine meal tonight at Wraxall’s Eatery, (for, fresh seafood—even more so than pork—was an appreciated indulgence) and just the simple gratification that I was, indeed, walking where Lovecraft once walked.

And there was one other thing, too, which founded my elation.

Mary.

Mary Simpson, I mused. So beautiful. So kind and genuine and hard-working. A uniqueness, even if she had once suffered degradations in her unfortunate past. Pregnant with no present husband, still she worked to fulfill her responsibilities. I admitted only now that I was falling in platonic love with her, and platonic it would have to remain for I could not fathom anything more, no matter how urgently I may have wished it.

And I would see her tomorrow for luncheon.

I spun, my heart bucking in my chest. The surprise had taken me with the most unpleasant manner of suddenness.

From the westerly woods I had, for sure, heard a noise.

I was not at all suited for imbroglio, but—now—I knew I was being spied upon, and I was determined not to be harassed.

I peered intensely into the wood, then may have heard a twig snap. “I hear you!” I exclaimed, and did not hesitate to step through the curtain of trees. “Show yourself like a man!”

Several more twigs snapped as my stalker had clearly embarked deeper into the trees. I wasn’t sure why, but I continued to give well-gauged chase.

Fifty yards into the woods, a dappling of sunlight betrayed the stalking entity.

For only the briefest second, I glimpsed the figure, not his face but his attire: the long, greasy black raincoat and hood.

“Really, Mr. Zalen, this is no way to treat a paying customer!” my voice surged into the trees. “If it’s thievery on your mind, I can assure you, I’m well-armed!”

This much was true, and from my trouser pocket I’d already withdrawn the small hammerless semi-automatic I’d bought at the Colt Patent Firearms Company in Hartford. It was a Model 1903, which I’d read had been the weapon notorious bank robber John Dillinger had carried the day he’d been gunned down. I was not a crack shot, but with a full magazine, I was crack enough.

Zalen stood still but had clearly heard me. At once, he bolted and let himself be swallowed by the woods.

“I’m disappointed, Mr. Zalen!” came my next call. “But, thief or not, don’t forget our appointment tomorrow!”

The density of trees soaked up my voice. A shy, retiring sort as myself might be shaken by such a near-confrontation but I felt nothing of the sort. I felt calm, confident, and unwavered, and I had no intention of avoiding Zalen tomorrow. He had something I wanted, and I would pay for it as planned. Now that he’d been apprised that I armed myself, he’d be uninclined for any untoward behavior.

When I turned to reverse myself from the woods and regain the road, I saw the house.

Mary’s house, to be sure.

Only the dimmest sunlight penetrated the intricate umbrella of high boughs. The region’s all-pervading lack of rainfall had reduced the forest ground to a carpet of tinder. I first dismissed what I was seeing as a hillock, but then a more concentrated scrutiny showed me small, single-paned windows amid a long, vast sprawl of ivy. Eventually I detected corners that had not so been overrun, as well as a slate roof and chimney made of the old tabby bricks from the pre-Revolution period. Beyond the squat and ivy-covered abode, though, stood a clearing radiant with sun and there a lone, wee figure seemed to frolic. As I peered closer, I saw that it was a young boy firing arrows with a crude and more than likely hand-made bow. The arrows were those made for children, with rubber suction cups at their tips, and with these the lad determinedly took aim at an old, propped up window frame which still contained glass.

So this was one of Mary’s older children. Odd, though, that only one would be enjoying these splendid outdoors. This close to the house, I expected to hear and see evidence off all eight of her children. She implied that her stepfather looked after the younger ones, I recalled. Yet the house sat in an almost palpable silence.

At once, I felt encroaching, even trespassing. It was only the pursuit of Zalen that had led me this deeply into the parched woods. Nevertheless, however impelled to leave, I remained, staring at the leaf-enshrouded house. The impulse to look in a window was very strong, but then I had to chide myself. Not only would that’ve been the act of a cad—which I was not—it would’ve been illegal. I have no right to be here, so I must leave. But I had to wonder about the motives of my deepest subconscious—or what Freud called the Id.

Was it Mary that my Id hoped to spy upon?

When I turned to leave, I almost shouted.

There, standing immediately before me, was the boy.

I recovered quickly from the start. “Why, hello there, young man. My name is Foster Morley.”

“Hello,” he replied blushfully. He was thin, bright-eyed, and had that look of so many children: curious wonder and ripe innocence. He looked tenish—it was so hard to tell with adolescents—and had been dressed neatly but in threadbare clothes. One hand held the makeshift bow, the other a quiver of the suction-cupped arrows. After a moment, he said, “My name’s Walter, sir.”

“Walter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He timidly shook my offered hand. “Now, would your last name happen to be Simpson?”

He seemed to quell surprise. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, how do you like that! I’m a friend of your mother’s. I spoke to her just this morning at Mr. Baxter’s. You should be proud to have such a hard-working mother.”

He seemed quietly astonished by this information. “Yes, sir, I’m very proud, and so is my gramps.”

His “gramps” could only be Mary’s stepfather.

“He’s asleep now,” he went on. “He’s… old.”

“Yes, and for the elderly we must always have respect.” I glanced at his twine-and-tree-switch bow. “My, Walter, you’re quite the archer. Practice makes perfect,” and then I pointed to his window-frame target from which several arrows had attached themselves, “and by the looks of your impressive skills, you may one day find yourself on the Olympic archery team.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked with excitement.

“Of course, if you remain diligent and continue to practice. When you’re older, you’ll need to train with a real bow, but I’m sure a careful boy such as yourself needn’t have to wait much longer for that.”

“My mom said I could have a real bow when she makes enough money to buy one. But I can only use it when she’s watching.”

“That’s good advice, son. ‘Honor thy mother,’ like it says in the Bible.”

“Are you here… to see her?” he asked. “She’s still at work.”

I didn’t want to lie to the youth, yet I couldn’t very well tell him I was pursuing a stalker nearby. “No, Walter, I was merely having a nature walk when I happened upon you and your house. These woods are quite a treat for me, for I spend most of my time in the city. In Providence.”

“Oh. I walk in the woods a lot too, sir.” He pointed just behind the house. “There’s a neat trail right over there that goes all the way back to town through the trees. That’s how my mom walks to work every day.”

“Why, I’m grateful for your advice, young man,” I enthused. “I’ll be sure to take that trail back myself. But, tell me. Why are you out here all by yourself? Surely you have brothers and sisters old enough to play with.”

His eyes blankened, as though the question were a stifling one. “I have to go now, sir, to help my gramps.”

“Of course, and what a fine young man you are to be so attentive to your grandfather.” It was all I could say, for it seemed that to press him about my previous question would only put him on the spot. Still, I had to think, Mary’s got seven more children. Are they all in the house? “But before you’re off, Walter, let me give you a present.” I was probably out of bounds by doing this, yet I couldn’t resist. “And I’m sure your mother and gramps have quite wisely advised you not to take gifts from strangers, but we’re not strangers, you and I, are we?”

“No, not really, Mr. Foster,” though the mention of a present had clearly throttled his attention.

“What I’d like you to do is take this and buy yourself a better bow,” and then I gave him a ten-dollar bill. “And with what’s left, wouldn’t it be nice to buy your mother some flowers?”

“Oh, yes, sir, it would!” he almost shouted with glee.

“And when your mother asks where you got the money, just say her friend, Mr. Morley.”

“Thank you, sir! Thank you a lot!”

“You’re quite welcome, Walter. I hope to see you again.”

I smiled as he scampered off to the squat house, entered a barely seen door, and disappeared.

What harm could there be? I only hoped I’d made the lad’s day. I set to locate Walter’s path just behind the house, but again found myself thwarted… as more questions occurred. Where exactly were the other children? And why had Walter been so reluctant to answer my inquiry?

I skirted round the back of the house, toward the clearing, yet while doing so I deliberately kept an eye out for windows. The last window that would be available to me before I made the clearing was almost entirely ivy-covered.

What could I possibly say for myself should the stepfather see me peering in?

Yet peer in I did, unmindful of the very awkward risk, and why I did this, I’ll never be sure.

I only know that I wish I hadn’t.

Through the bleary fragment of available glass I first spied a close, brick-lined middle room surrounding a modest fireplace, an additional woodstove, and furniture that I must describe as makeshift. If anything I was glad that they’d improved the utility of their poverty by reusing items—such as boxes, crates, and unattached bricks—for alternate purposes. Several crates, for instance, formed the foundation for a bed and, evidently, a great sack of burlap, stuffed with dried leaves, sufficed for the mattress, over which typical sheets had been lain. A cupboard housed not drinking glasses but reused tin cans for the same purpose. A table, whose top was fashioned by wooded wall slats of irregular length, had legs actually made from stouter tree branches. This glaring squalor injured me…and in my mind I was already calculating how much my wealth would be able to help this destitute but fully functioning family.

I ducked back, when in the moment previous, a door within had opened. Young Walter first appeared, and what followed at his side was a faltering figure and a tap-tap-tapping sound. It was only the sparest daylight through the minute windows that afforded any light at all. The figure, as I squinted, seemed to be using crutches, and though it was through a wedge of darkness that this figure walked, my detection of long, grey hair told me that this could only be Mary’s stepfather; Walter was helping him along, toward the makeshift bed.

The oddest noises of protestation resounded when he finally got to the bed and, with great difficulty, managed to lie down in it. I could make out almost nothing in the way of details, but the broader scope of his afflictions—some massive form of arthritis, I presumed—were quite clear by the crookedness of his limbs. Was the hand that picked up the piece of cardboard to use as a fan… missing fingers?

“Here’s some water, gramps,” Walter said and brought him one of the tin cans. My angle showed me little, only Walter carefully tilting the can for him to drink out of. The over-loud chugging sound caused my brow to rise.

“Um, gramps,” Walter began. “There was this man, outside. He’s a friend of mom’s and his name is Foster Morley…”

The horrendously palsied figure seemed to lean up, and in doing so I saw a tragically unnatural curve to his spine. But it was Walter’s words that had caused him to lean closer.

“And-and… he gave me this,” the youth hesitated, then showed the ten-dollar bill. “To buy mom some flowers.”

The stepfather’s reaction to this information is something I’m sure I will never forget.

He lurched forward, deepening the arch to his back, shot out a hand that clearly was deformed, and then emitted a vocal objection in no language I’d ever heard: a high, almost bearing-like squeal underlain with suboctave grunts and what I can only call a mad tweaking, rising and lowering, and an accommodating sound that reminded me of something wet spattering somewhere.

The suddenness—and unearthliness—of the man’s vociferous objection affected me almost physically, akin to a ball bat across the chest. I lurched backward, yet my eyes remained on that partial window-view and all I can say about what I think I saw is this:

Something shot forward from the haggard mass of shadows that comprised this infirm man. What that something was I cannot accurately delimitate. It was either a length of rope, or a whip, flung forward with a clearly stated maliciousness toward the boy. That’s all I can say: it reminded me of a whip.

This whip, then, snapped out with a moist but resolute crack! and seemed to take the ten-dollar bill from Walter’s hand, then draw it back to the afflicted oldster.

An attendant gush of a mix of those dreadfully low suboctaves, and the squeal, and then that awful phlegmatic splatter followed this action, after which the boy, paling before my eyes, turned and dashed from the room.

A tremendous malady, indeed, had accursed this poor elderly man, not just in body but also in mind.

I could witness it no longer, and then I fled myself to the clearing behind the house, fairly bursting into sunlight and a flurry of butterflies, and ran outright until—half-crazed—I spotted the nature trail the boy had apprised me of.

Of congenital defects and progressive disease mechanisms I knew precious little, and though my sense of pity and empathy was sound, I had to forcibly banish the image of this demented and inauspicious man from my mind…

As I tramped down the lad’s path, I was scarcely aware of its features for several minutes. My heart seemed to hammer in the aftermath of my witness, and my breath grew short. Eventually I slowed to regain my senses, then stooped, hands on knees, to rest.

The rapid exodus from the maledict house left me in a dirt-scratch of a trail lined by man-tall grasses. Insects chirruped and the sun blazed.

It was the darkness of the huddled house, I thought, and the potency of suggestion that so grotesquely appended what I saw.

Of all people, I thought again of Cyrus Zalen and his all-too-true implications regarding my status in life. A rich pud. My unearned station of privilege had shielded me from such tragic realities heaped upon the less fortunate, and this, simply, wasn’t right. I needed to know these direful realities—and their consequences—to be the better man that I’m sure God wanted me to be. My empathy must not be staged, nor my pity manufactured. I fancied myself a philanthropist—a willful contributor to those who had sorely less than me.

I knew that I must contribute more, and more, too, than simply money.

Soft voices severed my thoughts. When I turned my head, a great glimmer flashed in my eyes; through the tall grass, I saw a modest lake full of floating sunlight. But the voices…

It was necessary to shield my eyes to annul the glare. There, sitting at a short pier’s end, were two women, one honey-blond and the other obsidian-haired. Both were naked, chatting animatedly as they rowed their feet in the water. I saw a small bottle serving as a buoy farther out in the lake.

The girls’ bare white backs gleamed in the sun, but the tranquil scene did not parallel the apparent mood of the coal-haired one, who snapped, “I just hate it, Cassandra! It sickens me—their condition, I mean. And I have to go again tonight. Oh, God, I dread it so much.”

“So you’re not in the way yet?” queried the other.

“No, I don’t think so. They make me go—every night—until they’re sure.” The girl seemed to hack. “And I have to be with several of them! One’s not enough! It’s got to be at least two each night, and I heard they’ve gotten two more. What’s that now, seven all together?”

“Six, I think. Remember, the one died, and that curly-haired man couldn’t… you know. You never know when one might not be any good all of a sudden. Sometimes they wind up like Paul.”

Paul! the name immediately struck me. A common name, yes, but could they be referring to Mary’s invalid brother?

“Well, shit!” exclaimed the black-haired waif with a surprising profanity. “One per night should be enough!”

“It’s like the doctor said, Monica. The more you do it with, the better chance of success…”

What on earth are they talking about? I wondered, puzzled. And… the doctor? Did they mean Dr. Anstruther?

“That’s why he tests them every so often,” the honey-blonde continued. “To make sure they haven’t lost their… I forgot the word. Portense? Er—no, potency!”

I stared at these strange words, my face lengthening.

“But they’re just so ugly like that!” the dark-haired one, Monica, nearly squealed in objection. “It gives me nightmares.”

The honey-blonde, Cassandra, took Monica’s hand to offer a consolation. “It’s like they say, you’ve got to get the right frame of mind. It’s not about pleasure, it’s about something much more important. To think like you’re thinking is to be selfish. And they have to be the way they are—for safety’s sake…”

“Ugh! It’s just awful…”

“You don’t have to tell me, Monica. I’ve had six babies so far. It’s just the way it is here. It’s better for the future.”

“I don’t know how you could’ve done it six times!”

Cassandra answered dreamily. “You just close your eyes and think nice things, Monica. You pretend you’re with someone else, someone handsome and strong and sweet and—”

“Someone normal!” Monica upheld her complaints. “Not all girls do it their way.”

“No, but their way keeps us in their favor, like the doctor says.”

Monica seemed to be near tears. “God, why can’t I have a real man just once? Sometimes I’m tempted to leave.”

“Shh! Don’t talk like that!” chided Cassandra. “We both know what happens to girls who try to leave…”

I couldn’t have been more bewildered as I listened to the arcane discourse…

“I better check the trap,” said Cassandra, and she hopped down into chest-deep water. She was wading out toward the makeshift buoy. Meanwhile, Monica stood up to stretch, hands behind her back. She did so turning, which afforded me a side-glance of her physique. She bore a stunning, willowy beauty in her youth, and couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Next she turned more, and was facing me as she continued to stretch. The shining black hair rose in a brief breeze off the water. She was an exotic sight, petite-breasted, long-legged, and flat-stomached. I meant to turn away, for my inadvertent glimpse of her seemed invasive, but then Cassandra returned. She climbed up the pier’s ladder to the deck, hoisting with her a small wire trap filled with crayfish. Unlike Monica, Cassandra was nine months pregnant if she was a day.

“Look, it’s full!” she enthused over the trap full of skittering things.

Monica came over. “Wow, that is a lot.” She tested the trap’s weight. “It must be ten pounds! We’ll have chowder for days!”

As I listened further, my closer attentions lapsed… and my hand slipped. I dropped my briefcase…

The sound was all too obvious; both girls snapped their inquisitive gazes in my direction. Could they see me? I didn’t move a muscle.

“I think someone’s there,” Cassandra suspected, then she brought a fretful finger to her lips. “God, I hope it’s not them…”

“Look! There!” Monica pointed directly at the stand of grass I hid behind.

“Is it…”

“No, it’s a man! A real man!” She strode naked off the pier. “Hey, wait! Come here!”

I grabbed my case, and slipped out.

“No!” wailed Monica. “Don’t go! Please! We can make you real happy! COME BACK!”

I had no intention of complying. My feet took me swiftly down the close path, and I could only hope that neither girl had seen enough of my face to recognize it later. In the distance, I heard Monica’s final grievance. “Oh, SHIT! He ran away!”

My pace did not abate until I was back at the Town Center and gratefully entering the Hilman House…

Secure in my room, I sat on the bed to regain my breath. I turned the RCA on, for music would remind me of normalcy, and I immediately relaxed to “Our Love,” by Tommy Dorsey. But this would be followed by the hourly news broadcast: a labor strike is ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, General Francisco Franco conquers Madrid with his fascist troops, a scientist named Fermi warns allied governments that a process now exists which can split atoms and thus harness a terrible destructive force. None of this news sounded hopeful; I switched it off.

The distraction I hoped for was sabotaged. What exactly HAPPENED today? I queried myself in some disillusionment. I tried with diligence to find a common logic in what I’d seen and heard but in the end failed. I could make no sense of it, but I considered that in my current expended and excited state, it would do me good to calm down to resort my thoughts. The day’s heat as well as the mad sprint had left me grimy and saturated with perspiration, so I had a cool bath in the private tub. I tried to clear my thoughts…

But a sudden fatigue left me drowsy even in the cool water. I drifted in and out of a half-sleep. Snippets of dreams harassed me: images of not only perplexity but also repugnance.

The man in the squalid house, deformed by some catastrophic arthritic symptom, unleashing wet, gushing invectives in no way intelligible, and then lashing at young Walter with that whip, or whatever it might have been.

And the two nude girls on the pier, one pregnant and then one evidently fearing pregnancy with an appalled resignation… Their cryptic words slipped in and out of my half-dreaming mind:

—it sickens me—their condition, I mean—

—so you’re not in the way yet?—

—they make me go—every night—until they’re sure!—

—sometimes they wind up like Paul… —

The words blended, then, with a razor-crisp recollection of their physical bodies, their gleaming nude beauty, their shimmering white skin, and their private feminine features so forbidden—and so wrong for me to have willingly looked upon—yet so exotic…

I may have slipped into a deep doze when these vivid images were singularly banished… by the image of Mary…

First, the loveliness of her face and simple honest manner, and even some of her remarks:

—a handsome, well-mannered gentleman like you? Never married?—

And then a devilish meld: my first captivating image of her working at Baxter’s slowly contorting itself into the image on the nefarious and wholly exploitative photograph I’d bought from the despicable Cyrus Zalen: Mary, laid out bare and pregnant and thrust-bosomed as the visual photographic fodder of degenerates…

The finality of that image shocked me from my doze, and I’m sure I audibly groaned. The sudden anxiety was one—I’m ashamed to say—of unquenched physical desire of the most sinful sort. It left me carnally evoked, and though in the past I’d always done better than a fair job of abstaining, the primal necessity, now, could not be extinguished. I need not go on in detail save to say that my frenzy forced me to do what solitary men are known to do in such moments of weakness, after which—steeped in shame—I prayed God’s forgiveness for this venal and most insolent offense to His grace…

Embarrassed after the fact, I languished in the claw-footed tub, but then my eyes shot wide—

I’d heard, with some distinction, a sudden and undeniable sound: the desperate hitching of a single breath into one’s chest. It was a lush, wanton sound, more than likely female.

I stared at the opposing wall to at once be inundated by the notion that I was being observed remotely. But if so…

From where exactly?

I jumped from the bath, donned a robe, and, like a paranoiac, actually began to examine the opposing wall and the ceiling over the tub. But no “peepholes” were chanced upon; minutes later, I frowned at myself for the foolish overreaction. The sound I thought I’d heard was most certainly a remnant from the dream-fragments and a fatigued body and mind. For goodness sake! I mocked. Who would be spying on me, of all people?

My new Pierce Chronograph wristwatch showed me my dinner appointment was fast approaching. I talced myself, brushed my teeth with a new product called Listerine Tooth-Cleaning Paste, then dressed in my evening suit. Though I was looking forward to dining with Mr. Garret, most of my thoughts focused on a different appointment: my luncheon date with Mary tomorrow. I oddly felt that I’d sullied her by my previous act of debasement and self-abusiveness, an absurd abstraction, but such was me. Nevertheless, I would not leave until I’d done one simple thing.

I sat at the small writing table the room provided, and opened my briefcase. From it I withdrew the folder I’d purchased from Zalen, and from the bottom of the assortment of old photos within, I slipped out the shot of Mary. It was with a plummeting grimness that I allowed myself to look at it…

The photo’s sharpness, contrast, and overall clarity seemed even more precise than before, and again I was stifled by the sense of fusion that joined Mary’s objective physical beauty with a revoltingly exploitative design: that graceful and exuberant pose, all for the visual consumption of unholy men given to perversity. Every element of the photograph seemed to beckon me to lust—Mary’s bottomless, sparkling eyes; her sighing smile; the high, dark-nippled breasts burgeoning with milk; the toned, shapely legs. I noticed now that every inch of her impeccable nudity either shined in profuse sweat or had been deliberately glazed by some kind of oil, the effect of which caused the entirety of her image to shimmer as if alive within the borders of the photographic paper. But I would not succumb to the lust that this image tried to seduce.

Only love.

A monstrous world, to allow this, I resolved. To enslave the poor and the desperate for the most jaded of intents. I took up a small pair of folding shears from my travel kit and began to shred the photo, from the borders in, until all that was left was the tiny square of Mary’s beauteous visage. The shreddings I discarded; the square, however, I hid in a pocket of my wallet.

Down the stairwell, then, I went; as I neared the entry level, though, the door to the atrium opened before I could reach it, and suddenly I was faced by a slim, attractive young woman in a nice but simple frock gown that so many preferred in the warmer months; she was on her way up as I was on my way down. She lent me a meek smile, then nodded as we converged.

“How do you do?”

“Hello,” was all she said as if shy. When she passed me, I was stung by a tremulous shock; it had taken me this long for the girl’s willowy figure and obsidian-black hair to register.

Monica, I felt sure. One of the pier girls…

She’d obviously not recognized me as the interloper she’d been so ardently pleading with just a few hours ago.

Certainly she’s not staying here… Perhaps she was employed here with the housekeeping service. But, really, why should I be concerned?

I heard her quiet footfalls as she mounted the steps, then passed myself into the atrium, but as the door was closing behind me—and I’m not sure why I noticed this but—the aforesaid footfalls seemed to terminate very quickly. Nor was I sure what compelled me to my next gesture…

I went back into the stairwell and looked upward.

No evidence of Monica could be discerned, but then—

click!

The sound registered quickly enough to bid me to glance up at the door on the second-floor landing. It clicked shut before my eyes.

The second floor, I thought. The LOCKED floor. Monica, for whatever reason, clearly had access to it.

My frown returned me to the atrium. Why this addled me I couldn’t guess…

The congenial bellhop and desk clerk greeted me as I passed. Of the clerk, I had to inquire: “If you don’t mind, sir, I’m curious as to the reason for the second floor being locked.”

It may have been imaginativeness on my part, but his standard smile and good nature seemed to snap off for a moment. “But, you’re on the fourth floor, Mr. Morley. Why would you…”

“Of course!” I tried to sound dismissive. “I should’ve preambled that I just now mistakenly took the second floor for the first.” I would not quite call this a lie but, say, a modest divergency from the truth.

But the man’s good-natured expression had already restored itself. “Ah, well, the floor’s being kept locked for the time being. Renovations. The work shouldn’t take more than a month.”

“I see. Well, thank you, good man, for satisfying my fairly useless curiosity. I should’ve guessed!” and then I bid him a good evening.

Across the street, then, to Wraxall’s Eatery, where an appetizing aroma awaited. The establishment was spotless, and appointed with simple chairs and tables, plus a none-too-surprising nautical motif: photos of old, rain-slickered waterman proudly displaying sizable fishes, a ship’s wheel and a ship’s glass, fishing nets with floats adorning the corners. I supposed it possible that, before the government renewal, this very eatery may have been the dismal cafeteria in which Robert Olmstead begrudgingly dined as unwholesome loafers cast strange glances.

Brass lanterns quaintly housing candles ornamented each wooden table. My eyes thinned, though, when I noticed that Mr. Garret was nowhere in sight. Only one table was occupied, by a soft-speaking couple.

When the hostess turned, bearing a menu, she was struck speechless.

I couldn’t have been more pleased! It was Mary…

“Why, Mary, what a pleasant surprise,” I tried to contain my joy.

“Foster!” She smiled and pressed a hand to my back to urge me to the corner. “Take the window booth. The view’s lovely as the sun sets. I’m so glad you could come.”

“I had no idea you worked here as well.”

“Oh, I just fill in sometimes. But the money’s not bad, now that our wonderful president has signed the Minimum Wage Act.”

I’d read of this: a rather scrimy forty-cents per hour. But then I had to keep reminding myself that chance—and my father’s hard work, not my own—had handed me a status much more fortunate than that of most.

She filled my water glass as I took a seat. “Did you find a nice, quiet place to read your book?”

“Oh, The Shadow Over Innsmouth…” I’d almost forgotten that had been my original goal. “Actually, I was so busy gallivanting about town that I never got round to it. Tomorrow, though. After our lunch date, which I dearly hope is still on.”

Suddenly she sighed, then drooped her head dramatically. “Are you kidding? I can’t wait. It’ll be my first afternoon off in weeks.”

This disconcerted me. “Mary, there’s nothing more admirable than a hard-worker,” and then I leaned close, “but I wish you didn’t have to put in such hours while you’re with child.”

“You’re so sweet, Foster,” she grinned and squeezed my hand. “But hard work is what made America, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, if a bit guiltily.

“Besides, Dr. Anstruther says it’s fine to work until the eighth month, just nothing too strenuous.”

I’m sure this were true, but it still bothered me. When she leaned over to hand me the menu, I could detect a bit of her bosom’s valley, then recalled, first, the jaded photograph and, next, the split-second glimpse I’d caught of her breast in the back room of Baxter’s. Then there it was again, that perfect valley of flesh.

I nearly ground my teeth as I looked away. God! I hope she hadn’t noticed…

Another distraction was needed, but this time, I needn’t manufacture one. A brass ship’s clock on the wall showed me I was five minutes late. “Say, Mary? Has a respectably dressed man, perhaps in his late-‘20s, been in? Brown, short hair? His name is William Garret.”

She shook her head. “No, Foster. Mid-week is always slow—like they say, Friday is Fish Day. There’ll be a rush later, when the watermen come back from the docks. But I’m afraid I haven’t seen the man you’re describing.”

“I was supposed to meet him,” I began, but then shrugged it off. “No matter. He’s either running late, or maybe he secured himself a position. He’s an accountant.”

“Well, they might need accountants in the wholesalers,” she offered.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” It was obvious. He’d probably located his friend Mr. Poynter and managed to get a job. I truly wished the best for him.

Following some more small talk, I got about my order, which Mary had recommended: chowder, fried Ipswich clams, and striped bass stuffed with rock crab. I’d always delighted in such fare, and felt bad that Lovecraft himself, a New Englander, too, could never share in these delights due to a repugnance for shellfish. My eyes, however, struggled to keep averted from Mary as she went about her table-waiting. She’s just so… beautiful, I kept thinking. Eventually the other table left, then a man from the back exited the restaurant as well, seeming to head down the block. Next thing I knew Mary was sitting across from me, with two Cocamalts.

“I love your company, Mary, but might not your employer—”

“Don’t worry about Mr. Wraxall,” she excused, and sipped her drink. “Every night at seven he goes to the bar—Karswell’s—for at least three boxcars. So I can take a break, too, while your food’s cooking.”

“How delightful,” I all but exclaimed.

Even in her nonchalance, her eyes cast a glitter akin to diamond chips, and I could see the richness of her dark blond hair now that it had been freed from the hairnet she wore in the general store. When I caught myself watching her lips surround the drink-straw, I almost cringed at the sudden eroticism of it.

“So, how was your gallivanting?” she asked.

“Splendid, Mary. I’m sure I toured most of the town proper—”

“The docks?” she cut in.

“Oh, yes, the docks too.”

“Don’t be put off if the watermen weren’t overly friendly,” she informed.

“Actually, my friend Mr. Garret warned me of it, but in truth I scarcely noticed any such workmen.”

“It’s only because they’re… what’s the word?” A fingertip went to her mouth. “Possessive.”

This seemed curious. “Possessive? Whatever do you mean?”

“They don’t like strangers, Foster,” she went on. “Strangers shouldn’t be in our harbor, they should stay in their own. We don’t send our boats to Rockport or Gloucester. Why should they be allowed to send theirs here?”

Now it made sense; this was the territorialism of which the man Onderdonk spoke of so bitterly. A “stranger” from another port town could easily take note of where the Innswich fishing boats were casting their nets, as well as their time tables. “It seems a fair rule of thumb,” I said, “and I’m happy that the town’s fishing industry is doing so well.” I reflected on a pause. “I only hope that you’re doing well, too, Mary.”

“Oh, me? I’m fine. I’m making more right off the bat with the new minimum wage, and since I turned twenty-five, I’ve been receiving a monthly dividend from the town collective.”

“The town… collective?” I chuckled half-heartedly. “It sounds a bit socialist.”

“No, it’s just a profit-sharing plan for residents who work and contribute to the local economy,” she explained. “Most of it comes from the fishing. I’ve been getting it three years now, and each year it goes up a little.” She lowered her voice. “I’m ashamed to say, but we don’t even have any real furniture at our house, but this year, thanks to the collective, I’ll be able to buy some.”

The remark sunk my heart; I recalled from my brief visit to her house the makeshift oddments that Mary’s poverty forced her to use as furniture. “You’re a determined woman, Mary, and with all those children? Plus your brother and stepfather to care for? Your resilience is quite remarkable. I must confess, though, I actually met your son Walter today. What a fine lad.”

This admission seemed to hold her in check. “You’ve… been to my house?”

I had to choose my phrases carefully. “Not really. I was simply walking by, returning from the barbeque stand up the road.”

Her words faltered. “And… you met… Walter?”

“Indeed, I did. What an industrious young man. He was practicing—quite deftly—his archery skills. I’d only a moment to speak with him, though.”

“But you didn’t… see my… stepfather?”

“Oh, no, no. I was just passing by,” I reiterated. “I like Walter very much, but, I’ll tell you, I didn’t see hide’nor hair of your other children. You’ve a total of eight, right?”

“Yes, but they’re younger. They were probably napping.”

“No doubt, on such a hot day.” The temptation dragged at me: to simply write her a cheque for $5000 and give it to her, for a new house, with real furniture, to ease her squalor.

But I feared how that might be taken at this point…

“And I hope you’re not terribly disappointed with me, Mary, but circumstance forced me to break my promise of earlier,” I went on. “I did pursue an interview with this Mr. Cyrus Zalen earlier today—”

“Oh, Foster, you didn’t!” she exclaimed.

I raised a reassuring finger. “It was of little consequence, really. You see, I simply couldn’t deprive your brother of his photograph with H.P. Lovecraft; it didn’t seem right. And as good fortune would have it, Zalen is still in possession of the negative, and I’ve arranged to purchase a copy from him tomorrow. But you were quite right about one thing,” I said with a chuckle. “He’s one of a shady lot indeed.”