Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

THE QUEST FOR Y’HA-NTHLEI

by

JOHN GLASBY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I

NARRATIVE OF FEDERAL AGENT JAMES P. CURRAN: FEBRUARY 27, 1928

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

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

Rumours concerning Innsmouth were legion. There were reports of smuggling and the importation of certain natives from some island in the South Seas during the mid-19th century, presumably part of the slave trade. There was certainly a small, but significant, trade in gold items for many of these pieces were on show in Arkham, most of them produced at the Marsh refinery situated on the banks of the Manuxet River.

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

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

Olmstead turned up at the office a little after 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. He wasn’t at all what I had expected. Approximately twenty years old, he gave an address in Cleveland and my first question was why he had travelled such a distance just to visit Innsmouth.

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

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

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

“Then if that was your only reason,” McAlpine put in, “why did you have to flee for your life as Professor Derby has informed us?”

I could tell at once that Olmstead was hiding something from us; that something had happened there which he either didn’t want to tell us, or was sure we wouldn’t believe.

Then he cleared his throat nervously. “I spoke with one of the inhabitants, Zadok Allen, who told me things about Innsmouth which the townsfolk don’t want the outside world to know. He warned me that if they suspected I’d spoken to him, they’d kill me rather than let any of this information get out.”

“Then I think you’d better tell us what you know,” I said.

“You wouldn’t believe a word of it,” he muttered.

“Try us,” McAlpine said.

Moistening his lips, he went on. “First you have to know there are no religious denominations left in Innsmouth except for one. All of the others were shut down sixty years ago by Obed Marsh who ran the town then. Seemingly, he brought back some pagan religion from some island in the South Pacific, along with a large number of natives. Now they’re all members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.”

“Dagon?” McAlpine inquired.

“Some kind of fish deity. They all believe he lives in some sunken city in the deeps off Devil Reef.”

I nodded. “We’ve come across people like this before. Weird cults in the bayou country. But it seems to me that what you’re suggesting here might be something more than that.”

“Take my word for it,” he said, and there was no doubting the earnestness in his tone. “This is far worse than anything you’ve come up against before. This heathen worship is bad, but there’s even worse than that in Innsmouth.”

“Worse?” I prompted, as he hesitated again.

“Much worse. I’ve seen them and even those I saw aren’t as bad as those they’ve got hidden away in the big houses on Washington, Lafayette and Addams Streets. You can hear about it from the people in Arkham. They call it ‘the Innsmouth look’. It comes from the time when those foreigners were brought into the town by Obed Marsh.

“Seems he called up others from the sea off Devil Reef and forced the folk in Innsmouth to mate with them. Call their offspring hybrids, or whatever you like, but they change. Bulging eyes, wide mouths, ears that change into gills. They often swim out to Devil Reef, maybe beyond, and when their time comes, when the change is complete, they leave Innsmouth and go down into the really deep water and remain there for ever in their sunken city they call Y’ha-nthlei.”

I threw my colleague a quick glance at that point. Closing the file in front of me, I said, “Well, Mister Olmstead, thank you for your information. We’ll certainly pass it on to the proper quarter. It will then be up to our superiors as to what action, if any, needs to be taken.”

When he had gone, McAlpine and I sat looking at each other in silence. I had little doubt that something had occurred in Innsmouth to have frightened Olmstead so much that it had sent him running for his life along the abandoned railway line to Rowley.

Once our report had been sent to the Bureau, we heard nothing more until I received orders to report to a Major Fenton, a war veteran, in Boston where I was to place myself under his command.

He turned out to be a short, stocky man in his late forties with dark hair already showing signs of grey.

Taking me aside, he said gruffly, “I’ll expect the fullest co-operation from you. You’ll already know something of what’s been planned. I also understand you know a little about Innsmouth.”

“Only what I’ve read in the preliminary file and what I’ve learned from Robert Olmstead,” I told him.

Without making any further comment, he signalled to one of the officers accompanying him.

A map was spread out on the table and he motioned me forward. “This is the road from Arkham.” He traced the outline with his forefinger. “As you see, it enters Innsmouth along Federal Street and continues all the way to the town centre. That’s the route we’ll take. At the same time, a second force, including the Marine Corps, will enter from the west, while others will go ashore and come in through tunnels which were used for smuggling in the old days.”

“And if some of the inhabitants try to escape by boat?” I asked.

He gave a grim smile. “We’ve taken that possibility into account. Three ships will be patrolling the shoreline. They’ll take care of anyone attempting to get away by boat.”

Leaning forward, he stabbed a finger at the map. “One other thing. There may be no truth in this but we do know there’s been a lot of activity here, near Devil Reef. For more than a century, contraband has been landed on this reef. It’s a dangerous place for vessels but apparently the old sea-captains brought natives and other illegal goods there before ferrying them ashore. More importantly as far as we’re concerned, there’s a two-thousand-foot drop there down to the ocean floor.”

He paused, as if for dramatic effect. Personally, I couldn’t see what he was getting at.

“I don’t believe half of this myself,” he continued, almost apologetically, “but from scraps of information we’ve gathered from a couple of Federal agents who did return from Innsmouth, there’s talk in that town of some sunken remains on the seabed in that region.”

“What sort of remains?” asked one of the officers.

Fenton looked across at me. “You’ve read the file which was given you some weeks ago. You’ll know that every Christian religion has been outlawed in Innsmouth. Everybody there belongs to this weird cult, the Esoteric Order of Dagon. They actually worship this god and believe a sunken city lies at the bottom of the sea, just off the reef. A city they call Y’ha-nthlei, where this Dagon lives.”

“Surely you don’t believe that, sir,” said the officer.

“I only believe what I can see, Lieutenant. Nevertheless, someone in the government seems to take it all seriously. A submarine has been ordered to dive down towards the sea bottom and take a look. If there is anything there, they have enough torpedoes on board to blast it to Hell and back.”

* * *

Two days later, I was in a convoy of ten Army trucks approaching the outskirts of Innsmouth. It was now dark and the vehicle moved without any lights showing. Each of us had received specific orders before we set out. We would stop at the end of Federal Street and from there proceed to the building which housed the Esoteric Order of Dagon, where half of our force would then move off to occupy the Marsh mansion on Washington Street.

Reaching the end of Federal Street, we disembarked. A few dim streetlights shone along its length but nothing showed in any of the once-grand Colonial buildings as we passed, moving from one shadowed doorway to the next. Within five minutes we were within sight of our objective. The building stood facing an open space covered in rough grass. It boasted several massive pillars with the name still visible above the pediment. Its original use as the Masonic Temple still showed where the set square and pair of compasses of that Order, although partially obliterated by time, were still visible.

Sending twenty men to watch the rear of the building, Major Fenton led the rest of us towards the front door. Not bothering to check whether or not it was locked, he gave the order to smash it down. The rusted hinges yielded readily and, switching on our torches, we rushed inside. A sharp, fishy stench met us, catching horribly at the back of my throat.

In the torchlight we saw that the large lower room was empty apart from a long table flanked by two high-backed chairs.

Then, without warning, a door at the far end of the room suddenly burst open and a horde of dark figures poured into the room. For a moment, I stood absolutely still, abruptly shocked by what the wavering torchlight revealed. I had expected the citizens of this town to offer some resistance to our invasion, but this was something neither I, nor any of the others, had been prepared for.

Only their apparel was normal. They moved forward with a hideous hopping, slithering gait and there was something bordering on the ichthyic, or batrachian, about their leering features. Huge, bulging eyes glared unwinkingly at us from beneath sloping foreheads. Their skin, what little we could see of it, appeared scaled and the wide mouths reminded me of frogs. I think we had all anticipated finding some signs of degeneracy among these folk, but nothing like this.

How such monstrosities had come into being, I was unable to guess. Certainly, the tales of mixed breeding with another race seemed to have some basis in fact.

Uttering guttural croaking sounds, utterly unlike human speech, they threw themselves upon us. Several were clubbed with rifle butts as they attempted to force us back towards the door. Five minutes later, it was all over. Six of them had been killed and the rest were securely tied up. We had lost two men, their faces and chests ripped to shreds by webbed, taloned hands.

Leaving three men to watch the captives, the rest of us followed Major Fenton through the far door. Here there was a flight of stone steps leading down below street level with a faint light just visible at the bottom. The sight which confronted us there was one which shocked all of the warmth from my limbs.

The room was large, even bigger than the one above, decked out in tattered tapestries, all depicting some repellent forms of marine life; giant, octopoid creatures, malformed denizens of the deep and, worst of all, creatures which had the shape of men but with webbed hands and feet and features not dissimilar to those creatures we had just encountered!

The light came from several burning brands set in metal brackets around the walls and by their light we made out the huge altar at the far end, flanked by two massive statues. One was clearly male, the other female—but beyond that they bore no resemblance to anything I had ever seen before.

“What in the name of all that’s holy is this place?” Fenton muttered hoarsely, speaking to no one in particular.

Somehow, I forced myself to speak. “I reckon it’s obvious, Major. This is their temple where they worship this heathen god—Dagon. God alone knows what rites they hold down here.”

Fenton’s face twisted into a scowl. “Put a light to it,” he ordered tersely. “I’ve seen enough.”

By the time we left the building the flames had taken a firm hold. Through the billowing smoke, we emerged into the street. Already, the sound of rifle fire was coming from several positions around the town centre. Since our orders had been to fire on these people only as a last resort, it was clear that other units had run into serious trouble.

Fifteen minutes later, after fighting our way through a group of yelling figures who attempted to block our path, we linked up with the force which had been sent to raid the Marsh house on Washington Street. They, too, had captured several of the hideously disfigured hybrids. Three of their men had been killed and five wounded during the attack.

After collecting a number of the alien artefacts from the house as evidence, we returned to where we had left the trucks, herding the prisoners on board. For the most part they offered little resistance, but I noticed that the men ordered to guard them kept their distance. I could guess how they were feeling and doubted if any of them would ever be the same after what we had uncovered in Innsmouth.

II

TESTIMONY OF FEDERAL AGENT WILLIAM T. DARNFORTH: MARCH 2, 1928

Acting on sealed orders from the Federal Bureau, I proceeded by train to the small town of Rowley, situated some seven miles west of Innsmouth. My orders were to place myself under the command of Lieutenant Corlson of the Marine Corp. I knew very little concerning Innsmouth, only that a number of Federal agents had disappeared when visiting the town and our task was to enter the place under cover of darkness, proceed to the town centre where it was believed that a number of tunnels, used for more than a century for smuggling contraband into Innsmouth, had their exits.

From the Lieutenant I gathered that our attack would be coordinated with that of a further force moving in from the south. Some resistance was expected and we were to maintain radio contact for as long as possible with two other squads who would be entering the tunnels from the beach. Any of the inhabitants who attempted to flee the town through the tunnels would be trapped between ourselves and those men coming in from the sea.

The first part of our task was accomplished without any serious incident. Small groups of the townsfolk made half-hearted attempts to prevent us advancing along Rowley Road and Dock Street but these scattered for cover after a few shots were fired. As we entered Federal Street north of the bridge across the Manuxet, however, we encountered a larger force and here we were compelled to take cover before we finally succeeded in driving them off.

The bridge was the first real obstacle we had to tackle. It was evident at once that it had received no repairs for many years and we had no idea how secure were the ties across the gorge. But now we had progressed this far, there was no turning back. Two at a time, we crossed the decaying structure until we were all safely across.

By now, a number of fires had been started and the conflagration was spreading rapidly inland from the decaying warehouses along the waterfront, lighting up the sky in that direction.

Reaching the town square we dispersed to search for the hidden entrances to some of the tunnels reputed to exist. It was unlikely they would be well concealed since few visitors ever came to Innsmouth and, from what little information we had of the place, those who did were watched closely. It was not long before we stumbled upon one of them, covered with a thin layer of earth and coarse grass.

There was an iron-runged ladder fastened to the circular side. It didn’t look particularly secure, testifying to the fact that the tunnel had probably not been in use for several decades. Lowering ourselves down, we used our torches to delineate our surroundings. The tunnel was larger than I had expected, fully ten feet in height and only a little less in width.

Pools of stagnant water lay everywhere, oozing from the muddy ground and running down the slimy walls. Weird echoes came from somewhere in the blackness ahead of us, and not all of them could be put down to sounds of our own making. I struggled desperately to keep my emotions under tight control for there was something about those faint, elusive sounds which set my nerves on edge, lifting the small hairs on the back of my neck.

Then, still some distance ahead, I made out other noises, more distinct, that increased the tension in my mind. Low, throaty mutterings and occasional piping whistles which seemed oddly out of place down there. In addition, there were faint splashing sounds like objects being dropped into water.

Corlson had also picked them out for he gave a hissed order to halt. In the ensuing silence we could now hear the noises distinctly, although it was impossible to pinpoint their position accurately.

Waving an arm, the Lieutenant signalled us to continue. A few moments later, the torchlight showed where the tunnel turned abruptly to the right and, rounding the bend, where the beams from our torches illuminated the area ahead, we all saw the full horror which dwelt within those accursed tunnels which burrowed like gigantic wormholes through the rock!

It was a scene out of a nightmare. Lit by a nauseous green radiance which came from countless luminous algae encrusting the rocks, a vast grotto lay spread out before us. Large stalactites hung from the roof, finding their distorted reflection in a vast pool of sluggish water.

But it was not this that sent me staggering back against the Lieutenant. It was the sight of the indescribable creatures that flopped and floundered around the edge of the black water.

Fish-headed monsters, which belonged only in the mad visions of a deranged mind came surging out of that pool as we emerged onto the slippery, treacherous rocks at its edge. Somewhere there had to be an outlet to the sea for common sense told me such monstrosities had never evolved on the land.

Several of the men with us seemed on the point of running but Corlson shouted a sudden, urgent command and, somehow, succeeded in bringing them back to their senses. Military discipline reasserted itself. My own actions were instinctive. Bringing up my revolver, I fired several shots into the midst of the slithering creatures. Steeling themselves, the marines opened fire as the Lieutenant signalled to them to spread out and take cover.

How many of the hideous ocean dwellers there were it was impossible to estimate, but in the face of the withering rifle fire they were forced to retreat, diving back into the water and disappearing beneath the oily surface. When it was all over, we went forward to examine the bodies. Two of them were still alive with only minor wounds and these were trussed up and left with two men to guard them while we moved on.

Apart from the tunnel along which we had come, three more opened out from around the walls. Checking his compass, the Lieutenant pointed to the one on our left.

“That way,” he said decisively. His voice shook a little. “The others seem to lead deeper into the town.”

Moving cautiously into the tunnel, now fully aware of the danger that lurked beneath Innsmouth, we went forward in single file, our weapons ready for any further attack. Every man among us had been visibly shaken by our recent experience. Normal degeneracy and inbreeding such as was common among small, isolated communities living in the bayou regions and other townships such as Dunwich, we had expected. But these creatures were something completely different. At that moment, some of the odd stories I had heard from one of the few agents to have spent some time in Innsmouth and left to tell the tale, began to assume something approaching the truth.

In places, the tunnel we were following widened out into larger spaces but here we found nothing more abnormal than driftwood and splintered wooden cases which had evidently been left there to rot by bygone smugglers moving contraband into the town from ships lying off Devil Reef.

Everywhere there was a fishy stench. We had first noticed it on entering the grotto, but now it grew stronger and more pronounced and I guessed we were nearing the sea. On occasions, we passed other tunnels branching off from that which we were traversing but only darkness and silence lived in them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT OF FEDERAL INVESTIGATOR WALTER C. TARPEY: MARCH 5, 1929

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Surely that’s not possible,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Levelling off at eighty feet, we edged slowly ocean-ward, skirting the reef to the south.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet there was something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From where we stood, there was little to indicate that the torpedoes were on their way. Five minutes passed with complete silence inside the submarine. Then there came a slight, but distinct, shudder as the detonation waves hit us.

When I stepped forward at Lowrie’s gesture to take my last look through the periscope, I was trembling all over. At first, my eyes refused to focus properly. Sucking in a deep breath, I forced myself to remain calm. Slowly, everything became clear.

That frightful distortion of nature I had seen only a few minutes earlier was gone although I thought I caught a fragmentary glimpse of something amorphous dwindling into the depths. As for that vast city, the torpedoes had clearly done their work for here and there were irregular patches of blackness like scars on the overall phosphorescence. Nevertheless, large areas still shone with that sickly radiance and it was evident that, although Y’ha-nthlei, like that creature which had risen to attack us, had been badly damaged, they had not been totally destroyed.

By the time we surfaced, there was no sign of the Deep Ones who had earlier swarmed over the hull. To the west, Innsmouth was burning. The shells of those Colonial houses built of stone would remain as smoke-blackened monuments to the night’s raid but almost all of the wooden structures would be reduced to ashes by morning.

I must end this report on a warning note. Innsmouth must remain under close surveillance and a continual watch kept on the ocean just beyond Devil Reef. That which is merely injured, may rise again!