Edward Lee - The Innswich Horror

Now, I had everything.

“Then why on earth do you say our love makes us worse? ” I pleaded.

“Foster! Think about it! Lovecraft’s story is true, and I’m living right in the middle of it.”

“What Zalen didn’t tell me I found out for myself.”

“But, Foster—Zalen is the reason that the fullbloods are on the hunt. They’re on the hunt… for you. ”

“When I was at the old Innswich Point tonight, I was forced to shoot one of their reanimants, a prostitute of Zalen’s,” I told her, then remembered the most disturbing point. “I didn’t really kill her, for she was already dead. But my shot detained her long enough to broker my escape. It’s quite possible that one or more of the fullbloods saw or heard this, and even more possible that Candace informed them directly after I’d fled.”

“That’s not the reason, Foster,” she went on, a hand to her belly as if discomfited. “It’s because of Zalen, much earlier today. Sentinels are everywhere. Every single townsperson reports back to them. And some of them, like Candace, are already physically dead. One of them overheard Zalen telling you about the tunnels beneath the waterfront of Innswich Point. No one can know about that, Foster. It’s one of their greatest secrets, so anyone who learns of it… is hunted down.”

This was moot, though I should’ve recalled Lovecraft’s story with more exploit. Even the most guarded whispers were overheard, if not by the degraded townsfolk, then by the Deep Ones themselves, whose auditory faculties were super-normal. But a paramount point collided with my deductive processes now that I’d gleaned this data. “I take it, then, we’re not safe in your house. We must leave at once.”

“They won’t come here, Foster,” she said with downcast eyes. “One of their leaders… has taken a fancy to me.”

“You needn’t be ashamed,” I assured her. “Zalen mentioned this. He called them ‘sovereigns’; but he also mentioned that sexual intercourse, even among these hierarchs, is banned via their new laws. I also know that the reason your brother and stepfather have been spared is due to this same sovereign’s fondness for you. ”

She began to speak, but then bowed forward with a grimace.

“Mary! You’re in pain.”

“No, no, I’m all right. I just need a short rest”—she reached up. “Help me, Foster, to the bed.”

I took great caution assisting her; she appeared exhausted, worn, and aching all at once. A glance to the “bed” forced a grimace on my part, for it existed as no more than the most primitive of straw mattresses. With a little luck, she’ll be sleeping in a REAL bed tomorrow, likely for the first time in her horrendously burdened life.

A happy sigh escaped her lips. “That’s much better, Foster. Thank you. Dr. Anstruther says I’ll be due in another week or so.”

“Anstruther,” I sputtered the name with venom. “I’ve seen his handiwork. I take it he’s a senior member of Olmstead’s collective.”

She nodded. “He’s the one who runs everything here—for them. ”

“I should’ve known.”

She lay back, sedate now, and—I pray God—banishing the profane foray at the lake from her tired mind. “Here, Foster,” she murmured; she took my hand and placed it at the center of her swollen belly. “Feel the life inside.”

It did so with great wonder. A blessing, I mused. Each and every life is a blessing…

“I’d like so much to keep it,” came her next murmuration. Tears welled. “I’d give anything…”

“You will keep it, Mary—this I vow.” The great bolus of flesh beneath the occult robe seemed to beat with heat. “You stay here and rest while I return to the Onderdonk’s to retrieve their motor. In less than an hour’s time, I’ll be transporting you and Walter away from here, to the security of my estate in Providence—”

“You just don’t understand,” she moaned in frustration. “If I try to leave, they’ll come after me. No one in the collective can ever leave.”

“We’ll see about that,” I replied but still mindful of what Zalen had implied of the fates of those who had tried. “Leave it to me. I will drive you to safety or die trying.”

When she looked at me, I noted something behind her eyes that could only be the desperate joy of hope.

“It just makes me love you more for wanting to do this for us. But I can’t let you. We would never make it out; we’d all die.”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” I told her with no hesitancy whatsoever. “Are you? Would you take that chance, for Walter to finally have a good life and attend good schools like other boys? Would you take that chance”—I gave the gravid belly a momentary caress—“to give this unborn child the chance to live and to behold the beauty of the world, and to save it from the blasphemous death that awaits it otherwise?”

She sobbed, gulped, and nodded. “Yes! I will take the chance! Even if we all die, then at least I’ll get to die with you…”

“Wait here,” I told her, choking up. “I’ll return presently,” and next I was out of the house and back out into the moon-spattered night.

I did not allow myself to entertain thoughts which might divert my focus, but what a luxury that would have been. I wended back toward the Onderdonk’s, eyes proverbially peeled, my Colt pistol slippery in my sweating hand. The woods were profuse with night-sounds now, where they hadn’t been before. It made me wonder. If these fullblooded monstrosities were indeed on the hunt for me, I saw no hint of them all the way back to Onderdonk’s ramshackle compound.

The smokers were gusting; I ignored the rich, savory—and unmentionable—aroma. Only from the corner of my eye did I allow myself a glance at the dead creature staked to the tree. The prospect of seeing one of these abominations in detail did not incite my curiosity. Closer to the truck, I had to step around Zalen’s innards and body parts, a fairly daunting task in itself, though I did spare myself one mental levity: It couldn’t have happened to a finer and more forthright gentleman.

Good Lord! came my next distasteful thought, for when I slipped into the time-weathered vehicle, my buttocks grew immediately sopped from the deposit of Zalen’s blood which had been let during his evisceration and dismemberment. I sat still a moment, to slowly survey my immediate surroundings through the windscreen, and saw nothing—absolutely nothing —out of the ordinary. If these fullbloods are hunting me, they’re exhibiting a less-than-fair effort thus far. A grim reminder assailed me next, however: Zalen’s earlier concern about the truck’s starting mechanism. I was an antiquarian and philanthropist, not a car thief. If it’s a keyed ignition, then I’ll have no choice but to drag Onderdonk’s half-cooked corpse from the smoker and search his pockets for the key… I withdrew my pocket-flash, closed my shooting eye to preserve its night-vision, then, for just a split-second, turned on the flash before the dashboard.

My heart fell like a stone.

What my flash illumined was a cylindrical keyway mounted in the dash.

“Here’s the key, Mr. Morley,” the small but sudden voice whispered just outside the open truck window. Where my heart had just sunk in the worst despair it nearly jettisoned from my mouth in the coming shock.

It was young Walter who stood beside the vehicle.

“In Heaven’s name, son!” I snapped a whisper back to him. “You nearly stopped my heart!” but then my eyes flicked to his adolescent hand and proved what he claimed was true. “How… How on earth did you—”