“Why?” Mila asked.
The youth picked up a section of broken glass she assumed came from the window and angled it at the shaft of moonlight that had crept into the old house with them. Silver dappled old packing crates stacked along a length of wall.
“That largest one,” he indicated with a tip of his chin.
The reflected glow steadied on an ancient wooden sarcophagus standing upright among the taxidermist’s clutter. Mila wandered over, her heart attempting to jump out of her chest and into her throat. She released the rusting metal latches, three deep along the seam, and tugged. The old crate sitting in the cellar’s dampness resisted. Mila pulled harder. The wood gave with a croaking groan, sharp on the ears. She pulled the lid open and moonlight reflected into the crate.
Mila seized in place. She wanted to scream—not for the image of the dead thing inside but over what had been done to it. It stood on two legs, its fish scale skin reflecting jeweled green and purple colors. In the form a woman, the creature was dressed in rags that might have once resembled delicate lace. Then her inner voice declared the wrap was actually fishing net made from the same material used to capture her. The look of horror frozen on the gilled woman’s face certainly supported the notion.
“All of our kind were slaughtered or taken away to be studied by the federal government,” he later whispered, when they were back on the beach and Mila’s tears had dried. “Old Tilton preserved one specimen for his own collection and curiosity. The caves and sandbars where our people sunned themselves and were happy, destroyed, the old town burned.”
Mila shuddered, swore. She tipped a look hatefully at the beach house where the party continued, oblivious to the death and devouring of one of its most popular guests, and then over to the dark cottage where she’d once spent summers with her adoptive family.
“And you say that Sailor’s Bay was once ours alone?”
“Before it was razed, yes, and they took it from us. When it was called Innsmouth and we lived between the shore and the breakwater.”
A deep vacuum formed in her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. The air was thin, an apparition. Her cells craved the reassuring weight of the ocean’s brine.
“We have some of Innsmouth within us?” she asked.
He nodded. “Me more so than you. But we are the last of our kind. Pray to Dagon that, as the last of His children, it is enough.”
She gazed into the young man’s unblinking eyes and envisioned their life together in the depths. The water teemed with hundreds, thousands, of little mouths filled with sharp teeth, all hungry, all eager for vengeance, their skin glittering in rich green and purple scales. The children of Dagon. Their children.
Mila leaned closer and kissed him. “I’ve dreamed of you,” she said after their lips parted. “My one true and only love.”
Smiling, she took his hand and led him back down to the water.
Torn Asunder
by
Michael Krog
I.
From the F.B.I. Special Investigations Report (S.I.R.) 3/23/13 (classified)
The main witness to the events of Ford's Falls from July 29 through August 5, 2012 is one Tommy Fuchs. While he has certainly been no help in his present state, we have been able to piece together a broad sketch of the events that led to the destruction of several blocks of the town and the horrific deaths of over three dozen people. It must be stated that while the official story has held up in the media, the chronicle of events as laid out here gives a much starker picture of what really occurred.
Witness statement from F.B.I. S.I.R. - Molly Hall
Witness: I do not know how much I can tell you, I did not see much. When it all started I was in Jacks down on Main [Jacks is a drinking establishment popular with the locals in Ford's Falls] and I had had a couple. The only thing I remember is the wall being crashed through, just broken down. It knocked me down. Everyone was screaming. Poor Donny, a piece of the ceiling hit him as soon as it happened. He fell to the floor. They told me later he was dead. I don't think he ever felt a thing. Sorry, am I rambling. I feel like I am rambling [witness looks around]
Agent: That is fine, just tell it like you remember it.
Witness: I do not know what happened next. I was drinking and I think I got hit on the head because what I saw.....well, it was long and scaly, oozing with stuff, like an elephant's trunk but gross. It comes into Jacks, back in the pool room where I hang out, and it grabs Bruce Wheeler, he had fallen down, and picks him up and he's screaming and the trunk carries him back out the through the wall and then his screams got real bad. For a minute. Then I ran.
*****
Tommy Fuchs pulled his cruiser into the lot at Jacks. He was only halfway through his shift and it was early at Jacks but Harold would be at the bar and it was a slow day. Every day in Ford's Falls was a slow day. Up in the north of Maine a good fifty miles off 95, Ford's Falls was off the beaten track, still old fashioned New England. Sheriff Custer had driven away the only dealer enterprising enough to make it all the way up to the town years ago.
Harold was at the bar and greeted him as he walked in. Jacks was sparsely populated with a few regulars who greeted him as he walked over to the bar.
The bartender grunted a hello at him at he poured out a vodka.
"How goes it, Uncle Harold?" He took a seat on a stool.
Harold slid the vodka to him with the skill that only years behind the bar can give. Tommy picked it up and, with a smile and a tip of the glass to Harold, took a sip.
"You be careful. Old General Custer will bust you to nights again, he catches you," Harold said in a low growl.
"The General puts on a good show and he has his days, but really I think he is just coasting the last ten years until he retires," Tommy said.
Harold grunted and went back to polishing the glassware with his towel.
"Why do you polish the glassware, Uncle Harold? No one in this little gin mill would ever notice if the glass had a couple spots."
Harold stopped for a second and looked at his nephew. "It's what bartenders do. Sort of the same way deputies don't drink on the job."
"Don't bartenders in Jacks cook in the afternoon? Go cook me a sandwich, old man," Tommy answered.
"Rather be an old man than a young ignorant fool," said Harold, but he grabbed his cane and moved toward the kitchen.
"Yeah, hobble on old man, ya broke down crank," Tommy said, as he waited for Harold to get going and stood to reach over the bar to grab the vodka bottle.
"I'll show you old, you snot nosed little boy. Come on back behind the bar."
Harold started opening kitchen lids and firing up the grill.
"One lobster roll, coming up," he said.
"You come back here without a Vermonter on my plate I'll beat you with your cane, old man."
Harold ignored him and instead asked a question.
"You been having any dreams lately Tommy?"
"Dreams?"
"Yeah, where you fall asleep and your mind goes off somewhere and listens to your subconscious too much."
Tommy said he had not and Harold stayed silent while he cooked.
"One Vermonter, served hot," Harold slid the plate across the bar to his nephew.
The younger man dived into the sandwich with sounds that showed his appreciation for the food.
"I know you love that sandwich but putting apples on a sandwich is just wrong, kid," said Harold.
"Why'd you ask me about dreams?"
Harold was silent. He shifted on his cane.
Tommy stopped eating long enough to give him a "come on" stare.
"A lot of people have been having bad dreams," the old man said.
"A lot?"
"Well, I have and," he waved around the bar, " about everyone else here has, too."
Tommy looked around the bar, counting in his head. Fifteen.
"Everyone?"
"Everyone but the More twins, but they take sleeping pills every night. Say
they never dream."
"What about Barry?" He nodded his head in the direction of a middle aged man talking to the local middle school librarian who was breaking half a dozen rules and soon her husband's heart by sharing a beer with the local Casanova.
"Somehow bad dreams even penetrated through his constant visions of amore," said Harold.
"Bad dreams, huh? Like the boogie man, stuff like that?" Tommy laughed.
"Son, I stopped being afraid of the boogie man before your mom was out of daipers," Harold grunted.
"You are only three years older than mom."
"Exactly," Harold grunted again as he polished glassware.
"What have you dreamed about?"
"Its hard to say," Harold said. "You don't really see so much,. It is just the fear that you remember. It's all the same for everyone. We talked about it over lunch a little bit ago, before you came in. It's flashes of monsters, I guess you could call them, strange tentacles slithering towards you, oozing with something, I don't know what, and teeth, lots of teeth. Big teeth, like razors."
Tommy almost laughed, too hard.
"Its not funny, junior," Harold said. He paused for a moment. "I don't mind telling you, the worst thing is the waking up. Normally, when you wake up, even from a disturbing dream, you know you are awake. The dream is over. With these, it ain't like that."
Tommy reached across the bar to give his uncle a touch on the shoulder. "I am sure it is just some sort of communal dream, something that is just bothering everyone that no one can talk about."
He downed the last of his vodka.
"It'll be alright, you'll see. I gotta go before General Custer finds me." Tommy headed to the door.
Harold grunted and continued polishing his glassware.
II.
From the F.B.I. Special Investigations Report(S.I.R.) 3/23/13 (classified)
There is no doubt that the entire Ford's Falls township suffered from nightmares in the days leading up to the events of late July, early August 2012. What the cause of these shared dreams was is unknown. One theory is that the Old Ones were sending a warning to their potential victims. This is unlikely as no sympathy was shown to the town's populace by them. A second theory is that the common human psyche is able to sense the coming of the Old Ones and fears it. This communal fear is rooted in a communal subconscious and is strong enough to try to communicate with the active parts of the brain. This is done through dreams.
Witness statement from F.B.I. S.I.R. - Barry York
Yes, I dreamed. I dream a lot, because I have a high libido and my brain is always working. That is why women like me. Wwhat? Ooh, those dreams. Okay. [witness recomposes himself] I normally dream, like I said and I always remember them, but these were different. Normally, my dreams are very vivid, but these were as though I was in a fog. I remember the fear the most, as though I knew something was out there, something was coming. Sometimes I would just hear things [interviewer questions as to what]. I do not know what. Horrible sounds, but not specific. It is like my brain would not process what it heard. I just remember waking up, breathing heavy and not in a good way, covered in sweat and scared. More scared than I have ever been in my life. The worst thing was when I woke up, it was like the dream was still right there with me. [witness pauses for a moment, then looks up]
*****
Tommy exited Jacks and headed toward the lake. He was nervous and scared. He had lied, true, he had lied. Oh, he knew about the dreams. They had scared him, too. More, though, he was giddy. Oh, like a kid he was. Scared and excited. He knew, oh, he knew.
They were coming. He stopped himself and went back the routine. That was important.
He wanted to point his cruiser to the falls as he pulled out of Jacks parking lot, but he went about his rounds as usual. Drive down main, then patrol around the business district, like he had a thousand times before. Patrol the housing areas on either side of the business district. Main street again. Then cruise through the nicer parts of town where all the money lived. Keep to the routine. That was he got through his days since that day. Routine. That was important.
He smiled as he went through the day. Oh, not too much. Too much and people knew something was off. Smile just enough.
He remembered.
Six months ago. He had met him, the emissary.
Fishing at the lake, alone, as he did at times. He hated Ford's Falls. After high school he had gone away to school, all the way to Boston. Two years of misery. Two years of rich kids laughing at the kid from Ford's Falls. He had money, his family was well off. Boston kids did not care. They were always one step up the food chain from him, just out of reach. He was always the one who could not afford that restaurant. He had come home and taken his spot on the General's force. The General had been friends with his dad since grade school. One day he would be sheriff. The General's kid had died in Iraq, so Tommy was next in line.
Still he hated it. All of it.
He had opened up his eyes to that fact. Tommy had been sitting on the lake bank, on a slight embankment near the falls and he had started talking. Tommy had damn near jumped out of his skin. There was no way he had been there before. He was just not there one moment, then there. He had reached out and calmed him. No, not calmed. Numbed him. That was right. Numbed him. Like the time in high school he had gotten high with Joe Potter. Numb. That was how he felt.
After that they had talked. No. He had talked. Tommy had listened. He asked a few questions in the beginning, all of which Tommy answered with a quick affirmation, but after that he seemed to know what the questions would be and answered them as he talked. His words first emptied the young deputy and then filled him.
As the man rose to leave, Tommy realized the sun was starting to go down. He had been listening since before noon. The man started to walk away and he shook off his daze and reached out for the man. "Who are you?"
The man turned to face him. He saw his face. He was clearly not human, at least not any longer. Under his cheek bones where smooth flesh should be he had several tentacles hanging down. The tentacles extended down his neck covering every inch of him. Mere inches in length, they moved as if alive on their own. And his hair, that which showed beneath his cowl, was thick and mottled and moving, as well. Everything that moved seemed to ooze a slimy substance, which make Tommy think of the slugs he used to pour salt on as a child.
He saw all this at once, but it all seemed perfectly rational to him now. And then the man answered, "I am no one, merely their emissary, come to find followers."
And then he was gone.
III.
From the F.B.I. Special Investigations Report(S.I.R.) 3/23/13 (classified)
It is indisputable that, without the efforts of the town sheriff, Dylan Custer, the devastation of Ford's Falls would have been complete and the incursion may have spread. To date, Sheriff Custer has not admitted to knowing much, only saying he was in the right place at the right time. Repeated questioning has yielded no other answer and the witness is, to say that least, not amenable to further questioning. As improbable as that explanation is, we have no choice but to accept it, as extraction will only serve to discredit the explanations given to the public for the events in question.
Extract from cover story of Ford's Falls Herald August 16, 2012
Sheriff Custer continues to recover from the minor injuries he suffered putting an end to last week's tragic events which saw 37 of our citizens perish and put dozens in the emergency room at our local St. Andrews' Emergency Room. While there are many questions that remain as what happened that day, no answers are coming from the sheriff's office or the sheriff himself. Sheriff Custer has merely stated that he was in the right place at the right time and was just lucky to be able to do his job and regrets he was not able to do it sooner. He has provided no more answers than the federal officials who have taken over a large portion of our town.
*****
There was a light coming from the falls. He saw it as he drove up. Ugly hues of green and ye
llow, unnatural colors washed over the water. Unnatural colors. To Tommy they were a beauty to behold. They were the harbinger of the promised New Way. All the small town tedium, the small town lies, the small town hypocrisy, all soon to be smashed away. Washed away.
The emissary had told him all of this. All of what was to come, all the reasons why. He had explained it all. In the hours he had talked, Tommy had listened. Oh, he had listened so well. He had told Tommy how well he had listened, how proud he was of him. Those words had made Tommy proud inside. The Old Ones were coming to wipe all of the lies away, wipe all the hypocrisy of man away. All the suffering he, Tommy, had endured would be made right.
Night after night, he knew the Old Ones visited him. Every slight of the day was made right. He knew, oh he knew, how everyone laughed at him behind his back. How he had failed to make it in Boston, how he had had to come back to this small town and be a deputy. Hell, he should be the sheriff. He had put in four years under the General and his tyranny. Always do your patrol, Tommy. Vary your routes, Tommy. Don't be predictable, Tommy. Polish your boots, Tommy. He had earned that badge.
And the laughter. He knew they were laughing when he walked up and they stopped laughing. That awkward moment of silence. He wanted to smash them in that moment. Beat them into a pulp for all their little comments and slights. Yesterday, oh yesterday, he had smiled when he walked up to Sue Beacher while she talked to old lady White who ran the dry cleaners on Main. Just walking up to say hi, how are doing and they had been chuckling at him. He knew. As soon as he walked up, the laughing stopped. He had smiled and played it off. Oh, he had smiled. He had bit his tongue to stop himself from beating them in rage. Bitten it so hard he had bled. Oh, he had smiled and talked and gotten through it. Inside though, he knew, he knew they were laughing at him.
The Idolaters of Cthulhu Page 12
