“Mutilated,” Josh adds. “Chunks taken out of him. Bloody goddamn mess.”
Danny nods gravely.
“Campbell?” asks Tom. “Not that unpleasant fellow who’s always in here going on about lake-monsters?”
“Yeah,” Danny says. “From some nowhere town or another in Illinois. We’ll have to ship him back.”
“What’s left of him,” says Josh. “The pieces.”
Danny shoots him another scowl. “Once the coroner’s signed off on cause of death and we’ve closed the case, that is. You seen Campbell around here lately?”
“Not since the other day,” Tom says. “Ran him off for harassing a bunch of underage girls on the beach. This tooth, though … you’re not saying … you can’t be saying …”
“Coroner says it’s possible a propellor did the damage,” Josh says. “Tore him up after he drowned, maybe. We don’t know on that yet. But the same kids that found the body found the tooth near the scene.”
Danny turns the plastic bag over, examining the tooth from all sides. “Probably their idea of a hoax and we’ll find out it’s made of plaster or something. We’re not going to spread this around, and we’re counting on you to keep quiet. We just know you collect odd stories about the lake.”
Josh squints out the shop window at the rain-swept water. Lightning flashes a ways distant, followed moments later by the dull rumble of thunder. “And if it is the real thing, you’ll want to be careful out here.”
Danny sighs. They might look as alike as brothers, but it’s clear he’s resisting the urge to give his more superstitious partner an elbow in the ribs. Tom thanks them for stopping by, offers them free sodas for the road and the other usual pleasantries. They exchange goodbyes. Then the deputies leave, and Tom figures his decision to close up for the rest of the day was the right one after all.
He dons a rain poncho before heading outside to check the boat moorings, lock the fuel shed, and bring in the life jackets. The poncho whips around him in the wind. The rain plasters his hair to his head. A blinding flash lights up the world, the thunderclap not following but simultaneous. The lightning strike is so close it throws Tom off his feet. He lands in the wet grass, dazed and deafened, gasping for breath. All he can think is that it was sheer luck he landed on shore instead of plunging into the water.
Tom starts getting up. A large, violent movement thrashes nearby, several yards out into the lake. Another jagged bolt splits the sky. For a stark fraction of a second, it shows him churning waves and a thick, muscular body. He glimpses a long, sinuous tail. A scream bursts from him.
In subsequent lightning flashes, he sees the creature moving across the lake. It lacks the grace of the famous monster of Loch Ness, but it has plenty of speed and power. He watches, mouth hanging open, until it dives and is gone.
* * *
Tom rarely talks about what he saw that day. The few people he does tell laugh, and say it was probably just a trick of the storm, or an after effect of being almost struck by lightning.
One or two, like Josh, believe his story. But nobody is able to prove it.
If Albert Campbell had survived, he could testify that Tom speaks the truth. His final moments on Earth had been spent in extreme pain and terror, the creature charging at him, knocking him down, and proceeding to eat him alive. It might have eaten the rest of him if the sounds of approaching humans hadn’t driven it from its kill.
Visitors to Fossil Lake today can still hear stories of Miss Fossie. They can marvel at the white tooth among the collection of fossil finds in the new visitor center. They can even buy books in the gift shop about famous lake monsters … though nothing by the late Albert Campbell, of course.
They just aren't likely to actually spot the beast.
Perhaps it found a way to the ocean. Perhaps the storm hurt it so severely that it couldn’t survive, and lies buried in the mud at the bottom of the lake. The world may never know.
Since that fateful day, Miss Fossie has never been seen again.
ARKHAM ARTS REVIEW
Peter Rawlik
Arkham Arts Review: Alienation
An Interview with Director James Romberg
Eight years ago media producer James Romberg became a sensation with his docudrama Innsmouth. This week he debuts his new work Alienantion, an account of the life of the film actor Abraham Waite. Earlier this week Mr. Romberg chattered with our own Mick Moon.
MM: Mr. Romberg, Innsmouth was a sweeping historical piece, and a critical and commercial success; why follow it up with an examination of someone like Abraham Waite? It seems a radical departure from your previous work.
JR: Innsmouth – and before that Jermyn – were period pieces. Alienation is a contemporary film, but it’s still rooted in the same source, still asking the same questions. What does it mean to be different, to be fundamentally inhuman in a human world, both physically and psychologically? I could do this through fiction, but adapting history, telling the stories of these people who actually lived, I think it is much more powerful.
MM: But, in both previous films your protagonists moved from a human world into an inhuman one. In Jermyn, Arthur rejects his origins with tragic results, while Robert in Innsmouth eventually learns to accept and embrace his ancestry. Abraham Waite begins in an inhuman world and moves into the normal one, finding a place, or at least trying to. That seems to be a bold reversal of direction.
JR: Actually it’s a natural progression that mimics the time and attitudes that each film was set in. Jermyn is an Edwardian piece, with the central character representing the dominant society, which violently rejects any revelations concerning the past that might impact their particular worldview. Innsmouth is purposefully a Jazz Age piece, and the response of Robert Olmstead to revelations concerning his ancestry mirrors the societal changes that were occurring during that time period. Yes, he rejects what he discovers, and reports it to the government, and the actions taken are just as violent and drastic as those portrayed in Jermyn. However, in the aftermath Olmstead reconsiders, his initial rejection is replaced with not only acceptance, but also a sense of outré wonder and elation. I think of Alienation as a commentary on post-humanism. Abraham Waite begins his journey in Innsmouth, isolated from what some would call civilization. His journey from that isolation into the spotlight of first fame, and then infamy, highlights the changes in mainstream society and the way in which it now embraces the fringe elements it once tried to deny, even destroy.
MM: But Abraham Waite is still alive, and still working in film, correct?
JR: He is. Abe has been working in film since 1962, when he first appeared in Corman’s Echidna. He made sixteen films with Corman, including the remake of Freaks and the classic Galaxy of Fear. In 1982 he began working with Tobe Hooper, appearing first in Tsathaggua, and then later as the antagonist in Warlords of Yaddith. The failure of Romero’s Night of the Reanimator, both critically and financially, drove Abe to take a number of minor parts, mostly as an extra or part of the special effects team. This led to him working with Carpenter on Who Goes There? and winning a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor.
MM: This was very controversial at the time.
JR: Right. There were a lot of voices, ugly voices, raised in response to Abe’s appearing on network television. A coalition of actors, mostly character actors who specialized in roles that required significant amounts of make-up and prosthetics, objected saying that Abe had an unfair advantage. In the meanwhile, many people with similar characteristics suggested that Abe was catering to stereotypes. Just as ethnic groups had formed to protest the negative portrayals of Africans and Asians on film, the movement that protested Abe and similar actors became very vocal. However, while the Black Face and Yellow Face Movements worked in concert with each other, the Green Face groups found no such support and were forced to escalate their activities in order to garner national attention to their cause. Unfortunately, one radical faction chose to resort to violence to make their point.
MM: You’re talking about the accident that occurred on the set of Larson’s series, Galactics.
JR: There was nothing accidental about it. The Esoteric Order of Dagon purposefully interfered with a dangerous stunt which caused the death of six of their members. It was a reprehensible act, and psychologically scarred those cast and crew members who witnessed it.
MM: The grand jury found that the studio was not responsible for those deaths. Abraham Waite sued and won significant damages from the Order.
JR: Well he may have won the legal battle, but in many ways he lost the war.
MM: Care to elaborate?
JR: The trial was a spectacle, and it brought to light a significant amount of history, including family history, that Waite would have preferred remain out of the public eye. There was testimony about religious practices, inbreeding, genetics, even miscegenation. It was all very ugly. There was even a Congressional Committee chaired by Tipper Gore to review the legal status of residents of Innsmouth and Dunwich. Afterwards, the studio wrote Waite’s character out of the series, over Larson’s protests mind you, and Abe was essentially blacklisted from Hollywood.
MM: This led to his working in some questionable films.
JR: Yeah, for about ten years or so he worked with a lot of independent directors. He even did some soft-core, what was unfortunately called fish porn. Eventually, he got work with some decent directors like Raimi, Smith and del Toro. All of which eventually led to his performance in Jackson’s Eldritch, for which he won the Academy Award.
MM: This did not sit well with Tantamount, the parent studio of Galactics.
JR: They weren’t happy at all, particularly with the toy line, which featured an action figure based on Waite that was almost identical to the one being marketed for the Galactics line. Tantamount took Abe to court claiming that he was infringing on their copyright of the character’s appearance, a patently absurd tactic, but bolstered by some creative interpretation of language in the licensing clause of his contract. Waite’s lawyers countersued, noting that he had only agreed to the use of his face, not his entire body, which in the series had never been fully shown. Meanwhile after reading the position taken in Tantamount’s filings, the SAG union authorized a strike in support of Waite.
MM: That work stoppage lasted for six months, and eventually led to the downfall of the studio head Howard Lowe. It also changed the way studios contracted with actors and licensed their products.
JR: It also created a whole new class of actors, so called Living Effects. The portrayal of the monstrous that had spawned the Greenface opposition and groups like the Esoteric Order of Dagon, suddenly had little to complain about. MADS, the Monstrous Ant-Defamation Society, was formed, and like the ASPCA, now has a presence on any studio film. Though to be honest, the days of exploitation films like The Blob, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or I married a Monster from Outer Space, are long dead. Sure there may be a few direct to video releases, but these are relatively minor films.
MM: Humanoids from the Deep set box office records at the Kingsport Film Festival last year. Jeff Wilmarth called it “A tour de force of cinematic sleaze that will leave you begging for more.”
JR: I’ve seen that film, and I understand why it was so popular, and why the critics liked it. But the truth is that it possesses the same kind of nostalgic charm that things like Madman and Red Hook have. When we look at these dramas that are recreating what many see as a simpler more innocent time, what we are really doing is looking at that period and remembering it with fondness, but at the same time, we recognize that many of those behaviors and events were the product of an ignorant and bigoted society, that in retrospect can be very amusing, and yes entertaining, and therefore profitable. But that doesn’t make them significant works of art.
MM: For example?
JR: Scott’s film Extraterrestrial was very profitable, and the critics adored it when it came out. But now twenty years later it is forgotten, the effects are sub-par, the storyline is mediocre and the acting was just bland. In contrast, EXtro by Burton lost money on its initial release, but has now become a cult classic and a cash cow for Dyson Pictures.
MM: Shifting back to Abraham Waite, what’s his current situation?
JR: He’s doing very well; he lives in Kingsport where he spends most of his time fishing and painting. He doesn’t act much, though he just did a cameo in Lynch’s Devil Reef, and he’s scheduled to appear in an upcoming episode of Professor Wyche. He will be at the premiere on Friday.
MM: Was he involved much with the making of Alienation?
JR: Not as much as I would have liked. What many people don’t seem to understand is that Waite is a consummate professional. The film itself relies heavily on his memoir Monstrous, but where Abe was really helpful was in the actual film making. He’s been an actor for more than forty years, but he has also studied film and camera work. He actually has a credit in the film as a camera man. Also, Abe worked extensively with Rex Topf, the actor who played Abe in the film, to make sure that Rex had mastered Waite’s very distinctive walk and cadence. This wasn’t easy for Rex, he has three fewer tentacles than Abe, which we added in through digital effects, but capturing the way Abe moves was difficult for him.
MM: You told me earlier that the home release version of the film will have a bonus track, would you like to explain?
JR: Oh, absolutely, in fact we just came from the studio this morning, where I and Abe were working on the Director’s commentary. So, we will actually have Abraham Waite commenting about the film of his life.
MM: That is kind of surreal.
JR: Isn’t it though?
MM: James I want to thank you for joining us here at Arkham Arts Review.
JR: Always a pleasure.
MM: Alienation, the new film by James Romberg about the life of actor Abraham Waite premieres at Miskatonic University’s Wilmarth Centre for the Arts in Arkham on Friday April 30th. Tickets are available at the box office, or online.
Following the premiere of Alienation, Director James Romberg, and his wife Ellen, were joined by Mr. Waite at a reception for the press. According to eyewitnesses the three were actively involved in answering questions, when Reverend Enoch Marsh, the nominal head of the Esoteric Order of Dagon in Innsmouth, approached the panelists.
Well known for his radical views in favor of racial segregation, Reverend Marsh was supposed to be barred from the reception. How he gained access is unknown. Security staff failed in their attempts to block his approach, and once Marsh reached the table, he threw himself at Mr. Waite reportedly screaming “Cthulhu fthagn!” Dr. Marsh then detonated explosives hidden underneath his coat killing himself, three security guards and the entire panel.
In light of these events Witch Hill Studios has indefinitely postponed the film’s release.
MISHIPISHU: THE GHOST STORY OF PENNY JAYE PRUFROCK
Mary Pletsch
Penny sucked in one last breath as she launched her body off the dock and into the water; then the raucous noise of the other campers was gone, and she hung suspended in silence below the surface of Lake Mishipishu. She reached out and tangled her fingers in the weeds that lined the lake bottom, and opened her eyes onto a brown-green otherworld.
The flavour of the lake seeped in through her nostrils, crept under her tongue. Lake Mishipishu had its own unique taste: it was not the antiseptic chlorine of an indoor pool, nor the lively freshness of the river where she used to swim with Jessica back in fourth grade, four years and a lifetime ago when she and Jess had still been best friends. Lake Mishipishu tasted of deep, still water, and secrets half-hidden in muck and sediment.
Above her, the sun sent beams of copper light lancing through the skin of the lake’s surface. A dark shape to her left might be a clump of thicker weeds, or perhaps a rock. Penny kicked out with her feet, exploring beyond the limits of sight. Her toes plowed furrows through the spongy muck; then they curled around something hard and rough-edged.
Her lung
s smouldered with warning, but she folded her body like a jackknife and wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the object. She felt a sinuous tendril untwine itself from her find and slither away into the dim waters; the prize left behind was about the size of her palm, with pronounced edges not quite sharp enough to cut. She grasped it and gave her body permission to rise. Freed, her blazing lungs hoisted her skyward, a pair of fiery balloons.
Penny breached the surface and kicked to stay afloat. Her right hand scraped her brassy hair back from her face while her left clutched the object to her chest. The thing felt like stone, smooth and flat, save for a lump on one side. She blinked water out of her eyes and examined her discovery.
The anomaly was some sort of creature–a fossilized, copper-coloured, multi-legged beastie. Penny’s index finger traced the outline of ragged claws, submerged forever in stone. She wondered how many thousands of years the rock and its passenger might have lain under the surface of the lake before she found them and brought them back to the light.
The loud shrill of a whistle interrupted her musing.
“BUDDY CHECK!” yelled a counsellor as he paced back and forth on the H-shaped dock. The H-dock. anchored to the lakebed by four sets of chains, served as lifeguard station, diving platform, and outmost boundary of the Camp Zaagaigan swimming area. Penny frowned and looked around for her buddies.
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