Yes, that must be the answer. The club was an asylum for a group of people who had themselves recognized and taken precautions against the encroachment of their own infirmities. They were in no way dangerous lunatics, merely sick people whose mental deterioration—probably a gradual process in most of them—had demanded a haven wherein they might periodically find respite when the going got too rough for them.
And Sarah, poor Sarah … No wonder she had felt outraged when I had called the others “degenerate”. In her heart of hearts she must know well enough the truth, which she had tried, in her own way, to tell me: that they were merely “different”. No wonder I had thought the girl strange and wondered at the way she looked at me! She had offered me friendship (and, I suspected, much more than friendship) which I had seemed so callously to throw back in her face. And yet, now that I had guessed the facts of the matter, perhaps my failure to accept her had been just as well at that…
Having thought the thing out more or less to my satisfaction, finally I was reminded of the conch. It must be in Semple’s room where I had left it. Well, it was still my property, and I wanted it back. Not that I could see any sort of argument brewing over its possession, but the sooner it was returned to me the better. Then, for the first time, I noticed a scrap of paper tucked under the handset of my telephone. There was a number on it, and a bold signature reading “Sarah Bishop”.
I nodded to myself in understanding: obviously she had foreseen the outcome of her telling me her “story”. And she had said that I should know where to find her when I was ready to apologize. But it was too early in the day just yet, I fancied, to attempt to contact her. And in any case, having worked the nervous tension out of my system—not to mention a large overdose of alcohol—I now found myself inordinately weary. Easier in my mind, I decided to try for a few hours’ sleep and speak to Sarah later.
I had not reckoned on sleeping any great length of time, but my exhaustion was such that it put me down well over the allowed-for period, with the result that I did not open my eyes again until early evening. On reflection, however, it was not difficult to see why I had needed to sleep my fill: the previous day’s stresses and excitements—followed by periods of drug- and alcohol-induced unconsciousness of doubtful restorative value, and terminating in a nightmare and half a night spent in enervating prowling—had completely sapped my strength. Now, following a shower and a shave, a bite of food and glass of fruit juice, I felt up to just about anything …
The first problem came when I phoned the number Sarah had left for me and got Sargent on the other end of the wire. He was polite but almost completely inarticulate, and it was not without a deal of difficulty that I eventually discovered Sarah to be sleeping (she had left instructions that she was not to be roused until 9 p.m.) and Semple to be “away on business but returning later”.
Then, when I would have put the phone down, the man surprised me by enquiring after my well-being, and by stating that ‘the doctor’ had asked that I be informed of his availability should I require any further attention. I answered that all now seemed perfectly well with me, but asked that the doctor be thanked for his kind offer anyway, and with that replaced the receiver.
I spent a further half hour at my desk, fidgeting and fiddling with an old, heavily corrected and interlineated manuscript, and only succeeded in ruining it completely, after which I threw down my pencil and resolved to return to the place on the beach at once. I had reasons enough, to be sure. I desired to retrieve the conch; I would welcome the opportunity to excuse my peculiar behaviour of yesterday before as many of the club’s ‘members’ as possible; and last but not least I must certainly apologize to Sarah for my regrettable lack of manners, and any other “offences” against her sensibilities of which she might consider me guilty.
Having made up my mind, I attempted to phone for Seaham’s lone taxi, but after dialling for ten minutes gave it up for a bad job. Obviously, Sam Hadley, the owner of a battered old Ford of incredible mileage and stamina, was already out on a job. Since Sam never allowed himself to be engaged for long journeys (Newquay was about as far as he would go) I decided to walk into the village and try my luck at finding him in when I reached his cottage on the seafront.
It was not quite 6.30 p.m. when I set out, and while it was still broad daylight I noted that a pale sun was already slipping down toward the sea. The chill of evening was creeping in while the shadows of rocks and pebbles gradually lengthened on the beach. In less than two hours it would be quite dark.
Twenty minutes later, I was at Sam’s place at the northern tip of the decaying concrete promenade. The old Ford was not in its accustomed place, and Sam, a bachelor, was not at home. The sign which he normally kept in his window, saying simply “Taxi”, was missing. I knocked at his door just to be sure, and as I was turning away Sam’s ancient next—door neighbour, Jason Ridley, appeared at his door and called across to me:
“Urn's gorn inter Newquay, Mr. Vollister. Gettin’ some repairs done to the old bus, I reckon. Be late in fer sure. Should I tell urn you was ’ere?”
“No, don’t bother yourself, Jason,” I answered. “It’s not important. I’m just out for a walk, that’s all.”
“Walkin' is it? On the beach? Tide’s cumin in. Are you goin’ far, sir?”
“Oh, no—up the beach, that’s all. As far as the, er, new place. The boat place, you know?” I started to walk away. “That there queer place, d’you mean?”
Now I stopped and turned back towards the old man. “Queer place, Jason? What do you mean?”
“Ar, urn’s a funny old place, um is. Bought the little bay outright, um did, an' dun’t let no un near um along the beach. Private property, um says it is. Funny lot.”
“But you said ‘queer’, Jason. Now what did you mean by that?”
“Well,” he drawled, “You know, sir—kind of vacant, um be, Fishy lookin’ lot.”
“Vacant? You mean you think they’re simple or something?”
“Simple? Like a bit balmy, d'you mean? Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, sir. A bit queer, that’s all. Still urn’s an out of the way place, an' um dun’t seem ter bother no um. Sam Hadley does a fair bit o’ trade wi um …”
But now it seemed that our brief chat had soured the old chap and he began to turn away from me. “Yes,” I answered, nodding. “Well, then—that’s all right, then.”
He seemed not to have heard me, however, and went back into his cottage, mumbling to himself and shaking his head from side to side. Old Jason was a bit of a funny old duck himself, come to think of it. Still, he had more or less confirmed my own suspicions. “A queer sort of place”, indeed.
That settled it; I couldn’t leave the New England conch at the club, but must get it back immediately. It should take me no more than an hour or so to walk to the club, and with a bit of luck I might even get David Semple to drive me home again. Briskly I set out…
Thirty minutes later the shadows had lengthened appreciably. Already, in a sky which was slowly clouding over, I thought I could make out the first gleam of stars as the sun began to sink in the sea. There would be a thin moon tonight, but I should be at the club before dark.
Now the shadows of the cliffs on my right drove me farther down the beach until I walked on the high-water mark between sea and crags. The sea itself was fairly calm and would not be up for half an hour or more, and in any case there were few places where a man might find himself trapped by the water along this stretch of the coast.
Shortly, as I put on a little speed and lengthened my stride, I noticed that indeed the stars were fast appearing, and that the sun was now down beyond the sea’s horizon. An aircraft, flying high over the ocean, was caught in the last rays of the sun and magically transformed into a silent, speeding silver dart. Then it passed behind a hummocked cloud formation and was gone.
Suddenly I felt a chill and shuddered—not alone, I fancied, from the effects of a freshening breeze off the sea. There was an eeriness about the sands at night
, an aching loneliness. And the ocean’s hush, hush where it rolled gently against the land was so regular as to be almost hypnotic. Too, it seemed to be growing dark far too early; or perhaps it was simply that the clouds were gathering and I had misjudged the distance between Seaham and the place on the beach.
Then, ahead, I spied the southernmost bay-arm where its outcrop jutted towards the slowly surging sea. Another ten minutes should see me rounding that natural breakwater, when I would be within a hundred yards of the … sanatorium? And now, too, at this late hour, I began to think of what I was doing in a different and somewhat morbid light.
For here was I alone on the beach, with night fast-falling and the tide creeping ever closer, and just ahead lay my destination—a mental institution of sorts, however well-disguised—whose inmates were, to say the very least, disquieting. Oh, doubtless I would be attended to by one of the staff, a night nurse I supposed, and in all likelihood I would be on my way again within minutes, possibly in David Semple’s car; but still I could not rid my mind’s eye of a certain recurrent picture: that of a circle of staring, bulge-eyed, not quite vacant faces that gazed at one oddly, almost expectantly. And again, despite all rationalizations, I shuddered as I recalled those incidents which had led up to my fainting fit in the presence of the sanatorium’s peculiar inhabitants.
So preoccupied was I with these recollections of mine that at first, as I turned my feet seaward in order to skirt the outcrop of rock which formed the arm of the bay, I almost failed to notice a movement in the shadows at the foot of the crags to my right. And although by now the moon was up, silvering the sea a little and casting some small illumination in previously stygian places, still I believe that it was pure intuition—or premonition—that brought the hackles upright at the base of my neck and made me look back.
Hadn’t old Jason Ridley told me something about the people at the sanatorium not letting anyone near the place? Could it be that they had guards out? A sensible precaution, surely.
And yes, there was movement there, but not, I thought, the sort that a man might make. It was a strange slithering motion at the foot of the outcrop behind me, a humping of darkness that seemed to bulge threateningly in my direction. For a moment I paused, stopped breathing, and stared hard into the shadows, and in that same moment clouds passed over the moon and plunged the beach into darkness. Instantly the shadows of the cliffs and those of the sharp, weed-festooned rocks lengthened and seemed to leap at me across sands already dark, and I could sense a tensing in the night like a bunching of alien muscles.
Then the clouds passed, the moon's weak beam began to creep over the beach once more, the shadows retreated, and I knew that I had only been reacting to a bad attack of nerves, and that there was nothing there at the foot of the rocks after all—
—except that there was!
I thought at first it was a rock—a lone, bulky rock standing up from the sand taller than a man between me and the outcrop proper—and I had taken a deep, thankful breath of air and had started to turn away, to resume walking towards the point … when suddenly the thing moved! Its outline changed, seemed to flow; its base thickened, made a motion like the contraction of the foot of a slug, a movement that brought it closer to me; its lumpy surface glittered in the thin moonlight as if studded with a hundred shining eyes …
Great God in heaven, they were eyes!
This thing couldn’t be, not possibly. And yet even as I stumbled away from it, backing across the sand, it made that motion again, and came closer. I heard a noise then—the sucking, squelching sound a sea-squirt makes when probed with a finger until it ejects its juices, but magnified a hundred times—and at that precise moment the clouds obscured the moon once more.
My God! Was it those poor people at the place on the beach who were demented, or was it I? For this was surely the stuff of a madman’s nightmare. But sane or mad as a hatter, I could not bear the sight of that blackly looming monstrosity coming at me out of the night, and I uttered a strangled scream—more the choked, inarticulate, rasping gasp of an animal half-crazed with fear—as I leapt backwards away from the horror.
Finally, volition returning more fully, I spun away from the thing, fell, scrambled to my feet, and fled towards the point of rocks with a pounding heart and lungs which already felt as if they were ready to burst. Nearing the point, I dared to look back, and saw the thing flowing after me, upright, leaning towards me, a column of lumpy loathsomeness.
A moment more, and my feet splashed in water, another and I tripped, flying forward into a deepening pool. This was a permanent pool about the rocks that formed the point, freshened and replenished with each tide, and it should not be too deep. Mercifully, my clothing was light and impeded me not at all. I swam like never before.
Drawing level with the last rock and beginning to swim round it to enter the bay proper, as I suddenly stumbled upright in water which had shallowed off to a depth of only a few feet, fearfully I looked back. At first I saw nothing, then a movement—a flowing as of a thick shadow at the far side of the pool—a shadow that lumped itself together and grew upright like a black stalagmite of hell at the water’s edge. And again those myriad glittering eyes fixed me. Then I was round the point, plunging again into deeper water, feeling the slow surge and lift of a current that told me the sea had finally joined with and was filling the pool.
The lights of the sanatorium were ablaze and there was movement about its raised front, but I was far too winded to cry out for help. Lying partly between myself and the building, rolling gently where it was moored, the dark outline of a forty—foot craft lay low in the water, a dim cabin light burning with an orange glow. On the beach within the small bay itself, a tractor-like vehicle—by its appearance a dumper or loader of some sort—moved towards the building, headlights ablaze. I had no time to worry over this seemingly inordinate activity, however; I quickly swam to the boat and hauled myself aboard.
Tarpaulins had been folded back to uncover the well of the prow, where doubtless a cargo of sorts had lain. Perhaps something was even now in the process of being unloaded. Well, the vehicle moving up the beach had made its last run of the night, for plainly the water was now too deep for another load to be taken off the boat. The sea was pouring in now and quickly filling the pool.
Then, as the boat leaned over sharply in the strengthening surge of water, and the glowing cabin light cast its beam upon what was left of the cargo, I saw—
—an impossible sight!
I staggered—partly from the shock of what I believed I had seen, partly from the heaving of the boat’s deck—stumbling across the planking and grasping at the ropes of the tarpaulins to steady myself as I fell heavily against the port side. There I crouched, waiting for the light to shine once more into the well of the deck; and all but forgotten, now, the horror on the beach.
For I had to see it again, the cargo of this lolling vessel whose captain, apparently, had gone ashore for the night. And again, obligingly, the boat leaned over to show me its secret: a shallow hold still half-full of wetly gleaming seashells. Ah, but these were not mussels, no, neither were they oysters nor whelks, nor any of the familiar, edible variety of molluscs one might expect to find in a vessel along this coast.
They were conches of the same species as my ‘unique' New England specimen, and they lay in their thousands alive and sluggishly mobile in the well of this suddenly loathsome craft!
What happened next consists mainly of dim and fragmentary memories, which is perhaps as well. I turned my face over the side of the boat as a sudden bout of nausea filled me. The vessel lay so low in the water that for a moment my face was mirrored in the dark surface of the sea. It was the abrupt parting of that liquid mirror image that brought the single shriek of absolute terror bursting from my lips—
—that and the bulge—eyed, thick—lipped, scaled and monstrous head which emerged in a toss of spray—and the hand that reached up to grasp my shoulder, the webbed hand that jerked me irresistibly overboard
and into the slowly heaving waters!
As I went, my head struck the side of the boat with a force which mercifully robbed me of the last vestige of an already reeling consciousness …
IV: The Tank
Awakening from a submarine nightmare in which I fought desperately to control lungs which threatened to burst at every moment while being pursued through mazy, coral-incrusted deeps by both the horror from the beach and the batrachian thing that had dragged me overboard and into the sea, I found myself straining frantically against fetters which bound me hand and foot. I was on my back in an utterly lightless place, and a wide band of leather or some similar material had been fastened over my chest to restrict my movements further. While my head ached abominably and my limbs seemed a little cramped, doubtless as a result of their immobilization, I did not believe myself seriously injured in any way; and I satisfied myself in this respect by carefully moving my arms, legs, hands, and head as best I might within their limits. Whatever the monster had been which had dragged me into the water, obviously it had seen fit to drag me out again before I could drown. What had happened after that, where I was at the present time, and what my circumstances were exactly … these were things upon which I could not hazard even to speculate.
Of certain things, however, I could now be sure: that there was much more to Sarah Bishop’s story—much more to the ‘club’ on the beach and to the whole chain of weird coincidences, if indeed they had been coincidences, which had led me to my present position—than ever I had suspected. And as for ‘my present position’ itself:
Return of the Deep Ones and Other Mythos Tales Page 26
