The Innswich Horror (3 page)

I didn’t spoil his assumption by revealing
that I’d never previously visited, but instead I evaded by
inquiring, “The ‘rebuild?’”

“Ah, yes, sir. 1930, ‘31 thereabouts,
government contractors put up all these nice, sturdy block
buildings. Fire-proof, storm proof, like they done lots’a places.
When the Great Storm hit last September, there weren’t no damage at
all. But Olmstead of the past was a sorry sight. Just an old rotten
wharf town fallin’ in on itself. God bless Roosevelt and
Garner!”

This came as no surprise.
Soon after the stock market collapsed in ‘28, the Federal
Re-Employment Act hired on thousands of jobless for reconstruction
purposes, paying a dollar a day. Many towns in disrepair were
rebuilt. Now, however, inspired by the new information, I couldn’t
help but feel sure that what Olmstead looked like before this
rebuild
had
to be
the visual picture Lovecraft painted for his readers in
The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

My work’s cut out for
me,
I thought, thrilled by the promise.
Certainly, behind Olmstead’s new face there must remain some
vestiges of its
old
face. I was determined to find the crannies and cracks that
would lead me to them.

Room 428 proved quite
comfortable: well-furnished, a new bed, even its own bathroom
complete with Cannon brand towels. Nothing like the dingy hovel
that happenstance had forced Lovecraft’s character into. The
bathroom, in fact, offered brand new cakes of Lux Toilet Soap, the
best national brand. I was also impressed by the RCA Victor Console
radio provided as well; it was similar—though not
quite
as fine as the
pricier model I owned in Providence. The room’s metal-framed
windows offered a view of the seaward rise, a formidable sight. If
anything unnerved me, it was the room’s
newness.
The entire building, in
fact, felt barely used, as though it were a facade, feigning an
appearance of prosperity that didn’t truly exist.

But what an absurd thought!

As I made my exit from the room, I caught
sight of a maid leaving another room, but she wasn’t pushing the
expected cart full of brooms and linens. She was hefting a
suitcase. She couldn’t be a guest: her outfit left no doubt as to
her duties. The scenario simply seemed odd, but what alarmed me
right off was her most obvious trait.

She was pregnant.

“Miss!” I called out, rushing down. “You
mustn’t carry that in your current state! Let me take it for
you.”

When I’d approached her directly, I was
smiled at by a comely, youthful face framed by luxuriant tousles. A
more roguish observation might be to say she was one of Garret’s
“lookers.” Shapely legs flexed as she lifted the case, while her
gravidness—like the woman on the street—had enhanced her bosom to
dimensions that would cause even the most steadfast gentleman to
glance more than covertly.

“Oh, that’s very kind, sir, but it’s not
heavy at all,” she gently replied.

“I insist. You’re with child and shouldn’t
be carrying—”

“Really, sir.” She giggled playfully. “It’s
light as a feather. And my doctor told me moderate exercise is good
for the baby.”

I couldn’t very well argue. Even pregnant,
though, she was strikingly physiqued. She couldn’t be much more
than twenty, and I guessed her to be late in her term. Something
about her proximity to me felt rejuvenating, some impalpable
element of her smile, gender, and youth. I considered what she
symbolized: vitality, a brimming life blossoming with still more
life… All which served to remind me of the counter-productivity of
my own indulgent existence. Suddenly my mind raced to maintain
conversation, if only to continue in her presence a moment
more.

“An acquaintance of mine—Mr. Garret—is
searching for his friend, a Leonard Poynter. He’s apparently taken
a room here. Have you had a chance to see him?”

The maid’s eyes suddenly seemed weary in
spite of her youth and beauty. “No, I’m afraid not, sir,” she spoke
more quickly now, her full lips glistening. “It’s not my place to
learn our guests’ names.”

“Oh, I see,” but still I struggled for more
to say. “What’s your opinion of the menu at the restaurant across
the street, miss? I’m to meet Mr. Garret there later.”

“Oh, Wraxall’s, it’s quite good, and
Karwell’s opens at eight o’clock, if you’re one to imbibe since the
repeal of Prohibition. The people there are nice. Our little town
doesn’t seem very big but there’s actually a good many folks
passing through—workers and salesmen—between the bigger towns and
cities.”

“That’s good to hear, and, yes, it is a nice
town indeed—”

“But I really must be going now, sir,” she
hastened. “It’s been pleasant talking to you.”

“The pleasure’s been all mine…”

I watched her turn with a downcast smile,
yet couldn’t escape the impression that she was slightly
uncomfortable.

She disappeared down the stairs, and I urged
myself to wait a moment before I proceeded down myself; I couldn’t
have her thinking I was being a nuisance or worse, caddish. After a
minute, however, I entered the stairwell myself. The maid’s
descending footfalls could be heard echoing in the well; when I
peered over the rail, I saw she’d already stopped on the landing
and was taking the suitcase through the door. The door’s shutting
echoed briefly.

Something immediately began to bother me as
I took the steps down myself, and I knew what it was when I arrived
at the landing she’d stopped at: it was not the lobby door she’d
gone into, it was the door to the second floor.

Why would she be taking a guest’s suitcase
to the second floor?

I tried the knob and found it locked.

A guest had simply changed rooms, I reasoned
next. That was all.

Several clerks and
presumably a maintenance man busied themselves in the lobby, all
quite congenial, and back out on the street now I spied several
shop keepers through windows, a fellow sweeping the cobblestoned
main road, and a postage carrier. All smiled and nodded to me. When
I strolled down the street, still more local persons met my eye,
and not one of them failed to speak a greeting or nod cordially.
This forced me to recall Garret’s observation:
Some odd ones in this town, eh?

What could he mean by that? Other than the
churlish driver and perhaps the several furtive fishermen on the
bus, there was nothing at all odd about anyone I’d encountered.
He’d mentioned interviewing for jobs at some of the waterfront
fisheries; perhaps that’s where he’d been treated oddly. Watermen
were known to be a sullen and protective lot as a rule.

I’d brought along my copy
of
The Shadow Over Innsmouth,
for after a bit of strolling, I was sure I’d want
to re-read it, perhaps beneath a shady tree, or in the park if
there was one, or maybe the waterfront. It was a copy of the only
hardcover of Lovecraft’s work to be bound and published in his
lifetime, the Visionary Publications edition. It cost one dollar
plus postage. I was almost certain now that Lovecraft had indeed
been in Olsmstead and had been quite influenced by the place.
Knowing this would make the re-reading all the more
fascinating.

Now. Find a quiet place to
read,
I thought.

Across the street, passing a flag circle, a
youthful woman bounded by, and she too smiled quite generously at
me. Her prettiness equaled that of the maid, but there was another
similarity: she, too, was pregnant.

Not that there was anything unseemly about
encountering three pregnant women the same day, regardless what
Garret believed. It merely seemed coincidental.

Coincidences, though, were the cause of my
being here, and when I remembered that, my previous zeal was
refreshed. Now I could embark on my quest to uncover more topical
parities between this very real town of Olmstead and Lovecraft’s
very fictitious Innsmouth.

I walked over to the Ethyl Gas Company
station, whose sign boasted gasoline for 9 cents per gallon, a
penny lower than the city. There I purchased a pack of my favorite
Beechies chewing gum with pepsin from a pleasant proprietor but was
told that no local maps could be had, just county and state. I was
informed, however, that there were benches along the waterfront
where I could read comfortably.

A block down, a
motion-picture theater advertized Gene Autry’s latest:
Prairie Moon.
I now
laughed at my fantasies: Lovecraft would’ve been appalled to find
such modern conveniences in the town that was once the model for
the crumbling Innsmouth.

Before I could cross the
street, engine-roar startled me with some suddenness, and I turned
to see a sizable truck rumble by. Its doors read IPSWICH FISH CO.,
and it was clearly heading north, to its city of provenance. The
back of the truck—I could see as it passed—was stacked full with
iced-down fish. The anomaly sparked at once: why would a large
fishery such as Ipswich be buying fish in Olmstead?
It should be the other way around, shouldn’t
it?
Olmstead didn’t strike me as large nor
involved enough to compete with the big fisheries and, besides, the
papers made it plain that fishing in this part of Massachusetts had
dropped off due to silt disturbance from the Great Storm and higher
river salinity caused by the summer’s drought.

When a finger tapped me on the shoulder from
behind, I flinched and spun. Smiling before me in a work apron and
plain cotton dress was a bright-eyed short young woman, no more
than thirty. Even more so than the maid, her prettiness radiated,
and not even the clumsy workboots and unbecoming hairnet could take
from it. The hair seemed caramel-blond beneath the net. “Come in
for an ice-cream, sir. They’re only five cents, and we make it
fresh here. See, we’ve just got our own machine!”

She seemed to communicate the information
with an overflow of pride; I was nearly taken aback when she
grabbed my hand outright and gestured me into the shop which only
now did I discern to be Baxter’s General Store and Postal Annex via
stenciled paint on the window-glass.

The bell rang as we passed
through. “My name’s Mary Simpson, sir,” she brimmed and rushed
around the counter. “I suppose you’re only passing through but you
really
must
have
an ice-cream.”

My amusement was intensified by the
aforementioned prettiness. “A chocolate, please. I’m Foster Morley,
Miss Simpson, and you’re correct, I am just passing through, a bit
of a traveling holiday, exploring new parts and such. Plus I’m an
avid reader. But I hope to be staying at least several days. I’ve a
room at the Hilman.”

“Oh, good. It’s a nice motel now, and so is
everything else since the rebuild.”

“Mmm, yes, so I’ve been told by the desk
clerk…,” but at once I was seized by an abrupt beguilement: I saw
now—now that I’d had chance to make a more definitive visual
surveillance—that the bright and bubbly Miss Simpson was not only
very attractive and very amply bosomed but also very pregnant. I
could detect this quite plainly by the protrusion of her apron.
“I’m finding Olmstead most interesting,” I continued. “A successful
example of President Roosevelt’s social refurbishment program.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Olmstead was barely fit to
live in before that. But now we’ve got all new buildings, a
library, a new warehouse district and fire station; we even have an
ice-factory on the waterfront, like what they have in the big
ports.”

“As a matter of fact, I just saw a truck
bound for Ipswich loaded with iced fish. I take it the fishing’s in
good repair here?”

She passed me my bowl with a spoon. “It’s
never been better, sir—”

“Please, call me Foster, Mary, and please
allow me to buy you an ice-cream as well.”

This smidgen of generosity delighted her.
“Thank you, sir—er, Foster,” and then she fixed a bowl for herself.
“But the fishing, yes, it’s the backbone of the town. We’re
actually selling fish to many towns, even Boston, while in the past
if we wanted fish, we’d have to buy it from them. Fishing’s better
here now than anywhere else. In Olmstead, you’d scarcely know
there’s a depression.”

Since she’d made the observation, I suddenly
had to agree. I saw only clean streets, fine buildings, and smiling
people since I’d arrived, not disheartened breadlines, uncollected
garbage, and collapsing homes. In addition, I saw another
Lovecraftian parallel: Innsmouth, like Olmstead, was an unusually
thriving fishing town.

“See,” she continued with her professional
pride, pointing her spoon to the shiny white machines. “We have
Westinghouse meat-keepers, too, and our own delivery truck that’s
almost new. And—”

I waited for her to finish but instead her
eyes merely widened in silence.

“Is something the matter, Mary?”

“What a coincidence!” she squealed. “Your
book, I mean!”

I’d set my copy of
Innsmouth
on the counter
when I’d taken the bowl. Her recognition amazed me. “Don’t tell me
you’re a reader of the great H.P. Lovecraft?”

“No, Foster, only because I never learned to
read much. I recognize the name because when I was only eighteen,
Mr. Lovecraft stayed in Olmstead for a short time.”

I very nearly dropped my
bowl. “Mary. You didn’t happen… to
meet
Mr. Lovecraft, did
you?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t get that privilege, but
here’s something interesting. Back then, Baxter’s was a First
National Mart, and my brother, Paul—he was seventeen at the time—he
actually waited on Mr. Lovecraft in this very store you’re standing
in now. Mr. Lovecraft wanted directions about town, so Paul drew
him a map.”