The Shadow over Innsmouth / Морок над Инсмутом

Them haouses north o’ the river betwixt Water an’ Main Streets is full of ’em – them devils an’ what they brung – an’ when they git ready… I say, when they git ready… ever hear tell of a shoggoth?…

“Hey, d’ye hear me? I tell ye I know what them things be – I seen ’em one night when… EH – AHHHH – AH! E’YAAHHHH…”

The hideous suddenness and inhuman frightfulness of the old man’s shriek almost made me faint. His eyes, looking past me toward the malodorous sea, were positively starting from his head; while his face was a mask of fear worthy of Greek tragedy.

His bony claw dug monstrously into my shoulder, and he made no motion as I turned my head to look at whatever he had glimpsed.

There was nothing that I could see. Only the incoming tide, with perhaps one set of ripples more local than the long-flung line of breakers. But now Zadok was shaking me, and I turned back to watch the melting of that fear-frozen face into a chaos of twitching eyelids and mumbling gums.

Presently his voice came back – albeit as a trembling whisper.

“Git aout o’ here! Git aout o’ here! They seen us – git aout fer your life! Dun’t wait fer nothin’-they know naow- Run fer it – quick – aout o’ this taown-”

Another heavy wave dashed against the loosening masonry of the bygone wharf, and changed the mad ancient’s whisper to another inhuman and blood-curdling scream.

“E – YAAHHHH!.. YHAAAAAAA!..”

BeforeВ I could recover my scattered wits he had relaxed his clutch on my shoulder and dashed wildly inland toward the street, reeling northward around the ruined warehouse wall.

I glanced back at the sea, but there was nothing there. And when I reached Water Street and looked along it toward the north there was no remaining trace of Zadok Allen.

IV

I can hardly describe the mood in which I was left by this harrowing episode – an episode at once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying.

The grocery boy had prepared me for it, yet the reality left me none the less bewildered and disturbed. Puerile though the story was, old Zadok’s insane earnestness and horror had communicated to me a mounting unrest which joined with my earlier sense of loathing for the town and its blight of intangible shadow.

LaterВ I might sift the tale and extract some nucleus of historic allegory; just now I wished to put it out of my head.