The Innswich Horror (10 page)

“Look, it’s full!” she enthused over the
trap full of skittering things.

Monica came over. “Wow,
that is a lot.” She tested the trap’s weight. “It must be ten
pounds! We’ll have chowder for
days!
”

As I listened further, my closer attentions
lapsed… and my hand slipped. I dropped my briefcase…

The sound was all too obvious; both girls
snapped their inquisitive gazes in my direction. Could they see me?
I didn’t move a muscle.

“I think someone’s there,”
Cassandra suspected, then she brought a fretful finger to her lips.
“God, I hope it’s not
them…
”

“Look! There!” Monica pointed directly at
the stand of grass I hid behind.

“Is it…”

“No, it’s a man! A
real man!
” She strode
naked off the pier. “Hey, wait! Come here!”

I grabbed my case, and slipped out.

“No!” wailed Monica.
“Don’t go!
Please!
We can make you real happy! COME BACK!”

I had no intention of complying. My feet
took me swiftly down the close path, and I could only hope that
neither girl had seen enough of my face to recognize it later. In
the distance, I heard Monica’s final grievance. “Oh, SHIT! He ran
away!”

My pace did not abate until I was back at
the Town Center and gratefully entering the Hilman House…

Secure in my room, I sat on the bed to
regain my breath. I turned the RCA on, for music would remind me of
normalcy, and I immediately relaxed to “Our Love,” by Tommy Dorsey.
But this would be followed by the hourly news broadcast: a labor
strike is ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, General Francisco
Franco conquers Madrid with his fascist troops, a scientist named
Fermi warns allied governments that a process now exists which can
split atoms and thus harness a terrible destructive force. None of
this news sounded hopeful; I switched it off.

The distraction I hoped
for was sabotaged.
What exactly HAPPENED
today?
I queried myself in some
disillusionment. I tried with diligence to find a common logic in
what I’d seen and heard but in the end failed. I could make no
sense of it, but I considered that in my current expended and
excited state, it would do me good to calm down to resort my
thoughts. The day’s heat as well as the mad sprint had left me
grimy and saturated with perspiration, so I had a cool bath in the
private tub. I tried to clear my thoughts…

But a sudden fatigue left me drowsy even in
the cool water. I drifted in and out of a half-sleep. Snippets of
dreams harassed me: images of not only perplexity but also
repugnance.

The man in the squalid house, deformed by
some catastrophic arthritic symptom, unleashing wet, gushing
invectives in no way intelligible, and then lashing at young Walter
with that whip, or whatever it might have been.

And the two nude girls on the pier, one
pregnant and then one evidently fearing pregnancy with an appalled
resignation… Their cryptic words slipped in and out of my
half-dreaming mind:

—
it sickens me—their condition, I
mean—

—
so you’re not in the way yet?—

—
they make me go—every night—until
they’re sure!—

—
sometimes they wind up like Paul…
—

The words blended, then, with a razor-crisp
recollection of their physical bodies, their gleaming nude beauty,
their shimmering white skin, and their private feminine features so
forbidden—and so wrong for me to have willingly looked upon—yet so
exotic…

I may have slipped into a deep doze when
these vivid images were singularly banished… by the image of
Mary…

First, the loveliness of her face and simple
honest manner, and even some of her remarks:

—
a handsome, well-mannered gentleman like
you? Never married?—

And then a devilish meld: my first
captivating image of her working at Baxter’s slowly contorting
itself into the image on the nefarious and wholly exploitative
photograph I’d bought from the despicable Cyrus Zalen: Mary, laid
out bare and pregnant and thrust-bosomed as the visual photographic
fodder of degenerates…

The finality of that image
shocked me from my doze, and I’m sure I audibly groaned. The sudden
anxiety was one—I’m ashamed to say—of unquenched physical desire of
the most sinful sort. It left me carnally evoked, and though in the
past I’d always done better than a fair job of abstaining, the
primal necessity, now, could not be extinguished. I need not go on
in detail save to say that my frenzy forced me to do what solitary
men are
known
to
do in such moments of weakness, after which—steeped in shame—I
prayed God’s forgiveness for this venal and most insolent offense
to His grace…

Embarrassed after the fact, I languished in
the claw-footed tub, but then my eyes shot wide—

I’d heard, with some distinction, a sudden
and undeniable sound: the desperate hitching of a single breath
into one’s chest. It was a lush, wanton sound, more than likely
female.

I stared at the opposing wall to at once be
inundated by the notion that I was being observed remotely. But if
so…

From where exactly?

I jumped from the bath,
donned a robe, and, like a paranoiac, actually began to examine the
opposing wall and the ceiling over the tub. But no “peepholes” were
chanced upon; minutes later, I frowned at myself for the foolish
overreaction. The sound I thought I’d heard was most certainly a
remnant from the dream-fragments and a fatigued body and
mind.
For goodness sake!
I mocked.
Who would be
spying on me, of all people?

My new Pierce Chronograph wristwatch showed
me my dinner appointment was fast approaching. I talced myself,
brushed my teeth with a new product called Listerine Tooth-Cleaning
Paste, then dressed in my evening suit. Though I was looking
forward to dining with Mr. Garret, most of my thoughts focused on a
different appointment: my luncheon date with Mary tomorrow. I oddly
felt that I’d sullied her by my previous act of debasement and
self-abusiveness, an absurd abstraction, but such was me.
Nevertheless, I would not leave until I’d done one simple
thing.

I sat at the small writing table the room
provided, and opened my briefcase. From it I withdrew the folder
I’d purchased from Zalen, and from the bottom of the assortment of
old photos within, I slipped out the shot of Mary. It was with a
plummeting grimness that I allowed myself to look at it…

The photo’s sharpness, contrast, and overall
clarity seemed even more precise than before, and again I was
stifled by the sense of fusion that joined Mary’s objective
physical beauty with a revoltingly exploitative design: that
graceful and exuberant pose, all for the visual consumption of
unholy men given to perversity. Every element of the photograph
seemed to beckon me to lust—Mary’s bottomless, sparkling eyes; her
sighing smile; the high, dark-nippled breasts burgeoning with milk;
the toned, shapely legs. I noticed now that every inch of her
impeccable nudity either shined in profuse sweat or had been
deliberately glazed by some kind of oil, the effect of which caused
the entirety of her image to shimmer as if alive within the borders
of the photographic paper. But I would not succumb to the lust that
this image tried to seduce.

Only love.

A monstrous world, to
allow this,
 
I resolved.
To enslave the poor and
the desperate for the most jaded of intents.
I took up a small pair of folding shears from my travel kit
and began to shred the photo, from the borders in, until all that
was left was the tiny square of Mary’s beauteous visage. The
shreddings I discarded; the square, however, I hid in a pocket of
my wallet.

Down the stairwell, then, I went; as I
neared the entry level, though, the door to the atrium opened
before I could reach it, and suddenly I was faced by a slim,
attractive young woman in a nice but simple frock gown that so many
preferred in the warmer months; she was on her way up as I was on
my way down. She lent me a meek smile, then nodded as we
converged.

“How do you do?”

“Hello,” was all she said as if shy. When
she passed me, I was stung by a tremulous shock; it had taken me
this long for the girl’s willowy figure and obsidian-black hair to
register.

Monica,
I felt sure.
One of the
pier girls…

She’d obviously not recognized me as the
interloper she’d been so ardently pleading with just a few hours
ago.

Certainly she’s not
staying here…
Perhaps she was employed
here with the housekeeping service. But, really, why should I be
concerned?

I heard her quiet footfalls as she mounted
the steps, then passed myself into the atrium, but as the door was
closing behind me—and I’m not sure why I noticed this but—the
aforesaid footfalls seemed to terminate very quickly. Nor was I
sure what compelled me to my next gesture…

I went back into the stairwell and looked
upward.

No evidence of Monica could be discerned,
but then—

click!

The sound registered quickly enough to bid
me to glance up at the door on the second-floor landing. It clicked
shut before my eyes.

The second floor,
I thought.
The LOCKED
floor.
Monica, for whatever reason,
clearly had access to it.

My frown returned me to the atrium. Why this
addled me I couldn’t guess…

The congenial bellhop and desk clerk greeted
me as I passed. Of the clerk, I had to inquire: “If you don’t mind,
sir, I’m curious as to the reason for the second floor being
locked.”

It may have been
imaginativeness on my part, but his standard smile and good nature
seemed to snap off for a moment. “But, you’re on the
fourth
floor, Mr.
Morley. Why would you…”

“Of course!” I tried to sound dismissive. “I
should’ve preambled that I just now mistakenly took the second
floor for the first.” I would not quite call this a lie but, say, a
modest divergency from the truth.

But the man’s good-natured expression had
already restored itself. “Ah, well, the floor’s being kept locked
for the time being. Renovations. The work shouldn’t take more than
a month.”

“I see. Well, thank you, good man, for
satisfying my fairly useless curiosity. I should’ve guessed!” and
then I bid him a good evening.

Across the street, then, to Wraxall’s
Eatery, where an appetizing aroma awaited. The establishment was
spotless, and appointed with simple chairs and tables, plus a
none-too-surprising nautical motif: photos of old, rain-slickered
waterman proudly displaying sizable fishes, a ship’s wheel and a
ship’s glass, fishing nets with floats adorning the corners. I
supposed it possible that, before the government renewal, this very
eatery may have been the dismal cafeteria in which Robert Olmstead
begrudgingly dined as unwholesome loafers cast strange glances.

Brass lanterns quaintly housing candles
ornamented each wooden table. My eyes thinned, though, when I
noticed that Mr. Garret was nowhere in sight. Only one table was
occupied, by a soft-speaking couple.

When the hostess turned, bearing a menu, she
was struck speechless.

I couldn’t have been more pleased! It was
Mary…

“Why, Mary, what a pleasant surprise,” I
tried to contain my joy.

“Foster!” She smiled and pressed a hand to
my back to urge me to the corner. “Take the window booth. The
view’s lovely as the sun sets. I’m so glad you could come.”

“I had no idea you worked here as well.”

“Oh, I just fill in sometimes. But the
money’s not bad, now that our wonderful president has signed the
Minimum Wage Act.”

I’d read of this: a rather scrimy
forty-cents per hour. But then I had to keep reminding myself that
chance—and my father’s hard work, not my own—had handed me a status
much more fortunate than that of most.

She filled my water glass as I took a seat.
“Did you find a nice, quiet place to read your book?”

“Oh,
The Shadow Over Innsmouth…
” I’d
almost forgotten that had been my original goal. “Actually, I was
so busy gallivanting about town that I never got round to it.
Tomorrow, though. After our lunch date, which I dearly hope is
still on.”

Suddenly she sighed, then drooped her head
dramatically. “Are you kidding? I can’t wait. It’ll be my first
afternoon off in weeks.”

This disconcerted me. “Mary, there’s nothing
more admirable than a hard-worker,” and then I leaned close, “but I
wish you didn’t have to put in such hours while you’re with
child.”

“You’re so sweet, Foster,” she grinned and
squeezed my hand. “But hard work is what made America, isn’t
it?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, if a bit guiltily.

“Besides, Dr. Anstruther says it’s fine to
work until the eighth month, just nothing too strenuous.”

I’m sure this were true, but it still
bothered me. When she leaned over to hand me the menu, I could
detect a bit of her bosom’s valley, then recalled, first, the jaded
photograph and, next, the split-second glimpse I’d caught of her
breast in the back room of Baxter’s. Then there it was again, that
perfect valley of flesh.

I nearly ground my teeth as I looked away.
God! I hope she hadn’t noticed…

Another distraction was needed, but this
time, I needn’t manufacture one. A brass ship’s clock on the wall
showed me I was five minutes late. “Say, Mary? Has a respectably
dressed man, perhaps in his late-‘20s, been in? Brown, short hair?
His name is William Garret.”