To the Stars -- and Beyond. Damien Broderick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ “God alone knows how many more of these creatures are in the town, probably concealed in cellars like this.”

      Charged the next day with illegally importing unidentified aliens, Obed Marsh and several of his crew were thrown into jail to await trial, and for two days thereafter an uneasy quiet reigned in Innsmouth.

      It was not to last, however. For then came the day which was to change Innsmouth forever.

      As far as I was concerned, my suspicions were aroused when I noticed several groups of men in the streets adjoining the jail. All of them were either men who had sailed with Marsh in the past, or those who had joined him later when he had spoken out against the various religious denominations.

      It was clear their intention was to secure Obed’s release by force, and this seemed confirmed when they began moving in the direction of Main Street. Hurriedly alerting several of my neighbors and telling them to spread the word, we succeeded in gathering more than fifty men armed with muskets, pikes, knives, and any other weapons they could lay their hands on.

      By the time we reached the jail, we found it had already come under attack. Some of the raiders had forced their way inside, and the unmistakable sound of shots came from somewhere within the building. Moments later, we were set upon by the yelling mob and I was fighting for my life against men I had known for years who now acted like crazed madmen.

      For a time, since we outnumbered them by almost two to one, we succeeded in driving them back from their objective. But as they retreated along Main Street, a great horde of natives burst out of Waite Street, forcing us back towards the bridge over the Manuxet.

      In the distance, I could clearly pick out more gunfire coming from all directions, but concentrated mainly near the center of the town and along the waterfront, and guessed that fighting had broken out in several places. Already, we had suffered a number of casualties; seven men had been killed, and almost twice that number wounded.

      Luckily, the majority of the natives were unarmed, relying on sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm us. Several were killed within the first few minutes, but the rest came on, heedless of their casualties.

      It was the bridge that temporarily saved us. On either side, the riverbank as far as the falls was far too steep and treacherous to be readily scaled, and the Manuxet was in full flood after the recent rains, thereby preventing the creatures from crossing the river and assaulting us from the rear.

      For almost an hour we managed to hold off the attackers, inflicting terrible carnage among their ranks. When they began to pull back, we believed we had beaten them off, and although firing could still be heard around the town center, it was sporadic, and it appeared the situation was slowly being brought under control.

      After what several of us had witnessed in the cellar below the Marsh mansion, I think we believed we were prepared for anything. But nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

      It was Silas Benson who suddenly called our attention to the river below us. As I have said, the Manuxet was in full flood, but now it teemed with black shapes, swimming upstream against the racing current. That they had come from the sea was immediately obvious. Literally hundreds of them came swarming onto the bank, and one horrified glance was enough to show that these creatures were even less human than those we had stumbled upon earlier.

      Hopping in a manner hideously suggestive of frogs, they clambered up the steep sides with ease. There was no chance of defeating such a multitude, and our only hope of survival was to flee across the bridge and along Main Street. Another bank of natives, surging out of Dock Street, attempted to halt us, and our ammunition was almost spent by the time we broke through them. Four more of our number were killed before we reached the relative safety of my house, where we barricaded ourselves in.

      By now it was abundantly clear that those monsters from the sea had taken over the whole of the town. Sporadic firing could still be heard in the distance, but we all knew that further resistance was futile.

      By the morning of the next day, after spending the night confined to the house, we finally pieced together the full story of what had happened. Obed Marsh and those imprisoned with him had been released. Both of the Federal investigators who had accompanied us to the Marsh mansion had been slaughtered. John Lawrence, editor of the Innsmouth Courier on Dock Street, who had often spoken out against Marsh, had been dragged into the street and murdered. The presses and printing equipment had been smashed and the office set on fire.

      Thus it was that Obed Marsh now controlled the whole of Innsmouth. His word was law. Within weeks, the old Masonic Temple on Federal Street had been taken over and replaced by the Esoteric Order of Dagon.

      Only a handful of the townsfolk were allowed to leave Innsmouth. These were mostly Lithuanians and Poles. Whether Marsh considered that no one outside Innsmouth would believe anything of what they said about the town, or whether, not being descendants of the original settlers, he adjudged them to be of no importance, no one knew. After they had gone, those who remained were allowed to join the Esoteric Order of Dagon. There were few who declined.

      It was not only the gold which made people join this new religion Marsh had brought back with him, nor the fact that, by now, most folk were mortally afraid of him. What persuaded the majority to join was that Marsh promised all who joined that, if they took his five oaths and obeyed him implicitly, they would never die.

      When I was asked to join, I refused, as did my son. I had read sufficient concerning the rites that had been practiced in nearby Arkham during the witch trials to know that similar inducements had been made then, that all who worshipped Satan would be granted eternal life. At the time, I knew it to be nothing more than myth and superstition, merely an enticement to get people to join in their unholy rites.

      Now, however, I know differently. It soon became apparent that Marsh was involved with those deep ones much more deeply than was first thought. In return for their continued aid, he declared that the townspeople must mate with these creatures. He himself was forced to take a wife from among them, although she was never seen abroad and no one was able to tell who—or what—she was.

      All of that happened almost twenty years ago. More and more of the folk, particularly the younger ones, acquired the same look as many of those natives we had found in Marsh’s cellar, and some, as the years passed, were even worse, being little different from those creatures which had come from the sea to take over the town. Almost all of the Marsh, Gilman, Hogg and Brewster families were affected by this Innsmouth look. Curiously, Ephraim Waite’s family remained untainted, even though he was one of Marsh’s closest acquaintances.

      Rumor had it, however, that Waite had once resided in Arkham and had a reputation as a wizard, some even suggesting that he was the same warlock as was present before and during the witch trials there, two centuries earlier. That this was nothing more than idle gossip, spread by those who were more afraid of him than of Obed Marsh, seemed undeniable.

      It was now becoming more difficult and dangerous for me to keep watch on Marsh’s activities. Even though the deep ones had returned to the sea shortly after Marsh’s release from jail, a score of years before, those who bore the Innsmouth look were in the majority, and any of the population untouched by it were kept under close scrutiny.

      Only those who belonged to the Order were allowed in the vicinity of the Esoteric Order of Dagon Hall. Nevertheless, on a number of occasions I managed to approach within fifty yards of it under cover of darkness. Even on those nights when there was no service taking place, the building was never silent. Strange echoes seemed to come from somewhere deep beneath the foundations; weird sounds like nothing I had heard before.

      But things were worse whenever a service was СКАЧАТЬ