Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: The Shadow Over Innsmouth

bySean Branney and Andrew Leman

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft

Read-along Script for Dark Adventure Radio TheatreMarch 9, 2009

HPLHS, Inc. ©2008, all rights reservedFor Internal Use Only

Cast ListOLMSTEAD - Matt FoyerZADOK ALLEN - Barry LynchSTATION AGENT - Sean BranneyTILTON - Kacey CampBILLY - Steve CoombsUNCLE WALTER - Andrew LemanLIBRARIAN - McKerrin KellySARGENT - Andrew LemanMCGRAW - Dan ConroyHOTEL CLERK - Mark ColsonPEABODY - John McKennaCREEPY CUSTOMER - Sean BranneyCHESTER LANGFIELD - Noah WagnerANNOUNCER - Josh ThoemkeRUDE PASSENGER - Mark ColsonOPERATOR - Leslie BaldwinNATHAN REED - Andrew LemanEVIL-LOOKING MAN - John McKennaBANK CLERK Josh Thoemke

INTRO1 1

SFX: static, radio tuning, snippet of 30s song, more tuning, static dissolves to:

Dark Adventure Radio THEME MUSIC.

ANNOUNCERTales of intrigue, adventure, and the mysterious occult that will stir your imagination and make your very blood run cold.

MUSIC CRESCENDO.

ANNOUNCERThis is Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, with your host Chester Langfield. Today’s episode: H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.

MUSIC DIMINISHES. The sound of the OCEAN AND GULLS.

CHESTER LANGFIELDA young man’s journey takes him to a dilapidated sea-front town, rife with deformed characters and ungodly secrets. Can he escape the terrifying town with his life, or will the sinister residents of Innsmouth and their hellish allies drag him down to a horrid fate beneath the waves?

A few piano notes from the FLEUR DE LYS JINGLE.

CHESTER LANGFIELDYou know folks, whenever I feel glum or weary after a long day in the studio, I get my energy back by lighting up a Fleur de Lys cigarette. The road to pleasure is thronged with smokers who have discovered the superior fragrance and mellow mildness of Fleur de Lys. You’ll enjoy their pleasing, energizing effect, and they never get on your nerves. Fleur de Lys: smoke as many as you want.

Dark Adventure LEAD-IN MUSIC.

2.

CHESTER LANGFIELDAnd now Dark Adventure Radio Theatre presents: H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.

PREFACE2 2

TRANSITION MUSIC.

CHESTER LANGFIELDFolks who listened to their radios a few years back might remember news stories about a town in Massachusetts called Innsmouth....

MUSIC: WORLDWIDE WIRELESS NEWS FANFARE.

NATHAN REEDWorldwide Wireless News, February 24, 1928. Federal agents raid waterfront town in the government’s ongoing war against illegal liquor. I’m Nathan Reed for Worldwide Wireless News. A secret investigation of conditions in the Massachusetts seaport town of Innsmouth culminated today in a massive Treasury Department raid. G-men stormed crumbling and supposedly empty houses along the waterfront, arresting dozens of people on suspicion of liquor trafficking. Wharves and warehouses used for illegal activity were set ablaze and dynamited by police demolition experts. Federal Agent Jack McGraw oversaw the vast series of raids.

MCGRAWThe Bureau has been investigating Innsmouth for months, based on information provided by concerned citizens. The government acted to protect the public safety and health.

3.

NATHAN REEDAgent McGraw declined to provide further details into the ongoing investigation, but residents of neighboring towns say that Innsmouth has long been a dangerous place. An outbreak of plague and resulting riots shook the town in 1846, and it’s had a shadowy reputation ever since.

CHESTER LANGFIELDThe story quickly faded from the headlines. There were some rumors about disease and concentration camps -- talk of military prisons and Naval submarines off the coast -- but there were never any formal charges or public trials, and no one ever saw the captives again. People forgot about Innsmouth, except, of course, for one young man....

INTERVIEW3 3

Someone KNOCKS on a door, hard. It OPENS.

MCGRAWRobert Olmstead. Remember me? Federal Agent McGraw.

ROBERT OLMSTEAD is in his early 20s, but his voice is tinged with bleak despair, like a shell-shocked war veteran.

OLMSTEADOf course I remember you, Agent McGraw. What’s the Bureau of Investigation want with me? That Innsmouth business was a long time ago.

MCGRAWOh, just following up on a few things. Mind if I come in?

McGraw STEPS IN. The door CLOSES.

OLMSTEADHmph. Look, I gave you my report right after it happened.

4.

(MORE)

You questioned me again last year at college.

MCGRAWIf you don’t mind my saying so, Olmstead, you don’t look so good. I’d say you’ve aged twenty years. You sick?

OLMSTEADWell, I’ve been through a lot.

MCGRAWSure, sure. You’ve had a rough time of it.

OLMSTEADI haven’t been quite myself.

MCGRAWReally? Why don’t you tell me about it?

OLMSTEADYou were the one who told me to keep my mouth shut about it.

MCGRAWYou can tell me.

OLMSTEADIt’s odd, lately I have had an odd craving to talk about it. Telling it might help me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind regarding a certain terrible step which lies ahead of me. I still remember it all so clearly....

OF INNSMOUTH4 4

Crossfade to background sounds of the small Newburyport TRAIN STATION. Olmstead’s voice now is noticeably brighter as he brims with an academic enthusiasm. An older friendly Station Agent stands in the ticket window.

OLMSTEADHow much is a ticket to Arkham?

5.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

STATION AGENTReturn fare?

OLMSTEADNo, just one way.

STATION AGENTOne dollar fifteen.

OLMSTEADOne fifteen?

STATION AGENTToo much?

OLMSTEADI’m afraid so.

STATION AGENTOn holiday?

OLMSTEADA sightseeing tour. Making some antiquarian and genealogical inquiries too. But on a student’s budget.

STATION AGENTYou could take the old bus, I suppose, but it ain't thought much of hereabouts. Looks like a terrible rattletrap: I’ve never been on it. Besides, it goes through Innsmouth and so the people don't like it. Run by an Innsmouth fellow -- Joe Sargent -- but never gets any custom from here, or Arkham either. Wonder it keeps running at all. I s'pose it's cheap enough, but I never see mor'n two or three people in it -- nobody but those Innsmouth folk. Leaves the square, front of Hammond's Drug Store, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

OLMSTEADInnsmouth? Never heard of it. I don’t think it’s on my map. Maybe I’ll stop off there, have a look around. What’s it like?

6.

STATION AGENTInnsmouth? Well, it's a queer kind of a town. Used to be almost a city. Quite a port before the War of 1812. Rail line used to go there, but there hasn’t been a train on it in fifty years. More empty houses than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of except fishing and lobstering. Everybody trades mostly either here or in Arkham or Ipswich. Once they had quite a few mills, but nothing's left now except one gold refinery running on the leanest kind of part time.

Refinery used to he a big thing, and old man Marsh, who owns it, must be richer'n Croesus. Queer old duck, though. He's supposed to have developed some skin disease or deformity late in life that makes him keep out of sight. Grandson of Captain Obed Marsh, who founded the business. His mother seems to've been some kind of foreigner -- they say a South Sea islander -- so everybody raised Cain when he married an Ipswich girl fifty years ago. They always do that about Innsmouth people, and folks hereabouts always try to cover up any Innsmouth blood they have in 'em.

OLMSTEADWhy is everybody so down on Innsmouth?

STATION AGENTThey've been telling things about Innsmouth for the last hundred years, and I gather they're more scared than anything else. Some of the stories would make you laugh -- about old Captain Marsh driving bargains with the devil and bringing imps out of hell, or about some kind of devil-worship and sacrifices near the wharves -- but I come from Vermont and that kind of story don't go down with me.

7.

OLMSTEADOf course.

STATION AGENTYou ought to hear what some of the old-timers tell about the black reef off the coast. Devil Reef, they call it. The story is that there's a whole legion of devils seen sometimes on that reef -- sprawled about, or darting in and out of some kind of caves near the top. It's a rugged, uneven thing, a good bit over a mile out, and toward the end of shipping days sailors used to make big detours just to avoid it.

That is, sailors that didn't hail from Innsmouth. One of the things they had against old Captain Marsh was that he was supposed to land on it sometimes at night when the tide was right. Maybe he did, for I dare say the rock formation was interesting, and it's possible he was looking for pirate loot and maybe finding it; but there was talk of his dealing with demons there. Fact is, it was really the Captain that gave the bad reputation to the reef.

That was before the big epidemic of 1846, when over half the folks in Innsmouth was carried off. They never did figure out what the trouble was, but it was probably some foreign kind of disease brought from China or somewhere. It left the place in awful shape. Never really came back. There can't be more'n three or four hundred people living there now.

OLMSTEADIs it old superstitions and stories that turned people against it?

STATION AGENT

8.

Nah, the real thing behind the way folks feel is simply race prejudice -- and I don't say I'm blaming those that hold it. I hate those Innsmouth folks myself, and I wouldn't care to go to their town.

OLMSTEADStrong words.

STATION AGENTWell, I can see you're a Westerner by your talk, so you don’t know how things are in these parts. Our New England ships used to visit queer ports in Africa, Asia, the South Seas, and everywhere else, and they sometimes brought queer kinds of people back with 'em. You've probably heard about the Salem man that came home with a Chinese wife, and maybe you know there's still a bunch of Fiji Islanders somewhere around Cape Cod.

OLMSTEADSure, but...

STATION AGENTThere’s something like that with the Innsmouth people. It's pretty clear that old Captain Marsh must have brought home some odd specimens back in the twenties and thirties. There’s a strange streak in Innsmouth folks today.

(hesitating)I don't know how to explain it but it sort of makes you crawl. You'll notice a little in Sargent if you take his bus. Some of 'em have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, starry eyes that never seem to shut, and their skin ain't quite right. Rough and scabby, and the sides of the necks are all shriveled or creased up. Get bald, too, very young. Animals hate 'em. They used to have lots of horse trouble before the autos came in.

OLMSTEAD(humorously)

The whole town’s ugly?

9.

STATION AGENTMore to it than that. Nobody around here or in Arkham or Ipswich will have anything to do with 'em. They act kind of offish themselves when they come here or when anyone tries to fish on their grounds. Fish are always thick off Innsmouth Harbour when there ain't any anywhere else around. But just try to fish there yourself and see how them folks chase you off!

OLMSTEADIs there a place to stay there?

STATION AGENTGilman House -- but I wouldn't advise you to try it. Better stay over here and take the ten o'clock bus tomorrow morning; then you can get an evening bus there for Arkham at eight o'clock.

OLMSTEADWhat’s wrong with the hotel?

STATION AGENTA factory inspector stopped at the Gilman House a couple of years ago and he had a lot of unpleasant hints about the place. Seems they get a queer crowd there, for this fellow heard voices in other rooms -- though most of 'em was empty -- that gave him the shivers. It was foreign talk he thought, but he said the bad thing about it was the kind of voice that sometimes spoke. It sounded so unnatural -- slopping like, he said -- that he didn't dare undress or go to sleep. Just waited up and lit out the first thing in the morning. The talk went on most all night.

OLMSTEADReally?

STATION AGENTAye-yep. This fellow said he found the Marsh refinery a queer place.

10.

(MORE)

You know it's always been a kind of mystery where the Marshes get the gold they refine. They've never seemed to do much buying, but they shipped out an enormous lot of ingots.

OLMSTEADGold? Hmm.

STATION AGENTMaybe old Captain Obed traded for it in some heathen port, since he always ordered stacks of glass beads and trinkets such as seafaring men used to get for native trade. Some said he'd found an old pirate cache out on Devil Reef. But here's a funny thing. The Captain's been dead these sixty years, and there ain't been a good-sized ship out of the place since the Civil War, but just the same the Marshes still keep on buying a few of those native trade things -- mostly glass and rubber gewgaws, they tell me. Maybe the Innsmouth folks like 'em to look at themselves. Gawd knows they've gotten to be about as bad as South Sea cannibals and Guinea savages.

OLMSTEADThey’re that primitive?

STATION AGENTPlague of '46 must have taken off the best blood in the place. They're a doubtful lot now, what they call 'white trash' down South -- lawless and sly, and full of secret things. They sure get a lot of fish and lobsters though.

OLMSTEADIt sounds unbelievable. I think I should go down there and take a look around.

STATION AGENTPrying strangers ain't welcome around Innsmouth.

11.

STATION AGENT (cont'd)

(MORE)

I've heard of more'n one business or government man that's disappeared there, and there's talk of one who went crazy and is out at Danvers now. That's why I wouldn't go at night if I was you.

OLMSTEADI suppose I could wait and catch the morning bus.

STATION AGENTI guess a daytime trip couldn't hurt you. If you're just sightseeing, and looking for old-time stuff, Innsmouth ought to be quite a place for you.

OLMSTEADSounds like my kind of town. Any place else I can learn about it?

STATION AGENTNobody round here will have much to say on Innsmouth. ‘Spose you could check the library. But heed my warning, son, don’t go to Innsmouth at night.

TIARA5 5

TRANSITION MUSIC.

ECHOING FOOTSTEPS as Olmstead enters the library and approaches a middle-aged female librarian.

LIBRARIANMay I help you?

OLMSTEADI’m looking for information about a nearby town. Innsmouth?

LIBRARIANInnsmouth? What for?

OLMSTEADI’m traveling through the area, and the Station Agent told me about it. Sounds like an interesting place.

12.

STATION AGENT (cont'd)

LIBRARIANOh, that Edgar... Interesting isn’t the word for Innsmouth. You curious about their fishery, refinery, the plague of ‘46, the jewelry...

OLMSTEADJewelry? He told me they refined gold, but didn’t mention anything about jewelry.

LIBRARIANOh yes, they make things in Innsmouth. Terrible, beautiful things.

OLMSTEADI don’t understand.

LIBRARIANHold on a moment.

The librarian PICKS UP THE PHONE and places a call.

OPERATORCentral.

LIBRARIANMaureen, would you patch me through to Miss Anna?

The phone RINGS. Miss ANNA TILTON answers. She’s an elderly lady with sharp edges.

TILTONHello?

LIBRARIANMiss Anna, it’s Annabelle. I have a young man here who might like to see the Innsmouth pieces. May I send him over?

TILTONInnsmouth? How odd.

LIBRARIANMay I send him over?

TILTONHe’s not one of them?

13.

LIBRARIANNow, would I have called you if he was an Innsmouth man?

TILTONIf he leaves now you can send him over. I’ll unlock the front.

There’s a CLICK as the connection is terminated.

LIBRARIANOur Newburyport Historical Society has some of the Innsmouth items. Miss Anna Tilton’s the curator. She’ll show them to you. You just make a right turn in front of the library and another right on Howard Street. It’s at 112 Howard.

OLMSTEADThank you so very much.

MUSICAL STINGER.

A CREAK as Olmstead hesitantly opens the door of the Historical Society.

OLMSTEADHello?

TILTONSo, you’re the one interested in Innsmouth?

OLMSTEADI’m Robert Olmstead. The librarian said I should come see...

TILTONStep into the light. Let me look at you.

FOOTSTEPS as they size each other up.

OLMSTEADIs something wrong?

TILTONWhere are you from, Mr. Olmstead?

OLMSTEADOhio. I’m a student there.

14.

TILTONWhat do you study?

OLMSTEADHistory.

TILTONAnd where are you from?

OLMSTEADI grew up in Toledo.

TILTONI see. And your people?

OLMSTEADWhat kind of historical society is this?

TILTONYour people, young man.

OLMSTEADMy father’s family came to Ohio from Connecticut; my mother’s from Arkham.

TILTONMm. Follow me. So you’ve never seen pieces from Innsmouth? They have one in Arkham, at Miskatonic University.

OLMSTEADMa’am, I’d never heard of Innsmouth before today.

TILTONThis cupboard in the corner. Here, I’ll switch on the light.

She flips the LAMP on. He GASPS loudly.

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

You had to see it, Agent McGraw. It was an alien, opulent phantasy that rested there on a purple velvet cushion.

15.

(MORE)

It was a sort of tiara, tall in front, and with a very large and curiously irregular periphery, as if designed for a head of almost freakishly elliptical outline. The material seemed to be predominantly gold, though a weird lighter lustrousness hinted at some strange alloy. Its condition was almost perfect, and one could have spent hours in studying the striking geometrical, and marine design, moulded in high relief on its surface with a craftsmanship of incredible skill and grace.

TILTONArresting isn’t it?

OLMSTEADI’ve never seen any thing like it.

(narrating)The longer I looked, the more the thing fascinated me. At first I decided that it was the queer other-worldly quality of the art which made me uneasy. This tiara clearly belonged to some settled technique of infinite maturity and perfection, yet that technique was utterly remote from any which I had ever heard of or seen exemplified. It was as if the workmanship were that of another planet. But the longer I stared at it, the more uncomfortable I became. It was as if the strange pictorial and mathematical designs touched off some primal pseudo-memory. Among the reliefs were fabulous creatures of abhorrent grotesqueness and malignity.

(to Tilton)Those creatures...some kind of ichthyic monstrosities...

TILTONBatrachian, if you ask me. It’s a positively blasphemous design.

OLMSTEADThe fish-frogs, they’re... I’ve never seen anything that smacked of such unknown and inhuman evil.

16.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

TILTONIt tends to illicit strong reactions from people.

OLMSTEADWhere did it come from?

TILTONA drunken Innsmouth man pawned it at the old shop on State Street for a pittance. Shortly afterward he was killed in a brawl; this would have been around 1873. The Society acquired it directly from the pawnbroker, at once giving it a display worthy of its quality. The Society labeled it as of probable Indochinese provenance, though I have my doubts.

OLMSTEADWhere do you think it came from?

TILTONEducated folks around here believe it’s part of some exotic pirate hoard discovered by old Captain Obed Marsh.

OLMSTEADThe Innsmouth sea captain?

TILTONThe very one. Once they learned we had it, some members of the Marsh family made some sizeable offers for it, but we’ve held onto it. It’s impossibly unique.

A distant CLOCK BELL tolls the hour.

TILTONOh dear, it’s time I locked up.

They STROLL back towards the front door.

OLMSTEADHave you ever been there? Innsmouth?

TILTON(incredible disdain)

Oh good heavens no!

17.

OLMSTEADEveryone here feels so strongly about the place. I’ve even heard people talk about devil-worship.

TILTONThere’s plenty of good cause: those rumors are partly justified. A peculiar secret cult there has all but engulfed the orthodox churches.

OLMSTEADThere’s a secret cult?

TILTON"The Esoteric Order of Dagon", a quasi-pagan thing imported from the East a century ago, back when the Innsmouth fisheries seemed to be going barren. It’s persisted among the simpletons because of the sudden and permanent return of abundant fish. It’s a very religious community.

OLMSTEADI’m going there, on the bus tomorrow morning. You know, have a look around.

TILTONYoung man, you’ve just come from seeing the best Innsmouth has to offer. The rest is decay, squalor and desolation.

MUSICAL STINGER.

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

Shortly before ten the next morning I stood with one small valise in front of Hammond's Drug Store waiting for the Innsmouth bus. In a few moments a small motor-coach of extreme decrepitude rattled down State Street.

18.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3a 3a

MCGRAWI bet you wish you’d never gotten on that bus.

OLMSTEADYou have no idea.

ROAD TRIP6 6

Street ATMOSPHERE. A decrepit motor-coach PULLS UP beside him, brakes SQUEALING, engine HEAVING TO A STOP. The DOOR OPENS, and the FOOTSTEPS of three passengers climb down.

OLMSTEADExcuse me, is this the...

One of the passengers BUMPS into Olmstead, whose feet SHUFFLE in the dirt.

RUDE PASSENGER(a bit croakily)

Outta the way!

The FOOTSTEPS of the departing passengers recede. Olmstead questions the driver.

OLMSTEADI beg your pardon. Is this the bus for Innsmouth?

The driver, Joe Sargent, croaks horsely.

SARGENTHeaded to Arkham.

OLMSTEADRight, but you stop in Innsmouth on the way, don’t you?

SARGENTWhy? You ain’t from Innsmouth.

OLMSTEADNo, I’m just visiting.

Sargent SNORTS wetly. After a brief pause, Sargent STARTS THE ENGINE and the bus rumbles back to life.

19.

SARGENTSixty cents.

OLMSTEADThe driver was a thin, stoop-shouldered man not much under six feet tall, dressed in shabby blue clothes and wearing a frayed golf cap. His age was perhaps thirty-five, but the odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck made him seem older. He had a narrow head, bulging, watery-blue eyes that seemed never to blink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears. His long thick lip and coarse-pored, greyish cheeks seemed almost beardless, and in places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease. As I extended a dollar bill to him, I noticed his hands were large and heavily veined, and had a very unusual greyish-blue tinge. The fingers were strikingly short in proportion to the rest of the structure, and seemed to have a tendency to curl closely into the huge palm.

The muted CLINK of a couple of coins.

SARGENTYer change. Take a seat.

OLMSTEADAs I turned toward the back of the bus I nearly tripped on the driver’s feet, and noticed that they were inordinately immense. I wondered how he could buy any shoes to fit them. He was greasy and gave off the smell of old fish docks. Just what foreign blood was in him I could not even guess. His oddities certainly did not look Asiatic, Polynesian, Levantine or negroid, yet I could see why the people found him alien. I myself would have thought of biological degeneration rather than alienage.

20.

(MORE)

When realized it was only going to be the two of us on the bus, I understood why the local folks avoided it.

The vehicle STARTS WITH A LURCH and RATTLES down the street. The sound of the BUS continues under, with MUSIC.

OLMSTEADThe day was warm and sunny, but the landscape of sand, sedge-grass, and stunted shrubbery became increasingly desolate as we proceeded. We presently drew very near the beach as our narrow road veered off from the main highway. There were no visible houses. Now and then we crossed crude wooden bridges over tidal creeks that wound far inland and promoted the general isolation of the region.At last we saw the vast expanse of the open Atlantic on our left. The smell of the sea took on ominous implications, and the silent driver's bent, rigid back and narrow head became more and more hateful. As I looked at him I saw that the back of his head was almost as hairless as his face, having only a few straggling yellow strands upon a grey scabrous surface.

Then we reached the crest of a long hill and beheld the outspread valley beyond, where the Manuxet joins the sea just north of the long line of cliffs that culminate in Kingsport Head. That instant I came face to face with rumour-shadowed Innsmouth.

MUSIC CRESCENDO. The distant sound of the OCEAN. A SEAGULL. The bus CHUGS along.

OLMSTEADIt was a town of wide extent and dense construction.

21.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in. Stretching inland from among them I saw the rusted, grass-grown line of the abandoned railway, with leaning telegraph-poles now devoid of wires. The decay was worst close to the waterfront, though in its very midst I could spy the white belfry of a fairly well preserved brick structure which looked like a small factory. The harbor was enclosed by an ancient stone breakwater. A sandy tongue had formed inside this barrier and upon it I saw a few decrepit cabins, moored dories, and scattered lobster-pots.

Here and there the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate rottenness. And far out at sea I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water, yet carrying a suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This must be Devil Reef. As I looked, a subtle, curious sense of beckoning mixed with grim repulsion.

The cry of a GULL. The crash of a WAVE.

We passed deserted farms in varying stages of ruin. I noticed a few inhabited houses with rags stuffed in the broken windows and shells and dead fish lying about the littered yards. Once or twice I saw listless-looking people working in barren gardens or digging clams on the fishy-smelling beach below, and groups of dirty children playing around weed-grown doorsteps. Somehow these people seemed more disquieting than the dismal buildings, for almost every one had certain peculiarities of face and motions which I instinctively disliked without being able to define or comprehend them.

22.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

The leaning, unpainted houses grew thicker and lined both sides of the road. All were apparently deserted, and there were occasional gaps where tumbledown chimneys and cellar walls told of buildings that had collapsed. Pervading everything was the most nauseous fishy odor imaginable. Soon I saw increasing signs of habitation: curtained windows and battered motor-cars at the curb. Most of the houses were quite old, and as an amateur antiquarian I almost lost my feeling of menace and repulsion amidst this rich, unaltered survival from the past.

As the bus approached the center of town, I saw a large pillared facade ahead. It used to be the town’s Masonic Hall. The structure's paint was now gray and peeling, and bore a black and gold sign so faded that I could only with difficulty make out the words "Esoteric Order of Dagon."

A cracked CHURCH BELL across the street RINGS ELEVEN.

OLMSTEADThere was a squat stone church on the corner whose basement door was open. I shuddered involuntarily when I spied the first person I’d seen in Innsmouth proper. I shuddered. There was no real reason to be frightened: it was clearly just the pastor of the church. But he was clad in some peculiar vestments, and wore a tall tiara just like the one Miss Tilton had shown me. Doubtless it was the unusual dress of the Order of Dagon.

The bus rolled at last into the large town square and drew up in front of a tall, cupola-crowned building with remnants of yellow paint. A half-effaced sign proclaimed it to be the Gilman House hotel.

23.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

The brakes SCREECH and the bus comes to a STOP.

SARGENTInnsmouth.

Olmstead gathers up his luggage and WALKS to the front of the bus.

OLMSTEADThank you. I’m planning to continue on to Arkham this evening. Is this where I’ll find you?

SARGENTEight o’clock.

Olmstead STEPS OFF the bus. FOOTSTEPS as Olmstead walks over to the hotel. The door CREAKS OMINOUSLY as he opens it and enters the lobby. It sounds EMPTY. The sound of the OCEAN is muted as he goes inside.

OLMSTEADHello? Anyone here?

There is a SHUFFLING OF FEET as the Hotel Clerk emerges behind the desk. He’s old, and unfriendly but sounds like a normal person.

HOTEL CLERKWhat’s that? Who’s there?

OLMSTEADHello. You’re open for business?

HOTEL CLERKYou looking for a room?

OLMSTEADOh no, thank you. I’m visiting for the day and need a place to leave my luggage. Can I check it with you until the bus leaves for Arkham this evening?

HOTEL CLERKVisiting? Who?

OLMSTEADJust the town in general. Seeing the sights.

24.

HOTEL CLERK(dubiously)

Mmmm. Ye can leave yer bag. That’ll be a nickel.

OLMSTEADRight.

He RUMMAGES for change. Outside, we hear the BUS ENGINE START UP AGAIN and the bus PULLS AWAY.

OLMSTEADHere you go. Listen, can I ask you, about the bus driver...

HOTEL CLERKWhat’s that?

OLMSTEADNever mind. I’ll be back for the bag this evening.

HOTEL CLERKMmmmm.

The clerk takes the bag and SHUFFLES AWAY. Olmstead returns to the street, going through the CREAKY DOOR. The sound of the OCEAN returns, and in the distance we can just barely hear THE BUS driving away south. A GULL. Olmstead WALKS across the cobblestoned square.

OLMSTEADOn one side of the town square was the Manuxet River leading to the ocean. The other side was a semicircle of slant-roof buildings. Lamps were sadly few and small: I was glad that my plans called for departure before dark. There were a few businesses that seemed to be open, and a handful of sullen-looking residents milled about. In one of the least dilapidated buildings near the hotel was a grocery store of the First National chain. I went inside.

OUTSIDERS7 7

The store BELL rings as Olmstead ENTERS. A young clerk behind the counter offers assistance.

25.

BILLYHelp you, sir?

OLMSTEADUm, why yes, could I have some cheddar, crackers, and two ginger cookies. Oh, and a pack of Fleur de Lys.

BILLYSure. Not many places to eat here. You’re new in town?

OLMSTEADJust got off the bus.

BILLYImagine you won’t want to miss the next one out.

As they talk, Billy TAKES ITEMS FROM THE SHELVES and packs up Olmstead’s order.

OLMSTEADIt is a queer old place. I’d venture to guess you’re not from ‘round here?

BILLYNo, sir. I’m from Arkham, but I got transferred here by the company. They said they’d fire me if I didn’t stay.

OLMSTEADTough break.

BILLYYou’re telling me.

(leaning in)I can’t stand it here. The people are strange and there’s that fish smell everywhere you go.

OLMSTEADIs there a public library or chamber of commerce? I’d like to take a look at some of the older buildings.

26.

BILLYThere’s nothing like that here. There’s some real old churches off Main Street, abandoned now, but I’d be careful going anywhere north of there.

OLMSTEADCareful of what?

BILLYPeople here ain’t friendly to outsiders. Some strangers have just plain disappeared. Whatever you do, stay away from the Marsh Refinery and the Order of Dagon Hall and any of the other churches north of the river.

OLMSTEADWhy?

BILLYInnsmouth folk are mighty secretive about what goes on in their services. My pastor in Arkham begged me not to join any church in Innsmouth.

OLMSTEADNo one seems very friendly around here. I was glad when I spotted you and took you for an outsider.

BILLYThe locals are a strange bunch. Don’t know what they do besides fishing and drinking -- bootleg whiskey, they drink like fish. It’s like they’re banded together in some sort of fellowship and understanding -- despising the world as if they had somewhere else to go. Those staring eyes -- hardly ever blink. Have you talked to any of ‘em, heard their voices?

OLMSTEADNot really.

27.

BILLYIt’s disgusting. You should hear them chanting in their churches at night, and especially during their main festivals or revivals. That’ll be 58 cents.

The CASH REGISTER rings up the sale and COINS CLINK into the till.

OLMSTEADThey just drink and go to church?

BILLYAnd swim! All the time they have swimming races out to Devil Reef. Seems all the young people do it.

OLMSTEADThe old folks cheer them on?

BILLYYou know, you never really see old folks in Innsmouth. The older they get, they more they get that...

OLMSTEADInnsmouth look?

BILLYExactly! Maybe the old ones die off. The old clerk at the Gilman House, he’s about the only old fellow I’ve ever seen, but then he don’t have the Innsmouth look.

OLMSTEADIs it some kind of disease that gets worse as they get older?

BILLYI don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows. They’d never talk to anyone who wasn’t from Innsmouth and they...

OLMSTEAD...they’d have it too.

BILLYSome of them have it extra-bad. So bad they keep them hidden away.

28.

(MORE)

You get down on the waterfront north of the river there’s all kinds of terrible things. But don’t go asking about. There’s only one of them who’d say a word to an outsider.

OLMSTEADWho’s that?

BILLYAn old fellow who lingers around the old fire station: Zadok Allen. Must be nearly a hundred years old. He doesn’t have the Innsmouth look. Lives up at the poorhouse. He won’t say a word when he’s sober, but when he’s got drink in him, he can tell stories that’d turn your hair white, crazy stories. The natives don’t like it when he talks to strangers.

OLMSTEADWhat do the people do for money?

BILLYThe water around here’s full of fish, but the locals don’t seem to care much anymore. The only real business is the refinery.

OLMSTEADOld Man Marsh’s, right?

BILLYYep. I’ve never seen him, but he’s got a fancy car that sometimes goes by, with curtains in the windows. The younger Marshes run things now. Oh lord, his eldest daughter, she looks like a reptile and wears this ancient gold jewelry -- apparently came from the hoard of some pirates, or demons, depending on who you ask. But it’s the Marshes, the Waites, the Gilmans and the Eliots that run the town. They have big houses up on Washington Street.

OLMSTEADWhich way’s Washington Street?

29.

BILLY (cont'd)

The TEAR and RUSTLE of paper and SCRATCH of a pencil as Billy draws a map.

BILLYHere, I’ll draw you a map. It’ll help. It’s easy to get lost here. A lot of the street signs are down. Be sure to keep an eye out...

The DOOR BELL rings and heavy shuffling FOOTSTEPS enter the store.

BILLY(with trepidation)

Be right with you, sir.

The map RUSTLES as Olmstead shoves it into a pocket.

OLMSTEAD(softly)

Thank you.

BILLYDon’t mention it.

Olmstead TAKES HIS GROCERIES and begins to go.

CREEPY CUSTOMER(a croakish growl)

Hey!

OLMSTEADYes?

CREEPY CUSTOMERI haven’t seen you around here before.

OLMSTEADNo, no, sir.

CREEPY CUSTOMERYou’re an Innsmouth man.

OLMSTEADNo, um, Arkham, actually.

CREEPY CUSTOMERMmmmmmmm.

Olmstead swiftly EXITS, the DOORBELL ringing.

30.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3b 3b

MUSIC and ATMOSPHERE build softly beneath the following description.

OLMSTEADWith the grocery boy’s map to guide me, I decided to thread the principal streets, talk with any non-natives I might encounter, and catch the eight o'clock coach for Arkham. Thus I began my half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadow-blighted ways.

MCGRAWSo you set out alone? On foot?

OLMSTEADI did.

MAN ABOUT TOWN8 8

OLMSTEADI did. I passed close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed to be oddly free from the noise of industry. Re-crossing the Manuxet on the Main Street bridge, I struck a region of utter desertion which somehow made me shudder. Collapsing huddles of gambrel roofs formed a jagged and fantastic skyline, above which rose the ghoulish, decapitated steeple of an ancient church. Down unpaved side streets I saw the black, gaping windows of deserted hovels, many of which leaned at perilous and incredible angles through the sinking of part of the foundations. I turned eastward toward the waterfront. The sight of such endless avenues of fishy-eyed vacancy and death, and the thought of such linked infinities of black, brooding compartments given over to cob-webs and memories and the conqueror worm, start up vestigial fears and aversions that not even the stoutest philosophy can disperse.

31.

DISTANT WAVES break and NEARER ONES lap at the rotting wharves. A GULL.

OLMSTEADFish Street was as deserted as Main, though it differed in having many brick and stone warehouses still in excellent shape. I picked my way back over the tottering Water Street bridge.

Strange SHAMBLING and SHUFFLING noises creep and poke out of the decaying buildings. The occasional CROAK.

North of the river there were traces of squalid life -- active fish-packing houses in Water Street, smoking chimneys and patched roofs here and there, occasional sounds from indeterminate sources, and infrequent shambling forms in the dismal streets and unpaved lanes. The people were more hideous and abnormal than those near the center of the town; so that I was reminded of something utterly fantastic which I could not quite place. Undoubtedly the alien strain in the Innsmouth folk was stronger here than farther inland.

Strange CREAKINGS and SCURRYINGS.

I heard faint sounds. They ought naturally to have come from the visibly inhabited houses, yet they were often strongest inside the boarded-up facades. I thought about the hidden tunnels suggested by the grocery boy, and hastened out of that vile waterfront slum.

I worked my way to the decayed patrician neighborhood of northern Broad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adams Streets. Though these stately old avenues were ill-surfaced and unkempt, their elm-shaded dignity had not entirely departed.

32.

(MORE)

Fine old mansions lined the streets, most of them decrepit and boarded up, but one or two in each street that showed signs of occupancy. The most sumptuous of these, in Washington Street, with wide terraced parterres, I took to be the home of Old Man Marsh. There were neither cats nor dogs nor any other living things visible, yet I could not escape the sensation of being watched from ambush on every hand by sly, staring eyes that never shut.

A distant BELL chimes three.

OLMSTEADI crossed again to the south bank of the river where furtive, shambling creatures stared cryptically in my direction. Innsmouth was rapidly becoming intolerable, and I turned down Paine Street toward the square in the hope of getting some vehicle to take me to Arkham before the still-distant starting-time of the bus.

It was then that I saw the tumbledown fire station, and noticed the red faced, bushy-bearded, watery eyed old man who sat on a bench in front of it talking with a pair of unkempt looking firemen. This had to be Zadok Allen, the half-crazed, liquorish nonagenarian full of hideous and incredible tales of old Innsmouth.

MUSICAL STINGER.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3c 3c

MCGRAWYou could have left then. Why didn’t you get out of there?

33.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEADIt must have been some imp of the perverse -- or some sardonic pull from dark, hidden sources -- which made me change my plans as I did.

IMP OF THE PERVERSE9 9

OLMSTEADCuriosity flared up beyond sense and caution when I reflected that old Zadok must have seen everything which went on around Innsmouth for nearly a century. I couldn’t resist. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this to you, McGraw: bootleg whiskey wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t hard to find. I ducked into a dingy variety store and purchased a quart. I brandished the bottle to gain his attention and within a few minutes he was following me at a distance as I headed towards the deserted waterfront I’d visited previously.

FOOTSTEPS on pavement. The distant SURF. Zadok approaches.

ZADOK ALLEN(already inebriated)

Hey mister!

OLMSTEADMay I help you?

ZADOK ALLENMy rheumatism is acting up. Perchance could ye spare a nip for my health?

OLMSTEADBe my guest. Robert Olmstead.

ZADOK ALLENZadok Allen, young squire.

They WALK ALONG, and the sound of the SEA grows louder.

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

He followed me along the rotted wharves.

34.

(MORE)

Piles of moss-covered stones near the water promised tolerable seats, and the scene was sheltered from all possible view by a ruined warehouse on the north. Here, I thought was the ideal place for a long secret colloquy. The air of death and desertion was ghoulish, and the smell of fish almost insufferable; but I was resolved to let nothing deter me.

OLMSTEADThey tell me you know quite a lot about Innsmouth.

ZADOK ALLENEh?

OLMSTEADThey say you know about Innsmouth and its secrets...

ZADOK ALLENCan’t say nothing. I have lost my reputation... immortal... just a beast.

OLMSTEADWhat?

ZADOK ALLENDo you think you could spare another taste...

OLMSTEAD(disappointed)

Go ahead. Mind if I eat?

Zadok DRINKS and Olmstead MUNCHES his cheese and crackers.

ZADOK ALLENThere’s more things than you dream in yer philosophy. I’ve always said that if there’s one thing a man must be, it’s given his...

Zadok trails off in MUTTERING AD LIB beneath Olmstead’s next speech.

35.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

I endured nearly two hours of evasive gibberish, and I was on the verge of leaving when I saw him fix his eyes on the low distant line of Devil Reef.

Zadok GRUMBLES some obscenities about the reef in a voice too low, gravelly and nervous to comprehend.

OLMSTEADWhat? What did you say about the reef?

ZADOK ALLEN(leaning in, in an urgent whisper)

That’s where it all began -- that cursed place of all wickedness where the deep water starts. Gate of hell -- sheer drop down to a bottom no sounding line can take. Old Captain Obed done it -- him that founded out more than was good for him in the South Sea islands.

OLMSTEADWhat did he find?

ZADOK ALLENEverybody was in a bad way them days. Trade falling off, mills losing business. Best of our menfolk killed privateering in the War of 1812. Obed was the only one that kept on with the East-Indies an' Pacific trade.

(sinister chuckle)Never was nobody like Captain Obed -- old limb of Satan! He’d tell about foreign parts, and call folks stupid for going to Christian meetings. Says they'd ought to get better gods, ones that in return for sacrifices would really answer folks's prayers.

Told about an island where they was old stone ruins with carvings of faces that looked like the big statues on Easter Island.

36.

(MORE)

There was a little volcanic island near there with other ruins and different carving -- ruins all worn away like they'd been under the sea once, an' with pictures of awful monsters all over 'em.

OLMSTEADMonsters?

ZADOK ALLENHe says the natives around there had all the fish they could catch, an' sported bracelets an' armlets an' head rigs made out o' a queer kind of gold an' covered with pictures of monsters just like the ones carved over the ruins on the little island -- sort of fish-like frogs or frog-like fishes that was drawed in all kinds of positions like they was human. Nobody could get out of them where they got all that stuff, and all the other natives wondered how they managed to find fish aplenty when there weren’t none elsewhere abouts. Obed wondered too, and noticed that lots of the men and some young folks would drop out o' sight fer good from year to year, an' that there wasn’t many old folks around.

Obed wormed the story out o' the heathen chief -- Walakea, they called him. Nobody but Obed’d ever a-believed the old yeller devil, but the Cap'n could read folks like they was books.

(sinister chortle)Nobody never believes me now when I tell 'em, an' I don’t s'pose you will -- though come to look at ye, ye have kinda got them sharp-readin' eyes like Obed had.

OLMSTEADWhat’d the chief tell him?

37.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

ZADOK ALLEN(an intense whisper)

These Kanakys was sacrificing heaps of their young men and maidens to some kind of god-things that lived under the sea, and getting all kinds of favor in return. They met the things on the little islet with the queer ruins, and it seems them awful pictures of frog-fish monsters was supposed to be pictures of these things.

They had all kinds a' cities on the sea-bottom, an' this island was heaved up from there. Seem they was some of the things alive in the stone buildings when the island come up sudden to the surface, That's how the Kanakys got wind they was down there. Made sign-talk as soon as they got over being scared, and pieced up a bargain afore long.

Them things liked human sacrifices. What they done to the victims it ain't fer me to say. But it was all right with the heathens, because they'd been having a hard time an' was desperate about everything. They give a certain number o' young folks to the sea-things twice every year regular as cud be. Also give some a' the carved knickknacks they made. What the things agreed to give in return was plenty o' fish -- they drug 'em in from all over the sea -- an' a few gold like things now an' then.

The natives met the things on the little volcanic islet -- going there in canoes with the sacrifices et cet’ry, and bringing back any of the gold-like jewels as was coming to 'em. At first the things didn't never go onto the main island, but after a time they come to want to. Seems they hankered after mixing with the folks, an' having ceremonies on the big days - May-Eve an' Hallowe'en.

38.

(MORE)

Ye see, they was able to live both in and out o' water -- what they call em....

OLMSTEADAmphibians.

ZADOK ALLENThat’s it! Now the Kanakys told 'em as how folks from the other islands might want to wipe them out if they got wind of their being there, but they says they don’t care much, because they could wipe out the whole brood o' humans.

When it come to mating with them toad-lookin' fishes, the Kanakys kind o' balked, but finally they learned something as put a new face on the matter. Seems that human folks has got a kind a' relation to such water-beasts -- that everything alive come out o' the water once an' only needs a little change to go back again. Them things told the Kanakys that if they mixed bloods there'd be children as would look human at first, but later turn more and more like the things, till finally they'd take to the water an' join the main lot o' things down there.

OLMSTEADGood god!

ZADOK ALLENAn' this is the important part, young feller -- them as turned into fish things an' went into the water wouldn't never die. Them things never died except they was killed violent.

Them islanders they was all full o' fish blood from them deep water things. When they got old an' begun to shew it, they was kept hid until they felt like takin' to the water. Some was more touched than others, an' some never did change quite enough to take to the water;

39.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

but mostly they turned out just the way them things said. Them as was born more like the things changed early, but them as was nearly human sometimes stayed on the island till they was past seventy. Folks as had took to the water generally come back a good deal to visit, so's a man would often be a'talkin' to his own five-times-great-grandfather who'd left the dry land a couple o' hundred years or so afore.

Everybody got out of the idea of dyin' and simply looked forward to a kind o' change that wasn't a bit horrible after a while. They thought what they'd got was well worth all they'd had to give up -- an' I guess Obed kind o' come to think the same himself.

Walakea he showed Obed a lot o' rites an' incantations as had to do with the sea things, an' let him see some o' the folks in the village as had changed a lot from human shape. But he never would let him see one of the regular things from right out o' the water. In the end he give him a funny kind o' thingumajig made out o' lead or something, that he said would bring up the fish things from any place in the water where they might be a nest of 'em. The idea was to drop it down with the right kind o' prayers an' such. Walakea allowed as the things was scattered all over the world, so's anybody that looked about cud find a nest an' bring 'em up if they was wanted.

Now Matt Eliot, Cap’n Obed’s first mate, was against folks's doin' heathen things. He didn't like this business at all, an' wanted Obed should keep away from the island; but the Cap'n was sharp for gain, and found he could get them gold-like things so cheap it would pay him to make a specialty of them.

40.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

Things went on that way for years an' Obed got enough o' that gold-like stuff to make him start the refinery in Waite's old run-down mill. He didn't dare sell the pieces like they was, for folks would be all the time asking questions. But he let his women-folks wear some o' the pieces as was more human-like than most.

Well, come about thirty-eight -- when I was seven year' old -- Obed found the island people all wiped out between voyages. Seems the other islanders had got wind of what was going on, and had took matters into their own hands. Suppose they must a had them old magic signs as the sea things says was the only things they was afeared of. Pious cusses, these was -- they didn't leave nothing standing on either the main island or the little volcanic islet except what parts of the ruins was too big to knock down. Folks all wiped out no trace o' no gold-like things an' none the nearby Kanakys would breathe a word about the matter. Wouldn't even admit they'd ever been any people on that island.

That naturally hit Obed pretty hard, seeing as his normal trade was doing very poor. It hit the whole of Innsmouth, too, because in seafaring days what profited the master of a ship generally profited the crew proportionate.

Obed he begun a-cursin' at the folks fer being dull sheep an' praying to a Christian heaven as didn't help them none. He told 'em he'd knowed of folks as prayed to gods that give something ye really need, an' says if a good bunch of men would stand by him, he could maybe get a hold of certain powers as could bring plenty of fish an' quite a bit of gold.

41.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

Of course his sailors that’d seed the island knowed what he meant, and wasn't none too anxious to get close to sea-things like they'd heard tell on, but them as didn't know what 'twas all about got kind o' swayed by what Obed had to say, and begun to ask him what he could do to set them on the way to the faith as would bring 'em results.

Pause.

OLMSTEADZadok?

Zadok MUMBLES incoherently.

OLMSTEADWhat’s the matter? Do you see something out there?

The old man MUMBLES some more.

OLMSTEADDo you... want some more? Why don’t you finish the bottle?

Zadok SNATCHES the bottle away and CHUGS it down, SMACKING his lips.

ZADOK ALLEN(in a frantic whisper)

Poor Matt tried to line up the folks on his side, and had long talks with the preachers -- no use -- they run the Congregational parson out o' town, an' the Methodist feller quit -- never did see Resolved Babcock, the Baptist parson, again -- Wrath o' Jehovy -- I was a little critter, but I heard what I heard an’ seen what I seen -- Dagon an' Ashtoreth -- Belial an' Beelzebub -- Golden Calf an' the idols o' Canaan an' the Philistines -- Babylonish abominations - Mene, mene, tekelili, upharsin...

OLMSTEADZadok? Let me have the bottle, I think maybe you’ve had enough.

42.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

ZADOK ALLEN(aggressive)

Don’t believe me, hey? Then tell me why Cap'n Obed and twenty-odd other folks used to row out to Devil Reef in the dead of night and chant things so loud ye could hear 'em all over town? Tell me that, hey? An' tell me why Obed was always dropping heavy things down into the deep water t'other side of the reef? Tell me what he done with that funny-shaped lead thingumajig as Walakea give him? Hey, boy? An' what did they all howl on May-Eve, an, again the next Hallowe'en? An' why'd the new church parsons -- fellows that used to be sailors -- wear them queer robes and cover their-selves with them gold things Obed brung? Hey?

OLMSTEADI...I don’t know.

ZADOK ALLEN(with an evil cackle)

Beginning to see hey? Maybe ye'd like to ‘a been me in them days, when I seen things at night out to sea. Oh, I kin tell ye' I wasn't missing nothing of what was gossiped about Cap'n Obed an' the folks out to the reef! How about the night I took my pa's ship's glass up to the cupola and seed the reef a-bristlin' thick with shapes that dove off quick soon's the moon rise?

OLMSTEADWhat shapes?

ZADOK ALLENObed an' the folks was in a dory, but them shapes dove off the far side into the deep water an' never come up... How'd ye like to be a little shaver all alone a-watchin' shapes as wasn't human shapes?

(laughing mirthlessly)

43.

(MORE)

S'pose one night ye seed something heavy heaved off of Obed's dory beyond the reef' and then learned next day a young feller was missing from home. Hey! Did anybody ever see hide or hair o' Hiram Gilman again? Did they? An' Nick Pierce, an' Luelly Waite, an' Adoniram Southwick, an' Henry Garrison. Hey?

(more laughter)Shapes talkin' sign language with their hands... them as had real hands...

OLMSTEADYou think he was...?

ZADOK ALLENThat was the time Obed begun to get on his feet again. Folks see his three daughters a-wearing gold-like things as nobody'd never seed on 'em afore, and smoke stared coming out of the refinery chimney. Fish begun to swarm into the harbor fit to kill. Some Kingsport fishermen heard about the catch an' come up in sloops, but they was all lost. Nobody never see 'em again.

OLMSTEADSo, it was just like what the Kanakys had done?

ZADOK ALLENI don't think Obed aimed at first to do no mixing, nor raise no young-uns to take to the water an' turn into fishes. He wanted them gold things, an' was willing to pay heavy, an' I guess the others was satisfied fer a while.

In forty-six the town done some looking and thinking fer itself. Too many folks missing -- too much wild preaching at meeting of a Sunday -- too much talk about that reef. They was a party one night as followed Obed's crowd out to the reef, an' I heard shots betwixt the dories.

44.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

Next day Obed and thirty-two others was in jail, with everybody a-wondering jest what was afoot and just what charge against 'em could be got to hold. God, if anybody'd looked ahead... a couple o' weeks later, when nothing had been throwed into the sea fer that long...

Zadok heaves an exhausted SIGH. A LARGE WAVE breaks as the tide begins to come in. A GULL.

OLMSTEADWhat happened?

ZADOK ALLENThat awful night... I seen 'em... hordes of 'em... swarms of 'em... all over the reef an' swimming up the harbor into the Manuxet ... God, what happened in the streets of Innsmouth that night... they rattled our door, but Pa wouldn't open... then he climb out the kitchen window with his musket to see what he could do... Mounds o' the dead an' the dying... shots and screams... shoutin' in Old Square and Town Square an' New Church Green... jail throwed open... proclamation ... treason ... called it the plague when folks come in an' found half our people missing ... nobody left ‘cept them as would join in with Obed and them things or else keep quiet... never heard o' my Pa no more...

OLMSTEADSo there was no plague.

ZADOK ALLENThey just called it that! Everything cleaned up in the morning -- but there was traces... Obed he kind of takes charge and says things is going to be changed... others is gonna worship with us at meeting-time, and certain houses have got to entertain guests...

45.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

they wanted to mix like they done with the Kanakys, and he for one didn't feel bound to stop 'em. He says they brung us fish and treasure, and should have what they hankered after.

OLMSTEADHe’d gone mad.

ZADOK ALLENFar gone. Said nothing was to be different on the outside, only we was to keep shy of strangers if we knowed what was good fer us.

We all had to take the Oath o' Dagon, an' later on they was second an' third oaths that some of us took. Them as would help special, would get special rewards -- gold an' such -- No use balking, for there was millions of 'em down there. They'd rather not start rising an' wiping out human-kind, but if they was gave away an' forced to, they could do just that. We didn't have them old charms to cut 'em off like folks in the South Sea did.

Yield up enough sacrifices and savage knick-knacks an' harborage in the town when they wanted it, and they'd let well enough alone. Wouldn't bother no strangers as might bear tales outside -- that is, without they got prying. All in the band of the faithful -- Order o' Dagon -- and the children should never die, but go back to the Mother Hydra an' Father Dagon what we all come from once... Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn.

Zadok’s raving trails off. MUSIC begins to build underneath the story.

OLMSTEADIt’s not real, Zadok. These are just stories, legends...

46.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

ZADOK ALLEN(moaning in horrified agony)

I was there! God, what I seen since I was fifteen year' old -- Mene, mene, tekelili, upharsin! -- the folks as was missing, and them as killed theirselves -- them as tried to tell outsiders was all called crazy -- but God, what I seen! They'd a killed me long ago for what I know, only I'd took the first an' second Oaths o' Dagon off of Obed, so was protected -- but I wouldn’t take the third Oath -- I'd a died rather than take that --

OLMSTEADWhat was the third oath?

Pause.

ZADOK ALLENAround Civil War time, when children born since 'forty-six begun to grow up -- some of 'em, that is. I was afeared -- never did no prying after that awful night, an' never see one o' THEM close to in all my life. That is, never no full-blooded one. I went to the war, an' if I'd a had any guts or sense I'd a never come back, but settled away from here. But folks wrote me things wasn’t so bad ‘cause government draft men was in town after 'sixty-three. After the war it was just as bad again. People begun to fall off -- mills an' shops shut down -- shipping stopped and the harbor choked up -- railroad give up -- but they... they never stopped swimming in an' out o' the river from that cursed reef o' Satan -- an' more an' more attic windows got a-boarded up, an' more an' more noises was heard in houses as wasn’t supposed to have nobody in 'em...

In 'forty-six Cap'n Obed took a second wife.

47.

(MORE)

Had three children by her -- two as disappeared young, but one gal as looked like anybody else an' was educated in Europe. Obed finally got her married off by a trick to an Arkham feller as didn't suspect nothing. Barnabas Marsh that runs the refinery now is Obed's grandson by his first wife.

Barnabas is about changed. Can't shut his eyes no more, an' is all out o' shape. They say he still wears clothes, but he'll take to the water soon. Maybe he's tried it already -- they do sometimes go down for little spells afore they go down for good. Ain't been seed about in public fer nigh on ten year. Don’t know how his poor wife kin feel -- she come from Ipswich, and they nigh lynched Barnabas when he courted her fifty odd year ago. Obed he died in 'seventy-eight an' all the next generation is gone now -- the first wife's children dead, and the rest... God knows...

He stops with a little GASP. Another LOUD WAVE breaks with the incoming tide. Zadok GRABS Olmstead’s clothes.

OLMSTEADWhat is it? Zadok, do you see something out there?

(pause)Zadok? What is it? Hey! Let go of my coat!

ZADOK ALLENHey, you, how'd ye like to he living in a town like this, with everything a-rotting and dying, and boarded-up, monsters crawling and bleating an' barking an' hopping around black cellars an' attics every way ye turn? Hey? How'd ye like to hear the howlin' night after night from the churches an' Order o' Dagon Hall, an' know what's doin' part o' the howlin'? How'd ye like to hear what comes from that awful reef every May-Eve an' Hallowmass? Hey?

48.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

(MORE)

Think the old man's crazy, eh? Well, Sir, let me tell ye that ain't the worst!

OLMSTEADZadok, stop, please!

ZADOK ALLEN(loud and frenzied)

Curse ye, don’t set there a-staring at me with them eyes -- I say Obed Marsh he's in hell, an’ has got to stay there! In hell, I says! Can't get me -- I ain't done nothing nor told nobody nothing!

OLMSTEADLet go of me!

ZADOK ALLENYou just set still an' listen to me, boy -- this is what I ain't never told nobody... I says I didn't get to do prying after that night -- but I found things about jest the same!

Yew want to know what the real horror is, hey? Well, it's this -- it ain't what them fish devils have done, but what they're a-goin' to do! They're a-bringin' things up out of where they come from into the town -- been doing it fer years, an' slackening up lately. Them houses north o' the river be-twixt Water an' Main Streets is full of 'em -- them devils an' what they brung -- an' when they get ready ... I say, when they get... 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...

A terrified SHRIEK erupts from Zadok. Olmstead looks past him, out into the water.

OLMSTEADWhat is it? Did you see something?

For a moment there is only the SOUND OF THE SEA.

49.

ZADOK ALLEN (cont'd)

ZADOK ALLEN(panicked whisper)

Get out o’ here! Get out! They seen us -- get out for your life! Don’t wait fer nothing -- they know now -- Run fer it -- quick -- out o' this town.

(screams)E-yaahhhh! ... Yheaaaaaa!

GULLS cry and another HEAVY WAVE smashes against the crumbling wharf. Zadok lets go of Olmstead and RUNS wildly into town.

OLMSTEAD(calling after him)

Zadok!

MUSICAL STINGER.

Olmstead CATCHES HIS BREATH for a moment and then begins WALKING back into town. MUSIC under the following narration.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3d 3d

MCGRAWGood god, man, why didn’t you tell me this before?

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

I didn’t believe him, McGraw.

IMP OF THE PERVERSE CONT’D9a 9a

OLMSTEADIt was an episode at once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying. But puerile though the weird allegory was, old Zadok's insane earnestness and horror added to my sense of loathing for the town and its blight of intangible shadow.

The hour had grown perilously late -- my watch said 7:15, and the Arkham bus left Town Square at eight -- so I walked rapidly toward the hotel where I had checked my bag and would find my bus.

50.

(MORE)

Near the corner of Fall street I began to see scattered groups of whisperers, and when I finally reached the Square I saw that almost all the loiterers were congregated around the door of the Gilman House. It seemed as if many bulging, watery, unblinking eyes looked oddly at me as I claimed my valise in the lobby, and I hoped that none of these unpleasant creatures would be my fellow-passengers on the coach.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU WANT10 10

OLMSTEADI stood next to an evil-looking fellow and was greatly relieved to see the bus arriving a few minutes early.

MUSIC winds down as the BUS rattles up to the curb and the brakes SQUEAL to a stop. The DOOR OPENS and a COUPLE OF PASSENGERS shuffle off the bus.

EVIL-LOOKING MAN(croaky)

Hey, Sargent...outsider done...

His VOICE falls to an unintelligible level and his exchange with Sargent sounds like a series of QUICKLY CROAKED BARKS. Shuffling FOOTSTEPS as Olmstead tries to move onto the bus.

OLMSTEADExcuse me, please, one ticket to Arkham. One way.

SARGENTThe bus is broke.

OLMSTEADWhat?

SARGENTBus is broke.

OLMSTEADBut you just--

SARGENTEngine trouble. Not going anywhere.

51.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEADOh. When will it be fixed?

SARGENTMebbe tomorrow.

OLMSTEADTomorrow? It can’t be fixed tonight?

SARGENTNope.

OLMSTEADWell... is there some other way I can get to Arkham tonight? I’m expected...

SARGENTAin’t no other way. Can’t go nowhere. Have to spend the night. Gilman House’ll give you a room cheap. No other way.

Olmstead heaves a SIGH and WALKS back to the hotel as townsfolk WHISPER and MUTTER. The DOOR to the Gilman House CREAKS OPEN. Olmstead RINGS THE BELL for the Hotel Clerk. The clerk SHUFFLES out.

HOTEL CLERKYou again?

OLMSTEADHello. Um, the bus...

HOTEL CLERKBroke down, uh-huh. Happens. I got a room for ye.

OLMSTEADMy funds are rather...

HOTEL CLERKLarge room, top floor, no water, one dollar.

OLMSTEADUh, yes, well then, that will be fine.

Olmstead HANDS OVER a dollar.

52.

HOTEL CLERKRoom 428. All the way up.

The CASH REGISTER opens and Olmstead WALKS away. He climbs the CREAKING STAIRS, SNIFFING unpleasant fragrances as he goes.

OLMSTEADMy room was a dismal rear one with two windows and bare, cheap furnishings, overlooking a dingy court-yard. At the end of the corridor was a bathroom -- a discouraging relic with ancient appointments. As far as I could tell, I was the hotel’s only guest.

I turned on the one feeble electric bulb over the bed, and tried to read a newspaper I picked up in the lobby. I felt it advisable to keep my mind occupied, for it would not do to brood over the abnormalities of this ancient, blight-shadowed town while in it.

TILTON(a ghostly recollection)

Innsmouth is decay, squalor and desolation.

BILLY(ditto)

...there’s that fish smell everywhere you go.

STATION AGENT(ditto)

Gilman House - but I wouldn't advise you to try it. Voices...

ZADOK ALLEN(ditto)

Everything a-rotting and dying. You want to know what the real horror is, hey?

OLMSTEADMy fancies got the better of me and I went to bolt the door, but was disturbed to find there was no bolt.

53.

(MORE)

One had been there, as marks clearly showed, but there were signs of recent removal. No doubt it had been out of order, like so many other things in this decrepit edifice. In my nervousness I looked around and discovered a bolt on the clothes press which seemed to be of the same size. I busied myself by transferring this hardware to the vacant place with the aid of a handy three-in-one device including a screwdriver which I kept on my key-ring. The bolt fitted perfectly, and I was somewhat relieved when I knew that I could shoot it firmly upon retiring. There were adequate bolts on the two lateral doors to connecting rooms, and these I proceeded to fasten.

BOLTS shoot home.

I decided to read till I was sleepy and laid down with only my coat, collar, and shoes off. I took a hotel matchbook from the bedside ashtray, and placed it in my pocket so that I could read my watch if I woke up later in the dark. That’s when I heard it.

There is a moment where the only sound is Olmstead’s heavy, slow BREATHING and the distant sound of the SURF. A CREAK comes from the stairs, followed by ANOTHER, as if someone were slowly and carefully ascending.

OLMSTEADAt first I thought another guest was in the hotel. But there were no voices, and the creaking was somehow subtly furtive. Was this one of those inns where travelers were slain for their money? Or were the townsfolk really so resentful about curious visitors?

He BOLTS out of bed, CROSSES to the door and THROWS THE BOLT. He CLICKS OFF the light and returns to FLOP DOWN on the hard bed. We hear his BREATHING. CREAK. It’s closer now, just outside the door. The lock RATTLES gently and then a KEY slides into it.

54.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

The knob TURNS but the bolt holds the door closed. The following is underscored with the sounds as they happen.

OLMSTEADWithout a shadow of a doubt, someone was trying to enter my room. I kept deathly quiet, awaiting the would-be intruder's next move.

Stereo right, a door is UNLOCKED and CREAKS OPEN. Furtive FOOTSTEPS, and FUMBLING at the lock of the connecting door. CREAKING, soft FOOTSTEPS move from STEREO RIGHT TO STEREO LEFT. A stereo left DOOR is UNLOCKED and softly CREAKS OPEN. Again a furtive TRYING of a bolted connecting door, and again a receding CREAKING. Soft FOOTSTEPS FADE AWAY stereo left.

OLMSTEADTerrified though I was, I knew the one thing to do was to get out of that hotel alive as quickly as I could, and through some other way than the front stairs and lobby. I rose to turn on the light.

CLICK. Click-click.

OLMSTEADThe power had been cut off. Clearly, some cryptic, evil movement was afoot on a large scale -- just what, I could not say.

A muffled CREAKING comes from the floor below, followed by deep CROAKING noises in conversation.

OLMSTEADI tiptoed to the windows and saw only a sheer three story drop to the cobbled courtyard. On the right and left, however, some ancient brick business blocks abutted on the hotel; their slant roofs coming up to a reasonable jumping distance from my fourth-story level. To reach either of these buildings I would have to be in a room two from my own -- either to the north or south.

I could not risk the corridor, where my footsteps would surely be heard and I might not be able to access the room.

55.

(MORE)

I would have to go through the less solidly-built connecting doors of the rooms, and use my shoulder as a battering-ram if they were set against me. My own outer door I reinforced by pushing the bureau against it -- little by little, in order to make a minimum of sound.

My chances were slender, but I was fully prepared for any calamity. Even getting to another roof, I’d still have to make it to the ground and flee. The door on the south side of the room opened in my direction, but the door on the north was hung to open away from me. It was locked from the other side, but I knew that must be my route.

A fresh and heavier CREAK comes from the stairs, followed by low vocal UTTERANCES, and approaching heavy FOOTSTEPS. Slowly: KNOCK-KNOCK.

OLMSTEADFor a moment I simply held my breath and waited. Eternities seemed to elapse, and the nauseous fishy odor of my environment seemed to mount suddenly and spectacularly.

The KNOCKING continues, steady and insistent. SOUNDS underscore the narration.

OLMSTEADI drew the bolt of the northward connecting door, bracing myself for the task of battering it open. The knocking grew louder, and I hoped that its volume would cover the sound of my efforts. I lunged again and again at the thin paneling with my left shoulder. The door resisted more than I expected, but I did not give in. And all the while the clamor at the outer door increased.

The door CRASHES and SPLINTERS open. The pounding on Olmstead’s door changes to a BATTERING. FOOTSTEPS and the jangle of KEYS outside.

56.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEADI rushed into the next room and succeeded in bolting the hall door before the lock could he turned; but even as I did so I heard the hall door of the third room -- the one from whose window I had hoped to reach the roof below -- being tried with a pass key.

Olmstead RUNS through the room, PUSHING furniture aside as he goes. He SLAMS shut the hall door from the inside and THROWS THE BOLT. BATTERING at doors stereo left and right, JANGLING keys, pounding FOOTSTEPS. Muttering of croaky VOICES in the hallway. Olmstead PUSHES FURNITURE against various doors. Hideous PANTING, GRUNTING, and subdued BARKINGS at odd intervals.

Feet SCURRY along the hall outside the room, then BATTERING on the adjoining door. ESCAPE MUSIC. SOUNDS under the action described.

OLMSTEADI made it into the third room, and opened the window that offered the best access as they began an assault on the flimsy connecting door. The bedstead slowed their progress, despite their use of some kind of battering ram.

The window was flanked by heavy velour draperies. I yanked at the hangings and brought them down, pole and all; then quickly hooking two of the curtain rings in the shutter catch I flung the drapery outside. The heavy folds reached fully to the abutting roof, and I saw that the rings and catch would be likely to bear my weight.

The door SHATTERS and the attackers HEAVE THE BED out of the way. Olmstead LEAPS out the window, SLIDING down the drapery onto the adjacent roof.

ESCAPE MUSIC. ATMOSPHERE.

57.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3e 3e

MCGRAWIt’s a miracle you got out of there in one piece.

OLMSTEADI know.

FLIGHT FOR LIFE11 11

OLMSTEAD

I landed safely on the steep roof, and hurried to a gaping black skylight. I glanced at the window I had just left, and saw it was still dark. There seemed to be no one in the courtyard below, and I hoped I could get away before the spreading of a general alarm. I clambered over the brink of the skylight and dropped down onto the dusty floor.

The place was ghoulish-looking, and I struck a match. I made at once for the staircase revealed by its feeble light. The steps creaked, and I raced down past a barnlike second story to the ground floor. I reached the lower hall and darted out the back door to the grass-grown cobblestones of the courtyard. Some of the windows on the Gilman House side were faintly glowing, and I heard confused sounds within. I walked softly across the courtyard, looking for a door that would give me access to the street. I looked across the courtyard to the Gilman House, where a large crowd of doubtful shapes was pouring into the street.

Distant CROAKING and GRUMBLING voices flood the street.

OLMSTEADLanterns bobbed in the darkness, moving uncertainly. They did not know where I had gone.

58.

(MORE)

Their features were indistinguishable, but their crouching, shambling gait was abominably repellent. One figure was strangely robed, and unmistakably surmounted by a tall tiara. They fanned out from the hotel. The fishy odor was detestable, and I wondered I could stand it without fainting. I opened a door off the courtyard and came upon an empty room with closely shuttered windows. Fumbling in the flicker of another paper match, I opened the shutters and tumbled out onto Washington Street. I headed south, hoping to make my way to the road to Arkham.

I walked rapidly, close to the ruined houses. At Bates Street I drew into a vestibule while two shambling figures crossed in front of me, but was soon on my way again. Ahead of me was an open square, fully flooded with moonlight. My best option was to cross it boldly and openly; imitating the typical shamble of the Innsmouth folk as best I could.

No one was about, though a curious sort of buzz or roar seemed to be increasing in the direction of Town Square. South Street led down towards the waterfront, and I hoped that no one would be glancing up it from afar as I crossed in the bright moonlight.

Involuntarily, I paused for a second to take in the sight of the sea, gorgeous in the burning moonlight at the street's end. Far out beyond the breakwater was the dim, dark line of Devil Reef, and as I glimpsed it I could not help thinking of all the hideous legends which portrayed this ragged rock as a veritable gateway to realms of unfathomed horror and inconceivable abnormality.

59.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

Then, without warning, I saw intermittent flashes of light on the distant reef. They were definite and unmistakable. And to make matters worse, there now flashed forth from the lofty cupola of the Gilman House, which loomed behind me, a series of analogous though differently spaced gleams which could be nothing less than an answering signal.

MUSICAL STINGER.

What the whole proceeding meant, I could not imagine; unless it involved some strange rite connected with Devil Reef, or unless some party had landed from a ship on that sinister rock.

Olmstead GASPS.

It was then that the most horrible impression of all was borne in upon me. I saw that the moonlit waters between the reef and the shore were alive with a teeming horde of shapes swimming toward the town. The bobbing heads and flailing arms were alien and aberrant in a way scarcely to be expressed or consciously formulated.

He RUNS FRANTICALLY then stops for a moment. A voice BARKS croaked commands nearby. A truck ROARS down a street ahead.

OLMSTEADI heard the hue and cry of organized pursuit. They were blocking off the southward highway ahead of me; I had to find another way out of Innsmouth. They were not following me directly; rather, they were simply obeying a general plan of cutting off my escape. If they were patrolling this one, all roads out of Innsmouth were likely cut off. Then I thought of the abandoned railway line stretching off to the northwest. I had seen it clearly from my hotel window and knew about how it lay.

60.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

It seemed my only chance of deliverance, and there was nothing to do but try it.

He STRIKES A MATCH.

I consulted the grocery boy's map with the aid of one of my few remaining matches and soon started once more. I hurried along Babson Street until I reached Eliot Street. I heard noises and ducked behind a car.

SHUFFLING FEET and CROAKING conversation echoes down the deserted street. Olmstead SNIFFS and grimaces.

OLMSTEADA sudden rise in the fishy odor nearly choked me. Then I saw a band of crouching shapes loping and shambling in the direction I was headed; and knew that this must be the party guarding the Ipswich road. Two of the figures I glimpsed were in voluminous robes, and one wore a peaked diadem.

When the last of the band was out of sight I resumed my progress, darting around the corner. My greatest dread was in re-crossing moonlit South Street. At the last moment I decided I had better make the crossing as before in the shambling gait of an Innsmouth native.

When the view of the water again opened out, I was determined not to look at it. But I could not resist; I cast a sidelong glance as I shambled toward the protecting shadows ahead. The first thing which caught my eye was a small rowboat pulling in toward the abandoned wharves and laden with some bulky, tarpaulin-covered object. Several swimmers were also still discernible;

61.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

while on the far black reef I could see a faint, steady glow unlike the winking beacon visible before, and of a curious color which I could not precisely identify. The fishy odor now closed in again with maddening intensity.

I had not quite crossed the street when I saw a muttering band advancing into the open square less than a block ahead of me. At this range I could see the bestial abnormality of their faces and the doglike sub-humanness of their crouching gait. One man moved in a positively simian way, with long arms frequently touching the ground; while another figure -- robed and tiaraed -- nearly hopped. I do not know whether they saw me or not. If they did, my stratagem must have deceived them, for they passed on across the moonlit space.

The things CROAK and JABBER in their hateful guttural patois. Olmstead SHUFFLES for a moment and then breaks back into a TROT. The ROAR of a waterfall gradually escalates.

OLMSTEADNo one was stirring on Bates Street beside the river-gorge, and it was an easy run past great brick warehouse walls. At last I saw the ancient train station -- or what was left of it -- and made directly for the tracks that started from its farther end.

The rails were rusty but mainly intact, and not more than half the ties had rotted away. I hurried as best I could down the tracks which followed the side of the river gorge until I reached the long covered bridge which crossed the chasm at a dizzying height. I entered, stepping tie to tie.

A barrage of BATS bursts out of the covered bridge.

62.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEADA cloud of bats flapped past me. About half-way across there was a perilous gap in the ties. I risked a desperate jump which fortunately succeeded and I soon emerged on the far side of the river. The dense growth of weeds and briers hindered me, but also provided some cover, as the tracks were clearly visible from the Rowley road which ran along the tracks before it cut across them.

I glanced behind me, but saw no pursuer. The ancient spires and roofs of decaying Innsmouth gleamed lovely and ethereal in the magic yellow moonlight, and I thought of how they must have looked in the old days before the shadow fell. Then, as my gaze circled inland from the town, something less tranquil arrested my notice.

I saw motion: a very large horde must be pouring out of the city along the level Ipswich road. The distance was great and I could distinguish nothing in detail; but I did not at all like the look of that moving column. It undulated too much, and glistened too brightly in the rays of moon.

The sound of a MARCHING ARMY with wet, irregular steps being led by CROAKING commanders, wafts across the distance.

OLMSTEADWhere could so many persons be coming from? I thought of those extreme Innsmouth types said to be hidden in crumbling, centuried warrens near the waterfront; of those nameless swimmers I had seen. Did those ancient, unplumbed warrens teem with a twisted, uncatalogued, and unsuspected life? Or had some unseen ship indeed landed a legion of unknown outsiders on that hellish reef? Who were they? Why were they here?

63.

Olmstead PUSHES his way through dense brush, BREATHING hard. He SNIFFS.

OLMSTEADThe tracks cut through a low hill and were heavily overgrown. I struggled along at a very slow pace when that damnable fishy odour again waxed dominant. Had the wind suddenly changed eastward, so that it blew in from the sea and over the town?

GUTTERAL MURMURS are followed by the sound of a kind of wholesale, colossal FLOPPING or PATTERING approaching.

OLMSTEADOh dear god, they’re here.

(narrating)Something was coming up the Rowley road. I buried myself into the brush, praying that while I could see where the road crossed the tracks, they should not be able to see me.

The noises swell to a bestial babel of CROAKING, BAYING and BARKING without the least suggestion of human speech. That flopping or pattering is MONSTROUS.

OLMSTEADI could not bear to see the source of the sound. I would keep my eyes shut until the sound receded to the west.

The air is foul with their hoarse SNARLINGS, and the ground almost shakes with their alien-rhythmed FOOTFALLS.

OLMSTEADBut my resolution to keep my eyes shut failed. It was foredoomed to failure -- for who could crouch blindly while a legion of croaking, baying entities of unknown source flopped noisomely past, scarcely more than a hundred yards away?

OLMSTEADI thought I was prepared for the worst. My other pursuers had been accursedly abnormal...

64.

(MORE)

But nothing that I could have imagined -- nothing, even, had I credited old Zadok's crazy tale in the most literal way would be in any way comparable to the demoniac, blasphemous reality that I saw... in a limitless stream -- flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating -- urging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant sarabande of fantastic nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish-gold metal... and some were strangely robed... and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man's felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head.

INTERVIEW CONT’D3f 3f

MCGRAWGood god.

OLMSTEADDid you ever really see them yourself, McGraw? Up close?

FLIGHT FOR LIFE CONT’D11a 11a

OLMSTEADThey were a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked.

65.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design -- living and horrible. Their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there were limitless swarms of them. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of fainting; the first I had ever had.

TRANSITION MUSIC.

LEGACY12 12

MCGRAWYou were lucky to get out of there alive, Olmstead.

OLMSTEADLucky? I suppose so. Sometime after noon the following day, I awoke on the tracks. It was raining a little. I staggered out to the roadway, but I saw no trace of any prints in the fresh mud. The fishy odor, too, was gone. I looked but didn’t see anyone.

MCGRAWAnd you walked the tracks all the way to Rowley?

OLMSTEADThat’s right. I reported it to the Arkham Police, but they said it would be an issue for the Massachusetts State Police. I don’t think they believed me. That’s when they sent me to you.

MCGRAWAnd it’s a good thing they did.

OLMSTEADAre the rumors true, McGraw, about a submarine firing torpedoes into the deeps off Devil Reef?

66.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

MCGRAWLet’s just say that the government has been very thorough about cleaning up the mess in Innsmouth. In fact, that’s why I’m here today. We’ve been keeping an eye on you.

OLMSTEADOn me?

MCGRAWWe suspect you haven’t quite put Innsmouth behind you.

OLMSTEAD(uneasy)

What do you mean?

MCGRAWWe know you’ve been doing some geneaological research.

OLMSTEADOh, yes. After Innsmouth, I gave up the rest of my tour -- but when I got to Arkham I tried to collect some information about my family. The curator of the historical society there -- Mr. E. Lapham Peabody -- was very courteous about assisting me....

TRANSITION MUSIC. Peabody, an ancient but enthusiastic genealogist helps Olmstead sort through his notes.

PEABODYSo your grandmother is Eliza Orne? Hmph!

OLMSTEADSomething wrong, Mr. Peabody?

PEABODYYears ago I helped, well, he would have been your maternal uncle, with this same research. Your grandmother’s a bit of local mystery among the genealogically inclined.

OLMSTEADHow do you mean?

67.

PEABODYThere’s been plenty of discussion about the marriage of her father, Benjamin Orne, since the ancestry of his bride was peculiarly puzzling. Your great grandmother, she would have been. She was understood to have been an orphaned Marsh of New Hampshire -- a cousin of the Essex County Marshes -- but she’d been educated in France and knew very little of her family. A guardian had deposited funds in a Boston bank to maintain her and her French governess; but that guardian's name was unfamiliar to Arkham people, and in time he dropped out of sight, so that the governess assumed the role by court appointment. The Frenchwoman -- now long dead -- was very taciturn, and there were those who said she would have told more than she did.

OLMSTEADThat’s the mystery?

PEABODYWell, you see, no one’s been able to place the recorded parents of the young woman -- Enoch and Lydia (Meserve) Marsh -- among the known families of New Hampshire. It seems the records may have been falsified. Some say she was from another branch of the Marsh family -- she certainly had the true Marsh eyes.

OLMSTEADMarsh eyes?

PEABODYOh you know them when you see them. You’ve got them yourself! Anyway, she died early, at the birth of her only child: your grandmother.

OLMSTEADWait. Are you saying I’m a Marsh?

PEABODYNo doubt about it.

68.

OLMSTEAD(troubled)

I see.

MUSICAL STINGER.

OLMSTEADI went directly home to Toledo to recuperate from my ordeal. In September I entered my final year at Oberlin. But you know that from when you and your men came to see me on campus.

MCGRAWMm-hm, just following up on some leads. Just like you’ve been following up on your family history, right?

OLMSTEADWell, you probably know I spent a week with my late mother's family in Cleveland last year. I did not relish the notion of a week in that depressing household, but I hoped to learn more family history while among the Williamsons.

My mother had never encouraged my visiting her parents as a child. My Arkham-born grandmother had seemed strange and almost terrifying to me. I was eight years when she disappeared. They she wandered off in grief after the suicide of my Uncle Douglas, her eldest son. He had shot himself after a trip to New England -- the same trip, no doubt, which had caused him to be recalled by Mr. Peabody. Douglas resembled her, and I never liked him either. Something about their staring, unblinking expressions. My mother and Uncle Walter had their father’s looks, though my poor cousin Lawrence -- Walter's son -- looked just like my grandmother.

MCGRAWYes, I spoke with your Uncle Walter.

69.

(MORE)

He’s been very concerned about his son, your cousin Lawrence. And you. Your uncle showed you some things that once belonged to your grandmother, didn’t he?

OLMSTEADOh yes, Agent McGraw, he did...

TRANSITION MUSIC.

FAMILY TIES13 13

UNCLE WALTERSo, Robert, researching the family tree, eh?

OLMSTEADJust putting the pieces together.

UNCLE WALTERI have some of your mom’s old family papers on the Ornes. She had a safe deposit box, I think there’s stuff in there too; we’ll go downtown and have a look. You feeling alright? Heard you fell ill back east last summer.

OLMSTEADJust nerves, really. I’m better now, thanks. I meant to ask, how’s Lawrence doing?

UNCLE WALTERHe’s still in the sanitarium over in Canton. They do the best they can for him, but...

Walter SIGHS.

OLMSTEADI’m sorry.

UNCLE WALTERWhat can you do?

OLMSTEAD(narrating)

Going over the letters and pictures on the Orne side, I began to acquire a kind of terror of my own ancestry.

70.

MCGRAW (cont'd)

(MORE)

My grandmother and Uncle Douglas had always disturbed me. Now, years after their passing, I gazed at their photos with repulsion and alienation. I could not at first understand the change, but gradually a horrible sort of comparison began to obtrude itself on my unconscious mind. I struggled not to think about it. My uncle took me to my mother’s bank.

ECHOING FOOTSTEPS as a bank clerk leads Walter and Olmstead to a safe deposit box.

BANK CLERKThe safe deposit box is here. When you’ve finished, just lock it up and we’ll return it to the vault.

UNCLE WALTERThank you.

The bank clerk WALKS away.

OLMSTEADWhy did mom keep papers in a safe deposit box?

Walter FITS A KEY into the box. It CLICKS open.

UNCLE WALTERShe had some of her grandma’s old jewelry. There we go, now let’s see what she had in here... Here’s someone’s marriage certificate...

OLMSTEADAh.

UNCLE WALTERPhotos... what do you think, a graduation?

OLMSTEADCould be. What’s in that cardboard box?

UNCLE WALTERThat? Oh...well, it’s... that’s probably where she put your great-grandmother’s old jewelry.

71.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

OLMSTEADReally? I wonder...

UNCLE WALTERThey’re weird, old things. Grandma would look at them, but even she wouldn’t wear them. Really, they’re hideous.

OLMSTEADHideous? May I?

Walter UNWRAPS the tissue from around the pieces.

UNCLE WALTERAre you alright, Robert? You’re shaking.

OLMSTEAD(not)

I’m fine, fine.

UNCLE WALTERI think this one’s a tiara, see?

Olmstead MOANS and falls to the floor with a THUD.

MUSICAL STINGER.

SHOWDOWN14 14

OLMSTEADFrom that day on my life has been a nightmare of brooding and apprehension. Is that what you came here to learn, Agent McGraw?

MCGRAWYour great-grandmother was a Marsh whose husband lived in Arkham.

OLMSTEADAnd Zadok said that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an Arkham man through a trick. He also muttered about me having eyes like Captain Obed's.

MCGRAWYou know, we were never able to question Zadok Allen.

72.

(MORE)

By the time my men raided Innsmouth, he had already disappeared.

OLMSTEADImagine that. Obed Marsh, my own great-great-grandfather. Who -- or what -- then, was my great-great-grandmother?

MCGRAWI think you already know the answer to that, Olmstead. You should have left it all alone.

OLMSTEADNo, Agent McGraw, it’s you who should have left it alone.

There is a RUSTLING sound as Olmstead draws something from his pocket.

MCGRAWOlmstead, put down that gun! What are you doing?

OLMSTEADNo sudden moves, please. I bought this pistol months ago, intending to kill myself, as my Uncle Douglas did when he, too, learned the truth.

MCGRAWEasy now, Olmstead. This is all nothing to get worked up over. The jewelry might have been bought from some Innsmouth sailor. And that staring-eyed look you thought you saw in the faces of your grandmother and uncle is sheer fancy on your part -- sheer fancy, bolstered by the Innsmouth shadow which has influenced your imagination.

OLMSTEADThen why did my uncle kill himself after an ancestral quest in New England? If this is all sheer fancy, then why are you here now?

73.

MCGRAW (cont'd)

MCGRAWWe can help you, Olmstead. Put down the gun.

OLMSTEADNo, McGraw, there’s no help for me anymore. For more than two years I fought off this “sheer fancy”. My father secured me a place in an insurance office, and I buried myself in routine. In the winter of 1930 the dreams began. Great watery spaces opened out before me, and I seemed to wander through titanic sunken porticos and labyrinths of weedy cyclopean walls with grotesque fishes as my companions. Then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless horror the moment I awoke. But during the dreams they did not horrify me at all -- I was one with them; wearing their trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying monstrously at their sea-bottom temples.

MCGRAWOlmstead...

OLMSTEADSome frightful influence, I felt, was seeking gradually to drag me out of the sane world into unnamable abysses of blackness and alienage. My health and appearance grew steadily worse, till finally I was forced to give up my position and adopt the static, secluded life of an invalid. Some odd nervous affliction had me in its grip, and I found myself at times almost unable to shut my eyes. I saw my face in the mirror with mounting alarm. My father and uncle seemed to notice it, too, for they began looking at me almost affrightedly. What was taking place in me? Could it be that I was coming to resemble my grandmother and uncle Douglas? Is that why they called you, McGraw?

74.

MCGRAWOlmstead, please, we all just want to help you. Give me the gun. Please, don’t do anything foolish.

OLMSTEADOne night I dreamed I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me. She had changed -- as those who take to the water change -- and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too -- I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.

I met also that which had been her grandmother. For eighty thousand years Pth'thya-l'yi had lived in Y'ha-nthlei, and thither she had gone back after Obed Marsh was dead. Y'ha-nthlei was not destroyed when your pathetic submarines shot death into the sea, McGraw. It was hurt, but not destroyed. The Deep Ones can never be destroyed. For the present they rest; but some day they will rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craves. It will be a city greater than Innsmouth next time. They have planned to spread, and have brought up that which will help them, but now they must wait once more.

MCGRAWOlmstead, I’m warning you for the last time....

Another RUSTLING sound.

OLMSTEADAh, I see you have a gun as well. Do you think I am frightened?

75.

(MORE)

Last night I had a dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time: that’s a sight to set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. This morning the mirror definitely told me I have acquired the Innsmouth look.

I’m not afraid of you, McGraw. I feel queerly drawn toward the sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation. I do not need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, you and my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium like my poor little cousin. Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Ia! R'lyeh! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

A pistol COCKS.

OLMSTEADNo, I shall not shoot myself -- I cannot be made to shoot myself! I shall plan my cousin's escape from that mad-house, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever!

GUN SHOTS ring out. Dark Adventure closing THEME.

CLOSING15 15

CHESTER LANGFIELDYou’ve been listening to H.P. Lovecaft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, brought to you by our sponsor, Fleur de Lys, the cigarette made from the finest tobaccos. Fleur de Lys -- a boon for a breathless age. Until next week, this is Chester Langfield reminding you to never go anywhere alone; if it looks bad, don’t look;

76.

OLMSTEAD (cont'd)

(MORE)

and save the last bullet for yourself.

ANNOUNCER“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” was adapted for radio and produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman. Original music by Troy Sterling Nies. The Dark Adventure Ensemble featured: Leslie Baldwin, Sean Branney, Kacey Camp, Mark Colson, Dan Conroy, Steve Coombs, Matt Foyer, McKerrin Kelly, Andrew Leman, Barry Lynch, John McKenna, Josh Thoemke, and Noah Wagner. Tune in next week for “Fate of the Ancients” -- a Nate Ward adventure. Dark Adventure Radio Theatre is a production of the HPLHS Broadcasting Group, a subsidiary of HPLHS, Inc., copyright 1931...plus seventy-seven.

Radio STATIC and fade out.

77.

CHESTER LANGFIELD (cont'd)