The Innswich Horror

quality photographs of this Innswich Point that you may have taken before the government renewal effort.”

His insolent grin returned, and that cocksure slouch. “You sure that’s all you want, Mr. Morley?”

“Quite,” I asserted.

“But, why? Back then, all of Olmstead, especially the Point, was a slum district.”

“Though I’d never expect you to understand, I’ve an interest in seeing the town as Lovecraft saw it, when it sparked the creative conception for his masterpiece.”

“So that’s your hobby, huh?” he mocked.

“Yes, and one, I’d say, quite harmless when compared to yours.”

He laughed. “Don’t knock my hobby, Mr. Morley. You know, pretty soon I’ll have to take a bang.” He slapped the inside of an elbow. “You should stick around to watch. It’d do someone like you good to see something like that, to look real hard right into the face of the only salvation that capitalism and all its hypocrisy leaves the poor.”

“Stop blaming your weakness on the American economic program,” I scoffed at him.

“And this book—” He held up Innsmouth again. “Pretty damn stupid if you ask me.”

“The likes of you would probably say the same of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ Mr. Zalen.”

He clapped in amusement. “Now you’re talkin’! Coleridge was a junkie too! But Lovecraft’s Innsmouth tripe? He got the town all wrong.”

“It wasn’t about the town,” I nearly yelled back. “It was an intricate and very socially symbolic fantasy.”

“And he should’ve at least done a better job changing peoples’ names.”

I sat up more alertly. “Why do you say that? I thought it mostly the names of places he altered.”

“No, no, damn near everyone in town he insulted with all that. Remember the bus driver from the story, Joe Sargent? The real man’s name was Joe Major, for God’s sake. And the town founders, the Larshes, he changed to the Marshes. And then there’s always Zadok Allen. What did Lovecraft call him? A ‘hoary tippler’?”

“Zadok Allen was the piece’s most preeminent stock character, a 96-year-old alcoholic who knew all of Innsmouth’s darkest secrets.”

Another grinning stare. “You’re not very perceptive, are you? The real man’s name was Adok Zalen. Does that last name ring any bells?”

The implication astounded me. “Zadok Allen-Adok Zalen, and… your name, too, is Zalen.”

“Yeah, he was my grandfather. Lovecraft got him drunk near the docks one night with some rotgut he bought at the variety store behind the speakeasy. My grandfather died the next day—of alcohol poisoning from the booze your hero Lovecraft gave him.”

Could this be true? And if so, it begged the further question: how much of Lovecraft’s invention might be the actual invention of Adok Zalen?

“Did the world a favor, though,” Zalen prattled on. “Christ, my grandfather was older than the hills and not worth a shit. He was a liar and a thief, and it was time for him to go.”

“I commend you for the respect you have for your relatives,” I said with a thick sarcasm.

“Lovecraft was a hack. Seabury Quinn was a much better writer.”

I could’ve hemorrhaged! “He was nothing of the sort, Mr. Zalen!” My shout of objection sounded near- hysterical, for now Zalen’s deliberate hectoring was taking its toll. This was my literary idol, after all, and I would not stand to hear his name and talents sullied by this denizen pornographer. “Now do you have the pictures of the old town or do you not?”

“I got ‘em. Wait here,” and he got up and loped into the back room.

The nerve of him, I thought, truly riled now. What could he know about quality fantasy fiction? The more I speculated, the more I preferred to dismiss his accusation that Lovecraft may have contributed to Adok Zalen’s demise. He’s simply asserting these lies for the purpose of a negative effect. No different from his lies about Mary.

I nearly moaned when my stray glance showed me a slice of the bedroom. He’d left the door open, and what I first noticed was a large-format camera on a tripodular stand. And then… something else…

Sitting awkwardly on an unsheeted bed was the pregnant prostitute—Candace, I believe he’d called her. She remained naked, and the mammarian effect of her pregnancy had stretched her areolae to pale pink circles. The great, gravid belly only added to the difficulty of what she was doing…

A cord girded her upper arm, to distend the veins at her elbow’s apex, and into such a vein she was now injecting something through an eyedropper fitted with a hollow needle. The devil of a man’s got her addicted as well, to maintain his exploitation of her…

Zalen, though rummaging out of view, could easily be heard. “You’re doing too much,” he complained to the girl. “It’ll ball up the kid. Remember what happened to Sonia?”

“But I can’t help it!” she whined.

“If that kid comes out dead, you’re in a world of trouble…”

I didn’t even want to conjecture what he might mean by such a statement. They probably planned to sell the baby to an adoptionage.

The scenario and its implications were sallowing my spirit. I was not in my element, and I hoped this would be a lesson to me.

Reappearing, he pulled the door closed behind him, bearing another manila folder. “All I had were these five, Mr. Morley,” he continued to impudently emphasize. “But it’s a hundred for the lot. Take it or leave it.”

“I won’t be extorted, Mr. Zalen,” I assured him. Such leverage was to be expected, though. Now that he knew my addiction, he would seek as much remuneration as my indulgence would tolerate. “I said five apiece, so it’ll be five apiece, and that’s only if they’re precisely what I’m looking for.”

“If you like ‘em, then pay me what you feel they’re worth. How’s that?”

“Fair enough,” and then I opened the folder.

The first photograph took the wind out of me: a seaward panorama of the town which showed a declining sweep of sagging gambrel rooftops, half-collapsed gables, and smokeless chimney pots. Closer to the sea rose a triad of lofty steeples, two of which were missing their clockfaces. My God, I thought. It’s nearly straight from the text: Robert Olmstead’s first glimpse of Innsmouth from Joe Sargent’s bus window. A second photo depicted the crumbling waterfront, its half-fallen wharves, fishing boats with ruptured hulls, and mountains of disused lobster traps. A row of sullen factories and processing plants—long abandoned—rose behind this scene of decrepitude and neglect, but again, it was straight from HPL’s grimly vivid description in the book. The third photograph showed a low-roofed stone building surrounded by Doric pillars; its outer walls looked eroded by age. Two large double lancet doors stood open, showing depthless black.

“That’s the old Freemason Hall,” Zalen informed.

And then it hit me. “Of course! It was this building that Lovecraft fancied the Esoteric Order of Dagon, where the crossbred priests held services of worship. They wore flamboyant raiments and tiaras of gold.”

“Now turn to the last picture,” he goaded.

But the next photo would be the fourth, and I’d thought Zalen said that five comprised the lot. Nevertheless, I turned to the next and was stunned by the vision of a macabre sunset over the harbor inlet. The effect made the water look molten. Past more decayed wharves and flanks of leaning, boarded-up shacks whose roofs looked fit to fall in was a vista of the sun-touched channel and what barely noticeably existed a mile or so beyond: an irregular black line just above the water’s surface. A dead lighthouse seemed to look northward.

“Lovecraft’s Devil’s Reef,” I knew at a glance.

“Um-hmm. Nothin’ devilish about it, though,” Zalen said. “It’s not really even a reef. It’s just a sandbar.” He rubbed his hands together. “But they’re good pictures, right?”

“They are,” I admitted. “It’s a pity how you’ve chosen to vitiate and hence debauch such a laudable talent for