The Innswich Horror

stickler for detail, I commenced with my own sojourn on July, 15, 1939, leaving Newburysport from the same bus stop in front of the very real Hammond’s Drug Store for the town of Salem, which was HPL’s blueprint for Arkham.

I’d selected the forward-most seat on the coach, on the right-hand side, which afforded a spacious view through the windscreen. Several miles past the Essex now, the scenery seemed to denigrate in a manner that eludes sensible description; suddenly, the woods looked impoverished, the vegetation lost its summer luster, and even the road, paved only by crushed oyster shells, elicited the word sallow, though I know this sounds preposterously non-schematic. It was something, however, that existed beyond that month’s record-breaking drought. An unchecked darkness settled in my spirit for reasons I cannot define.

Finally, through the windscreen, I took refreshing note of some sign of humanity: a rundown wood-slat shack—obviously a domicile—next to what appeared to be a smokehouse. A hog-pen, too, caught my eye, bounded by crude chicken wire and surrounding less than half a dozen swine. Something smelled appetizing, though, which I thought could only be from the smokehouse. Lastly a sign and roadside vending stand came into view. The sign read: ONDERDONK & SON. SMOKEHOUSE — FISH-FED PORK. At the same instant we passed, the driver seemed to grunt.

“Fish-fed pork?” I queried the driver. “I’ve never heard of that. Have you ever happened to try it?”

The driver’s face remained forward, and at first I thought he had no intention of answering. “T’ain’t nothin’ I’ve ever et nor ever will. Same five hogs in that pen damn near year-long. More like fish-fed skunk, knowin’ the Onderdonks. He and his kid—they’se furren. Don’t like ‘em, an’ they’se don’t like us.”

A second of cogitation translated furren as foreign. I couldn’t resist: “Us as in whom?”

“Don’t matter!” the driver snapped. “Me, I’m just doin’ my job. But them Onderdonks don’t dare try to sell past the loop.”

By now I had no conceivable idea what founded the driver’s displeasure. “The loop?” I said more to myself.

“They sell that slop you call barbeque to migrants and plain folk who happen to be travelin’ from New’bry to Salem, but they never take the loop in to town.”

The perplexion steeped. I thought I’d best keep my queries to myself yet I also knew that the map showed no other town between Newburyport and Salem. “The town? You must mean Salem, but surely we’re still an hour off at the least.”

“No,” he grumbled. Only now did I take notice of the driver’s features—first recounting Lovecraft’s story and the motor-man named Joe Sargent, cursed by that “Innsmouth look”: narrow-headed, flat-nosed, crease-necked, with unblinking, over-protuberant eyes. Sargent’s appearance causes in the mind of Robert Olmstead a spontaneous aversion. This fellow here, however, though surly in demeanor, was just a commonplace workingman.

“Olmstead,” he said, “and here’s the loop now.” He veered aside and took a fork in the road, past a sign that read OLMSTEAD - 2 MILES - POP. 361. “This the only bus that goes there’n it’s a fifteen-minute time-point.”

It wasn’t the fact that we were suddenly embarking toward a town I’d not heard of (not to mention a town not displayed on the map) but something else altogether. “Olmstead?” I pressed the word. “You’re telling me there’s an uncharted town called Olmstead?”

The question perturbed him. “It’s on the time-table. We had a devil of a time tryin’ to get the county to let us put in a bus stop; they made us incorporate, whatever that means ‘sides havin’ to pay a fee. Had to do the same to get mail delivery. T’ain’t right that Olmsteaders shouldn’t have no way to get to the bigger towns, especially the economy bein’ the way it is,” and then an abrupt thumb jerked over his shoulder to gesture the six other passengers sharing the coach with me. “Weren’t for the fishin’,” he added, “we’d be sunk.”

Though these men must’ve heard the driver, their faces remained blank. They were unkempt, shabbily attired—fishermen, I saw, for they each had an armful of new fishing rods, plus several rolls of nets. It was clear they’d traveled to Newburyport to purchase these supplies. Still, though, the distraction of these rough but normal men didn’t suffice to sway my major focus…

This is something. An arcane notion told me that mere coincidence wouldn’t suffice to explain this. A town—Olmstead—sharing the name of Lovecraft’s very protagonist in The Shadow Over Innsmouth…

The road narrowed, and grew more runneled, as my olfactory senses told me we were nearing the water. Suddenly an excitement usurped all other thoughts. Though Lovecraft traveled extensively his entire adult life, none of his travel logs that I knew of mentioned a town called Olmstead. Had this town given Lovecraft the name of his main character? I so hoped. And if so, what would the town be like?

The answer would be soon at hand.

2.

It was an assailing disappointment that first swept me as the smoke-belching coach stopped in what I presumed was Olmstead’s town-center. In fantasy, I thought I’d made a unique discovery: that I’d stumbled upon the true model for the Master’s most masterful tale, and that at any moment now, I’d be envisioning Innsmouth’s evilly-shadowed alleys, crumbling wharfs, and oddly angled, steep-roofed buildings rife with decrepitude and that “wormy decay” so ably conveyed by the tale’s creator.

Instead I was greeted by nothing of the sort. Olmstead clearly owed its architecture to the utilitarian government block-house designs that came with the subsidized renewal projects of the late-‘20s to early-‘30s. What a let-down! Olmstead, indeed, was generic, not singular.

The bus seemed to hiccough smoke a full minute before the motor shut down. The half-dozen shabby fishermen stood from their seats simultaneously, then filed out, carrying their rods, tackle, and nets. “Fifteen minutes, in case ya want a breather and a stretch,” informed the driver without looking at me. “You’re goin’ on to Salem, right?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” I said and followed him off. He headed across the sterile street, toward a shop.

The smell of fish and low-tide gushed down the street from the direction I knew must be shoreward. Nothing at all like the aghast reek that so nauseated Robert Olmstead in the tale. The town- center left nothing particularized to describe, just block building after block building. Some must be apartments, for out from their windows hung laundry to dry; others must be businesses, though I detected not much in the way of local commerce. Now I had to smile at my overzealousness. The coincidence of the hidden town’s name was clearly just that. And this place, I thought, was no more a creative influence to Lovecraft than it would be an influence to any traveler: lackluster, unfeatured, insipid.

When rising footsteps signaled me from this juvenile plunge of disappointment, I expected to find the chilly driver returning but instead looked up into the smiling face of a spry, good-conditioned man about my own age, or perhaps slightly younger, sharply dressed in conservative suit and tie, with dark-brown hair neatly combed. He carried a briefcase, and wore one of the smart beige Koko-Kooler hats, which were all the fashion rage among younger men these days. His expression seemed, oddly, one of relief, though I was certain we’d never before met.

“How do you do?” he greeted.

“I’m quite good, and hope you are as well.”

“Sorry to intrude, but its just that your face seems a bit more welcome than the other men I’ve met here.” His eyes glimpsed the cumbersome coach. “I take it you’re traveling?”

“Why, yes. I’m going on to Salem. The name’s Foster Morley—”

“William Garret,” he returned and heartily shook my hand. Then he whispered, “Some odd ones in this town, eh?”

“None that I’ve yet noticed,” I admitted. “Haven’t seen anyone else about, other than you, I mean. You’re