The Innswich Horror

“Candace! Come out here!”

Before I could object, the door opened, and out stepped a timid and very naked woman in her twenties. One hand covered her bare pubis; her other arm attempted to cover two very swollen breasts. What she couldn’t cover at all, however, was the belly stretched out tight and huge from a state of pregnancy that had to be close to the end of its term. Obliquely, I made out a radio tune from the other room, “Heaven Can Wait,” I believe, by Glen Gray.

The girl smiled crookedly at me through a gap in the hair falling over her face. “Hi. We-we could have a nice time together, sir…”

More of the real world I didn’t care for at all. By now I’d managed the shock of this horrendous miscalculation, and produced a frown of my own which I directed immediately to Zalen. “I gave you the money so you needn’t feel your valuable time is wasted. I’m not interested in prostitution nor pornography.”

Zalen chuckled. “Come on, Mr. Morley. You ever had your tallywhacker in a pregnant girl? Bet’cha haven’t.”

“You’re a profane vagabond!” I yelled at him.

“—and it’s not like you can knock her up.”

I wished that looks could kill at that moment, for my look of utter loathing would surely have shorn him in half. “I’m interested in a particular photograph I’m told you’re in possession of, and if this is the case, I’ll pay you one hundred more dollars for it.”

Zalen looked agape at my words, then flicked a hand at the girl, to shoo her back into the bedroom. “A hundred dollars, you say?”

“One hundred dollars.” Now I noticed what first appeared to be splotches of pepper inside the man’s elbows but my naivety wore off in a moment and told me they were needle scars. “My patience is growing thin, Mr. Zalen. Do you or do you not have a photograph of a writer by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft?”

For the first time Zalen actually smiled. The couch creaked when he sat down and crossed his thin, white legs. “I remember him, all right. Had a voice like a kazoo, and all the guy ever ate were ginger snaps.” He jumped up quickly, and slipped something from the bookcase. He showed it to me behind his gap-toothed smile.

It was a copy of the Visionary Publications edition of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I removed mine from my jacket pocket and showed him likewise.

“I didn’t think anybody even read that guy, but I’ll tell you, after this came out, a lot of folks did, and they weren’t too happy with what he had to say about our town. Most of Olmstead back then was moved down to Innswich Point, so the guy changes the name to Innsmouth. Christ. Changed all the names but only a little, you know? Like he wanted us to know what he was really writing about.”

“For God’s sake, Mr. Zalen,” I countered. “He merely used his topical impressions of this town as a setting for a fantasy story. You’re practically accusing him of libel. All writers do things like that.” I cleared my throat. “Now. Do you have the photograph?”

“Yeah, I got it, but only the negative. I can have it developed for you tomorrow.” His smile turned slatternly. “But I’ll take the hundred up front.”

I am not a man given to confrontation or brusqueness, but this I would not stand for. “You’ll take five dollars for processing fees, and the remaining ninety-five when I have what I want,” I told him and thrust him another five.

He took it all too eagerly. “Deal. Tomorrow, say four.” His eyes turned to cunning slits. “Who told you I had the picture?”

“A friend of mine,” I snapped. “A woman named Mary Simpson—”

An abruptitude pushed him back in his seat; he nearly howled. “Oh, now I get it! She’s a friend of yours, huh? I guess you’re not the goodie-two-shoes I pegged you as.”

I winced at the remark. “What on earth do you mean?”

“Mary Simpson used to be the town slut. Now, this town was full of sluts but Mary took the cake. She was a whore, Mr. Morley, a whore of the first water, as my grandfather used to say.”

“You’re lying,” I replied with immediacy. “You’re merely trying to incense me because you’re resentful of people with means. I see your frowsy smile, Mr. Zalen, but I’ve a mind to wipe it right off your face by canceling any further business with you and seeing my way out of this den of drugs and iniquity you call your home.”

“But you won’t do that, Mr. Morley, because guys like you always get what they want. You’ll be back tomorrow, and you’ll have the rest of the money. You just don’t want to know the truth.”

“And what truth is that?”

“Not too many years ago? Mary Simpson was the top dog dockside whore in all of Innswich. Christ, she’s had, like, eight or ten trick babies, man. She made a lot of money for me.”

Now it was my turn to smile at the bombast. “I’m supposed to believe you’re her panderer? Er, what do they call them now? Pimps?”

“Not is, was. About five years ago the bitch got all high-falutin’ on me.”

“I still don’t believe you. She enlightened me of her plight, regarding her husband who abandoned her. Certainly, the man was of less repute even than you.”

“Husband, Jesus.” He shook his head with the same grin. “If you believe that, you probably believed that War of the Worlds broadcast last October.”

Of course, I hadn’t believed a word of it; I’d read the book! But for what Zalen was inferring now? It’s just more of his loser’s game, I knew. “And now I suppose you’re going to tell me she was a drug addict, like you.”

“Naw, she never rode the horse, she was just crazy for cock.” He raised a brow. “Well, cock and money.”

“And this I’m supposed to take on the authority of a drug addict who would stoop so low as to sell pictures of innocent young pregnant women to degenerates.”

“There are a lot of ‘degenerates’ in the world, Morley. Supply and demand—there’s what your capitalism’s caused.” He looked directly at me. “You’d be surprised how many sick fellas there are out there who like to look at pregnant girls.”

“And you’re the purveyor—to support your narcotics habit, no doubt,” I snapped. “Without the supply, there becomes no demand, and then morality returns. But this will never happen as long as predators such as yourself remain in business. You sell desperation, Mr. Zalen, via the exploitation of the subjugated and the poverty- stricken.”

This seemed to ruffle a feather or two. “Hey, you’re just a rich pud, and you got no right to make judgments about people you don’t know. Not everybody’s got it easy like you do. The government’s building battleships for this new Naval Expansion Act while half the country’s starving, Mr. Morley, and while ten million people got no jobs. Redistribution of wealth is the only moral answer. What an apathetic military industrial complex forces me, or the girl in the back room, or Mary, or anyone else to do to survive is nothing you have the right comment on.”

An unwavering sorrow touched me with the self-admission that, on this particular point, he was correct. Perhaps that’s why his truth urged me to despise him all the more. Though obviously a proponent of Marx and Ingles, Zalen had quite accurately labeled me. A rich pud. I didn’t bother to point out my many acts of philanthropy; I’m sure an alienist in this day and age would diagnose my acts of charity as merely attempts to alleviate guilt. Eventually I replied, “I apologize for any such judgments, but for nothing else. Even if what you accuse Mary of is true, I could hardly blame her, for reasons you’ve already stated. I believe that she and millions of other downtrodden… and even you, Mr. Zalen, are essentially victims of an invidious environment.”

“Oh, you’re a real treat!” he laughed.

I knew I must not let him circumvent me, for that would only refresh my despair, in which case he would win. “I’m here for business regarding my pastime. Let us stick to that. I’ll also pay—say, five dollars apiece—for any