The Shadow over Innsmouth / Морок над Инсмутом

Dun’t know haow his poor wife kin feel – she come from Ipswich, an’ they nigh lynched Barnabas when he courted her fifty odd year’ ago. Obed he died in ’seventy-eight, an’ all the next gen’ration is gone naow – the fust wife’s children dead, an’ the rest… God knows…”

The sound of the incoming tide was now very insistent, and little by little it seemed to change the old man’s mood from maudlin tearfulness to watchful fear. He would pause now and then to renew those nervous glances over his shoulder or out toward the reef, and despite the wild absurdity of his tale, I could not help beginning to share his vague apprehensiveness.

“Hey, yew, why dun’t ye say somethin’? Haow’d ye like to be livin’ in a taown like this, with everything a-rottin’ an’ a-dyin’, an’ boarded-up monsters crawlin’ an’ bleatin’ an’ barkin’ an’ hoppin’ araoun’ black cellars an’ attics every way ye turn? Hey? Haow’d ye like to hear the haowlin’ night arter night from the churches an’ Order o’ Dagon Hall, an’ know what’s doin’ part o’ the haowlin’? Haow’d ye like to hear what comes from that awful reef every May-Eve an’ Hallowmass? Hey? Think the old man’s crazy, eh? Wal, Sir, let me tell ye that ain’t the wust!”

Zadok was really screaming now, and the mad frenzy of his voice disturbed me more than I care to own.

“Curse ye, dun’t set thar a-starin’ at me with them eyes – I tell Obed Marsh he’s in hell, an’ hez got to stay thar! Heh, heh… in hell, I says! Can’t git me – I hain’t done nothin’ nor told nobody nothin’-

“Oh, you, young feller? Wal, even ef I hain’t told nobody nothin’ yet, I’m a-goin’ to naow! You jest set still an’ listen to me, boy – this is what I ain’t never told nobody… I says I didn’t do no pryin’ arter that night – but I faound things aout jest the same!

“Yew want to know what the reel horror is, hey? Wal, it’s this – it ain’t what them fish devils hez done, but what they’re a-goin’ to do! They’re a-bringin’ things up aout o’ whar they come from into the taown – ben doin’ it fer years, an’ slackenin’ up lately.