LITMIR.BIZ

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and although at first reluctant to support this taking of the law into our own hands, they eventually agreed to lead the raid. One group, led by Jensen, would go in at the front, while agent Corder would command the second which would enter by the rear.

      Arming myself with a pistol, I accompanied the second group. In all, we numbered twenty-two men. None of us knew what to expect as we made our way silently along Lafayette Street towards the rear of the huge building. Once we were in place, we waited for the two blasts on a whistle, which would signal that the other band was ready to move in.

      Lights were visible in three of the rear windows and occasionally a shadow would pass across the curtains. Clearly, the house was occupied, but whether the shadows we saw belonged to members of the Marsh family or to servants, it was impossible to tell.

      The signal to attack came five minutes later. Running forward, three of the men smashed in the heavy door and moments later, we were inside the house. A long, gloomy corridor led through the house towards the front of the building. Several rooms opened off from it on either side but a quick search revealed only two terrified servants and little out of the ordinary.

      Meeting up with the first group we found Obed Marsh seated in a chair before the fire. He had obviously attempted to reach for a weapon when the men had burst in, for a pistol lay on the table. Now he sat covered by the revolver in Jensen’s hand.

      “Did you find anything?” Jensen spoke directly to Corder.

      “Nothing in any of the back rooms,” Corder replied. “But if there is any contraband here, it’s likely to be well hidden.”

      “You’ll find nothing!” Marsh snarled. He half rose to his feet, then sat down again at a gesture from Jensen. “And you’ll all pay for this unwarranted intrusion. I’ll make damned sure of that.”

      There was something in his threat that sent a shiver through me. I had long known him to be a man who never made idle threats.

      While the rest of the men made a thorough search of the house, with five of them climbing the stairs to the upper storeys, I made a slow circuit of the room. Several portraits of the Marsh family members, going back for several generations, hung on the walls, but it was not these that made me feel uneasy. There were also other things, lining the mantelpiece above the wide hearth and on top of several long shelves around the walls.

      There could be only one place where Marsh could have obtained these grotesque statues depicting hideous monstrosities, the likes of which I had never seen before. In particular, I came across a trio of statuettes, each about ten inches in height, which were frightful in the extreme. Apart from the nightmarish contours, which appeared to be hybrids of various sea creatures, the anatomical quintessence of these idols, the grotesque tentacular nature of the limbs and malformed torsos, suggested to me things from some distant pre-human era. The nature of the material from which they were fashioned was also highly peculiar. A pale, nauseous green, striated with minute black lines, it was extremely heavy, and none of us could even hazard a guess as to what it was.

      A sudden shout from one of the adjoining rooms jerked my attention from them. In a loose bunch, we made our way towards the sound, leaving Jensen to keep an eye on Marsh.

      In one of the rooms, the men had come across a locked door which, on being broken down, revealed a flight of stone steps, clearly leading to cellars beneath the house. Lighting three of the lanterns we had brought with us, we descended the steps, almost retching on the stench which came up to meet us. It was a sharp, fishy odor, which caught at the backs of our throats, almost suffocating us.

      At the bottom, in the pale light from our lanterns, we saw the shocking confirmation of what I had seen earlier concerning my nocturnal vigils on the cliffs. There were more than a score of natives crowded into the cellar, and one or two of the men cried out as we tried to assimilate what we saw.

      Several of us had sailed to many foreign ports during the prosperous trading and privateering days, and were fully conversant with the many native races found on different islands of the Pacific. But what we saw in the wavering lantern light was something none of us had ever witnessed!

      These were the most repulsive creatures I had ever set eyes on. Apart from some curious deformity of their bodies, their bulging eyes and oddly shaped heads held something of the aquatic physiognomy of fishes, and I could swear that some of them had hands and feet which seemed to be webbed!

      Sickened by the sight and smell, I turned away, and it was then I noticed the hastily boarded-up doorway in the far wall where the shadows were thickest. Drawing Corder’s attention to it, we soon ripped away the boards and shone the light of one of the lanterns into the gaping aperture that lay behind them. There was no doubting what it was; the opening into one of the old smugglers’ tunnels leading down towards the sea.

      “So that’s how he brought them here.” Corder muttered grimly. “God alone knows how many more of these creatures are in the town, probably concealed in cellars like this.”

      Charged the next day with illegally importing unidentified aliens, Obed Marsh and several of his crew were thrown into jail to await trial, and for two days thereafter an uneasy quiet reigned in Innsmouth.

      It was not to last, however. For then came the day which was to change Innsmouth forever.

      As far as I was concerned, my suspicions were aroused when I noticed several groups of men in the streets adjoining the jail. All of them were either men who had sailed with Marsh in the past, or those who had joined him later when he had spoken out against the various religious denominations.

      It was clear their intention was to secure Obed’s release by force, and this seemed confirmed when they began moving in the direction of Main Street. Hurriedly alerting several of my neighbors and telling them to spread the word, we succeeded in gathering more than fifty men armed with muskets, pikes, knives, and any other weapons they could lay their hands on.

      By the time we reached the jail, we found it had already come under attack. Some of the raiders had forced their way inside, and the unmistakable sound of shots came from somewhere within the building. Moments later, we were set upon by the yelling mob and I was fighting for my life against men I had known for years who now acted like crazed madmen.

      For a time, since we outnumbered them by almost two to one, we succeeded in driving them back from their objective. But as they retreated along Main Street, a great horde of natives burst out of Waite Street, forcing us back towards the bridge over the Manuxet.

      In the distance, I could clearly pick out more gunfire coming from all directions, but concentrated mainly near the center of the town and along the waterfront, and guessed that fighting had broken out in several places. Already, we had suffered a number of casualties; seven men had been killed, and almost twice that number wounded.

      Luckily, the majority of the natives were unarmed, relying on sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm us. Several were killed within the first few minutes, but the rest came on, heedless of their casualties.

      It was the bridge that temporarily saved us. On either side, the riverbank as far as the falls was far too steep and treacherous to be readily scaled, and the Manuxet was in full flood after the recent rains, thereby preventing the creatures from crossing the river and assaulting us from the rear.

      For almost an hour we managed to hold off the attackers, inflicting terrible carnage among their ranks. When they began to pull back, we believed we had beaten them off, and although firing could still be heard around the town center, it was sporadic, and it appeared the situation was slowly being brought under control.

      After what several of us had witnessed in the cellar below the Marsh mansion, I think we believed we were prepared for anything. But nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

      It was Silas Benson who suddenly called our attention to the river below us. As I have said, the Manuxet was in full flood, but now it teemed with black shapes, swimming upstream against the racing current. That they had come from the sea was immediately obvious. Literally hundreds of them came swarming onto the bank, and one horrified glance was enough to show that these creatures were even less human than

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