Innsmouth Escape: Backstory |
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Written by Matt Sanborn
Just do it as a jape, for laughs and all.
There were ten of us, and now there just seems to be me.
And no one is laughing now.
Let's take the bus down from Arkham where we were all attending Miskatonic: There were the boys from St. Mary's Medical College coming along with Raymond, Corrine, The Z, Thaddeus and myself… Let's take the bus down to Innsmouth and peak around. The lads thought they would find some interesting specimens with which to scare their friends back home.
We should have known when none of the people in town would tell us anything about the place; and when Joe Sargent, that awful, ugly man-thing opened the door of his bus, I had serious second thoughts. But I wasn't afraid. Superstitions and folk lore is all it is.
But it wasn't all there is.
Stepping off the bus into that place the smell of rotting fish overtook me, and the slamming of that bus door sounded like a prison gate condemning us to a certain death. Looking around no one seemed all that scared, but we all were. But no where near as scared as we would be.
Innsmouth is such a slum, everything around you, which was once beautiful, is now rotting away. I could feel people watching us through the slats of boarded up windows, and odd figures hid themselves from their widow's walks when we approached. Downtown there was a general store and a hotel.
The store was about as run down as it could be and still remain standing. The products were all in cans and covered with a rather thick layer of dust. Watching the man behind the counter watching us, I realized one thing about the residents here - their bulging, almost fish type eyes. Like they could see you even from behind.
Due to politeness we each purchased a small item and departed quickly.
The St. Mary's gang moved east into the town from here, and we continued our walk south, soon finding ourselves down on the beach. And there it was maybe a mile from shore - the legendary rock formation known throughout the area as "Devil's Reef." It was as if the tip of something very unnatural, very sinister was poking out to spy on us, like the rest of the denizens here.
I can't tell you the rush of emotions I had. Dread and fear and curiosity, excitement and horror, all mixing inside my head at once. But The Z and Corrine laid out a blanket and opened up their food items. Raymond and Thaddeus joined suit, but not me. I could not look away from that awful yet magnificent black monolith. About 100 yards to the right was a small dingy with oars tied to a rock.
"Anyone want to take that boat out to that island?" I asked my chums.
"You're mad," The Z said.
"You're not going out on a boat like that, are you?" asked his best girl Corrine. "Look how overcast the sky is. We need to eat and find the St. M boys then run from this awful place."
"I have to go out there."
"What?"
"Why?
"Have you gone mad?"
Something drew me to that island and on an almost somnambulistic state I walked into that little sloop and began rowing out to that island. I was not 200 yards out when the sky grey and ready to burst, began rushing by so close overhead it seemed I could touch it. The waves began to crash against me, and I struggled trying to turn the boat around.
Then the downpour began.
But this rain was not enough to fully obscure my vision of what I saw next. On the beach, my friends, all those people I have grown to care for over the past four years, under attack by things not quite human. Shambling, croaking demons emerging from the waters one after another in a non-stop stream. The beasts shambled, moving with an awful gait, right at the group.
I watched as Corinne throw sand into their bulging eyes, and tried to scream, when the boat was turned over. Something was near my feet, right near my feet, pulling. A shark? Worse? I saw its face, the horrible horrible face of this sea demon. Things went black as it took me under…
I'll never know how, but I ended up washing up, then waking up, on the beach. I remember the rocks, other sea devils, a tiara of gold and a monster of unspeakable size. And I remember a great tremble and ungodly screams… And now here I am.
The rain has stopped but night is almost here. This is no way out of town now, and no way I am leaving anyways. I have to find all my friends…
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