[Abe Sargent]

The Shadow Over Innsmouth Synopsis

All synopses are spoilers. Please skip this if you want no spoilers.


We open with our protagonist in Newburysport, in a coming of age tour of the area of his ancestry in New England. He is wanting a train to Arkham but does not want to pay the fare, so he is directed to a bus to Innsmouth that will then lead to Akrham. The locals advise him away from Innsmouth, and curious, he does a little investigation into Innsmouth while in Newburysport.

He discovers that the town is an old fishing village that may have, once, been a decent port, but has since decayed, with naught but one gold refinery and a lot of fishing as its remaining economy. He swing sby the Newburysport Historical Register and takes a look at a piece of gold supposedly from the Innsmouth refinery. It's a gold diadem with an alloy of some metal he does not recognize. The archaic tiara is fully developed and fleshed out, like it has centuries of art behind it, but does not resemble any known human style of art. The angles look off and the tiara appears to be shaped for an unusually sized head.

Intrigued by this piece of gold and by the rumors, our protagonist, with a fierce curious streak, decides to save a few bucks and takes the bus to Innsmouth. The bus is driven by Joe Sargent and he looks...off. The author will describe Joe Sargent's looks and although no individual description is unusual on its own, the cumulative effect is a very disquieting feeling.

The bus heads to Innsmouth and our protagonist views the countryside, observing the dilapidation of Innsmouth close up. He does get a bit of fright when passing a church newly dedicated to the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Out of the door walks a priest wearing a similar tiara, and he gets a bit of a scare, but nothing serious.

Our protagonist arrives and exits the bus. He can occasionally sees a fellow Innsmouth person and notices that they have a similar look to Joe Sargent. The young ones look farily normal, but older ones show more pronounced features. The portagonist calls this the Innsmouth Look, and beleives it is due to inbreeding on a massive level. There are not any old people about.

He heads to a local gorcery store which is a chain, where there is a normal service person there, from out of town. He explains the town, its eccentricities, where visitors are allowed to go, and gives the protagonist a crudely drawn map of Innsmouth.

The protagonist, as a historian of architecture, sets out to explore Innsmouth and observe the buildings. He explores the town for several horus before he comes across Zadok Allen sitting by the fire station. The clerk at the gorcery store mentioned that Zadok Allen, a man of 95 years old, could tell stories of early Innsmouth if it was loosened by liquor.

Seizing the opportunity, the protagonist procures a bottle of homemade whiskey and leads Zadok to a quiet and secluded area by the shore. Out over a mile and half is the Devil's Reef, where mysterious things are said to take place. Out of the way of peering eyes, the protagonost plies Zadok with alcohol until his tongue is loosened.

Several pages are dedicated to the history of Innsmouth as told by Zadok. Here is his short story:

A sailor named Obed Marsh owned several vessels and sailed out of Innsmouth to all corners of the world. While in Indonesia, Obed came across a group of native on a secluded island that were rich with these gold artifacts and fish. None of the other islands had a bounty of fish. These natives claimed that those they worshipped gave them fish and occasionaly these gold trinkets. In return, they gave sacrifices to the sea.

Obed traded for the gold trinkets and returned to Innsmouth. The depression of the early 1840s hit Innsmouth hard and the people were desparate. Then Obed sailed away again, and this time, he arrived with the natives and spoke with them at greater length. The chief gave him a lead stone with odd carvings and said that if Obed dropped the lead stone in the water anywhere near these Deep Ones, they would come up the surface. Supposedly, the Deep Ones would want to mate with humans and walk around outside, for they were amphibians and enjoyed such things. Their spawn would be immortal.

Obed left with a stone and a new bride from the tribe. When he rearrived at Innsmouth, he brought a group of desparate folk together and sailed out to Devil's Reef and called up the Deep Ones. Soon, a few people around town came up missing, and Zadok Allen, as a boy, realized that it was Obed who was taking them to Devli's Marsh, so he called up the town leaders.

This was several months after Obed had begun working with the Deep Ones. The village elders rose up and captured Obed and all of his crew in one fell swoop, over 30 men. Then, after a few days of not getting their tribute, the Deep Ones attacked Innsmouth en masse, butchered the town leaders, and installed Obed Marsh as the new leader of Innsmouth.

Obed took politicial power and used it against other nearby cities for a while, even tricking some poor Akrham bloke to marrying his hybrid daughter.

Obed created a bunch of new rules, such as don't tell strangers this story.


End Story:

As Zadok is pointing out some things on Devil's Reef, he cries out that they;ve been spotted from the water. He tells the protagonist to leave immeidately for it is no longer safe for him. Zadok flees from the water, but a sudden wave hits and when it relents, Zadok cannot be found anywhere.

The protagonist doesn't beleive old Zadok, and when he returns to Innsmouth to catch the outgoing Bus to Arkham, he is informed that the bus broke down and will not be able to make it that evening. He finds lodgings at the Gilman House in Innsmouth and lies down to sleep after repairing the broken bolt to his room and sliding the bolts to the north and south adjoining rooms.

After some time, he realizes that someone is using a key in his door's lock. They gently try to the lock but find that his repair to the deadbolt had kept it tight. They then try the two adjoinging doors quietly, testing them to see if they work. As they leave to go back downstairs, the protagonist can hear them talking to someone else. The protagonist realizes that his death is imminate and investigates the window. He sees that he will need to go north or south two rooms in either direction before tryign to jump on an adjacent building's roof.

He dares not go outside so he tries the south door, but finds it opens towards him, and it will be difficult to bash open. He slides a bookcase in front the door and then looks north. As he goes to that door, he hears someone knocking on his room door. He checks the north door and the knocking gets louder, hopefully covering his banging on the north door.

He blasts through the north door but the sound in tremendous. He sees that the door to the hallway is unbolted, so he slides the bolt just as someone reaches the door. He then dashes through the open adjoining door and closes the hallway door in this third room as the door is being opened. He pulls a bedcase against this door and he hears people slamming against the door in his first bedroom where the bookcase now is.

He slides furniture against all of the doors to the current room and moves to the window. The bashing against the doors and furniture is getting loud, and something heavy is being used as a ram against one door.

The protagonist sees that there is a large ledge on the opposite building and he goes over, then crawls up to an open skylight and runs down this new building, ultimitely hitting the street.

Consulting his map, our protagonist begins moving towards one of hte main roads, and as he does so, he will sometimes dash, sometimes hide, and sometime walk out in the open using the shambling Innsmouth gait. As the hue and cry level continues, he realizes that all of the main entries to city are guarded by Innsmouth folk, and he decides to head to the old railraod and use it as a way out (Innsmouth is surrouded by Salt Marshes and not really a place you just want to scurry around)

As he moves towards the station, he sees some lights on distant Devil's Reef and then turns around and sees those same lights coming from the Gilman House, like messages coming back and forth. Then, as the moon comes out from behind the cloud, he sees the ocean.

At first, he thinks the ocean is very choppy, but there is no wind. Then as he walks closer to the shore in order to get closer to the train station, he sees that the water is full of things swimming to shore from the Reef.

He ducks into a side alley and scurries to the train station. He begisn to follow the old train tracks and there is no pursuit. He jumps over a gap in the tracks at a covered bridge and comes to where the railroad crosses the main road in and aout of Innsmouth. As he gets closer, he observes that the people are on the road, out and looking for him.

He has a good hiding place, and can observe the people following him. His natural inclination is to close his eyeys and keep them shut from the terrors that he suspects as they people pass close by his hiding place in the brush. Ultiamtely, he looks and sees these fish/toad/human creatures moving about, and one is wearing the same type of tiara that he had seen twice before.

He passes out, only to awaken the following morn when he scurries to the nearest town and babbles all he saw to the local constabulary which calls in the feds. His information is verified and then acted upon. In one swift action, the feds torpedo Devil's Reef, kill and catpure most of Innsmouth and silence the ring leaders.


Several years later, our protagonist is continuing his genelogical investigations and there is a deadend with his grandmother. His grandmother was a ward of the court with a anonymous benefactor that paid her way through school. She married an Akrham man and they had a daughter, that was our protagonist's mother, and a son that was hs uncle.

The protagonist fears knowledge when he discovers that his grandmother was a Marsh, but there are many Marshes in the Essex County region of Massachusetts.

His grandmother had disappeared under strange circumstances, and his uncle committed suicide with a pistol (his mother died when he was very young to an accident). He had, as a chield, never liked the look of his grandmother and uncle, but it wasn't until he looked at their pictures that he noticed the similarty

Didn't Zadok mention that Obed had tricked an Arkham man into marrying his daughter?

Our protagonist has a cousin in the insane asylum in Canton spoting things about dreams and Deep Ones and many columned Y'ha-nthlei.

As our protagonist's investigations continue, his own dreams become more concrete. He dreams of swimming with his grandmother in great Y'ha-nthlei and of joining his brethern underneath the sea. As he looks in the mirror, he sees an increasingly familar and comfortable face staring back.

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Ia-R'lyehl Cihuiha flgagnl id Ia! No, I shall not shoot myself - I cannot be made to shoot myself!

I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton mad-house, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

-Anxiety