The Innsmouth Syndrome

The Innsmouth Syndrome

by

Philip Hemplow

The Innsmouth Syndrome

by Philip Hemplow

Copyright 2011 Philip Hemplow

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover art by Jordan Saia http://www.jordansaia.com/

THE INNSMOUTH SYNDROME

It was only when the indicator light of the car in front began to blink that Carla realised how dark it was getting. The sky beyond the left side windows was still purple with sunset, but on the right it was already black and studded with stars. The other vehicle began to climb the slip road, leaving her alone on the narrow two-lane. Carla flipped on the main beams and pressed her foot down, coaxing another ten miles per hour from the rented Honda.

It was almost seven p.m. and she was supposed to be at the hotel already. Her plane had spent an extra hour in a holding pattern over Logan International because of some security scare. A missing pilot’s uniform or something; she hadn’t bothered to seek out the details. All she knew was that it meant she was going to arrive late, and she was tired, and she was hungry.

The GPS chimed, interrupting a Handel concerto she’d found on one of the Boston stations. In—two—hundred yards, turn right. It was the first thing it had said for ten minutes. Carla slowed down.

She was driving past houses now. They had been spaced well apart at first, but were now almost continuous. Modern and shabby, set well back from the street, half of them looked derelict, with flaking paint and broken or boarded-up windows. The mouldering cars beached at the side of the road pointed to some degree of habitation though, and some of the porch lights were on, flickering like angler’s lures in the gloom.

In—one—hundred yards, turn right.

Carla hunched forward, peering through the windscreen for any sign of the road she was meant to take. She caught a sudden flash of movement in the corner of her eye, and her foot shot instinctively to the brake pedal—only just in time.

With a squeal of tyres, a white pick-up roared out of a side street at speed, swinging across the road a couple of feet in front of the Honda. For one sickening moment, it looked as though it would turn completely over, before lurching heavily back towards its center of gravity. Two young men clung on in the back, yelling and waving cans of Budweiser in drunken approval. A pale, skinny arse hung out of the passenger-side window, mooning the shutters and unlit windows of impoverished-looking shops. Reaching the end of the street, the pick-up screeched to the left, taking the wing mirror of a parked car with it, and disappeared from sight.

Carla remained frozen in her seat as the sound of whooping faded in the distance, and Handel’s soothing strains returned to prominence. The first flush of adrenaline ebbed quickly but her hands were still unsteady on the wheel. The fight-or-flight jumpiness would take a few minutes to subside.

She found that she had been mentally reciting a prayer, and interrupted herself immediately. It was a bad habit. Her mother would disagree, but Carla was inclined to attribute her deliverance to anti-lock brakes,not to a miracle courtesy of some nebulous and inconsistent deity.

Only one building in the street was spilling light into the evening murk. It looked like a diner. Across the road from it was a car park surrounded by a high wire mesh fence. Carla put the Honda in drive and headed for it. She needed a break from driving, and coffee would be welcome.

The night was a cool one—uncomfortably so for Carla, raised as she had been in near-perpetual Southern sunshine. She drew the jacket of her suit close about her with one hand, clutching her laptop and handbag in the other. It was eerily quiet now, the silence broken only by the low buzzing of the diner’s neon sign. The chirrup when she thumbed the Honda’s remote locking seemed almost raucous, and the clopping of her heels made her feel self-conscious as she walked back towards the street.

The diner was deserted, but seemed to be open. A bell above the door tinkled when she opened the door. She stood there for a moment, wondering whether it was worth stepping inside. Desperation for caffeine while travelling had driven her into some fairly basic and utilitarian establishments in the past, but, looking around, she decided this had to rank among the least impressive of them all. Baleful fluorescent lighting and a floor of black and white tiles were instantly dizzying, while the buzzing of the sign outside joined humming lights, refrigerators, and a resonating Insect-o-cutor, in a droning, headache-inducing symphony that was impossible to ignore.

Behind the grimy laminate counter stood a teenage girl, who would have been rail thin if she wasn’t heavily pregnant. She glared at Carla with evident hostility, drawing on a Marlboro and making no effort to move as her customer crossed the room.

Good evening, began Carla. No response. Can I get a cup of coffee, please?

The girl’s pasty, acne-mottled features curled in a sneer. Ain’t no hot water, she spat back, venting smoke. Her tone was challenging and surly. Carla was not sure which part of having to serve a smartly-dressed, educated and professional black woman had antagonised the girl, and she didn’t much care. She had learned to pick her battles.

Okay. Then can I have a Coke, please?

The girl waited an unnecessary couple of seconds before fishing a luke-warm bottle out of the chiller behind her and prising off the lid.

And a glass, added Carla as she began to turn back. The girl sighed pointedly, but pulled one down from the shelf. She put bottle and glass on the counter with unnecessary force, and glowered at Carla, defying her to ask for ice.

Carla picked up her drink and carried it to a table in the farthest corner of the room, aware of the girl’s eyes boring into her back. She was annoyed. Her own background was vastly more impoverished than that of anyone in the town she was in, and she’d done nothing to earn the girl’s contempt.

She decanted her drink and then powered up her laptop, partly to give her something to do and partly to aggravate the teenager. Unsurprisingly, there was no wireless service, but she didn’t need that to access her local files. Once the operating system had booted she navigated straight to the Innsmouth folder.

She’d glanced at the files before setting off, and had a rough idea of what was ahead of her, but hadn’t had a chance to read the details. She knew that her assignment was a punishment though: retribution for applying for a promotion without telling her boss. Carla had been unofficially pushed down a rung. Now the boss was attending a bioterrorism conference in Florence, everyone else of her grade was at a Legionnaire’s outbreak in a Colorado ski resort, and she was stuck with this godforsaken nothing-enquiry that the EPA had managed to foist on them.

She skipped past the usual expenses claim forms, hotel bookings, and letters, and opened a .pdf of the police report. It was littered with spelling errors and typos that hardly inspired confidence, but was otherwise routine enough, describing a road traffic accident seven weeks before. A stolen car containing four dead teenagers, two boys and two