Return of the Deep Ones and Other Mythos Tales by Lumley Brian

Author:Lumley, Brian
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: lovecraftian fiction, horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2017-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

THE RETURN OF THE DEEP ONES

I: The Conch

My prime purpose in the time which remains to me—and I have reason to believe that there may not be a great deal of that—is to chronicle the events leading up to my present untenable situation. In so doing I intend to leave a warning and an indictment against the insidious encroachment of horrors previously undreamed of. Without a doubt the veracity of the facts I shall present will be questioned, but of one thing I am certain: that if ever the whole truth of the matter is known, Man will never again pretend to occupy his much—vaunted role as “Master of His Own Destiny!” He is not!—and has he ever been?

I now find myself questioning the fundamental laws of space and time—those oh-so-long-accepted concepts of cosmogony, of heredity, and of all matters anthropological—yes, and the very basis of human existence itself. Yet the start of it all seemed so very innocuous. I look back on it now, and—

But it were best that I begin at the very beginning …

Some few short weeks ago in the late spring, I received via airmail package from America a fairly large, unusual, especially attractive conch. The shell, carefully wrapped against any possible breakage, was as big as my two fists together. It had an almost circular aperture of about two inches in diameter, and its reddish colour and spiked, tightly coiled whorl gave it the appearance almost of a huge, venomous insect. Of course, when I call the shell “attractive”, I speak as a man who once found in all sea—shells the entire spectrum of Nature’s beauty epitomized. In retrospect, I suppose others might well have found the shell quite repulsive.

My hitherto unknown benefactor gave an address in Innsmouth, a coastal town in America’s New England, and he had penned a brief letter of introduction:

Dear Mr Vollister,

Please forgive this unsolicited intrusion, but having read your recent articles in Oceans, I know you to be a conchologist of note and a well—known marine biologist. To show my appreciation of your work (I myself was always deeply interested in conchology but never had a professional’s aptitude for the work), I herewith enclose a conch from local waters. I am told that the shell is not at all common on your own Atlantic coastline, and since this is an especially beautiful specimen I thought you might like to own it. In the event of your already having one in your collection, then please forgive the frivolous impulse which alone prompted me to do this and accept the shell anyway as a token of my admiration.

Yours very sincerely

William P. Marsh

To say that I was delighted with this completely unexpected gift would be to understate my feelings severely. And as for Mr Marsh’s comment about the relative scarcity of his shell on my side of the Atlantic: that, too, was an understatement of no small magnitude.

While I am fairly conversant with all manner of conches on a world—wide scale, my particular speciality concerns those molluscs indigenous to British waters.

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