A Light in the Fog
Estimated read time: 10 minutes
Trish and Silas look up towards the lighthouse, watching the lantern cut through the fog in steady loops. They're squatted in the shadows of the nearby gatehouse out on Falcon Point, taking a moment to rest after the frantic drive from Innsmouth.
Trish checks her belongings to make sure nothing was lost in the journey - everything seems accounted for. From her training she knows it's important to never lose sight of what’s really important in these cases, and that means gathering all the resources you can before something inevitably goes wrong. Worst case scenario, she can always fall back on a little pickpocketing to help her get by, or scrounge for some supplies to be borrowed, permanently.
From their vantage point, Trish thinks they can break into the lighthouse without issue, but the last few weeks have taught Trish a lot about questioning first impressions. She didn't expect a case about a missing agent to being chased through an old New England town by fish people … twice. Who knows what could lie within the building up ahead.
As the light spins round, Trish catches a glimpse of Silas' face, hard with determination. Elena's mention of the old lighthouse keeper, Oceiros Marsh, seemed to affect Silas particularly. Trish knew very little about Silas' relationship with his family, and when she'd first contacted him about this little adventure he'd spent a lot of time brooding quietly over her offer. Back in Innsmouth they'd rushed past the Marsh Refinery twice, but had seen no Marsh family members. How would Silas react to encountering one of his own blood?
And then there were the things he called out while he was sleeping. Trish had seen him crying out, something about a siren, and the water, always the water.
Trish suddenly realises that Silas is looking back at her, brow furrowed and scowling as per usual.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
Trish stands up, and leads the way across the exposed lawn towards the lighthouse building, and Silas falls in behind her. He's a very skilled investigator, and that's what counts now. She could always use a bit of unexpected courage on her side.
Trish clears the final step of the lighthouse stairs, Leo keeping right behind her. A slight ocean breeze masks the horrible scent rising from below the stairwell below. As she catches her breath, Trish spots Peter peering out through the full-length glass window that surrounds the room, or maybe just checking his reflection. Meanwhile Silas is over by the central light enclosure, struggling to open the drawers of a small, wooden table. Trish strides forward, bumping him out of the way with her hip, and deftly cracks the partially-rusted lock.
As she snaps a quick photo of the table with her trusty camera, Silas focuses instead on the contents of the drawer: an old, chrome telescope. He turns it over in his hands, handling it with a familiarity of years at sea. How many years exactly, he refused to share, but the calluses on his hands and hard lines around his eyes suggested the answer was many.
The rest of the room is empty, and the crew make a hasty retreat back down the spiral staircase. So far they hadn't seen any of the same assailants they'd encountered back in Innsmouth, but every shadow of the lighthouse seemed to harbour all kinds of rotting remains, and inhuman, dissonant howls forced them to heed caution with every step.
At the base of the steps, Peter approaches the locked basement door again. Demonstrating both his varsity football athleticism and a typically youthful disregard for danger, he yanks at the handle once more … but it won't budge.
"We ain't getting through here without a key," drawls Leo, looking towards the rear of the lighthouse. The horrible chorus of voices they'd heard from the other side proved that there were indeed others here - perhaps another way down was still possible.
Trish reaches for her satchel as she whispers to the others. "I should be able to sneak in and grab a key, if it's in there, I just need-"
But then she notices Silas, unslinging the old chainsaw he'd found in the streets of Innsmouth, and glaring at the doorway. "Wait! Silas, don't be hasty. We need a plan of action!"
But Silas isn't having any of it. "What we need," he says, pulling the ignition cord and revving the chainsaw to life, "is just action."
With a single thrust the rotting door is kicked down. On the other side is a figure standing at least 6 feet tall, flanked by other smaller fish people. Trish can see the monster's mottled green skin through holes in its muddy and tattered raincoat. The figure has the same look, the 'Innsmouth look', as the rest of the folk around here, with wide, unblinking eyes and a hard gaze, the kind you'd get from years of working a lighthouse. Silas Marsh glares back in defiance.
"Silas, my boy," Oceiros croaks through a gnarled smile, which slowly stretches back towards his clammy neck. Then he lunges forward, and the two Marsh men begin to clash.
Trish stands in the shadows of the cottage, mere feet from one of Oceiros' followers. After Silas … dispatched with the lighthouse keeper, and then promptly left to "check something out," Trish decided there might be more than just a key in this little musty shack. Now, almost face-to-face with the threat of discovery, she wondered whether this little victory would be worth it.
During the Bureau's training, the other cadets would flounder in tense situations like this, but Trish always saw these moments as opportunities. Indeed, as she watches the quiet, fishy figure shuffle away from a side cupboard, moaning a sort of wavering song, Trish slips forward and checks the mold-covered drawers for any clues. She points Leo to a ladder in the corner, then some rotted netting in the rafters, and then stops.
Right there, in the middle of the room, is one of those "Deep One" creatures, but … smaller. A baby one? Do they have children, like humans? Or are they born from eggs like fish? Trish pushes these academic thoughts to the side, and tries not to startle the little intruder. Its disproportionately huge eyes, glistening in the light of a nearby candle, stare up at her, and the baby fish thing sways to the rhythm of the melody that still drifts from the next room, mumbling along with moist fish lips.
Trish can hear now there must be more of these back inside the lighthouse proper, as more voices join the sombre chorus. In fact, concentrating on her senses more fully, she can even smell them all the way from here, the now-familiar stench like a dockyard, but many many times worse. Bureau training couldn't cover every single field situation, but Trish thinks this would count as a time for egress.
Signalling to Leo, Trish maintains eye contact with the baby creature, and decides to try a foolproof tactic that's always served her well. She puts her hand in her pocket, and pulls out her closed fist. The creature follows her movements with a mix of curiosity and wariness, and its little webbed feet dig into the floorboards just slightly. Trish smiles, and then throws her hand forward and over the creature's head. It spins around, scrambling to the back of the cottage with alarming speed, towards … nothing.
'Oldest trick in the book,' Trish thinks, as she and Leo make a hasty but silent exit into the lighthouse, moving in the shadows down to what lies below …
"It's just us," reassures Silas, as he and Peter creak down the rickety wooden stairway. Silas is now wearing some kind of dark navy cloak with gilded lining, while Peter is trying to get an ornate headpiece with inlaid conches to sit correctly in his hair. Compared to the state of their mud-stained clothes, these new pieces seem brand new, shining in the soft glow of the caverns.
Indeed, it's been … weeks? … since her last proper wash, but it feels like she's been constantly soaked all day. First escaping from those pits, then rushing through the rising tides in Innsmouth - we must have made such a mess in Elena's car.
"What's the report?" she asks. "Where've you boys been?"
"Had to check something out on the cliff," Silas replies vaguely, waving the telescope he found before tossing it overhand to Peter, who catches it easily. "Think we saw some kind of pumping machinery sticking out of the rocks, must be further down."
"Perfect! We found an archives room, and there's some kind of map inside, but it's completely flooded, hence-" Trish gestures to her drenched outfit.
"What's up with him?" asks Peter, thumb pointed towards the figure of Leo sitting hunched over on a rock. Poor Leo. He'd told Trish stories about some of the horrible things down there in the bayous of the south - that's why she'd brought him on for this case in the first place, despite his expensive fees. But evidently something had snapped in him, and he'd been practically frozen in fear for the last little while. His face looked hallowed, staring blankly into the empty space beneath the perilous gangways.
Silas steps forward, and plonks a heavy hand onto Leo's shoulder. "Come on, detective," he says with a steadfast look. "We need all hands on deck. Got some more fish to fry." Leo stares up, grins slightly, and begins wringing the salty water out of his shirt. "We'll head down and sort out the plumbing," orders Silas, "if you two figure out a way out of here that isn't back through the lighthouse." He and Peter begin down the walkway, into the abyss below.
"More like the Cowardly Lion than a Louisiana one," quips Peter, right before Silas knocks the crown of Peter's head. Peter catches it deftly, and goes back to tussling with his hair.
"What's with the cape?" Trish asks as Silas trudges away. "What's with the … thing?" he replies, gesturing to the relic Trish found. A golden idol, with twisting tentacles around a sea-green gem, she'd found it back up in the lighthouse. Trish couldn't explain it, but it had a calming sense to it, the way the curves all matched up and encircled the prismatic stone. Adopting a fake smile, she holds it to one side, and uses her hands to display it as if she was selling perfume in a department store. "Why, I think it matches my style so well!" "Me too, I mean, so does, uhh," Silas mumbles, hastily pointing at his shawl. "Mhmm," responds Trish, as she turns and heads back to the archives.
Trish approaches the statue, hewn from the cold, dark stone down here in the depths of the caves. The briny water around her knees is rising quickly, but she feels drawn to this spot somehow. Leo's back at the entrance to the cave, ready to make a quick getaway if needed, but for now Trish is a lone wolf, using only her own resources.
The figure is bathed in an eerie light that shines through a crack in the cavern wall. Looming at least 15 feet tall, the statue looks like something you'd see at the front of a temple, if the temple worshippers were all part-fish in a weird, watery cult. At the base, beneath the creature's feet, there seems to be some kind of opening in the rock, just above the water line. Wading closer to the rough-hewn plinth, Trish suddenly feels something pulling at her trouser legs, and for a second fears she's about to be overwhelmed by an angry defender of this relic.
But then she realises the tugging is coming from her pocket, the one that's holding the rock she found in the tidal pool earlier. Trish pulls the stone out, and is surprised to see the lump of … jade? peridot? … glowing slightly. Could it? No. Maybe.
Working on a hunch, Trish holds the gem out and, defying all rational thought, thrusts her hand into the narrow gap in the rock. The light from the gem shines up through the statue, casting brilliant, swirling shapes on the inside of what is evidently not made of rock. Trish's eyes turn up to the face of the statue, its hideous mouth agape, and sees it immediately - a dark shadow suggests something is hidden inside the face of the statue.
Retrieving the gem, Trish sidles out of the water and up the side of the statue, climbing onto the smooth belly and then the enormous arms of the frozen beast. Once again trusting her instincts, she reaches into the maw of the statue, and her hand feels something hard and metallic. Fearing that the sculpture might suddenly come to life and relieve her of one of her top two favourite hands, she yanks hard on the object, and is rewarded with a hard clack … and nothing else. Sighing with relief, she withdraws her hand to reveal some kind of key, with a-
"SIIIILAAAAAAS!" The sound booms through the chamber, echoing into a cacophony that fills the air. "SIIIILAAAAAAS!" repeats the broken voice of Oceiros Marsh … the same Oceiros that Trish had seen slain only minutes earlier.
"It's haulin' time, T!" calls Leo from the cave entrance, a slight tremor in his voice, and Trish has to agree, slipping down quickly from the mysterious effigy and moving as quickly as she can through the chest-high water.
'Where has Silas gone??' Trish hunkers down behind a stalagmite (or is it a stalactite?), keen to be away from all the horrors of this god-forsaken place. After Silas attacked the reanimated Oceiros, and was then carted away by a band of shambling followers, Oceiros had turned his furious, undead stare on Trish. She'd been chased by Oceiros through a shortcut she'd found into the hatchery, now ominously empty of life, and had managed to lose that half-man, half-beast amongst the otherworldly egg pools. At least she'd resolved the 'where do fish-babies come from?' question.
She's almost at the limit of her sanity - Leo was overwhelmed by the horrors of Oceiros' monstrous screams, the strange idol from the lighthouse no longer calmed her, and now not even the Bureau's training could save her from this subterranean hell. Clinging to a slimy section of rock in a rapidly flooding grotto, Trish closes her eyes to the horrors around her.
The sounds of those creatures echo through the cavern - the sloshing of webbed feet, the guttural growls and grunts, the endlessly hideous lullaby, the rumbling of some machine- wait, what?
Willing herself to peek out from her alcove, Trish gapes as she sees Silas leaping from a dark recess towards the shape of the lighthouse keeper. Her local guide and partner has somehow lost his shirt, but is still wearing the cape he'd found, which flutters around him as if flowing through water. Despite the shackles around his wrists, Silas wields his chainsaw once more, fuelled by pure rage.
Oceiros, already distracted in his search, is completely overpowered. Trish watches with grim acceptance as Silas once again tears into his own kin, the screams of the weathered seaman drowned out by the unrelenting whirring of the chainsaw, once, twice, three times.
The diesel engine sputters out, its gruesome deed done. Silas wipes … something … from his brow, and steps forward with a look of fierce determination. He reaches into the fetid, fishy pulp that begins to flow into the rising waters, and pulls out … the telescope they'd found at the top of the lighthouse.
His dark eyes turn away from the viscera and meet Trish's, and for a second Trish is shocked to see the same look that Oceiros had back in the lighthouse cottage, what seems like hours ago. Silas pants heavily, and with a sense of finality, growls in his rough, New England accent: "I'm the captain now."
