Wherever it may lead

About an obsession and and a bit out of the Lovecraft world

“You look tired”, I remarked as Hodgeson settled in a comfortable chair opposite to me. I didn’t want to talk too directly to him about his long absence; I knew he would start to talk about when he thought the time has come. We have had dinner at the Gentleman’s Club and now had changed to the parlor, each of us with a well measured glass of whiskey in our hands. A waiter brought a casket with a selection of various cigars we did choose. I peered at my opponent. Hodgeson didn’t only look tired, he seemed to be more silent and introverted before his vacation. At the same time I had the impression he was excited, he seemed like a man who was up to miss his train. It seemed to me, he had lost weight too, because I thought I remembered him more corpulent.

“Ah”, he made leaning back in his chair. “If you believe it or not, I passed some turbulent weeks”, he started. “But I don’t want to bore you with any flower phrases. You surely do remember Adrienne Wilson”, which was no question at all. Surely I remembered her, who would not? She was a swimmer, one of the best our nation ever had, a great athlete. She won the national championship for a few times, also the All American Championship, and she had taken part at the world championship and won the silver medal there. Above all she was an amazing woman, tall with southern dark skin, an exotic beauty. I nodded.

He nodded too. “Fine, you surely do remember I was addicted to her from the first moment”, he declared. “You had some troubles with that, she nearly was a child that time”, I added. He wiped away my exception by swaying his hand. “I confess, but in the beginning I only was interested in the athlete. I kept watching her career like a falcon. This did change not till her participation at the world championship, from this time on I saw the women in her. I had been traveling to France only because of her, to see her swim. And after the award ceremony I was one of the first to congratulate her, and yes, I fell in love with her.” He paused and took a sip from his whiskey.

Seemingly deep in his thoughts he continued. “She also seemed not to dislike a flirtation, she was young, I was successful in my job, she wanted to revel and so we went out. I was a little astonished no one of her family was there, but we didn’t talk about that, me because my happiness being with her, she because of her euphoria of winning. Then we went back to the US. You know morality is way stricter than in Europe, and we could not meet that often, mostly at smaller competitions.” His seemed to zone away. We sat there quietly and drank, while the silent waiter brought more whiskey and water.

“I felt, I was in love with her”, Hodgeson proceeded after the man was gone. “With every thought, with every single beat of my heart I wished we were in France again, recalling the few hours I was so near to her. I collected all the photographs of her being printed at the papers, I visited every public practice.” He rubbed his eyes as if he could brush away his memories. “Lord, it was like some lurking madness”, he assessed. “And the she disappeared, from one day to the other, perhaps you remember, she won the gold medal and was gone without any word.”

I did remember that too, a marvelous career ended without any comment, only with some suspicions at the papers. No one had heard anything about her since then. But that has been too less for Hodgeson. He had started to make his own investigation. Everyone knew she came from Florida. Naturally she matched that picture. Beach and sea seemed to be her elements; no one was surprised that sportsmen and women grew up in such a neighborhood.

“I tried to find her. My first opinion was her parent’s habitation. Perhaps you know she is from Florida, Flamingo rather. I did imagine some sunlit beach with happy bathers around. This was the surroundings such a talent could develop, I thought. But far from it! Flamingo is fishermen’s village, just a pier with small boats; the surrounding area is swampland, which is alive with alligators and snakes. And the mosquitoes are horrible. I could imagine she was taking the first opportunity to leave this slough. I was lucky the community was not that large, some fishermen with their families, a drugstore, some pubs and a single shabby hotel, that was all. So I accommodated myself at the hotel and asked about Adrienne’s family. When the landlord was talking about the beauties of the swamp before, he became monosyllabic suddenly. He doesn’t know too much about ‘this people’, as he expressed. Some years ago when the Navy evacuated a whole town in Maine because of an exotic disease many people from there had been coming here he told. No one had cared much about them, and also the newcomers stayed on their own, so nobody does know about them.” Again he took a draught and stayed silent for a while. I avoided hustling him although I hardly could keep my curiosity. But I knew he would stop his narration if I’d force him too much.

“However, the man told me where to find the family’s house. Next day I went there. You can’t imagine my disappointment when I realized the house my beloved came from was more a dump than a living place. Where once must have been lawn there was a wilderness, the house’s patio was rotten and broken at some parts. Yellowed drapes showed me the house once was equipped tastefully. I was afraid to knock at the door because it seemed to break down under my hand. And these smell, or better this malodor that is not to describe. It smelt like dead fish, algae and brackish water, but that’s what one is expecting at a harbor. But there also was something other, not to define, like something which lies dead for a long time. Ancient torture chambers might smell this way but nothing safe and sound. But my desire for Adrienne was so overwhelming I brought myself to knock, although I cleaned my hand after. A rough voice from inside told me to enter. I pushed the door open and entered. The smell was way intense inside, surrounding me like a cloud. I tried not to breath with my nose and followed the sound of the voice to the back of the house.”

“Perhaps the voice was more upsetting than the odor. It sounded somehow guttural and distorted, like it was not human, or from a person who has massive troubles with his speech-organs. In front of a small radio there was a crooked figure listening intensively to a sports transmission. I stepped nearer without the figure turning round towards me. The man, Adrienne’s father I presumed stared at the radio with his fixed protuberant eyes like hypnotized. I realized the skin at his neck had deep wrinkles which looked like scales. ‘Mr. Wilson’, I did call him. He answered without looking at me. He asked me, what I wanted, so I posed my questions about his daughter, I told him I was interested in the reason for her long absence. He made such a sudden turn I boggled. His facial expression was that weird, something between endless panic and burgeoning rage with some kind of madness flickering in his eyes. I took a step back. ‘My daughter isn’t there’, he hissed at me. ‘She’d got sick by the chemicals they pour into water’, he said. ‘She’d got a skin disease, and it’s getting worse from this. She’d got to go to a hospital up in the Northeast.’ Then he sank back in his chair and I could not bring him to talk to me any more.”

“I left what else should I have done. I now was none the wiser, I didn’t know anything. After some thinking about the things he told I felt there was a correlation, but I wasn’t able to find it. I twisted my mind, but I failed finding out what the old man had told that could help me.”

“Disappointed I drove back to the hotel. I lay at the bed staring at the dirty ceiling while the sun set in weird light, discolored by the swamp’s exhalations. I was watching a legion of mosquitoes marching over the peeling off color I found the combination, the thought which had been teasing me all the time. Adrienne’s father had been talking about a skin disease. The hotel’s landlord also had been talking about an exotic illness, the Wilsons had to escape from, and they flew away from Maine, means northeast, the same area Adrienne was for therapy. This was not an accident. My curiosity was piqued again, so I decided to proceed with my investigation.”

“Next day again I drove to the district where the immigrants lived. But today I didn’t care for the Wilson’s house but turned towards the neighborhood. All the buildings in the street were in the same stadium of waywardness as the Wilson’s. Some had been nailed up with planks, their roofs were broken, and the front gardens were covered with wild plants. Only a few of them seemed someone cares about them. One of the best preserved I found on the same side as the Wilson’s house, but some steps further. I stepped off my car and knocked at the door which has its paint in contrast to the neighbor’s. I heard steps, and a woman about thirty years old opened. I could see she was from the same district as Wilson; she had the same tall skull and the same protuberant watery blue eyes. A little astonished she asked me what I wanted. I told her, I was searching for Adrienne and hoped to get some hints from her that could help my investigations.”

Hodgeson hadn’t been moving since he started his tale, now with a sigh he stretched his back and changed his position. I noticed he rarely did twinkle, so his glance was somehow fanatic, staring, nearly as the people he told about. “The woman was very helpful. She told me to come in and offered some tea with lemon. Her family too had been immigrating twenty years ago; she was a baby this time she told me. She could not remember the place of her birth and her parents didn’t talk about. She only remembered it was an old harbor anywhere in Maine. I was a little ashamed for I thought her more then ten years elder she really was. Slowly I lead my questions towards my main interest, Adrienne. Yes, she could remember that girl, she said, and she, Adrienne had been an enthusiastic swimmer, yet as an infant she preferred staying in water. No one was surprised she had her career at this sport. The only astonishing thing she could tell me was, Adrienne always had been narrating about talking to mermaids chatting and playing with her. Surely all of this was nonsense, one since long time knows mermaids from sailor’s tales only had been manatees who surely were not talking to little girls. After the woman had nothing more to tell I friendly bid farewell and returned to the hotel.”

“I had lunch, it was some wonderful Creole fish; and then I went to the registration office. The clerk working there, who also lead the post office was friendly, but he was sorry he wasn’t able to help me. The documents about immigration of some families from Maine got lost in a hurricane that nearly destroyed half of the town, and he himself could not remember any detail. My next consideration was such an incident depopulating nearly a whole town must have found some medial echo. So I left Flamingo and traveled to Miami to search the newspaper’s archives. I knew about the location and the time frame of the event, so I could narrow the number of papers I had to look through. Naturally I first read the serious newspapers, but I was not so successful. I started to suspect there was something wrong about this case. Either the story about immigration was a lie or the event at Maine was so serious everyone tried hard to cover it up. I assumed the last, because there was no reason for the people at Flamingo to tell the same lie.”

“A little halfheartedly I started to read up the less serious gazettes. Lord, you won’t believe what kind of nonsense people are writing in there. About creatures lurking at New Mexico and California sucking blood from chicken, about Bigfoot or Yeti, about satanic rites, funny to say, located at the same swampland I yet left, about warmongering in Germany, so much foolish stuff I never read before by choice. But I went on; only at some stories I twisted my eyes when the story was too eccentric. Then I succeeded. I found an article telling near a harbor named Innsmouth the Navy did blow a whole reef, because it obstructed navigation, they told. A few pages later was a small report about a weird exotic disease someone introduced from Polynesia to the same place and which was researched by the government. Nothing more, just a few lines in a paper whose stories not yet a normally educated ten years old child would believe.”

Intricately Hodgeson lit his lapsed cigar again. “Now I had a tangible trace. Perhaps you know Innsmouth lies in an abandoned district near Arkham where we graduated our academic studies. But this time yet none wanted to talk about this town. I hit on it only by accident while researching about the region’s history. Times ago must have been important, most at the time of the war of independence. The time we studied it has become an unknown spot at the maps people had been telling thrilling stories about. However, I drove back to New York, a devilish trip, mostly because I could not wait to learn more about the disposition of my beloved Adrienne. I only took a shower and changed my dress and resumed my vacation to Arkham. As I arrived I first looked for our old professor, Armitage, and you won’t believe the old chap is still alive. He’s no longer teaching at all, but he’s in a perfect condition for his age, not senile or something else. He still offers his help to the students who ask him for. But talking to him about Adrienne made him close-lipped like a fish. He simply refused to say anything about Innsmouth or the Wilson family. Disappointed I stayed the night at the campus’ guesthouse before driving on the next day. The roads up there are terrible and the surroundings are the most distressing thing I ever saw. To boot dense fog came up from the sea so I only could drive slowly. The town itself I rather did smell than see. It nearly was the same disgusting odor as at Flamingo, but here it was pushed by the fog and nearly not to bear. As I passed the first buildings I thought to arrive at a ghost town. The houses or better ruins were decayed and savaged, though I had the feeling this desertion was not true, and that hundreds of eyes followed me through the nailed up windows.”

A shiver seemed to shake my friend. Hastily he quaffed his glass and filled it up again. Then he took a puff at his cigar before he started to talk again. “I came to the plaza or something one could call this way. In a half destroyed church a shop was placed. Another church with a low bell tower stood opposite. It also looked ruined as the rest of the town. I stopped my car in front of the shop and entered. Except the shop manager there were two women and a young man, an employee I presumed. The three people were talking in the same strange language I hardly recognized as English. The sound reminded me at that, Adrienne’s father had used. They started looking at me strangely before they paid hastily and left the store. To keep up appearances I took some goods from the shelves and turned towards the man at the checkout counter. While paying I ignored the odd glance because of my strange choice and asked him about the Wilson family. He only knew the girl as a swimmer from the papers, he told me, and also he knew, she was coming from here but he on his own doesn’t live here and he works here only for a few months. I left the store without a new hint. It seemed to me I moved in a circle. “

“Somehow discouraged I went to the hotel to rent a room. Only a few people were at the lounge and they looked as embarrassing as the women at the shop, also their voices sounded similar. It seemed the government had not succeeded to stop the disease. The landlord, a clumsy man with a waddling going led me up to the first floor and brought me to a very primitively furnished room. As he was walking upstairs in front of me I recognized he had only a few hairs on the back of his head, despite he was not yet old. But he had a pattern of wrinkles looking like scales. I threw my bag onto the single chair at the room and thanked the man. When he went I closed the door and noticed there was no keyhole or lock bar to lock up the door, which was a little harassing to me. Nevertheless I fell asleep the moment I laid down the narrow uncomfortable bed. And I started to dream. This was for the first time ever I did remember to dream. I saw her, Adrienne, she came out of the sea like a mermaid, she walked towards the hotel, and I thought to hear her steps while watching her beloved face swaying nearer and nearer. She stood beneath me and looked down on me, and she bent down and kissed me, she really pressed her lips upon mine and kissed me. Like a breath her voice reached my ears. She said something like I was returning after long time and she was promised to me since a long time ago. Again she kissed me then she was gone. I startled from my sleep and I recognized it had been a dream. Anyhow, there was a smell from sea and seaweed and dead fish, and there were prints beneath my bed, prints of small, wet feet, like the feet of a girl.... but I saw drops of water in front of the toes’ marks as if there had been claws and marks between the toes like coming from webs. While watching the prints they disappeared and I could not be sure if it was a dream or reality.”

Again there was a phase of Hodgeson silent, as if he were still in his dream. His view seemed far away and he sighed deeply. “Nonetheless, something did change, the inhabitants seemed to be more friendly as far as they were able to”, he resumed after a long pause. “I still felt watched by invisible eyes, but how can I describe, it felt not as menacing as before. It had been rejection before that touched me, but now it was anticipation. The people seemed to wait for something, some act by me which I could not know what it was. Like in a fever I waited for the evening, I wanted to stay awake; I wanted to know if I had dreamt last night. I had presumed to the imagination Adrienne really had been standing there beneath my bed. I couldn’t know how it should have been, because her father had told me she was in a hospital, but my thoughts were whirring through my head and I couldn’t get a single one. I decided not to wait for the night at my room, so I left the hotel at sunset and walked down to the beach. I had a feeling like a crowd of people was waiting behind me although I could not see a single one.”

“Sun set behind the hills, Innsmouth was separated from the back country and the nearly full moon threw its light over the sea. It was an almost magic moment, and then there was a hand upon my shoulder. Light as a feather it was, and wet. I felt lips, Her lips at my face, and before I saw I knew She was there. Without looking I dragged her into my arms and held her tight to me, kissed her. Later I recognized she only wore a leathery looking apron wound round her hips as the only garment. She told me she had been coming home, but her expression was such weird I mentioned she did not only mean the town she was born. She also told me since that evening in Paris she knew we would be connatural and she was happy about me finding home.” Hodgeson’s expression had changed, he held his eyes closed and his chin was stretched aloft defiantly. “And I’ll return to her. I had settled my matters, and I will go to her, wherever that may be”, he ended his report. He bid farewell before I could say something and left.

Since that I didn’t meet him again. You ask which conclusion I did draw from this. Let this be told by a newspaper article which was to find some weeks later in one of those penny presses he talked about.

“Yesterday policemen found a left car, a Ford Roadster at the beach near Innsmouth. Their investigations told it was owned by a man named Walter Hodgeson who lives in New York and had his academic studies at Miscatonic University in Arkham. The only witness, a well known drunkard told, the man had stopped at the beach. Then he took off his clothes and went into the sea where a woman, who seemed to emerge from the water, did receive him. After that both swam out into the sea and disappeared in the waves....”