The Risen Reef
Gentlemen, I fear the tale I have to share with you is quite grim. Disturbing, even. Yet the horror which I have endured is nothing compared to what my friend, Robert Gillman, had to go through. I hope he may find peace eventually.
The events to which I allude happened some weeks ago, on November 2nd, 1932. We were off the coast of Maine, sailing towards a reef that had recently been discovered after a huge storm. The present thinking was that an undersea current had cleared the area of sand and silt, and had made it visible. As to why it was so suddenly so close to the surface, there was no idea. Hence why we were called out to investigate.
Several days after the storm, there had been a crash against the reef by a small lobstering vessel by the name of the Anacostia. It had set out in the morning before the storm, and it drifted into Rockport Harbor several days after. It's hull was smashed in and it was taking on water fast. It had been a miracle it made it anywhere at all, let alone all the way back into harbor. The even stranger fact was that it was totally abandoned. There wasn't a soul on it, in fact there weren't even lobsters in the cages. It was a ghost ship.
Between weather and current reports, along with the battering on the hull of the smashed Anacostia, it was deduced that a reef had somehow risen during the storm. And so, to document and understand the curious phenomenon, Robert and I were sent by Miskatonic University to research the reef and it's potential inhabitants.
On that fateful day, we headed out to Rockport Harbor to examine the Anacostia, then we planned to charter our own vessel. Upon arriving in Rockport, we were assailed with the sights, sounds, and smells that so often accompany port towns. As our carriage (the college's only motor vehicle was currently in use.) headed towards the port, the sound of seagulls crying out mingled with the sound of drunken sailors of varying creed and color stampeding about, or simply lounging in a daze in alleys. The only unusual thing was a negro who stood at the end of the road for some time, and seemed to examine us quite closely and with malicious intent. But when I looked away for a moment, he had disappeared, and I dismissed him from my mind entirely.
When we reached the docks, we were directed immediately to the Anacostia. Robert and I both exclaimed aloud when we saw her, for her hull was nearly bashed in completely, and all over the railing were strange scratches, as if some clawed beings had tried to climb aboard the deck from under the sea. These we attributed to the reef having sections jutting up that curled in just such a manner to have inflicted these marks.
After completing our investigation, Robert and I split up to find a boat willing to take us out to the reef. After searching for about half an hour, I was fortunate enough to find a boat that would take us for the day. She was a small, three-masted schooner named the Anna Maria.
We set out around noon, and dusk was beginning to show it's rosy-red hues across the water. We decided to anchor onto the reef itself for the night, as it was the sturdiest and most secure thing available.
Later that night, we were awoken by powerful rocking throughout the boat. Indeed, it was almost so powerful as to prevent us from leaving our bunks. However, we succeeded in gaining the gangway and climbing the ladder to the upper deck. Once up there, we staggered towards the safety rail and grabbed on to avoid being thrown overboard. To our shock, the water in the surrounding area was glassy smooth, absolutely pristine and unbroken. Looking down, we saw dark shapes circling under the boat. They seemed to constantly be buffeting the ship's underbelly, yet she held firm. After several more minutes of milling about underneath us, the amorphous shapes dove down amongst the edges and curves of the reef and disappeared. Robert and I stayed up the rest of the night, anxiously awaiting dawn. As soon as the sun rose on the crystalline, sparkling horizon, we awoke the captain of our small, ever-more vulnerable seeming vessel. After he dragged himself out of his bunk, (he had slept through the entire event, being used to rough seas) and listening to our story, he pronounced it to have been nothing but a nightmare or phantasm produced by a combination of sea-sickness and stress.
As we could do nothing to convince him otherwise, and the hull was only damaged to the degree which was easily explainable by the reef, we had no choice but to remain as we were, anchored onto that accursed reef. Resigning ourselves to this fate, we set about our research. We sent down buckets to collect seawater samples, used a small, hand-spun drill to collect samples of the reef itself, and Robert went underwater with a tube in his mouth and goggles on to examine the reef for signs of life, such as those we thought we had seen last night. He found nothing.
Once night fell, we set up a small laboratory on the deck of the vessel. It was a small, dingy operation, consisting of a hammer and chisel found aboard ship, a small microscope we brought with us, a lantern, and an electronic torch Robert always packed in case of emergencies. As I began examining the drill samples by the light of the torch, Robert sat at the desk looking at the water samples under the microscope. As I inspected the coral-like material of the reef beneath us, I noticed something odd. The swirls and pocks on the strange submarine substance seemed to form patterns, even to be almost…. artificial. As if carved by some human, or sub-human, hand. I was about to remark on this strange circumstance when my friend cried aloud in shock.
I leapt up and immediately ran to his side, demanding to know what was the matter. He told me to look at the sample he was examining, and I did so immediately. Upon looking into the eye-piece of the microscope, I saw instantly what gave him such surprise and dismay. As anyone who has studied biology on any level can tell you, plankton is everywhere in water. And they were here in this water. Yet, somehow, they were different. I must search carefully for the words to describe them. They had writhing tentacles where the head should normally have been, and their body was peculiarly humanoid, albeit in a bent, hunched manner.
Standing up, I turned around to see the captain standing behind us. I was about to ask what he wanted when he struck me in the head with an oar. I sank to the ground, and knew no more.
I awoke tied to a barrel, bobbing in the sea and tied to the back of the boat. She was over a different section of the reef now, and branches of coral curled overhead, forming dark claws of stone and barnacles. Robert was tied up as well, though he lay on the deck, next to our samples of water and coral. Above him stood the captain, and next to him… God, oh God! Even now I shudder to recall it! There was a humanoid creature standing there, undersea snails and slime dripping off of its scaly skin. Webbed claws replaced hands and feet, and its eyes…. Oh those horrible, staring eyes! They were ringed red and puffy, wide and staring. They never blinked, and sat oddly wide for a head of such shape. They were nearly on the side of the head, and flicked everywhere with a cold, repulsive gaze. As it cast that hideous gaze upon me, I retched in horror and disgust at its appearance. Then it spoke in a burbling, watery voice. I pray I may never head that voice again, save in my nightmares! What it said I remember not, but it filled me with the coldest dread one can possibly imagine. My blood ran cold at hearing it, and it chills me to the bone to recall it. I cannot recall more, save this one, final thing. As I was cut loose, to drift at sea, I saw this horrid fish-man press its awful, rubbery, cold lips to Robert's, and drag him underwater in that manner. I assume it did this to feed him oxygen, in which case I pray for him that it did not work, and he drowned shortly thereafter, for the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. I drifted for days, delirious and fevered, sometimes screaming, sometimes laughing. I drifted thus until I was picked up by a passing lobstering boat, and brought ashore, where I was confined to this asylum. I am only grateful that I cannot and will not remember what the awful fish thing uttered, as to do so would rip from my grasp what sanity I do have left. Even now, I hear the cries of gulls and the lap of waves at my bed at night, and I wish for that eternal dark slumber which frees the most tormented of men from their abhorrent delusions