It was during the second of a pair of sodden and tempestuous weeks along the coastline that a peculiar crimson vehicle cruised through the bourgeois and aged municipality of Newburyport. The denizens of the community quietly noted this rufescent apparition rolling along State Street, and certain aficionados of the automotive arts quietly nodded their approval at its superb preservation. Despite its condition and age, the vehicle in question had little to offer any but these most facile and superficial of antiquarians, however massive its bulk or ostentatious its trailing fins. The carriage was the product and indeed the very typification of a crass and superficial era, the plaything of spoilt young rakes or of the gauche nouveau riche.
The young lady who operated this somewhat archaic behemoth would impress still less. She wore the Stygian apparel favored by callow youths risibly flirting with a sort of shallow Gothic revival, although both her pallor and the sallow circles gracing her eyes were not mere affectations.
This dubious and unmistakably unsavory pair found their employment in the transportation and smuggling of contraband parcels, and had just completed their most recent errand when the vehicle's electronics emitted a suave and polished if synthetic voice.
"At the next intersection, turn left," it instructed with the casually domineering tone of a pedagogue. The young driver obeyed, passing handsome gabled Victorian homes and turning onto High Street as if she was the mechanical servant and the vehicle the living, vital entity. Indeed, such was much the case, for the youth had survived a precise and sophisticated surgical alteration designed to transform her into a fleshy automaton, while the automobile served as the earthly avatar of a fully sapient and cognizant eidolon. This unearthly spirit possessed neither power enough to call itself a god nor sufficient antiquity to warrant the title of elder, being itself merely marginally older than stripling homo sapiens and therefore innocent of those ageless secrets of the pockmarked vertiginous void through which the Earth plummeted madly without end or aim.
The driver had been given a name redolent of these very lands, one once-popular some generations ago, though her sonorous and regal appellation had been shortened of necessity to the crude "Gia." The vehicle in turn might properly be referred to as "Tisiphone," a name guaranteed to raise the eyebrows, and perhaps the hackles, of many a student of bygone lore. In some paroxysm of irony this ghost-in-a-machine had perversely accepted the most unlikely of pseudonyms, a sobriquet properly interpreted as "follower of Christ." Perhaps "Christine" had ambitions of trailing the gentle Galilean preparatory to running him down.
The car cruised southward along the coast, with wetlands to the right and the beach to their immediate left, passing the long sandy line of an island. At length, it crossed a nondescript though relatively modern concrete and metal bridge over a river.
Gia's eyes followed the length of the gloom-shrouded cape, drawn to a very ancient manse set upon the island at her left shoulder, looming high above the surrounding sea foam. She shuddered, for she recognized some aura or taint upon it reminiscent of a domicile from which she'd fled in a panic weeks before. She quietly vowed to herself not to go anywhere near this strange high house in the mist.
Then her eyes turned forward again, for they had entered the river valley, and a disquieting, dismal and dank fishing village sprawled before them. Soon, as the electronic voice chimed its instructions, the vehicle wove its way through the cramped lanes toward the heart of the city; from Martin Road to Main, then Fish Way to Water Street and finally to Federal, where the sound of authentic cobblestones rumbled up the vehicle's frame. Soon the voice ordered the girl to park, and the cartographic projection faded from the windshield.
Gia peered out at this misty seaside town with little enthusiasm, for it did not appear at all promising. "I don't want to go," she said quietly. Her voice, characteristically a chipper and even tone, had acquired a subtly melancholy note. The smile almost permanently gouged into her face seemed wilted and sickly.
"Why not?" the silky voice asked with feigned innocence.
"Sh'yeah, right! Every time you want me to get out of the car, except those times we're picking up or dropping off contraband, I end up in some horrible mess. Christine, I really can't take it anymore. If you're trying to kill me, just get it over with."
As further evidence of the car's perverse sense of humor, the crooner Elvis Presley abruptly chimed in for a round of "Hound Dog."
"'Can't take it?' You sound pretty calm to me, hun."
"That's the operation and you know it. The only nice thing about it is everything is just fine, mostly. I don't feel very sad or lonely or... or guilty about some of the bad things we've done together—"
"Then how do you know they're bad?"
"I just know. Murdering your own parents is wrong."
"Oh hoo hoooo!" The car genuinely laughed. "Are you blaming yourself for that? If you had murdered your parents, you honestly think you'd still be alive? Around me? Girl, you couldn't have saved 'em... even if you'd wanted to."
"I think..." Gia said calmly. "...you're trying to comfort me. Thanks for trying."
"Now those seventy people in Zachry? That was you."
"Please stop." Gia glanced up to the rear-view mirror to see, as expected, her parents smiling at her.
"No. Go away," Gia said with answering-machine flatness... almost. She buried her head in her hands.
And when she looked up again, they were gone.
"Has it ever occurred to you," Christine purred from the AV, "that part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids?"
Gia sighed.
"Real spirituality grows from being true to yourself, holding yourself responsible," the car argued. "If you abdicate that, if you lose faith in yourself—"
"Christine, if we just drove around making your deliveries, then everything would be—"
"Just fine!" Christine interrupted with a growl. "Gia...? Get out."
Compelled by the rotten wiring in her head, Gia opened her door and climbed out of her luxurious leather seat. She left the warm dry air behind and exited into a veritable world of wet cold fog. Her booted feet splashed in the water at every step. She watched, unsurprised, as the door shut of its own accord and the scarlet motor car puttered off on its own, trailing the discouraging verse, "...you ain't no friend of mine" in its soggy wake.
Did I just get ditched?
Gia sighed again. Her life was completely out of her hands now. Her parents were dead and she was merely the brain-damaged pawn of an infinitely sadistic killer car. Running away would serve no purpose; the Fury had her scent, and her kind were renowned experts at hunting people down.
Sometimes the appalling absurdity of her situation drove her to sobbing, but all that her scoured brain could bring forth for the world was a kind of titter.
Christine insisted upon dropping her off in one horrid pest-hole after another. The first had scared her out of her wits and the second had almost killed her. What awaited her here?
At the last city she'd insisted to Christine, who for all her other faults did scrupulously abide by certain rules, that either she must admit to being a slaver or pay her driver a fair share of their receipts from smuggling.
Gia had used these funds to purchase diverse weapons; they were cheap, but they were a start: a bayonet, a small pistol with holster, pepper spray and an inexpensive bullet-proof vest concealed beneath a black blouse. Better would follow once she could afford it. She'd also replaced the jeans with a black skirt, all the better to quickly and easily retrieve the small cylindrical switchblade she'd grown accustomed to concealing.
I remember Kino telling me about all the things she learned to prepare for traveling alone. I don't have years and I'm getting dumped in places she'd have the good sense to avoid.
Gia even procured and wore a series of amulets and holy symbols. A handful of silver bullets were, to Christine's amusement, as high on her list of future acquisitions as a Taser.
It feels like Christine's using me, like the weird rules she lives under prevent her from taking action until somebody wrongs me. Then she can do what she loves best. Is that what I am to her? A bit of cheese?
Gia surveyed her current dismal, foggy surroundings, the relatively recent but already corroded and rusting industrial buildings and the ugly, prefabricated architectural calamities that huddled around them like piglets squabbling about their sow. She took a strange comfort in the fact that the circuit marked "misery" had been bloodily yanked from her still-living brain.
Well, nothing for it but to find out what's lurking in this dump and see if Christine ever plans to pick me up. Fishing town... well, can't be worse than Zachry.
She favored a sign with her limp, crooked smile. "Innsmouth." Swell. Maybe I can get some decent seafood.
City by the Clear Waters
The naif had been deposited upon Federal Street, where she balefully regarded a placard bearing the legend, "welcome to historic Innsmouth." The buildings around her certainly appeared to be artifacts of an earlier era, though carefully preserved without sign of decrepitude nor even a speck of litter. Slightly reassured, she looked about to find a wholesale fish dealer's office, a supermarket, a bright and cheery diner, a legal firm and a bus depot, all modern-looking and all housed in these ancient, fusty buildings.
The noisome aroma of fish hovered in the air all about, bringing with it a faint but consistent queasiness. Still, Gia was forced to admit quietly to herself, "place doesn't look so bad."
Careful, she reflected. Do not be fooled. There's some reason Christine dropped you here.
Resolved to unearth whatever obscure secret this town concealed before it could ambush her unawares, she entered the diner and promptly ordered coffee.
The waiter was a young gentleman, not much older than herself. Though she caught a peculiar distant look in his eyes, as though he was very tired. Still, his natural, unforced cheer promised a pleasant conversation. Gia felt her spirits rising; perhaps she could entirely escape whatever ordeal had been planned for her.
A running series of inquiries, an order of breakfast and a slow day at the diner combined to allow the waiter to actually hold a long and relatively uninterrupted conversation, and she was able to quickly acquire a cogent understanding of the town's recent history.
A public health scare had forced governmental intervention in the town generations ago. At the time Innsmouth had fallen, economically and socially, into an advanced state of decay. Prior businesses such as the Marsh Refinery had failed to bring any dependable prosperity, and even the once-legendary fishing trade declined, as if the very gods had somehow been offended by the destruction of the breakwater just offshore which had, according to public reports, bred some sort of pestilence detrimental to the inhabitants.
The authorities resolved to simply bulldoze, wholesale, the shanties and all buildings beyond repair. However, many fine and historically interesting Georgian homes and much of the civic center, including the very structures they currently occupied, were declared worthy of careful preservation for later generations to appreciate.
Installation of first rate fishing, canning and shipping facilities completed the economic restoration of the town, and whatever plague had once overshadowed Innsmouth was subsequently forgotten.
While the factory was now showing its age, the arrival of a prosperous church had helped once again to revitalize the ailing municipality, the waiter proclaimed proudly. The ministers had purchased and restored the Waite-Eliot hotel for use as their headquarters.
In return for supplying this helpful information, the garcon proved similarly inquisitive. He asked about Gia's plans and business in the area, and she revealed, quite against her wishes, that she had none.
Gia's operation had left her incapable of outright lying, though she'd discovered she could still conceal information with an effort. She heard herself telling the young man, without being able to prevent, that she was simply wandering aimlessly in the town after being dropped off by her friend.
A question led to Gia blurting out the name, "Christine." It was the strangest sensation, she thought, being unable to stop oneself from answering direct questions or disobey direct orders.
"I'm driving her around, but she just up and left me here without saying when or even if she'd come back for me." Gia was at least able to avoid mentioning that her traveling companion did not own but – was – in fact a car, for which she felt very grateful.
"So you don't even know where you're going to spend the night?"
Gia shook her head.
"In this weather? I'll bet if I ask nicely, some of my friends can find a place for you."
Gia expressed her gratitude and agreed to check back with him were she unable to find lodging. Her breakfast finished, she departed the diner.
The morning rain had stopped, and bright sunshine glinted from the drippy gables like so many diamonds. Gia felt the light warm both her heart and the air about her. It was unnatural to feel dreary or depressed when the day had grown so clear and attractive. She began to whistle a song from an older era and entered the supermarket.
Gia emerged with a local map. Despite the cheering change in weather, there was of a certainty some eldritch unpleasantness hiding in Innsmouth, and she was determined to ferret it out, simply in her own defense.
She set about wandering the industrial coastline, and found it a simple enough operation: docks, fishing boats, cannery and trucks. Despite the overpowering, appalling piscean miasma, nothing at all sinister lurked here.
She then meandered about the residential area and idly admired the antique homes. Architecture was most certainly not one of her interests, but in many sections of the town she found she could feel as if transported into some earlier age.
Had the windows of these very houses once seen tall vessels built of timber and bearing canvas white as clouds in the sunlight? On this very terrace facing the sea, might some widow have paced, waiting in vain for her husband to return from a voyage?
Gia was just beginning to enjoy her romantic, solitary tour when she noticed two men walking along the other side of the street. They were clean cut and otherwise nondescript, but they wore identical clothing – a pale blue button-down shirt tucked into navy-blue trousers. Gia had no particular reason to take note of them, except that the young waiter she'd spoken to before had worn exactly the same garments. Moreover, though these men walked with a deliberate stride, their eyes bore the same... lack of focus.
Gia continued her walk, and soon found a small group of women walking purposefully forward. Each of them wore cyan blouses tucked neatly into a prim, pleated skirt. Each blouse bore identical nautical-looking scarves. Each had about their eyes what Gia began to think of as "the Innsmouth look."
Gia considered. Their garb brought to her recollection the sort of uniforms schoolchildren sometimes wore, yet these women had clearly outgrown their scholastic years. This was nonetheless indubitably a uniform of some sort.
She inconspicuously followed the quartet of women until they arrived at an open concourse with a large pillared hall of obvious antiquity. There Gia saw, to her distinct discomfort, several men marching about it in what appeared to be be-ribboned naval uniforms, midnight blue with white piping and peaked white caps. Had she stumbled into some manner of military installation?
Adding to her confusion were several colorful, inviting signs identifying the place as "The Esoteric Order of Veracidelity." Internally, Gia winced at the clumsiness of this portmanteau.
Gia pivoted neatly on her heel and walked briskly away. She considered it likely that whatever obscure secret Innsmouth concealed would be connected with this strange military order. Well, all the better! She could simply avoid this site until the characteristically impatient Christine grew bored with the game and returned to reclaim her. Perhaps Gia was already free of the Fury, though this was far more than she could realistically hope for.
Her peregrinations soon led her to a fire station, and here her eyes beheld an unusual scene. A young blonde, one of the few she'd seen not wearing the azure uniform but rather a jacket with jeans, was attempting to converse with a uniformed girl. But the latter would have nothing to do with the former and sharply rebuked her. So rejected, the blonde stopped following and appeared to be fighting back tears.
Was the uniform the mark of some caste? The blonde didn't employ the sycophantic simper of a member of a lower class; quite the contrary, she demanded the other's attention only to be rebuffed.
Gia waited by the firehouse until the woman in uniform had walked out of earshot, and the blonde's small temper tantrum had expended itself, before attempting her overture.
"Hey, s'cuze me for bothering-" she began. The blonde turned and Gia saw the young woman hastily wiping back tears and composing herself. At the very least, these red-rimmed eyes were free of the Innsmouth look.
"I'm sorry," Gia back-peddled. "I'm intruding."
"No, no..." the blonde encouraged, hiding whatever distress she suffered from. "It's alright. What?"
The response was exactly what Gia had hoped for, so she fought to make her deformed smile as symmetrical as she could. "Could you explain... I didn't realize you were so upset. What is going on with all those uniforms around here?"
The blonde's mouth curled into a little "o" of surprise. "You don't know?" Gia shook her head and the girl abruptly looked about, to see who was spying on her. "If they sent you, you go right back and tell them I'm leaving. I don't want to publish secrets or enneg anybody, I just want out."
"I'm sorry... what did you just say? 'Enneg?'"
A little smile blossomed on her lips, and the blonde said, "you're telling the truth, aren't you? Alright, you don't want to be seen talking with me. Follow me. Keep back a ways."
Given what Gia had seen thus far in her journeys, she was far from disposed to scoff at these precautions. She followed the girl at a reasonable distance until they reached the coastline. Some modern-style beachfront homes had been built almost at the sand line, and her informant waved from a niche in a fence. Gia followed and found they were relatively protected from view on three sides. The blonde sat wearily in a scraggly patch of clover and offered a cigarette.
"Thanks, no. I never could stand 'em."
"Hope you don't mind if I do. I've been without 'em too long. Against the rules. So, you've never even heard of the Order of Veracidelity?"
"Sounds like a really stupid name to me."
"Yeah. Okay, I'm Zöe, Zöe Allen."
"Gia."
"Cool. Hi Gia. The girl I was talking to used to be my best friend in the order. But now that I'm an R.P. she's jamming me."
Gia cocked her head. Zöe in turn shook hers and grumbled to herself. "Stupid jargon! Sorry, I'm just so used to it. I've left the order and been declared a repressive person."
"Like an apostate."
"Right. So they all have a policy of refusing to have anything to do with me now. It's called 'jamming.'"
"Hmm. In fairness that's not the worst penalty for apostasy I've ever heard," Gia commented. "Why'd you leave?"
"Oh, where to begin? I was being hit, yelled at all the time, overworked, underfed, it was a nightmare."
"Why'd you stay? And if you say, 'I have nowhere else to go,' I'm gonna hit you."
Zöe chuckled at Gia's disgusted tone. "It was really nice at first. They told me they could fix everything that was wrong with me and that I'd even have superpowers if I advanced through enough levels."
"Oh brother!" Gia rolled her eyes.
"Don't be so dismissive. The order is very, very wealthy and powerful. They bought out a whole hotel for their baseship here and they practically run the city. They started with the hotel, bought it under a false name. The prefabs who live here weren't happy about it when they found out. But months before, the Order had infiltrated M.O.B.s into jobs at the newspapers, the police station and city hall. The Sec-sec knew all about who would roll over and who had to be managed."
"So they started enneging folks on their enemies list one by one. They framed the newspaper editor up as a pedophile. Then the chief of police got transferred to Ipswitch. The mayor dug in but they arranged a hit-and-run accident. Within a year, Top-sec M.O.B.s were in all the authority jobs. Like I said, they run the whole A.O."
"Okay," Gia tapped her fingers irritably. "Their spies took over the town, right? Gyeesh!"
"I got recruited by one of their baseships on the west coast. They convinced me to come out here to the superpower lab in Innsmouth. But... I dunno... I just got so sick of being used that I quit. They've taken all my money and I don't even know how I'm gonna get home!"
Gia considered offering the woman a ride, but ...no, she wouldn't wish involvement with Christine upon anyone, least of all a sad, wounded person like Zöe.
"You wanna know what's scary?" Zöe said as she stood and dusted clover from her hands. "I've seen some top-sec paperwork and they have plans to do this to even bigger cities. It's not what they've done; it's what they're gonna do."
"Where will you go?" Gia asked.
"Home," Zöe said. "For a little while. Get back in good with my family. Then we gotta just vanish so they can't enneg us. See, anyone who leaves is an enemy, and enemies are fair game. Best thing I can do is disappear."
Gia nodded and expressed her gratitude. Then she watched as the blonde left, and gave Zöe some distance before she too departed from the little seaside niche.
Now that the town's secret had been laid bare, Gia felt positively paranoid. If the order did run the police here, Innsmouth wasn't much safer than Zachry. She decided to go to the bus stop on Federal and quietly leave Innsmouth behind. Let Christine track her down if she wanted. Or not.
Gia entered the bus stop to find it, unlike the rest of the city, dilapidated and derelict. With no one to purchase tickets from, she sat down in some consternation, and tried to plan her next move. Could she simply walk out of the city? The marshy wetlands to the west looked dreadful, and it had just rained.
"This is your lucky day!" the waiter abruptly proclaimed, startling Gia dreadfully.
"Huh?" she replied with her unfailing gift for wit.
"Well, the bus won't even be ready until tomorrow. Had a breakdown or something. But I've already arranged for you to stay with us."
"Us?" Gia said, grimacing in sudden fear. Or at least that's what she tried to do; she had no idea if her face could do that.
"Come with me," he said with a spacey grin. And it was exactly the perfect thing to do, because Gia's legs walked her quite involuntarily toward him. He turned and led the way, his breezy confidence apparently bolstered by the large men in black leather trench coats and sunglasses lounging just across the street. "We've got a nice clean bed in a warm room just waiting for you."
Oh great! He thinks I'm a transient.
"Now don't get enturbulated. It's not far. C'mon."
Gia moaned inwardly, for the operation left her no option but to follow as ordered. But all that came out for her companion to hear was a happy little warble. She listened distantly to his sunny tales before they arrived—
Gia found herself confronting what she assumed must be the largest building in the town, a gabled brick giant self-consciously constructed to harmonize with the Georgian style so long favored by the local populace. This was, she quickly surmised, the former Waite-Eliot hotel, now renamed Baseship East.
She glanced up at the wrought iron gateway and read there the legend, "The Truth is What is True for You."
And that is the most deliberately shaky foundation for a philosophy I've ever read.
"I can see from your smile you're impressed," he said, holding the door open for her. The reception hall that awaited them was, like everything else in town under their management, sparkling clean and efficient-looking. The hotel had been restored perfectly, and made lavish with white marble, expensive tile and blue draperies reaching all the way to the ceiling.
"Very nice," Gia admitted.
"I'm going to leave you to your accountant now. I'm truly happy for you. This is the start of an amazing adventure!" The waiter turned her over to a tall, humorless looking woman wearing the female version of the navy dress blues she'd seen earlier.
"Do not speak," the woman commanded. "Come." And Gia did.
She was brought to a quiet parlor, like a library's reading room, filled with little booths. The room was silent except for the sounds of muted voices.
"Sit that body down," the woman ordered. Gia did so, and the woman took a seat directly across from her. She wheeled toward Gia an odd little machine housed in a cute pink curvilinear plastic casing. This she plugged into two chrome spheres mounted in the armrests of Gia's chair.
"Place your hands on the spheres," the woman commanded. "This is an M-Path. It tells me if you're in distress, even if you're lying. It is through these accounting sessions that we can help you."
"Help me?"
Of course! We're going to extirpate your traumories."
"Why?"
"I'm sorry, that is a non-word here. Your name?"
Gia tried to stay silent. "Juh... Ju—" she shook with the effort.
"What is your name?" the woman repeated, more loudly.
"Gia."
"Last name?"
"I don't have one anymore."
"No need to be shy. Try to relax. Take deep breaths, dear. You're among friends." The woman's voice was robotic, cold as a machine, and in sharp and ironic contrast to the sultry, passionate voice of the real machine Gia knew.
"I don't understand—"
"Gia," the woman interrupted. "You were doing so well. But you are now attempting to exert your rational mind. This is a place, and a procedure, beyond your prefab thinking. Reason is unwelcome here." Her fingers followed the forms before her.
"Occupation?"
"Live bait," Gia groaned. And oh, this is gonna get so ugly!
The woman didn't even blink. "What drugs do you take?"
"I sometimes take aspirin."
"Verify - what drugs do you take?"
"I take aspirin. For headaches."
"But your- ...tell me why—" the woman caught herself. "...what makes you smile like that?"
"An operation."
Oh God... no! Do not ask about the operation!
"Gia, I've marked you down for a blood test with neutranarc-sec. We do not use illegal drugs here."
"Goody, 'cause I'm not taking any." For once, the sugar in Gia's voice actually communicated her snarking better than she'd ever hoped.
"Your needle is floating," the woman commented with a grunt. "Good. I appreciate your being honest. Tell me your sins."
Gia could hardly believe her ears. "What?"
"That was a force two vocal command. I do not want to exert force five. Tell me your sins."
No! No, goddamn it!
"I killed my parents."
Fuck!
The well-practiced composure on the accountant's face, the dead Innsmouth look in her eyes, flickered away for a moment. She was shaken.
There's still a human being in there, Gia noted.
"How did you kill your parents?"
"With a car."
Both their eyes looked to the floating needle on the M-Path, which did not waver in the slightest. The woman turned a little pale.
"Tell me what brought you here."
"The waiter from the restaurant brought me here." Gia tried to force the hostility and outrage she was feeling into her voice, but all that came out was the usual saccharine-laced lilt.
"How did you come to Innsmouth?"
"I was dropped off."
"By whom?"
Crap!
"By Christine."
"Who is Christine?"
Oh... what the hell? Let's cut to the chase.
"Christine is the Fury Tisiphone. She's inhabiting an old Plymouth Fury and she uses me as a lure. She doesn't care about me; she's just looking for an excuse, any excuse. If you hurt me or do anything to me, she will hunt you down and grind your bones into the mud. If you imprison me, Veracidelity blood will pour through the cobblestoned streets of Innsmouth."
As one, their eyes turned to read the M-Path again.
"My needle is floating," Gia said with honey sweetness.
The woman fought to keep her practiced, businesslike mien but could not hide a sudden, deathly pallor. Abruptly she jumped to her feet and rushed out into a side office. Gia overheard the man waiting inside bellow, "you're never to leave in the middle of a session!" and then heard the woman shout him down. She couldn't hear their conversation after that, but she enjoyed imagining.
Finally, the woman returned, followed by a clean-cut, older officer type. She said, "Gia, the guard at the door will take you to your room. You are to remain inside until you are called for."
Without a word, Gia got up and went to the door.
Reason is unwelcome here.
Gia heard the lock click behind her, and silently cursed herself for not investing in locksmith's tools. Something to add to the list.
She found herself in a dorm room. It was not shabby but it had no personality at all. A small wall-mounted desk with chair and clock, a bunk bed and a window with navy blue curtains. More a cell than a room. Sometime while she was downstairs, it had begun to rain again.
After trying the door, Gia checked the window; it opened with ease. Cold wet air blew into the room. The roof of a nearby building was visible, tantalizingly near, but there was neither balcony nor even ledge to take her near enough. She might risk the leap if only she could reach... the second window down, she estimated.
How to get there?
Gia watched the last of the daylight fade from view. She had a plan. She was going to escape. Then she'd find Christine and let her do whatever she wished to in this horrible place.
At least that's what Gia told herself as she leaned on the windowsill. She felt nowhere near so confident. Nevertheless, she could feel real hatred welling up inside her. It didn't take a genius to realize these versimilitarians, whatever they called themselves, were rotten to the very core, using their techno-version of a Ouija board to exploit the credulous and the needy.
Real spirituality grows from being true to yourself, holding yourself responsible.
Night time in Innsmouth.
Gia wondered what sort of incompetent ninnies would fail to search her for weapons. They just had no idea who they were dealing with. She took a pillow, wrapped it around her pistol, and opened the door to the bathroom.
The adjoining door was locked. One gunshot later, it had no lock.
The next room was occupied. Gia removed the pillow from her gun, and the man ran out of the room in only his underwear. It's the lighter moments that keep me going, Gia chuckled to herself. She followed the man out the door and into the hotel corridor. In passing she admired the tasteful white-bordered navy carpet, so much better than the tacky trim of most hotels.
Focus, Gia!
The next room was locked. Pillow, trigger, open. Unoccupied. Gia strode to the window and opened it. The yawning distance that now confronted her was frightening, but what was that to somebody who'd spent even one night in Hill House? Gia kicked out the screen, let it fall, holstered her pistol, climbed onto the sill and leaped.
She just made it, just managed to find traction before skittering off the edge of the adjoining rooftop to her almost-certain death. Now what? She'd not planned any farther. She heard shouting in the hotel behind her.
She stood atop one of the high-peaked Georgian homes. Gia carefully walked to a window, shot out its latch and kicked the glass inside. She heard voices nearby as she found and strode purposefully down the dark stairs, sought out a back door and exited.
Her escape had taken less than two minutes. Gia breathed a sigh of relief to find herself back on the street and free. But there were plenty of streetlights, and she could hear behind her she had kicked over a veritable hornet's nest.
Can't stay. Damn! Should have checked the closet for a uniform... I could have blended right in. Think ahead, you silly girl!
She pulled her map of Innsmouth from her pocket, and tried to plan a hasty escape. The main streets would all soon be filled with patrols.
The Manuxet cut through the city at a point just to the south... it would be a dangerous gamble, but she had always been a good swimmer.
She heard dogs barking. Big dogs. There was no other decision and no more time. Gia ran south, and soon heard the noise of rushing water.
The river swirled through a concrete trench in the heart of the city. Gia wondered as she climbed over the wet iron mesh fence if she was committing suicide. Not for the first time, she reflected that her death meant an escape from these horrid situations and an end to her hateful peonage to the Fury Tisiphone. She jumped in without hesitation.
The icy tendrils of the water shocked her, and made her instantly regret her decision. She broke the surface with a howl of anguish.
Swim! Just swim!
The cold lashed her on, and as she had the thunderous current with her, she reached the ocean in less than a minute. Now the current was sweeping her away, and might even take her to sea. Gia broke away to the north, and fought for the beach.
"Enturbulated."
The rain-swollen current proved too strong, but fortunately for Gia, she found purchase upon the ancient breakwater reef that protected Innsmouth harbor.
She sucked on the painful abrasions that the coral had inflicted upon her hands. She shivered in the wet moonless night and looked around.
Nothing but seawater, lapping in waist-high waves about her in the rain. She was standing upon a coral reef just beneath the surface. She had escaped her captivity only to lose herself outside of the tiny safe spaces reserved for humanity.
Gia, the cold is gonna kill you if you don't get back to shore!
She saw streetlights to the north, a spur of land leading to the reef? Gia started walking, as if walking on the water, toward those beckoning lights. Even in this downpour, the stink of fish almost overpowered her.
Abruptly Gia stiffened. She could feel, with as much certainty as she'd felt in Hill House, that something watched her.
She turned and saw furtive movement in the moonless dark brine behind her, and shuddered. Shark? Barracuda? What in heaven's name could be out here on a coral reef in the rain, after sundown?
Shaking with cold, she soon set foot on land and then on pavement. She had alighted at a terminal cul-de-sac serving modern seaside homes. A nice, normal-looking neighborhood, yet Gia shook with cold and fear, for shadowy figures darted away from the circles of light of the streetlamps into the concealing dark. She was far from alone.
It was at this moment of dreadful despair, surrounded by lurid ichthyic shadows and shivering pitifully from the cold and wet that Gia heard a familiar voice singing, "...changing my life with a wave of her hand. Nobody can deny that there's something there." Just up ahead, a car blinked its headlamps.
Gia sloshed toward the lights and the music, and presently found herself standing next to the familiar form of Christine.
"Girl, you are full of surprises! I wasn't expecting you to pop up yet. And did you actually come from the seaward side?"
Without a word, Gia tried to open the door, only to find it locked.
"Uh uh! You are not getting saltwater in my upholstery."
Gia glared at the car, briefly considering blowing out the locks with her pistol. Of course, it had been soaked and she wasn't sure it would fire.
"What about them?"
"Saw 'em, did you? Trust me, they don't care. You got some spare stuff in the trunk."
Too cold and weary to argue any further, Gia stripped. The trunk popped open and she tossed her sopping clothes inside with a wet slap.
"There's a good girl." Christine's door opened, and Gia gratefully crawled into the toasty-warm interior. She curled up on the smooth, giving leather and drank in the delicious heat. The doors locked behind her.
"See how well I take care of you? Now Gia, I gotta ask you to not sit up or even open your eyes until I've properly warned you, okay? Right now we are surrounded by the Ye-ha-nuhth-lei, the children of Dagon, favored of Kuh-thlul-thlu. When you're ready, go ahead and look."
The cabin light switched on. Gia sat up. Every way she looked, fish-like heads with bulging watery eyes peered through the glass right into the car, at her. Gia stuffed her fists into her mouth to stop her screaming.
"In your language they're called the Deep Ones. Aren't you glad I warned you?"
Gia abruptly recognized these monsters with their rheumy, iridescent eyes and pulsating gill slits. She'd seen one of these creatures before in an old black and white horror film, and it was only this familiarity that kept her from fainting dead away from fright.
"Don't worry. I've told 'em you're with me. They probably would've smelled me on you anyway and left you alone, but you'd better not count on that."
Presently, the hideously beautiful gill-men lost interest and resumed their orderly progress westward. Gia watched, gaping and awestruck. "There are so many...!" she finally managed. "Where did they come from?"
"'Come from?' You may remember the government blew up part of their reef for 'public health' years ago? Y'ha-nthlei is their home," Christine said evenly. "Innsmouth is theirs, and they are not pleased."
Gia began to laugh hysterically. "Oh, when I'm cheering their kind on against my fellow humans, everything has been turned upside-down!"
"Are you, really? Well now tell me, were you hurt? Did anyone do anything bad to you?"
"They locked me up in a dorm room, but otherwise, no."
"Well doggone it, girl! I came here to get a cut of the action. Now we don't have cause!"
"The rules?" Gia said wearily.
"You're slacking off," Christine chided. Her engine ignited and the GPS awakened. "Guess we might as well move on. You up to taking the wheel?"
Gia grunted and popped the parking break. "I'm still not happy with you."
"'Happy?' Happiness is overrated. We got pills in the trunk'll make you happy. Or you could go back to the Veraciwhatevers, if there are any left. You'd fit right in, and it'll only cost you your freedom, your integrity and your dignity."
"Guess some folks think it's worth it," Gia grumbled. She put the car in gear.
"That's so. You don't get to be my age without learning a few things. There are always a surprising lot of people who're happiest when somebody takes away the burden of being themselves, having to make their own choices. Maybe... they have some inkling how little the world cares for them. Anyway, doesn't matter what cock-and-bull story you feed 'em. You're stronger than you look if that's foreign to you."
The rhythmic beat of the windshield wipers and the balmy heat soothed Gia. "That's an unusually tolerant idea, coming from you."
"I only intervene when their masters command 'em to do wrong. I'm an agent of karma. Speaking of karma, your friends in the hotel are about to get a face-full of it. I'd stay and watch, but from the sound of that laugh you've lost your quota of sanity points for one night. Let's go find you a laundromat and some hot soup in Rowley."
As they drove up Water Street, Gia could see and sense the batrachian shamblers all around them, risen to retake their stolen city. She thought of the sleepy-eyed people in their hotel, not even dreaming what stumbled their way.
"You wanna know what's scary...?" Gia quoted.
It's not what they've done...
...it's what they're gonna do.
.