Worse Than The Innsmouth Horror

Worse Than The Innsmouth Horror: Reedsy Story

© Andre Michael Pietroschek, pronounced Pee-tro-shack, all rights reserved

Disclaimer: No warranties! This is fiction.

I am looking at the Atlantic Ocean while speaking this into my smartphone. Forget about the loan running to even be here. The Netherlands. The Ocean. The smell is not very pleasant, and the sounds made by the waves fail to comfort me. Yet, it is not nature to blame, as I am mourning the loss of my last remaining friends in this life. I am also still impaired by shock, and it is only slowly ebbing off. Some seabirds screech, but neither could I identify them, nor would I be in any mood to care. Sorry, I'm busy barely holding myself.

The small boat we had rented a place on was struggling to earn money, and its captain was contractually involved in events and celebrity ideas as advised by his experts on sales and marketing. Specifically, a sort of cheap costume Cthulhu cosplay, to myself and probably to my deceased friends, a silly and costly way of saying goodbye one last time, saying goodbye to our decades of fantasy roleplaying and that Lovecraftian Horror folly.

It was intended as a slow, along the coast wave ride while all, except for the service personnel and the captain, were dressed in the most fitting costume they could master to resemble an Arkham Investigator, a smart Journalist, or an unexpected Dilletante type of personality with one being the storyteller dishing us a practiced sermon that had five star votes on websites by supposedly former customers, who had already booked the same tour.

Pathetic, as young me would have scorned such for being the stuff only grandma and grandpa would ever fall for. Looking back, a lot makes more sense, and certain warning signs seem to have been obvious, but to the distracted, busy us, they were not obvious at all. We were fools desperately trying to accept aging away in a society that could not care less about our well-being, our hopes and dreams, after all.

Please, stop dishing that prejudiced therapist shtick, you don't even know what you are talking about, and one day you will be too old and no longer buddies with the youngsters. Growing old is like that, and contrary to others, we made it through the decades without molesting children, knife-stabbing random strangers, or messing up even more due to political ambitions.

We costumed ones were in on the first fifteen minutes of the fictional story dished, and that after the arrival and getting aboard already took at least thirty minutes. Good moment to get us inside and dish slightly pricy refreshments, as the blend of a coffee, tea, or energy drink with a moment of rest and clean toilets sure made some money roll.

It did, and legitimately so. Or, so we thought, even the cook most probably did. The story was about survivors of an incident in Innsmouth having barely escaped with their lives, as the Esoteric Order of Dagon had masqueraded as a new church in modern times, and the cultists had the local politicians plus police on their side. Each of us was handed a laminated sheet, granting each of us a moment in the spotlight of the event, as reciting it in our own words did make us feel directly involved and responsible, not to let the others down, of course. We once loved this folly; we were the ones who considered a roleplay or cosplay session better entertainment than cinema or theater ever were to us.

The poisoning struck most of us completely by surprise, and we had the full routine running: The small vessel DID have a doctor, and he rushed to save lives for sure! The captain and Stewart acted fast and decisively, alerting the crew and reporting the incident to medical staff along the coast, swiftly announcing a shortcut to get them ASAP. No surprise, for since the coronavirus had rattled the cages of the world's media, and since terror attacks in Europe had become regular tragedies, many more people were more aware of such. Meaning, we had paid extra for security and medical care, which for people above forty-five years of age is a wise precaution. Especially, when the reality has to be handled with us indulging in some mind-game sort of cosplay.

Sadly, it was not that much of a fairy tale. While some still puked across the railings, others blocked the toilets, some collapsed, and some lost their nerves; one among us had a different goal all the way, a sinister one. The blasphemous normalcy of the diabolical. Yeah, I had named it like such before, as knowledge of basic Satanism had, of course, triggered my imagination, while the reality of bloody crimes never was stylish and cultivated at all.

Luca van Poddar. A vaguely Dutch name, yet fake for sure. Luca had his future running on smuggling Heroin. For whatever reason, unknown to us, costumed fools, he felt threatened enough to take drastic measures against us.

When the poisoning did not rid him of all potential witnesses, he desperately turned cutthroat and even pushed the puking ones into the cold ocean water. I daresay in a poisoned state, few could expect to survive by swimming back to the shore.

Yes, it happened so fast, so unexpectedly quicker than we could handle. The killer dropped his mask of being only another employee, murdered as many of us as he could, and when the crew mustered resistance, he jumped into the water, as if he had some secret submarine awaiting him.

I stare at the waves again, sorrow and survivor's guilt keeping me awake, and I speak futile prayers for my murdered friends.

We only wanted to have some fun, the sort with everybody knowing it ain't genuine, and in truth with everybody knowing that a decent meal, a hopefully disinfected toilet, and having that obligation to meet friends to remain in vague contact resolved was what we had burned the money for.

Luca was no Fishman and no cultist, but that drug-addicted misanthrope was more godhead monster to us than that Cthulhu. And, as so often in life, a bare twenty minutes later, it was all over. Police drove off with the arrested suspect after they fished him out of the water. Paramedics were already en route to hospitals, but my friends were not among the survivors, and I had only some minutes left before duty obligates me to inform their relatives while disregarding the pain inside my chest.

The waves did not care, the seabirds did not even notice, and life would go on.

The end