"To See The Sea"

by Michael Marshall Smith
originally published Shadows Over Innsmouth, 1994

The unnamed narrator and his girl Susan take an unusual holiday. 

It seems Susan has a curious past.  10 years before she was born, her mother was aboard a ship that sank off the English coast.  An oddity - the lighthouse of the coastal village nearby was turned off, and none of the villagers sent for help until the following morning.  But no one died.  Her mother's stories have left Susan with a fear of the sea and coastal areas.  But, she decides they should visit the coastal village where the ship went down - Dawton.

Dawton is dreary and all-but deserted.  There seem to be only a few people there, and none are friendly.  Susan and the narrator have dinner, get drunk, and have some tea with the landlady of the guest house they're staying at.  Susan gets sick and they fall asleep.

When the narrator wakes up, he finds its late afternoon.  No Susan.  The house is deserted, and so are the streets.  He finds a procession of fishy people marching to the sea.  He shouts Susan's name.  He is clubbed over the head. 

When he comes to, he finds a pay phone and calls the cops.  They investigate.  Not much is found, but they do find a pair of shoes he left on the beach.  In the toe is a short goodbye note from Susan.  Police divers find the wreckage of the ship that went down.  There are skeletons inside.  They find the I.D. and some jewelry belonging to Susan's mother.

This ending is a bit ambiguous.  I'm assuming it means that the folks on the ship actually drowned, and were replaced by Deep One hybrids.  That Susan was drawn back to Dawton by her true nature.  This isn't clear though.  The story is well-written but Smith fails to generate the sense of claustrophobic paranoia that Ramsey Campbell or Robert Aickman would have.