"Calamari Curls"

by Kage Baker
originally published Dark Mondays, NightShade Press, 2006

Pegasus Bright, a misanthropic double amputee, runs a crummy seafood dive in the crummy, forgotten California coastal town of Nunas Beach.  

A new developer opens a new, colorful, clean, fun seafood and bar nearby, taking away all of Bright's potential clientele.  He employs Betty Step-in-Time, a transgender mime and part-time shaman, to do something about it.  Betty opens up a vortex in time and space which swallows the new place. Pegasus lives grumpily ever after.

An amusing story, actually fairly funny, with some colorful characters.  But pretty minor stuff.

"Lost Stars"

by Ann K Schwader
originally published Strange Stars and Alien Shadows, 2003

Sara works in an art gallery.  Her friend Diane wants her to attend a women's spirituality group she's found.  She claims this is not some mere wicca knock-off, but a gateway to real spiritual power, based on some very obscure ancient Egyptian beliefs.  Ever since she joined, she's lost weight, had more money - everything's going right.  Reluctantly, Sara attends.  The meeting is indeed different and impressive, but she's a little put off by the leader, Sesh'tet, who seems to have expected her, and gives her an unusual amulet.

The next morning, the amulet seems to have changed from a black stone to a leech-like glob, attached between her breasts.  She tears it off and destroys it, but is surprised to get a call from her ex-boyfriend a short time later.

Sara reaches out to an old college professor, Dr. Stanley, an Egyptologist, asking about the group and their unusual liturgy.  To her surprise, Stanley warns her away from the cult, noting that it is very dangerous and steeped in sorcery of the blackest sort.  He sends her a package of information about some bad business around an expeditions unearthing of a decidedly unusual tomb in the 1920's.

Sara convinces Diane to turn from the cult, especially since Diane's gotten the news she's been diagnosed with cervical cancer.  The group is planning a major ceremony timed to coincide with a meteor shower.  Sara crashes the party with molotov cocktails, and with Diane's help, exposes Sesh'tet for the mummified thing that she is, and spoils the party.  

Schwader writes well, and her characterization is strong - Sara and Diane are fully fleshed, highly believable women.  The build-up is quite good, especially the disquieting journal from the 1920's expedition.  Unfortunately, having the payoff be a routine break-up-the-ceremony-and-scatter-the-cultists is a letdown.

"Haggopian"

by Brian Lumley
originally published The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1973

Jeremy Belton, scientific journalist, has a scoop!  An exclusive interview with the mysterious, reclusive Armenian marine biologist, Richard Haggopian.  Haggopian - independently wealthy, author of several important and best-selling works on marine life, a recluse who lives on the island of Keltnos in the Aegean Sea.  And he never gives interviews.  Until now.

Belton travels to the island, and his experience is a strange one.  Haggopian is - um - ugly - always keeps his shades on, has no hair, has distinctly oily skin, as if he were covered in lotion.  He offers Belton some fine beer, while himself knocking back some weird concoction.  And he has a strange tale to tell.

It seems Haggopian is doing this interview because he's about to check out - sail his ship out into the middle of the ocean and let nature take her course.  But suicide?  No ... a little more confusing than that.

It seems some years back, Haggopian came across an unusually large and hitherto unknown species of hagfish.  He took it back as a specimen, of course.  Then he found it had strange, hypnotic powers.  The power to attract him into the tank with it, where it would rasp and suck his blood.  Haggopian became addicted to the experience, like a vampire's victim.  He would return night after night.  Finally, his wife and assistant caught him in the act.  The wife threw herself over the side of a ship.  The assistant killed the hagfish.

But Haggopian was not out of the woods.  A new organ began to grow from his abdomen - a kind of hagfish organ growing out of him.  Haggopian is going to join the Deep Ones....

What shall I say about "Haggopian"?  It's certainly one of Lumley's weirdest stories.  And sickest.  Don't get me wrong - sick can be funny and this is a prime example of Lumley-sick - I mean, the guy gets off (Lumley's description of Haggopian's nocturnal encounters with the giant hagfish are decidedly sensual) on having a hagfish suck his blood!  And the wife commits suicide over it (the only thing missing is her shouting "another woman I would have understood!").  Have you ever seen a hagfish?  They are surely one of the grosser things on God's green earth, and I suspect if I found my bedmate getting their jollies off with one, I would certainly file for divorce pronto.  I mean, I'm an open-minded guy and all - but c'mon!

The fact that he now has a phallic hagfish-organ sticking out of him is both hilarious and disgusting in the extreme.  What it has to do with the Deep Ones I don't know, but I can imagine Lumley chuckling the whole time he wrote this.

"The Doom That Came To Innsmouth"

by Brian McNaughton
originally published Tales Out Of Innsmouth, 1999

Bob is descended from Innsmouth stock, is turning into a Deep One, and is a true believer in the Esoteric Order of Dagon.

It seems that, since the 1960's, the U.S. government has been paying reparations to the Innsmouthers and their descendants. In order to claim the money, Bob must visit Innsmouth and go through a screening process.

Innsmouth hasn't changed much.  Bob goes to the institute, but finds himself locked up in an old sanatorium.  he meets a girl there who is not a true Innsmouther, but is still being held prisoner.  He escapes from his room, and finds his way to the morgue.  There he finds the bodies of several Innsmouthers.  And also a full-on Deep One.

It turns out the Deep One is alive.  He revives it, kidnaps the girl, escapes, rapes and murders the girl.  Deep Ones destroy the institute and kill the doctos and security.  Bob and an old Innsmouth woman who's well on her way to Deep One escape and head towards Fiji.

An entertaining, well-done story but hardly a classic.  Having such an unsympathetic narrator doesn't help.

"The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife"

by John Hornor Jacobs

originally published The Book of Cthulhu, Nightshade Books, 2011

Maebe and Laura work in a restaurant in a coastal city (presumably Innsmouth).  A handsome guy who's been hitting on Maebe for some time asks her out. This time, the widowed Maebe finally accepts. While he makes love to her, Laura knocks him out.  They drag him out to the shore, castrate him.  Deep Ones, or Deep One-like creatures, including Maebe's husband, come forth to accept the sacrifice.

Very atmospheric in its final scenes, but not much going on here.

"The Shuttered Room"

by August Derleth
originally published The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces, Arkham House, 1959

Abner Whateley returns to Dunwich to claim the property left him by his grandfather, Luther - a cousin of Lavinia, the old wizard, and Wilbur W.  Luther was a little weird.  Years ago, he locked his daughter Sarah ("Aunt Sarey") up in a room over the mill attached to the house, and nailed the shutters over the windows.  He would not speak of her again.

Abner finds a letter from Luther instructing him to destroy the mill and the room above it, and kill anything he finds alive there.  He unlocks the mystery room, finding it with some spartan bedding, things thrown around, and smelling fishy.  He knocks out the shutters, accidentally breaking a window in the process.  He thinks he spots a frog or toad ducking into hiding, but ignores it.

In town, he meets grumpy storekeeper Tobias Whateley (who will reappear in "The Watchers Out Of Time").  Returning home, he finds his great uncle Zebulon and a young boy waiting for him.  Zebulon reveals that the Whateley family is cursed, and that "Aunt Sarey" was a Marsh, from Innsmouth.

Abner has trouble hiring workmen to demolish the mill.  And he finds wet, webbed footprints around the mill and the (formerly) shuttered room. Both outgoing and incoming.  And the incoming prints, though of the same type as the outgoing, are quite a bit larger. He finds a letter in Luther's papers concerning Innsmouth and the sordid tales of the Marsh family.  And some kind of animal has suddenly taken to killing cattle around the region - "just like that time before..."

Oh well, so what? thinks Abner, and returns to trying to find workmen to demolish the mill and poking through old Luther's papers.

Eventually he finds a rehash of the whole Deep Ones/Innsmouth thing (Zadok Allen gets a name-drop), finds that Sarah took part in some Deep One-ish rituals in Innsmouth, and came back preggers with her own cousin Ralsa's child (Ralsa, it seems, was a fishy character ... geddit?), which led to Luther locking her away in the shuttered room above the mill ... along with her offspring.

A journal in Luther's hand largely fills in the blanks - Sarah's offspring escaped and went around eating livestock and human (one of them was identified only by his remaining foot and shoe!), but was eventually lured back in and locked away, where it was kept fed on raw meat - just enough to keep it alive, but not enough to let it grow in size.  Apparently the critter didn't die, even when the food stopped.  It just shrank to small size.

The thing romps across Dunwich - one such rampage is recounted over the party line, as in "The Dunwich Horror", complete with "Oh gawd - that face!" exclamations.  Finally, Abner finds it back in the shuttered room, and nails it with a kerosene lamp (why would a wet creature burn?).  It dies screaming "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" as Abner runs screaming into the night.

This is not a great story.  It has a nice buildup, but pretty soon you realize it's ultimately kind of a riff off "The Dunwich Horror" with some standard haunted house touches.  Derleth is good with atmosphere, and the story is engaging enough to be entertaining and fun if you're looking for a Lovecraftian fix, but the absence of HPL's originality and imagination means its nothing more than a fun read.

"The Same Deep Waters As You"

By Brian Hodge

Originally published Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, 2013

Kerry is the subject of a reality show, a woman gifted with the ability to communicate with animals (ala "The Horse Whisperer").  She had been recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to help with a top secret operation.

Off the coast of Washington, on a rocky island, is a prison that houses those taken during the raids on Innsmouth in the 1920's.  These "people" do not die of natural causes, and have become more and more Deep One-ish.  They no longer communicate in human language, but are making strange noises together, all while facing in a particular direction.  The military hopes to find out what they are doing, and that Kerry can help.

Kerry meets with the oldest Innsmouther, Barnabas Marsh.  She is unable to communicate with him but picks up vague impressions regarding the sea.  Kerry persuades the keepers to allow Marsh to swim in the ocean, on a long chain, with snipers standing by.  Though phobic about the ocean, Kerry swims with him using a snorkel.  While underwater, she picks up impressions of a great structure, built of massive stones.  Marsh lets loose with a sonar call, and is shot to death by the guards.

Escovedo, the commanding officer, shows Kerry some photographs taken by submarine, of a structure like the one she envisioned.  He explains that these have been transmitted by subs, but that all the subs were lost.  She and Escovedo agree that the sound Marsh released underwater reminded them of a distress signal.

That night, an unmanned(?) ship rises out of the sea, crashing into the walls of the prison.  A huge, terrible creature (which is not really described) also rises up and finishes the job.  The Innsmouthers all escape, and most of the guards and wardens are killed.

Kerry takes her daughter and relocates to Innsmouth, where she rents an old house and watches the sea.  One day, she and her daughter take a boat and row out to a rock island nearby.  The Innsmouthers are there to welcome her.

Well, here we have pretty much another riff on the deep ones/Innsmouth theme.  In this case, a somewhat modern one.  Kerry is a well-realized character and her compassion and sympathy for the hybrid Innsmouthers, mixed with her fear of them, is a new sound for a Lovecraft-based tale.  Escovedo is your standard-issue gritted-teeth military man who's not so bad once you get know him type.  The night attack on the prison is effective, capturing the fear and confusion of a catastrophic moment. The story is very well written.  The final paragraphs are eerie and evocative in the same way Lovecraft's finale is in the original "Shadow Over Innsmouth".  This is not a great story but it is a very good one.