Ch.111Ch.7 – Outro(1)(Video not opening)

1929. 6. 13. AM 10:11

Crayfield Detective Agency

Pollard Island

Crayfield and I returned to Pollard Island. We hung a “One Week Vacation” notice on the office door. We each enjoyed our rest. Occasionally we ate together at restaurants or chatted, but we never brought up Innsmouth first.

After three days, I stopped nodding off and no longer felt compelled to clean obsessively. Even then, I still felt as if the stench of Innsmouth lingered somewhere between my nose and mouth. It wasn’t until the fourth day that I was reminded of Innsmouth again, when Avashina, transformed into mist, slipped through the window crack.

“You should say something when you’re back! Do you know how worried I was? I came looking but no one was here, and no phone calls! You ungrateful beast!”

Whether she was embracing me or squeezing me or both wasn’t entirely clear, but only after patting her back for quite some time could I finally calm Avashina down.

“How could I not worry? The newspapers and radio have been talking about nothing but Innsmouth!”

Apparently, all newspapers and radio stations had been continuously broadcasting updates about Innsmouth. Crayfield and I had consciously avoided listening to the news, so we knew nothing about it. I barely managed to convince her with the excuse that I couldn’t go out because the stench had permeated my clothes.

“You’re not lying, are you? Are you really not hurt? Innsmouth is completely ruined. No, ‘ruined’ doesn’t even begin to describe it!”

Avashina cupped my face with both hands. Her small, pointed tongue briefly traced my lips.

“So I need to check thoroughly for injuries with my own eyes. Take off your clothes. My goodness, look at these bruises!…But…oh. You’re h-healthy…thank goodness…hehehe.”

Of course, words alone weren’t enough to convince her.

But what happened shortly after was even worse. Less than an hour after Avashina slipped back out through the window, the front door clicked and opened by itself. Exhausted, I couldn’t even properly lift my gun, and had to face Aurora completely defenseless.

“Hey. I thought you were dead! When you come back, shouldn’t you report in? You completely lack the basics. Sneaking away like that… Stand up. What? Stand up! Sit down! Stand up! Arms out! Squat! Good. Arms and legs seem fine… Good. Now I need to check if your autonomic nervous system is functioning properly. Full undress and lie on your back.”

Aurora examined me quite passionately, even unbuttoning my clothes. Throughout, she emphasized several times that “no matter how busy or tired you are, it’s basic courtesy to contact someone when you return from a distant place.” After one examination was complete, I gasped that I understood now, but—

“What good is understanding with your head? You need to learn with your body. Do you know why they make you run laps in the military? So you can act when extreme situations arise and rational thinking fails. You’re far from there. And there are still more diagnostic items left! The more examinations, the better!”

She insisted on inspecting every inch until morning. Somehow I seemed to have gained a few more bruises, but Aurora slapped her gloved hand down, saying that a war hero should accept that much as a medal.

“Today was just a basic examination. I’ll schedule a more thorough one, so keep that in mind.”

And then she gracefully disappeared with the rising sun.

“What’s wrong with your face? Couldn’t sleep properly?”

To the startled Crayfield, I made up an excuse that I hadn’t slept well the night before. When I vaguely mentioned that a mosquito or two might have gotten in, he looked at me as if he couldn’t understand me for a moment, but then opened the office door.

“Good heavens, what’s that smell!”

It was merely the musty smell from not having opened the office door or ventilated for several days, but we rushed to open the windows and began a thorough cleaning. Crayfield had clearly become as sensitive to smells as I was.

“Crayfield!”

This time it was the respectable Mrs. Margaret. She looked twice her usual size. Prominent tendons and veins bulged from her formidable arm muscles.

“Those liquor bottles in the trash—they’re yours, aren’t they! My goodness, what’s all this! Have you become an alcoholic?”

Crayfield’s face flushed bright red.

“Ah. Well. You see. Ma’am. Um… I’ve been taking some ‘nerve stabilizers’.”

“No more for a month! If you touch that ‘medicine’ again, I’ll have you committed to a mental institution, you hear me! The nerve of it! You could at least show your face when you return! If you need to relieve stress, find a healthy hobby instead of drowning it in alcohol!”

She was so angry that she didn’t even mince words. Sweat beaded on the forehead of Crayfield, who wouldn’t have feared even a shoggoth on his tail. Mrs. Margaret whirled around, looked down at me, and said,

“I understand you’re young, but enough is enough! At least keep the noise down! How annoying must it have been for complaints about noise to come from both neighboring rooms!”

“What do you mean? What did I do in my room?”

The landlady stormed out. I made up an excuse that I had “spent the night knocking on walls and ceilings trying to catch mosquitoes, but they were hard to catch.” Crayfield frowned, probably due to his hangover.

“Well. We’ve unintentionally caused some worry. I should buy some flowers. Let’s see… let’s start with the simple tasks.”

We began with the backlog of newspaper clippings. Starting with simple labor for any task helps warm up the body and simplifies thinking.

There wasn’t as much work as we had expected. All newspapers had been covering Innsmouth news for the entire week, but since the sources of information were so limited, most articles contained similar content.

With slight variations, the general story was the same: a submarine volcano that had been dormant in front of Devil Reef had erupted, causing an earthquake that separated Innsmouth from the mainland, turning it into an island.

Reputable media outlets explained “plate tectonics,” a scientific theory that had long been recognized in geological circles but was unfamiliar to the general public.

According to this theory, the earth’s land and seas rest on thin stone plates floating on bubbling magma below. The earth’s rotation and revolution, gravitational forces between planets, magnetic field changes, and various other factors cause these stone plates to move.

The problem arises when these plates collide with each other. If plates crash into each other, how could the cake sitting on top remain intact? This was what happened in Innsmouth, according to most explanations.

As time passed, articles about “Innsmouth’s Heroes” began to appear. As it happened, a Congressional House investigation committee had been dispatched to Innsmouth, with Federal Bureau of Security Agent Katherine Scully in charge of security.

In an unprecedented disaster where administrative capabilities had completely collapsed, Agent Scully established an emergency response system coordinating civil servants, police, and fire departments to rescue citizens. Her quick thinking in requesting military assistance despite severed telephone and power lines was highly praised.

The military’s excellent response also received acclaim. Reconnaissance aircraft located citizens, naval military police guided people to the shore, and warships transported them to safety. The articles demonstrated the usefulness of integrated land, sea, and air operational capabilities even in peacetime.

As a result, the Federal Bureau of Security announced plans to award Agent Katherine Scully, while the military would honor the field commanders and soldiers.

Meanwhile, lists of missing persons occupied a corner of the papers: Mayor Isaac Allen and other Innsmouth officials, city council members, Congressional House investigation committee members, civic group leaders, and Innsmouth citizens. Innsmouth was still unstable, and investigating on foot was deemed too dangerous.

After about a week, practical issues began to appear in articles. Who would accommodate Innsmouth’s refugees? How would they overcome property damage? Media outlets appealed to the compassion of decent, capable Americans. Fundraising for Innsmouth residents continued across the country. Major corporations expressed their intention to immediately hire people from Innsmouth. North. East. South and West. Central.

There was no mention of monsters anywhere. The list of missing persons remained but had shrunk in size. Stories unrelated to Innsmouth began to emerge. Director Hood of the Federal Bureau of Security was reportedly considering entering politics, with a high possibility of joining the Patriot Party.

“Fortunately, there’s no talk of shoggoths or Dagon.”

Crayfield sighed with relief. From that point, we gradually began discussing what had happened in Innsmouth. I asked how he had thought to provoke the shoggoth.

“There’s a saying that the shoggoth is the embodiment of Lovecraft’s fear of crowds. What he did well, in fact, was to embody his various phobias and fears. Just as medieval people created demons modeled after human vices, so did Lovecraft.”

Crayfield said, carefully cutting out newspaper articles with scissors.

“So what you and I did was similar to inciting a crowd. First excite them, then show them where to charge. Throwing stones at the house where the civic group members were staying was the same as taunting the shoggoth.

It was a miracle the car engine held up. By the way, I’m curious. Even with naval gunfire, it was just a destroyer, and the fighter planes only had machine guns. That wouldn’t have been enough to defeat Dagon. How did they manage it?”

It’s impossible to know. Dagon hadn’t even fully crossed over into our world.

“Perhaps the summoning wasn’t completed.”

That must be right.

We silently cut newspapers and pasted them together. As we worked, Crayfield shared what he knew about Lovecraft.

“Lovecraft’s family seems to have been sensitive for generations. What you might call the artistic type. The kind of person who, when struck on the cheek by a wind-blown leaf, would either hear flute music or scream from their heart. The hereditary fear of nervous breakdown never left him.

To make matters worse, he had no money. And his social skills were terrible. So he was essentially a reclusive loner in the early 1900s, but when he made the big decision to seek work in the big city, how great must his expectations have been? He had already published several short stories in Weird Tales magazine.

But he couldn’t find a job. As a novelist, he might or might not be popular, so that’s one thing. But take away the novels from him, and what’s left is a middling age, a mind too sensitive for physical labor, poor social skills, and a suspiciously rich vocabulary.

It’s like he was the young master of a ruined noble family. Even you wouldn’t hire such a person as a new publishing house employee or office assistant, would you? When there are so many cheerful and positive people who might not know a word or two of English. Here, paste this for me.”

Too much glue had been applied, so I had to wipe some off on waste paper.

“Lovecraft wasn’t a successful writer. Not in life, nor in his novels. Moreover, he didn’t build a perfectly independent worldview. He was influenced by earlier prophets and lamented why he himself had nothing original. Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen…

But Lovecraft was different. Even he didn’t know it, but he had talent. He didn’t rest on the shoulders of giants. He stepped on them and stood up. He ruthlessly added his own paranoia, innate sensitivity, delicate temperament, pathological signals, and prejudices to the materials of his predecessors. His mediocre writing skill was just a bonus.

We know he was unhappy, that he didn’t receive high literary acclaim either during his life or after death, and that he was even a racist. Yet people still find inspiration in him and continue to write better myths than his. Even knowing that the Cthulhu mythos is a baseless mythology. Why is that?”

Crayfield took a deep drag from his cigarette.

“I think what Lovecraft really wanted to talk about was how to live. Remember that Lovecraft didn’t commit suicide. He didn’t destroy himself either. He simply refused to compromise while being at odds with the world, but he wasn’t self-destructive.

He knew how to take out and expose the fears he harbored one by one. Just as medieval people openly brought out their dark desires and then declared ‘this is bad.’ He took out each of his fears one by one and named them ‘this is what.’ Just as God gave the first human, Adam, the authority to name all things in the world, he named his own fears.

But what is fear? Fear is the emotion most closely related to survival. Talking about fear is ultimately another rhythm of talking about how to live. In that sense, he was brilliant. Although his direction was completely different from others, I think what he ultimately wanted to say was affirmation through negation.

Yes, he was extreme. But in the end, he lived his life. He may not have been a great or respectable person, but he opened another possibility. A life that doesn’t kneel to fear. A life that isn’t devoured by fear. A story about a life that continues to survive despite fainting at the slightest touch and losing one’s mind. Despite the literary devices, aren’t all his records left by survivors?”

Crayfield tapped his cigarette into the ashtray.

“Well, that’s what I think. And here, traces of those who wanted to expose the world’s shittiness, even before Lovecraft, are here.”

Crayfield pulled a book from his desk drawer. The Latin translation of the Necronomicon. No missing pages, no omitted sections. It’s the primary translation of the book written by the first whistleblower Abdul Alhazred, and the closest to the original text.

And naturally, it’s written in Latin. And Latin is a basic qualification for a Catholic priest.

“So. Want to take another look at Father Michael’s underground storage?”

Crayfield smiled.

“There’s no rule saying we have to drink only here. Nor do we need to struggle to climb onto the shoulders of giants. Let’s just have a drink with those we worry about and those who worry about us, lean on shoulders and offer our own. Isn’t that what an ordinary life is about?

I think if Lovecraft had drinking buddies, there might not have been a Cthulhu mythos. If you’re thinking of writing a squid mythology, you should quit drinking now. I don’t have such plans. So I need to drink. I’d like to go this afternoon, what do you think?”