Black Water, Red Leech
SKIPPER BRENNEMAN POKED HIS HEAD UP THROUGH the engine room hatch and announced that a valve had blown on the secondary low-pressure cylinder. Fixing it was going to take twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. Nate said we would surely find something to occupy us in the interim.
As the skipper ducked back down below, there was another of those splashes, this one closer than the last. Whatever had caused it was no fish, or if it was, it was bigger by far than any freshwater genus I knew of, its proportions more those of a dolphin or porpoise. Perhaps some preternaturally huge catfish? A third splash erupted just off the starboard side, and we rushed, as one, to the rail, only to see the aftermath of the breaching: a seething white turbulence upon the black water. My estimate of its maker’s size had been more or less correct, judging by the dimensions of the disturbance, which spread rapidly outwards in ebbing concentric circles.
Bessie, whom Charley had left with us when he went to fetch the net, was now whining inconsolably. Junior Brenneman aimed an irritable kick at the cat, and it scurried away, taking refuge behind a water butt.
The splashes began occurring all around the Innsmouth Belle. Through the mist I glimpsed slimy wet shapes bursting briefly up from the lake. They were dark red, the colour of coagulating blood, and had a horrid smooth texture, not unlike that of a sea anemone when it has retracted its fronds and resembles a blister.
“What in tarnation…?” Junior breathed.
Charley came running up with a long-handled net in his hands. Its mesh was made of sturdy woven-silk filaments and could have accommodated an infant, but not, I thought, one of the creatures cavorting around us, not securely.
“We’re going to need a bigger net,” I said to Nate.
“We don’t have one,” he replied. “We shall just have to manage with what we’ve got.”
More and more of the creatures were putting in an appearance. The water around the Belle churned with them, like boiling stew. It seemed as though her floating, inert presence had drawn them like a rallying point. I glimpsed them wriggling just below the surface, every so often rolling above it. They were snakelike, but fleshy rather than squamous, with bodies that were broad and blunt at the leading end but tapered to a narrow tip at the other. One came up right below where I stood, its mouth gaped roundly, and I saw plump, sucker-like lips surrounding spiralling rows of teeth – teeth that were sharp, curved and inward-pointing – and suddenly I knew what these beasts were, or at least what they were analogous to.
“Leeches,” I said. “They’re giant leeches.”
“Yes,” said Nate. “Now help me with this, Zach. I’m going to lean out and try to snag one. Grab my belt and, for heaven’s sake, whatever you do, don’t let go!”
Nate bent over the gunwale, and I seized his belt, bent my knees and locked my feet in position. My friend lowered the net to the water, which was alive with the rubicund leeches. They were everywhere, hundreds of them, thousands, writhing, thrashing, coiling around one another in one huge repugnant slippery orgy. Whether they were adults copulating or newly hatched younglings, I could not tell. I hoped the former, for if the latter then the fully grown version of this leech would be a thing of truly behemothic proportions.
Nate swept the net through the nightmarishly glistening throng of annelids, but each time one was caught up in the mesh it slithered straight out again before he could hoist it from the water. Even with his arms at full stretch the end of the net only just reached the lake, so that it was hard to control and he had inadequate leverage. He declared that he was going to lean further over. I enlisted the aid of Charley, for I knew I could not support Nate’s weight all by myself. Together the big Negro and I eased him over the rail so that he was hanging upside down from the waist, his upper half more or less perpendicular, his legs angled in mid-air, with both of us gripping his belt tight. Should we lose our hold on him or his belt break, there was every chance he would plunge head-first into that mass of bloodsuckers, and that would surely be the last anyone saw of him.
The net swished to and fro, Nate grunting with effort. At last one of the leeches squirmed into its coils and Nate was able to raise the net clear of the water before it squirmed out again.
“Quick! Quick!” he cried. “Pull me up! Now!”
We pulled, and Nate came sliding over the rail, clutching the shaft of the net with both hands for all he was worth, desirous of not losing his prize. He landed on the deck on his belly, while the leech flopped beside him, folded double within the bulging silken mesh. Its loathsome mouth opened and shut in what looked like a paroxysm of speechless rage. We all stared down at it with varying degrees of disgust, all save Nate, whose eyes were filled with something close to adoration.
Then, with a sudden flexing, quick as a blink, the leech contrived to free itself from the net. Next thing anyone knew, it was slithering across the deck with appalling speed, making a beeline for Junior Brenneman. He stood rooted to the spot, too shocked to move, and the thing reared up before him and pounced. It clamped its mouth onto his thigh, and there was a scissoring, rending sound, and then Junior was screaming.
“It’s biting me! Jesus Christ, the goddamned b––––––is biting me! Somebody do something!”
I leapt forward. Much though I had no desire to touch the leech, all I could think of to do was seize hold of its tail end and try to pull it off. This, however, proved counterproductive, for Junior’s screams only increased in pitch. He yelled that I was tearing his leg, and I realised that the leech had its teeth so firmly embedded in his flesh that it would not come free without taking a chunk of muscle with it. Letting go of the creature, I turned to Nate in desperation, and in that moment beheld a look upon his face such as I had never seen before. Nate exhibited no concern whatsoever for Junior. Rather, as he lay where he had fetched up on the deck, prone, propped up on his elbows, he observed the first mate’s plight with a detachment that was not just dispassionate but quietly gleeful. It was almost as though he was relishing the suffering of a fellow human being. It was how one imagines a vindictive god might look while meting out divine punishment on some hapless mortal.
I had no great fondness for Junior, but I did not wish to see the life drained out of him by a monstrous leech. For that was what the creature was trying to do. Blood was spreading over Junior’s pants leg in a crimson cloud around the leech’s mouth, and the thing’s body was pulsing and contracting in gluttonous peristaltic waves. We had to detach it from him somehow, else he would surely perish. Since Nate appeared not to care what happened to the first mate, I turned to Charley, hoping to appeal for assistance. It was only then that I realised that he was nowhere to be seen. I presumed the horror of the situation had got the better of him and he had found some place to hide.
How wrong I was. The very next instant, Charley came charging out from the galley, and with him he had a drum of cooking salt. This he unlidded and tipped up, dumping its contents over the leech. The creature immediately began to shrivel and foam. Relinquishing its grip upon Junior, it collapsed to the deck. Oily bubbles formed and popped across its skin, and it vomited up much of the blood it had ingested. As the salt continued to do its desiccatory work, the leech darkened and withered, like a chunk of wood burning in a fireplace. Soon its agony-wracked death throes ceased, and all that remained of it was a gently effervescing black lump as thin and long as a baseball bat.
For several moments, all any of us could do was draw panting breaths and wait for our elevated heart rates to subside.
Then Skipper Brenneman popped up from the engine room hatch again. “Done,” he stated. “Whut? Did I miss suthin’?”
* * *
The spawning leeches lost whatever interest they had had in the Innsmouth Belle as soon as her engine started chugging away again. The turning of her paddle wheel seemed to alarm them, and they sank out of sight. In a short while the lake surface was as placid as before, and then the mist started to lift, and a half-hour later the far shore appeared as a thin dark line on the horizon.
Nate got straight down to dissecting the slain leech, and made copious notes on his findings. I detected a distinct disgruntlement on his part that the creature had been largely destroyed. He would have preferred an intact specimen. Equally, he had shown no willingness to fish a second leech out of the lake, given our unpleasant experience with the first. Clearly scientific curiosity only went so far.
Junior’s wound, ugly though it was, was superficial. I applied salve and a bandage, and told him that he should rest the leg and keep the affected area dry. There was no reason to think he would not make a full recovery, with no inhibition to his locomotion, although the scarring would be extensive.
In the wake of the incident, the atmosphere aboard the Belle was febrile, everyone on edge, including me. I thought that our encounter with the oversized annelids was as bad as it would get, but as we entered the next section of the Miskatonic, things only got worse.
