The Innsmouth Syndrome Read Online Free Page A

abnormality in their facial proportions.  In all three pictures, the distance from the bridge of the nose to the corner of the eyes was unusually large, just over an inch in Wayne Ramsgate’s case.  The eyes themselves looked smaller and rounder than normal, and none of the children had lashes or brows.
     
    Carla closed the laptop with an involuntary shudder.  The rest could wait until morning.  She flicked off the bedside lamp and drew the duvet up to her chin.
     
     
     
    *****
     
     
     
    She awoke the next day to the sonorous, bassoon note of a foghorn, and a headache.  The thin hotel curtains glowed with milky light, and when she drew them back it was to reveal a thick blanket of early morning mist.  She washed and dressed groggily, then headed for the hotel dining room. 
     
    The Exec Lodge definition of a continental breakfast was a barely unfrozen lump of papery, machined pastry, a tiny foil wrap of butter and an individual pot of runny conserve.  Carla chewed tiredly on it, washing it down with gulps of bitter, stewed coffee.  While she was eating, Oliver trotted up to deliver a message.
     
    “Doctor Ed-ed-ed-Edwards?” he began.  “M-m-m-m-message for you.  Doc-doctor Khalil says he’ll m-m-m-meet you here.  At nine.”
     
    Carla thanked him, abandoned the rest of her croissant, checked her watch and went back to her room to put on some make-up.  Dr Khalil was the medical examiner who had reported the cases to CDC in the first place.  Hopefully, a conversation with him would fill in enough gaps for her to arrive at a workable hypothesis, give her somewhere to begin her investigation.  She had just finished applying lip gloss when the phone rang to tell her he had arrived.
     
    He was younger than she’d expected, maybe ten years older than she was, with handsome, Persian features.  His hand, when she shook it, was strong and warm.  He greeted her effusively.  “Doctor Edwards!  I’m so glad the Centers decided to send someone after all.  I was beginning to think they were ignoring me!  I trust your journey wasn’t too arduous?”
     
    Carla gave a wan smile.  “Doctor Khalil?  It’s ever so good of you to come over.  I hope I’m not keeping you from your work?”
     
    “Well, it’s as easy for me to drive here as for you to drive over to Rowley, isn’t it?  It seemed like the least I could do, given that you had to fly down from Atlanta.  Shall we take a walk?”
     
    He held her coat for her while she slipped into it.  Carla couldn’t remember anyone actually doing that for her before.  She rather liked it. 
     
    The fog had lifted a little before the eerie glare of the late autumn sun and a stiff breeze from the sea.  The street was quiet.  There was one scruffy-looking bum pushing an empty shopping cart down the pavement, and a fierce-looking, aproned man standing in the doorway of the barber’s shop, smoking a cigarette. 
     
    Dr Khalil led the way, steering them down a series of desolate, unkempt streets in the direction of the sea front.  Their voices seemed almost indecently loud in the oppressive stillness, echoing slightly off the crumbling walls around them.
     
    “So” began the examiner.  “You read my report?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “What do you think?”
     
    Carla hesitated.  “I’m not sure what to think.  Yet.  I’m still a little unclear on what you think we’re looking at here.”        The examiner glanced at her.  “Did you see the pictures?”  Somewhat defensive now.
     
    “Yes.  I saw the pictures, and I agree that there are some ... peculiar similarities between the four victims.  I’m just not sure that they can’t be explained by lifestyle factors and environment.  I’m not seeing any signs of an infectious process yet.”
     
    “Well, I never said it was an infectious process.”
     
    “But you do think it’s a disease?” persisted Carla. 
     
    “It seems, to me, the most plausible explanation.