The Innsmouth Syndrome Read Online Free Page B

The feet, the hands, the eyes?  The missing hair?  Teeth?  The lesions on the Ramsgate boy?”
     
    “Well, from what I understand the children were using drugs.  That can explain some of the symptoms.  Especially if their supply was cut with toxic chemicals of some kind.”
     
    “And the other features?  Webbed fingers?”
     
    “It’s hard to say.  This is a small town, it’s remote ... over the generations it’s probably become a bit consanguineous.”
     
    “The changes in bone structure, then.  You saw the pictures of the eyes?  Did you see the extra cartilage being laid down around the face?”
     
    “Yes, and that is strange.  Something congenital, presumably.”
     
    “In all four of them?  Only two of them have the same father, and only two have the same mother.”
     
    The road they were following became a two-lane bridge across the Manuxet river.  The pilings were fortified with tangled accumulations of rubbish – shopping baskets, discarded beer cans, plastic bags – around which the brackish, eutrophic water simmered, heavy with silt.
     
    “Well, it could be foetal alcohol syndrome” retorted Carla.  “Or something their mothers took during pregnancy.  Phenytoin.  Lithium.  Something like that.  Can we even rule out that the skulls were damaged in the accident?”
     
    The examiner laughed, mirthlessly.  “The “Accident”?  Oh, I know that’s what the police called it, but it is a bit disingenuous?”
     
    “You don’t think it was an accident?”
     
    “No!  The four of them must have made a pact.  Or three of them, at least.  The Parker girl was drugged, she might have been in the car involuntarily.”  He sighed.  “They drove the car off the road on purpose.  It was suicide.”
     
    Carla felt herself becoming defensive now, as he became increasingly animated.  “What makes you so sure?” 
     
    “Well, I’m not sure , but it is a safe assumption.  Innsmouth is the teen suicide capital of Massachusetts.  Per capita, five times as many child deaths as Boston – and that’s just the reported ones.  Most of them are suicides.”
     
    “Why?  Is it that bad here?”
     
    “This is a poor area, Dr Edwards.  The towns around here have been hit hard by the recession.  Innsmouth didn’t have much going for it in the first place.  Look at any metric you like:  unemployment, crime, teen pregnancy, truancy, missing persons, literacy ... across the board, this place is deprived.  These are the people who fall through the gaps.  They don’t visit a doctor, they don’t attend school most of the time, most of them don’t have jobs.  The only support system that’s engaged at all with the community here is the church.”
     
    “I saw the church in the town centre, but it was derelict.”
     
    “Once, Innsmouth had three churches.  They were all closed down. Burned.  No, there’s a church group that operates out of a converted warehouse down on Water Street.  They give out food and clothes, run some AA meetings, that kind of thing.  That’s about all that’s going on here though.”
     
    He sounded frustrated.  Looked it too, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.  Carla wavered, trying to find a diplomatic way of saying what she really didn’t want to say.
     
    “OK” she began, “it certainly sounds as though there are issues here.”  Dr Khalil looked at her, his brow furrowed.  Carla pressed on.  “What I’m saying is, if you want to draw attention to shortcomings in the welfare system here ... you know, if that’s why you reported these deaths –“
     
    “Oh, for God’s sake.” interrupted the examiner, exasperated.  “You don’t get it do you?  This isn’t some ... social crusade!  Here, I’ll show you!  Come on, come in here!”
     
    He steered Carla towards the door of a shop.  It didn’t have a visible name but it seemed to be some kind of electrical repairs shop.  A sign taped to the