Moira Baker's in-laws

From the diary of Mackie MacNamara

I am not really sure of myself, nor my surroundings. We had encountered these weird fish people, the “Deep Ones” of myth and legend, at Martin’s Beach, in Los Angeles, and now Punta Aguirre in Cuba. We had seen and read several references to the cult of Dagon as well as the Esoteric Order of Dagon, but I had never really conceptualized Dagon as a real physical entity. On the other hand, I may have been hallucinating. I recall all of a sudden having my mind abandoning me, like having a rug pulled away under one’s feet. Can I trust reality? What is reality? Why did I carry a fisherman’s net with me all the way back to the Cormoran?

 

From the diary of Jules Pollack

 

I may enjoy my antiques, my knick-knacks, and my odd items, but this shooting business is immensely satisfying, especially when firing at fish-men. Well, that is until that awful monstrosity broke a significant portion of my ribs when it grabbed me and seemingly wanted to devour me. I was disconcerting to see even dear but jaded and cynical Mackie shriek “Dagon” before dancing off away from our desperate struggle with that being. And what a being! Man, it must have been more than a hundred feet tall, although we only saw the upper body. It made awful, unearthly noises, perhaps a bit like high-preassured steam leaving steam engine, and its foul smell made me think of brine and rot, of the deepest chasms of the ocean, and of watery decay. Have we seen too many of the true horrors that are kept from mankind on this little island of false serenity that we call Earth?

The reflection in the roof of the cavern.

 

From the diary of Felix Jeremiah

 

I have absolutely no fucking clue of what just happened. I think I will have to keep a diary, or at least notes, to write down what the hell actually is going on with this insane group of people. Worth noting: they work really well together, even that professor broad Mackie.

 

From the diary of Howard Lake

The storm was raging over Punta Aguirre as we went up to the Faro Navidad lighthouse. The lighthouse itself seemed to be working, albeit with some form of glitch, but the living quarters were dark and seeming abandoned. The lighthouse keepers seemed to have been cooking rice and beans, judging by the somewhat stale scent of cooking, and it seemed as if their dinner plans had been interrupted by a struggle that had wrecked much of the furniture and left a pool of slime on the table. Mackie and I went up the spiral staircase to the actual lighthouse, while Jules started a fire in the potbelly stove to keep us warm during the night. Felix Jeremiah, that curious lad, decided to go through the loft, and he was soon preoccupied with, well, lard.

 

Up in the lighthouse we made a gruesome discovery: three men, hanged by the neck and mutilated in a most gruesome fashion. This was the glitch in the lighthouse beam as the reflector was interrupted by the bodies as it rotated through the stormy night. But the bodies would have to wait, as we all of a sudden heard Jules yelling “I’ll be damned if it isn’t Moira’s in-laws” before firing his .38 revolver. We did indeed have company of beings similar to the fish-men of Martin’s Beach and Los Angeles, although these ones seemed to be larger but slower. They also seemed to be overrunning Punto Aguirre, and the reflections from the lighthouse’s beam of light revealed. We barricaded the living quarters and shut the storm shutters, and yet we had to descend down that other staircase that led down into an abyss of despair.

 

It was a large cavern or grotto, clearly connected to the sea and with a lagoon covering a third or so of its surface, and with unearthly reflections from the pool lighting up the cavern in particularly unhealthy nuances of green, blue and taupe. A cliff projection jutted out over the lagoon, almost like a leaning tower, and three horrifying fish-men were dragging a shrieking elderly woman up this cliff. The remaining population of Punto Aguirre, perhaps some 40 men, women and children, were fettered to the side of the cavern by a mass of bulging tentacles, and seeming incapacitated. 

Several fish-men were seen celebrating some weird and inhumane with weird dances, hopping around like madmen. It was time to act. Jules starting laying down a barrage of particularly well-aimed gunfire, and several fish-men fell to his bullets as well as to fire from my trusty Luger. However, four or five of these monsters came close enough to engage us in fisticuffs, but being fine Americans, we were up to the task. We disposed of the creatures with our makeshift weapons (harpoons, fire bottles, etcetera), while Felix ran towards the fettered villagers at a most impressive speed followed by myself at a slightly more lumbering pace. Dodging fish-men, we started cutting away yard upon yard of slimy tentacle when we saw a hideous creature rising from the lagoon. 

Mackie shrieked “Dagon”, before dancing away from the scene, and we tried to dodge the enormous claws of the monstrosity while freeing the last villagers. That I remain sane after this encounter is truly wondrous, because this was being well beyond anything I have encountered so far. It radiated so much alien power, and the size was indescribable.

It was a close call, but we made it out of the cavern. That Dagon-creature may actually have wrecked the entrance to the cave with its fists, and I hope it remains closed forever. The fish-men and their master do indeed seem intent on acquiring those mysterious eggs that I found on the Santa Ana, but they seem to be safe on the Cormoran, perhaps due to the Elder Signs placed by Mackie.

The storm passed without further incident, but it was fortunate that Jules had made a fire in the stove up in the living quarters. Next morning, the sky was clear and the sea relatively calm. The Cormoran had survived as well. As for Punto Aguirre, the inhabitants were most grateful to be alive, but they had a difficult time taking in what had really happened. Was it perhaps a mass psychosis prompted by a particularly fierce storm? I’ll leave that to the villagers to decide.