“Perhaps,” Dr. Hanisak replies uncertainly and she folds her hands and stares at the box. “You never can tell how these things will turn out, in the end.”
“I suppose not,” Lacey says, and then she looks at her watch and thanks Dr. Hanisak again. “I really have to get going,” she says and leaves the woman standing alone with the skeletons.
EXCERPT FROM
FAMOUS FILM MONSTERS AND THE MEN WHO MADE THEM
BY BEN BROWNING (THE CITADEL PRESS, SECAUCUS, NJ, 1972]
Certainly there are several interesting stories floating about Hollywood regarding producer William Alland’s inspiration for the story. The one most often repeated, it would seem, recounts how Alland heard a tale during a dinner party at Orson Welles’ home regarding an ancient race of “fish-men” called the dhaghon inhabiting remote portions of the Amazon River. Local natives believed these creatures rose from the depths once a year, after floods, and abducted virgins. Naturally, the person telling the story is said to have sworn to its veracity. Another, less plausible, source of inspiration may have been a tradition in some parts of Massachusetts, in and around Gloucester, of humanoid sea monsters said to haunt a particularly treacherous stretch of coast near Ipswich Bay known appropriately enough as the “Devil’s Reef”. Rumour has it Alland knew of these legends, but decided to change the story’s setting from maritime New England to the Amazon because he preferred a more exotic and primeval locale. At any rate, one or another of these “fish stories” might have stuck with him and become the germ for the project he eventually pitched to Universal.
3:47 P.M.
Through the peeling red door and she follows the old man down long hallways dimly lit by bare, incandescent bulbs, wallpaper shreds, upstairs and downstairs, and finally, a door he opens with another silver key. A steel fire door painted all the uncountable maroon-brown shades of dried gore and butcheries and it swings open slow on ratcreaking hinges, pours the heavy scents of frigid air and formaldehyde at their feet. There’s light in there, crimson light, and Lacey looks at Dr. Solomon Monalisa and he’s smiling a doubtful, furtive smile.
“What am I going to see in there?”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he says and holds one skinny arm out like a theatre usher leading her to an empty seat.
“I asked you a simple question. All I wanted was a simple answer.”
“Yes, but there are no simple answers, are there?”
“What’s waiting for me in there?”
“All things are but mirrors, Miss Morrow. They reflect our deepest preconceptions, our most cherished prejudices—”
“Never fucking mind,” she says and steps quickly across the threshold into a room as cold as the back of the Ford van. And the room is almost empty, high concrete walls and a concrete ceiling far overhead, banks of darkroom red lights dangling on chains, and the tank, sitting alone in the centre of it all.
“You’re a very lucky woman,” Dr. Monalisa says and the steel door clicks shut behind her. “Have you any idea, my dear, how few scientists have had this privilege? Why, I could count them all on my left hand.”
The tank is at least seven feet tall, sturdy aquarium glass held together with strips of rusted iron, filled with murky preservative gone bloody beneath the lights, and Lacey stares at the thing floating lifeless behind the glass.
“What do you see, Miss Morrow?”
“My god,” she whispers and takes another step towards the tank.
“Now that’s a curious answer.”
Neither man nor fish, neither fish nor amphibian, long legs and longer arms, and its bald, misshapen skull is turned upwards, as if those blind white eyes are gazing longingly towards Heaven. Solomon Monalisa rattles his keys and slips the handcuffs from her aching wrists.
“Grendelonyx innsmouthensis—that’s what I thought you’d see, Miss Morrow. Grendel’s claw—”
“But it’s impossible,” she whispers.
“Quite,” Dr. Solomon Monalisa says. “It is entirely, unquestionably impossible.”
“Is it real?”
“Yes, of course it’s real. Why would I show it to you otherwise.”
Lacey nods her head and crosses the room to stand beside the tank, places one hand flat against the glass. She’s surprised that it isn’t cold to the touch. The creature inside looks pale and soft, but she knows that’s only the work of time and the caustic, preserving chemicals.
“It got tangled in a fishing net, dragged kicking into the light of day,” the old man says and his footsteps are very loud in the concrete room. “Way back in November ’29, not too long after the Navy finished up with Innsmouth. I suspect it was wounded by the torpedoes,” and he points to a deep gash near the thing’s groin. “They kept it in a basement at the university in Arkham for a time, and then it went to Washington. They moved it here right after the war.”
She almost asks him which war, and who “they” are, but she doubts he would tell her, not the truth, anyway, and she can’t take her eyes off the beautiful, terrible, impossible creature in the tank—its splayed hands, the bony webbing between its fingers, the recurved, piercing claws. “Why are you showing me this?” she finally asks instead.
“It seemed a shame not to,” he replies, his smile fading now, and he also touches the aquarium glass. “There are so few who can truly comprehend the...” and he pauses, furrowing his brow. “The wonder—yes, that’s what I mean, the wonder of it all.”
“You said you have the fossil.”
“Oh, yes. We do. I do. Dr. Hanisak was kind enough to switch the boxes for us last night, while you were finishing up at the museum.”
“Dr. Hanisak—”
“Shhhhhh,” and Monalisa holds a wrinkled index finger to his lips. “Let’s not ask too many questions, dear. I assure you, the fossil is safe and sound. I’ll give it back to you very soon. Ah, and we have all your things from the train. You’ll be wanting those back as well, I should think. But I wanted you to see our friend here first, before you see the film.”
“What film?” she asks, remembering the photograph from the manila envelope, the letter, the nosy woman asking her if she liked old monster movies.
“What odd sort of childhood did you have, Miss Morrow? Weren’t you allowed to watch television? Have you truly never seen it?”
“My mother didn’t like us watching television,” Lacey says. “We didn’t even own a TV set. She bought us books, instead. I’ve never cared much for movies. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then that may be the most remarkable part of it all. You may be the only adult in America who’s never seen Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and he chuckles softly to himself.
“I’ve heard of it.”
“I should certainly hope so.”
And at last she turns away from the dead thing floating in the tank and looks into Dr. Solomon Monalisa’s sparkling eyes. “You’re not going to kill me?” she asks him.
“Why would I have gone to all the trouble to save you from those thugs back there if I only wanted you dead? They’d surely have seen to that for me, once they figured out you didn’t have the fossil any longer.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Lacey says and realises that she’s started to cry.
“No,” he says. “But you weren’t meant to. No one was. It’s a secret.”
“What about my work—”
“Your article has been withdrawn from Nature. And Dr. Hanisak was good enough to cancel the press conference at the Peabody Museum.”
“And now I’m just supposed to pretend I never saw any of this?”