The Shadow over Insmouth by H.P. Lovecraft

Chapter 1

During the winter of 1927 to 1928, officials of the federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmit.

The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred,

followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting, under suitable precautions, of an enormous

number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses

along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major

clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor. Keener news followers, however, wondered at the prodigious number of arrests, the abnormally

large force of men used in making them, and the secrecy surrounding the disposal of the

prisoners. No trials, or even definite charges, were reported, nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular

jails of the nation.

There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal

in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed.

Innsmith itself was left almost depopulated, and is even now only beginning to show signs of a

sluggishly revived existence.

Complaints from many liberal organizations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives

were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons.

As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent.

Newspaper men were harder to manage, but seemed largely to cooperate with the government in the end.

Only one paper, a tabloid, always discounted because of its wild policy,

mentioned the deep-diving submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss,

just beyond Devil Reef.

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