Evert had heard of legends and myths about similar creatures. The Scots and the Irish had tales of the Selkie, amphibious creatures similar to merfolk except that they took a seal-like form rather than one resembling a fish. They were said to be able to go onto land and take human form, and they even supposedly married humans and had children by them. Other cultures had tales along the same lines. There were also monster movies that featured something of the sort, such as the Gill-man from Creature from the Black Lagoon and the creatures from the more recent Humanoids from the Deep. This was the first he had ever heard of Sea Devils, however.
"Dunwich only came to our attention in the last few days, and there hasn't been much time to do research," said
Brigadier Crichton. "From what
Dr. Kirby was able to discover,the Sea Devils worship an alien named Cthulhu from a planet called Xoth. It came to Earth in ancient times and has long since been imprisoned asleep beneath the sea in the sunken city of R'lyeh, which is supposed to be somewhere in the South Pacific. The Sea Devils believe that Cthulhu will rise and conquer the world one day when the stars are right. They also revere giant beings they call Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, which may be the progenitors of their race. Apparently Sea Devils can live indefinitely, and they can continue to grow. Dagon and Hydra are said to be humongous.
"Centuries ago, Dunwich was one of England's major cities, but the sea has gradually encroached on it, and most of it is now underwater. Only about two hundred people live in Dunwich - at least on the surface. There's no telling how many Sea Devils are living in the underwater ruins. This is the first time we've encountered them since that time in the seventies. We've got some information on that initial encounter in our files. We haven't found anything else out about them until now. We've only just learned of
Captain Lake this evening, so we haven't had any time to look into him yet.
"All of this started last week, when a London man named
Simon Armistead topped himself with a shotgun blast to the head. The autopsy showed that it was in fact a suicide, and that would have been the end of it if not for certain...deformities of the corpse. They brought the matter to UNIT's attention.
Dr. Kirby performed another autopsy, along with
Dr. Salem Shields. She confirmed the results of the initial autopsy and quickly determined that
Miles Armistead was not
Simon's true father from their blood types. In her inquiries, she learned that
Simon's mother
Beth Armistead, who had died of cancer earlier this year, had gone to Dunwich in 1954 to do historical research, some nine months before
Simon was born.
Dr. Kirby went to Dunwich a couple of days ago to continue her investigation, but she disappeared. This morning I sent a team to find out what happened to her and bring her back. They did that, though two members of the team have not returned. They did, however, bring back a live Sea Devil."
