Ammi Pierce

Ammi's head has been "a little queer for years," and he alone remains near the open fields and travelled roads around Arkham willing to speak of the strange days. He lived alone in an ancient, tottering cottage where the trees begin to thicken, and was forty years old when the meteorite fell, going with his wife and three Miskatonic University professors to see it. Far brighter and more educated than expected, he showed only relief that the doomed valleys he had roamed all his life would soon lie under the new reservoir.

As the horror on the Gardner farm deepened, Ammi's visits there grew rarer even as he remained the family's only friend. He advised Nahum to dig a new well, comforted the family after Thaddeus's death, and searched for the vanished Merwin, finding only a crushed lantern and fused pail by the well. After two weeks of silence he returned to find Nahum dying and, upon searching the attic, discovered Mrs. Gardner's remains transformed into a crumbling monstrosity. A hateful current of coloured vapour brushed him without harm. He notified the Arkham authorities and led officers, a coroner, and a veterinarian back to the farm, warning them away from the well before witnessing his horse Hero die and the colour's final eruption into the night sky.

Because he recognized the colour from the meteorite's globule and the vegetation of the previous spring, Ammi has never been quite right since; he has avoided the ruined farm for forty-four years and will be glad when the reservoir finally floods it. The narrator, fearing for him, resolves to have the reservoir engineers keep a watchful eye on the old man.