The Eldritch Isle

by Michael H. Kelly

  Ten terrifying tales of horror and all things weird, all set among the apparently peaceful, green surroundings of the Isle of Man.

  The discovery of Viking gold unlocks a terrible curse; weird creatures haunt a remote lighthouse; the kitchen of a successful restaurant conceals a vile secret; the vengeance of an ancient witch; cruel accidents befall those who criticise a pompous writer's works; a TT racer's encounter with the uncanny; obsession and depravity in the service of a demonic machine; the Black Goat of the Woods; an ancient evil that inhabits the marshes; the horror that lies buried beneath the surface of this beautiful Island.

  A decalog of dread.

  The Eldritch Isle

  Stories of Weird Horror

  set on the Isle of Man

  by

  Michael H. Kelly

  This book is dedicated to my wife Celeste, who loves the weird and the Wyrd as much as I do.

  Similar books by Michael H. Kelly:

  For Fear of Little Men

  Dread Souls

  Earth Mother

  The Wave Sweeper

  Copyright © 2014 by the author of this book Michael H. Kelly. The book author retains sole copyright to his contributions to this book.

  Edited by Celeste Kelly

  Keep up to date

  with Michael Kelly's

  writings and whimsies at

  http://www.tumblr.com/blog/manxbull

  Table of Contents

  · Introduction

  This isn't the first time I have turned my hand to horror, and it certainly won't be the last. My collection of Celtic folk tales, For Fear of Little Men, often touched upon the horror nerve. Dread Souls was horror through and through, a series of accounts of authentic vampire and werewolf case histories. Earth Mother was my first attempt at a full length horror novel, a Dennis Wheatley affair with plenty of body horror.

  But I have very much wanted to try my hand at the Lovecraftian horror genre: shuddersome tales of elder things, nightmarish cults and cosmic gulfs. I also wanted to root these tales here on the Isle of Man, my home.

  None of the stories included in this collection are out and out pretenders to the Cthulhu Mythos. The Necronomicon and Lovecraft's other fabled grimoires are not mentioned, nor do they dwell upon the Mythos Deities and Dæmons. But they share – I hope – a kindred atmosphere and sense of dread with H.P. Lovecraft's weird tales. The types of things that happen and their consequences should resonate with readers of HPL. For those who have no prior experience with Lovecraft, I have two things to say: first, go read some of his stories!; but second, you won't be lacking at all, you'll simply enjoy a collection of creepy and unnerving tales in this present volume.

  One of these stories, 'Fafnir's Ring', was first written many years ago. But I have long since lost the original, so the version published here is new, written for this collection. I still like the basic shape of the story very much and thought it deserved retelling. The other stories are drawn from several sources. Some are inspired by particular places on the Island, others were suggested by some of the unusual characters you find out in the country. There had to be a story connected with the famous TT Races, of course, and one is drawn from some particularly eerie and haunting childhood memories. I hope that all serve to entertain and to suitably chill your spines.

  As for the Isle of Man, it is a beautiful place to live and to visit, please come if you haven't been. Just keep looking over your shoulder if you do...

  Michael H. Kelly

  Ramsey, Isle of Man

  January 2014

  · Fafnir's Ring

  Martin Teare sniffed dismissively as he looked around at the green mounds and crumbling walls that surrounded him. “It's all right, I suppose,” he said. “Bit of a heap, though, they've let the place fall into ruins. Nice view, all the same. Okay, so I've come and admired, just as you asked. Can we go to the pub now?”

  His friend David Cowley looked at him with exasperation. “It's precisely to get you out of the pub that we came here! I've been watching you lose your self esteem and all your enthusiasm since you lost your job six months ago. Time was that you'd be the first to appreciate fresh air and natural beauty. That's how I know how down you've been feeling lately: your joy of life has been replaced by ennui and cynicism. You used to appreciate everything so much more, Martin.”

  “Yeah, well, things are easier to appreciate when you've got cash in your pocket,” sniffed Martin. Nevertheless, he made the effort to try looking round at the ruined castle whose grounds they stood within once again. It did have a certain eerie grandeur, a crumbling majesty.

  “You'd still have at least a little cash to your name if you didn't piss it away down the pub every night,” David pointed out.

  “As if you're not there as well!” retorted Martin hotly. “But you've still got money left afterwards, of course.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I'm sorry. That was unworthy of me. I just don't think you understand how it makes you feel sometimes, to be just scrimping by. A few months ago, I was working in a bank, now I'm on the scrap heap. It gets you down, there's no way you can possibly make ends meet, so you get depressed and fritter away what little you have, because … well, what's the point? I am here, though, I did come out today like you asked me to.”

  David had asked Martin to come out with him on Saturday afternoon to try to break him out of the cycle of spending time in the stale atmosphere of the pub. He was shocked by how badly his friend had deteriorated since being dismissed from his job. The fact that it had been his own fault for 'diverting' a small amount of money into his account to 'get him over a bad patch' hadn't helped matters. The bank had not pressed charges, not wanting the adverse publicity, but Martin had been out on his ear.

  Knowing his friend's love of history, especially of Viking history, David had taken him to Peel Castle. Built on a small islet which had once stood separate from the mainland, the castle's strong walls had been raised in medieval times and towered atop the craggy cliffs. The buildings within were now just empty, roofless shells with bare stone walls, but the place was steeped in history. There had been a settlement on St Patrick's Isle for many hundreds of years. Long before the great stone walls were raised, the Vikings had built a fortress of wood here, and they had usurped the isle from the missionaries who had dwelt there before them. It was a place that would once have fired Martin's enthusiasm.

  Martin drew a deep breath and shuffled his feet, looking down at his scuffed brown shoes. He had to admit that he had let himself go a bit in recent weeks. He was unshaven more often than not and he had allowed his hair – once neatly trimmed – to simply grow, forming straggly clumps and curls that waved around his ears in the breeze. He had really tried to make an effort to please David today, he had tried to dress smartly for their day out; he knew his friend was trying to help him. But here he was, being cynical and dismissive as a defensive mechanism. And he hadn't even thought to polish his shoes. David was right: he had gone to the dogs and it really was time he started to pull himself together and get his life back on track.

  He looked around him again, willing himself to see things with fresh eyes, instead of eyes accustomed to staring into a glass of beer. “I guess it must have been a spectacular sight when it was intact,” he said, walking over to one of the great walls and climbing the worn sandstone steps that led atop it. “It's in a commanding position, and very defensible.”

  “It's a spectacular sight even now,” said David, recognising the change in his friend. “Especially when the sun sinks behind the castle. These walls still dominate the Island's west coast.”

  “I wonder how it was when the Vikings held the isle,” mused Martin. “None of this stonework would have been here then. Nor would the road connecting
it to the town. It would have been an isolated rock with a wooden stockade on top.” He sighed. “So much of its history, lost to our eyes. I suppose there have been a number of archaeological surveys here, though?”

  David thumbed through the guidebook he had picked up at the entrance kiosk. “Um … nope, not as many as you would expect, actually. There has been some limited digging, but not in recent years. Most of the castle and its grounds have been left unmolested: it's its own monument, I guess.”

  “Really? How very interesting,” said Martin. A plan to reverse his fortunes had seized upon his imagination.

  From that point on, David found himself scurrying around the castle, following an increasingly animated Martin as his friend examined every nook and cranny of the castle's structure, regularly pausing to consult the plan and notes in the guidebook. They were still there when the castle was ready to close its gates for the day, and it was only with great reluctance that Martin allowed himself to be ushered out by the attendant.

  David drove Martin home; he lived in Kirk Michael, a village several miles from Peel, and he hadn't been able to afford to run a car since his dismissal. “Well,” he said as they pulled up outside Martin's rented cottage. “You seemed to find that enjoyable. It's really great to see you looking a little more like your old self. See you at the pub tonight?”

  Martin looked at him and grinned. “No, I don't think so, mate,” he said. “Not tonight. This afternoon has done me the world of good, and I need to get my priorities right. So I'll give the pub a miss tonight. I'll see you there for the darts on Wednesday night, though.”

  “Oh, okay,” said David, surprised. “I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. See you on Wednesday, then.”

  Martin got out of the car, unlocked his door and turned to wave as David tooted his horn and drove away.

  True to his word, Martin didn't go to the pub that night. But he didn't stay in either. As soon as he got home, he fixed himself a quick microwave dinner and changed into dark clothing. He then gathered together a torch and an assortment of tools and placed them all in a large canvas bag. He sat and rested on his sofa until the hour got late, then he threw on a heavy, dark coat, went outside and waited at the bus stop for the last bus of the evening back to Peel.

  The early autumn night was dark by the time he arrived back in the little fishing town. He got off the bus and walked down the narrow, twisting alleys towards the seafront, where he began walking briskly along the promenade towards the castle. It loomed ahead of him, silhouetted against the starlit sky. After a few minutes, he reached the little footbridge that crossed the span of the harbour, then he was on the causeway that led across to St Patrick's Isle, where the castle stood.

  The castle gates were locked at this time of night, closed to the public. But there was a footpath that circled the castle, running around the top of the cliffs, just outside the great curtain wall. He moved around to the rear of the castle, following this path, until he was out of sight of the town: the wall towered on one side of him; the land fell rapidly away into the sea on the other.

  Martin found the point where the wall was lowest. He took a deep breath, swung the arm holding his bag back, then forward again, arcing it up and over the wall, to land on the other side. He then approached the rough stonework. The mortar was crumbling and he easily found sufficient finger and toe holds to allow him to carefully climb to the top of the wall. It was precarious, as he had to rely on moonlight to see where he was putting his hands and feet. He couldn't carry his torch while climbing. Of course, if he had been more patient and waited till the following night, he could have obtained a head-mounted lamp. But patience was never a virtue that Martin had been overly endowed with.

  Fortunately, Martin managed to scale the wall without falling and breaking his neck. He scrabbled about the top until he managed to get a firm grip and hauled himself bodily over, dropping down to the other side. The inner side of the wall was much shorter than the exterior, as the interior of the castle grounds was filled with earth up to a higher level. Martin fell only about four feet before he landed on the parapet that lay beneath the wall. He picked himself up and scurried over to retrieve his bag.

  Now that he was safely inside, he took out his torch. He switched it on, being careful that the beam didn't shine too high; he didn't want people outside to see the light and realise that there was someone inside the closed castle. He examined the plan of the castle in the guidebook, which he had asked David to lend him before they parted company. He got his bearings and then drew a hand-held metal detector out of his bag. It had been a birthday present from his father a few years earlier, but had never really seen any use until tonight. Fortunately, he had fresh batteries in a drawer in the cottage.

  The way Martin saw it, if the majority of the castle had never been excavated, there had to be Viking treasure here somewhere. It stood to reason. An important base of operations like this, in the centre of the Irish Sea? There had to be a buried hoard, it simply didn't make sense for there not to be. And he, Martin Teare, was going to find it, and turn his fortunes around. He moved to the first spot he had identified as a likely place and began slowly sweeping the metal detector over the surface, methodically searching.

  It was a long and wearing process, shuffling along on his hands and knees, moving the detector back and forth over the grass. But Martin stuck with it, certain there were treasures here to be found. He worried too that given the ages that had passed since the Vikings had walked the ramparts of their early, wooden structure, there might be loot beneath him which would be out of the detector's range. He bit his lip angrily and told himself to stop dawdling and fretting: there was only one way to find out.

  The sky was beginning to lighten with the first faint light of approaching dawn, and Martin was beginning to panic, afraid that he had lost his chance, or that there was nothing to be found, when the detector at last burbled out its harsh warning.

  Martin nearly leapt out of his skin. He had begun to zone out, and the loud warbling had brought him back to reality. He scrabbled to pick up the metal detector, which had dropped from his nerveless fingers when he had jolted in fright. Slowly, tentatively, he passed it over again. Once again, the machine uttered its protest.

  Excitement flooded him. He had been getting tired and frustrated, but now he was seized with such a surge of frantic energy that his hands were shaking and fumbling as he tried to open his bag. He set the metal detector aside and pulled out a small spade and a trowel. He angled his torch, leaning it against the bag so that it illuminated the area, then began digging madly. He had so little time left; he would have to be back over the wall and gone before the day broke properly, otherwise he ran the risk of being seen by early morning dog walkers.

  He was forced to slow down as he progressed, however. There was no point simply shovelling soil aside, as he didn't know how small the item he had found might be, nor how deep. His metal detector wasn't the best, so it couldn't be too far from the surface. He strained his eyes, sifting through the trowelfuls of dirt he brought forth.

  At last, he saw a dull gleam among the black grains of soil, and his trembling fingers drew out a heavy golden ring. He fumbled with it, as it was of surprising size and weight. When his fingers first touched it, it was icily cold, but it seemed to suddenly flare with heat, almost burning him as he clasped it. He yelped and dropped it, but there were no sear marks on his skin. Gingerly, he groped for it again, anxious not to lose it now he had discovered it. It was now quite cool, so he put his early reaction down to a nervous response. He pocketed the ring quickly, patted the soil back into place as best he could (not that it was going to fool anybody; it would be obvious that somebody had been digging), and he ran for the wall, glancing worriedly at the horizon, where the tip of the sun was just beginning to appear over the hills.

  Forty minutes later, he was sitting on the first bus of the day home to Kirk Michael.

  Martin awoke at noon. He was lying fully clothed on top of his bed, where h
e had thrown himself after stumbling in shortly before 8.00 am. The duvet was dirty, as he had neglected to take his trainers off and there was soil caked into them. He groaned and rolled off the bed, nursing a headache caused by the poor quality of his sleep. Then memory returned, as he saw the canvas bag of tools lying on the floor. He hurriedly patted the pockets of the coat he was still wearing and drew out the peculiarly heavy ring. To his delight and astonishment, he also found in his pocket a ten pound note which he had quite forgotten he had.

  “Excellent,” he grinned. “I must have stuffed this little beauty in my pocket when I was at the pub one night.” He gave the ring an affectionate stroke. “You see, you're bringing me luck already!”

  The ring was very dirty still, so he took it through to the bathroom and gave it a rinse under the tap, washing off the worst of the soil. He then sat in the living room, wiping and polishing the ingrained grime away until the ring sat gleaming in his palm. It was curiously large, thick and heavy, and there was no way it would possibly fit on his finger; it was simply too big. It was approximately three centimetres in diameter. Martin assumed that it had been designed to be worn as a pendant around the neck, suspended from a chain or a loop of leather.

  He turned it around in his fingers, examining it closely. The outer surface of the ring was quite plain, but the inner surface bore an angular mark, similar to a capital 'F', evenly repeated eight times around the ring's inner circumference.

  Martin shrugged. It was evidently some Viking symbol or other. He used to be deeply interested in the history of Europe, but his studies of the Viking Age had covered only historical matters: sagas of kings and heroes, and tales of exploration and conflict. He had no idea what their mystical symbols might mean and little interest. But he resolved to copy the marks down and upload them to an internet forum before selling the ring. If he could discover their meaning, it might increase the object's value, perhaps provide a clue to its origins and prior ownership. He could be talking thousands of pounds here. And if this sale proved successful, he could always return and search for more items, now that he knew that treasures were indeed to be discovered beneath the surface layers of Peel Castle.