The Eldritch Isle

by Michael H. Kelly

  They have always kept their distance, respecting our presence as we have respected theirs. My wife and child have never seen them. I am sure they think me mad when I speak of them, or that I am spinning stories to entertain them.

  I do not know whether they live in some burrow beneath the sandy soil, close to their rabbit prey, or whether they sail down on the night winds from some unimaginable heights where they abide among the clouds. I suspect they do have an earthen hole in which they hide, but would not be surprised to learn if their ultimate origin was from the great Outside. Did they come upon the currents from some interstellar void, settling upon this lonely shore, which suited their reclusive natures? Does it matter? They are here, and we each respect the others' space.

  Or we did. The first inkling I had that something might be wrong was one morning when I sat in the kitchen with my wife, resting after breakfast before beginning the day's work. Young Sam had gone out to play with Jack, our dog. It had been a wild night, but the morning was fine and fair, with only a gentle breeze and clear skies. It looked like it was going to be a quiet, peaceful day.

  Then the boy came running in, all in a panic. “Dad, Dad! There's something wrong with Jack! I think he's sick, he's not moving.”

  “What do you mean, he's not moving?” I demanded. “He was sprightly enough last night.”

  “He's just lying still. He looks very sad and thin. I think he might be dead.”

  I walked with Sam out to the kennel, expecting to see a dog who was feeling a bit under the weather, or needed worming. Instead, I felt sick myself and felt cold shivers up my spine when I saw what lay there: a pathetic bag of mummified skin and bone, shrivelled and desiccated, drained of fluids just as the rabbits were. For this to have happened so close to our home, and to such a large animal... For the first time, I felt a stirring of fear about the strange creatures who flitted around the fringes of the coast. I was grateful for the heavy bolts that locked the lighthouse at night.

  I laid my hand on my son's shoulder and gruffly conceded, “He's dead right enough, Sam. We'll need to bury him.” He fetched his little spade and solemnly tried to dig alongside me. It took no time at all to make a hole in the soft, sandy ground, and soon poor old Jack had been laid to rest and covered over. Sam sadly arranged a couple of sticks like a cross at the head of the grave.

  “I'll put flowers on it every day,” he said with great solemnity. And he walked off to pick some wild flowers there and then. I watched him wander with a vague fear in my heart, though I tried to reassure myself with the thought that the weird things only ever appeared at night, and – until Jack's death – I had never seen them close to the lighthouse, they were shapes in the distance.

  As I took my walks over the next few days, it became increasingly apparent to me that the rabbit population had reduced dramatically. Although they were still to be seen, I would count maybe a dozen scurrying little bobtails where I had been accustomed to seeing scores. This worried me: did it explain why the previously remote and reclusive things had fed on Jack? Were the rabbits afflicted with myxomatosis or some other disease that had so drastically reduced their numbers?

  But the reason for their decline was much more sinister. As I stood at the railings that night, my mug of hot chocolate in my hand, I noted with mounting horror that the numbers of strange flying creatures had increased in proportion to the decrease in the rabbit population.

  I can only imagine where the new creatures had come from to swell the ranks. They were evidently not newly born, for many of them seemed larger and more segmented than those who had been there previously. They also seemed more agitated, hovering and darting rapidly from place to place in an aggressive fashion, instead of the smooth swoops of the original population. Had these newcomers descended from the stars, or risen from the dark places beneath the earth? I couldn't know, but I was becoming deathly afraid.

  I had wanted to give Sam time to mourn Jack properly before even considering getting another dog, but I was fearful now and wanted a large dog to live with us, serving as both a warning system and a protector. So I made my inquiries and drove off the next morning, without telling my wife or child where I was going. When I returned home, I had a big Alsatian named Wayland in the rear of my van.

  The dog was obedient and well trained, having served with a security firm. Although he was an older animal, he remained alert, intelligent and powerful. I brought him into the lighthouse to introduce him to Margaret and Sam.

  “This is Wayland,” I said, ruffling him behind his huge ears. “He's come to live with us.”

  “He's a bit big, isn't he?” said Margaret, her brow creasing in concern. “I hope he isn't vicious. I thought we were going to wait a while before getting another dog?”

  “He's not much like Jack,” said Sam nervously, his eyes wide with trepidation.

  They were afraid of him. Good, I wanted him to be intimidating, because the things I was afraid of were much worse. “I got him to keep us safe,” I said softly and reassuringly. “It's a mixed up world out there, gangs of youths vandalising everything, and we're on our own here. So Wayland can look after us. And we wouldn't want to get another dog just like Jack, would we, Sam? No one could replace Jack, could they? Wayland is very different, but he's quite friendly despite his size.”

  And so the dog moved in with us. To Margaret's surprise, I didn't put him in the kennel (which, to be honest, would have been a little small for him anyway). I made him a bed on the ground floor of the lighthouse, in the boiler room where it was warm. From here he would have a close view of the door leading outside, and would be able to hear and smell anything that moved outside it. He was trained to bark and raise the alarm in such a case.

  I stood again in my accustomed position at the railings that night while the household slept in the rooms below me. The sky to the west was now heavy with large bodies fluttering on great wings, just like moths. They were closer than they used to be, not close enough for me to see much detail yet, but the way they would hover in one place gave me the distinct impression they were looking right back at me.

  Were they intelligent? If so, would they recognise me as a kindred sentient being? Or were they simply weighing their options now that they had decimated the rabbit population? But they didn't approach, and Wayland remained quiet.

  No, it was the next night they came...

  I had gone up to my viewing post as usual, and once again the weird creatures were a little closer, but not too close. Perhaps they were curious, attracted to the lighthouse lamp as ordinary moths will be drawn to a candle flame or a lightbulb? After observing them for half an hour, I went indoors to bed, securely bolting the lamp room door behind me.

  I was awakened suddenly in the darkest part of the night by the sound of a terrible baying and scuffling from below. I knew that it must be Wayland, so I hurriedly threw my trousers and a coat on and hurried down the narrow stairs until I reached the bottom. I turned on the light and saw a splattered puddle of blood and some clear, sticky ichor spilling out from the boiler room. Nervous, I sidled over and peered tentatively in. The sight I beheld nearly made me sick.

  Wayland was lying panting on his side, one paw outstretched pathetically towards the doorway, as if begging for help. A desperate, pitiful look was on the dog's face. He was held down and wrapped around by hideous, writhing tubes covered with bristling hairs. Each one was almost four feet in length and there were about a dozen of them, like squidgy, flexible wire brushes. Hairy chunks were lying in piles all over the floor, showing that Wayland had given a good account of himself, tearing several to pieces before he had been overwhelmed by numbers. Now he lay there, whimpering and whining, staring frantically at me, his body gripped by the great, hairy caterpillars, which wriggled and squirmed as they fed on him.

  I could see his frame shrinking by the moment as his fluids were sucked out, the cheeks sinking as the flesh was drawn and stretched tight to the bone. With one last strangled yelp, Wayland died.

 
I slunk back from the boiler room as quietly as I could, not wanting to attract the attention of the grubs from their obscene feasting. I presumed their intelligence was minimal and that they would finish the meal they had started, but the presence of another warm body might be too much for their instincts to resist. With a final shudder of horror, I turned and sidled swiftly up the stairs.

  I felt sick to my stomach, but I knew that I had to act swiftly. The next landing was the kitchen, and I seized a bread knife and then moved up again, past the bathroom to my son's room. I opened his door and crept in, anxious not to disturb him or make a sound. I crept across the floor, illuminated by his little night light, clamped my hand over his mouth so he wouldn't cry out and stilled his struggles as he jerked awake. I shushed him brusquely, and when he finally understood that I wanted him to be quiet, I motioned for him to follow me. Pale and worried, he stumbled out of bed and trailed up the stairs after me.

  The highest floor beneath the lamp room itself was the cabin I shared with my wife, I bustled my son in, closing the door behind us. Margaret was sitting up in bed, looking very worried, especially when she saw the knife in my hand. She had woken when I had gone downstairs to investigate the noise and had been waiting to hear my report on what had caused Wayland to cause such a commotion. She could see from my expression that something terrible had befallen.

  “You have to trust me now,” I whispered hoarsely. “We must remain here and remain quiet. There are intruders. They have killed the dog. Hush, make no noise.” I grabbed the small chair from in front of the dressing table and wedged it under the door handle. Sam was beginning to cry, having heard of his new dog's death, but Margaret did her best to reassure him and quiet him. Her face was pale with fear, but resolute. She was sensible enough not to ask about the nature of the intruders, realising that questions must wait until the danger had passed.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed beside them and switched off the main light, leaving only the bedside lamp dimly lit. I stared at the door and my ears were pricked, waiting for any sound from the stairwell. But I could not prevent my own mind from asking questions: where had the hideous creatures come from? The only answer I could conceive of was that they must have entered the lighthouse by day, wriggling their squidgy, hairy bodies through open portholes and hiding in the warm shadows at the back of the boiler room until they were lured out by the warmth of poor Wayland's body after the boiler had been switched off for the night. But the question then remained: was the infestation purely instinctive, or did they have a purpose? If they sought only darkness and warmth, we need fear nothing, but could hide out here till morning, then descend in the clear light of day when they retreated to the dark corners. But if they had been deliberately introduced to the lighthouse by those winged things that were undoubtedly their sires – if there was a murderous purpose to their presence – then our terror was justified.

  I froze and my mind jolted back to the present moment as I heard a slight rasp from the floor below, in Sam's room. It was exactly the sort of sound that might be made by rough hairs scraping along stone. As the minutes ticked by, the shiversome scraping and rustling intensified, until it was right outside the door.

  The next few minutes were a nightmare of slithering and scrubbing noises upon the door. Sam's eyes were like saucers in his fright, and Margaret was visibly shaking. I imagine that I fared no better than they. But the doors of our home are solid and heavy, and the noisome pests lacked weight and force, so the door did not so much as creak under their probing. Finally, the noises lessened and faded as the shuffles and rasps moved downstairs once again.

  Still we dared not move. I had resolved that we would remain where we were till morning.

  Sam possessed the restlessness of the young, however, and even fear could not keep him still for long. He ventured to the window and looked out into the night and spent several long minutes enraptured at what he saw. I was alerted when I heard the clunk as he unfastened the window and opened it wide.

  As I turned to face him, panic rising, he also turned to me, his face a beacon of joy and wonder. “Look, Dad!” he cried happily, pointing his arm out through the window. “There are flying men outside! Men with wings!” I had just gathered my wits to run and grab him, drawing him in, when his arm was seized in powerful pincers on the end of insectoid legs. He was taken in an instant, without any cry or sound. He was simply snatched and gone, the window yawning open and letting in a blast of cold air to fill the place where he had been.

  Margaret's mouth and eyes were wide with inexpressible horror. I ran to the window, just in time to slam it and secure it as a hairy visage with huge, oval, amber eyes appeared momentarily in its frame. When I looked back through the glass, there was only darkness. And my boy was gone.

  “What happened?” moaned Margaret piteously. “What happened to Sam? Did he fall? Was someone there?”

  I couldn't answer her. I could think only of those desiccated husks which had once been rabbits, and the horrible bag of dry bones that had been Wayland's fate. So I didn't say anything.

  To her credit, Margaret didn't become hysterical, she just sat upright in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees and her face pallid, moaning quietly. She was probably in shock. To be honest, I was too. I still couldn't process the loss of my boy emotionally. If I lived to see the dawn, I guess that breakdown would come, but for now I simply stood and stared, feeling totally numb.

  Gradually, however, a sound penetrated my fuzzy consciousness, and a sensation of utter dread began to reassert itself. It was a muffled, mulching kind of noise, coming from beneath our feet. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled as the sounds became a little sharper and more pronounced. Then I was back in the present moment and out of my comforting stupor as realisation dawned.

  “Margaret!” I yelled. “Get off the bed! Come with me!”

  I reached out to her, but she simply stared at me, still unable to process all that was happening. Even as she sat and stared, the first caterpillars wriggled up from under the bed, where they had chewed their way through the boards from the room below; so much easier than trying to get through the door.

  Then they were all over her, wriggling and chewing. Her face was frozen in an expression of shock, and it was several seconds before she was able to make a noise. When she did, the screams were terrible.

  I dashed the chair from under the door and pulled it open, throwing myself into the now empty stairwell. The hideous things were squirming towards me too now and my only thought was for escape. I could already hear movement on the stairs below, so there was only one way for me to go: I raced up the stairs two at a time until I reached the lamp room. I didn't look back – I couldn't. It was more than I could bear to imagine my wife's limbs becoming skeletal, like those of Wayland and the rabbits, as the horrors drained her dry.

  I had only moments, and when I reached the top of the lighthouse, I grabbed a fuel can and tipped its contents over the top stairs. When the first caterpillars crawled around the curvature of the wall and into sight, I lit a match. I waited until the first of them had actually passed onto the oily upper steps, then I dropped the match.

  There was a searing blast of heat and a whoomph as the fireball ignited in the confined space. I leapt back into the lamp room, while the leading caterpillars were incinerated. They made no sound other than a horrible sizzling, but they wriggled in a frenzy before curling themselves into shrivelled, charred balls. Those behind them hurriedly withdrew, afraid of the fire.

  It didn't burn for long, of course, and the stairs were of stone, they wouldn't burn or sustain a flame. Shortly, after quarter of an hour or so, the caterpillars appeared once again, their fear forgotten. I was forced to repeat my trick, and again they withdrew, leaving a couple of their number barbecued. But I only had enough oil for a couple more such actions.

  Twenty minutes passed and they tried again, wriggling upwards far more quickly this time. One of them actually managed to break through, horribly burned an
d missing all its hair. I flew into a panic then and stamped upon it repeatedly with all my might. It writhed and coiled, finally splitting and oozing its innards. I recoiled to think that some of those innards were the substance of my wife.

  I have enough oil to drive the things back one more time. So I will leave this recording in the lamp room. I can hear stirring again from the stairwell. I have nothing left to live for in any case. Why did I ever run? How could I ever hope to continue, without my wife and child, knowing that such things can be? It is time to end this.

  I spill the last of the oil down the topmost steps and ignite it, forming a final transient barrier to the approach of the loathsome, crawling things. Now I shall switch on the powerful lamp and watch as it sweeps the headland and the scrubby plain one last time. I shall then throw myself from the balcony and be done with it, joining my Margaret and Sam in whatever lies beyond.

  Dear God! The light has brought them swooping in, just as a small lamp will attract a moth. As it rotates, it reflects in their huge eyes, dreadful furry creatures with silent, membranous wings. Hooked, spindly legs hang down from their blood-bloated bodies, their vicious probosces jutting forward from their strange heads. They flutter and hover and wait, shining weirdly in the light, in ghastly, self-assured patience.