I do not know the hour. I awoke in darkness, borne from a terror into nocturnal surroundings. I am bedridden due to an illness I contracted during a biology expedition in the Amazon jungle. Two colleagues-Dr. Samuel Drake and a pupil of his from the university-and I were searching for a new strain of a deadly bacteria only found in South America and in remote parts of Asia. The illness affected my spinal cord and has rendered my legs useless, condemning me to a lifelong prison sentence within the walls of my own room and mind.
The curtains are not drawn, so it is evident that my dear aunt has not yet arrived. She helps me through this insufferable time in which my mind and spirit yearn for the outside again, but can only rely on memories within this broken vessel.
It is of yet more misfortune that the wristwatch passed down to me by my father has stopped working precisely at 2:59 am, so that at the moment I am severed of my chronological bearings of this solid earthly realm, although I sense my time here is no longer in great abundance.
For this reason I will recount to you my terror as abruptly as possible whilst giving you as much detail so that you may realize the horror which I have witnessed in my sleep.
It must have been that yearning for travel and exploration I mentioned earlier which caused my soul to wander beyond the normal realm of dreams into a place in which fear and madness originated.
Many years ago my father spake of a hellish island he visited in a dream that was induced by a voodoo shaman in a sleep experiment. Shortly thereafter he went mad and was admitted into a ward for the mentally insane up east. He vanished two days later and has never been seen again.
I fear I have stumbled across the same island this night. The dream goes as follows:
I awoke on the deck of an old ship. It exhibited features of Norse, Roman, and Oriental design, but seemed to predate all three. It was most likely of a civilization which the aforementioned ones learned from or which dissolved into many.
From whence it came or to where it was headed I knew not. What I was sure of was that it had passed through a vicious storm. All parts of the ship were in poor repair; it was a wonder to me that it was even still afloat. The sail was missing and the mast was broken in half, with the top half absent. The wheel was nowhere in sight, side rails were in splintered remnants. One peculiar thing I came about while studying the wreckage was a gelatin substance smeared about in varied spots on the deck. For this oddity I could find no sensible source or reason.
If there had been other sailors they had either abandoned ship to find help or were taken by the storm, as a search of the ship led me to discover I was the only person aboard.
As for the scenery surrounding the ship and myself, there was not much variety. No moon was out and the stars were a brilliant explosion frozen across infinity above my head. I could not recognize any constellations, perhaps I was in a time long before or long after humans would poison the ground with every footprint left behind, polluting the air with every breath from their industrial lungs.
Silence was as abundant as the endless water, stretching from horizon to horizon in all directions. The night was cool and a thin, steamy fog was rising from the warm water, which was as black as oil.
I did not know how much time had passed, for it was always night in this unending oceanic dreamscape. I may have sailed for days or centuries, as time follows no rules in dreams.
After a time which seemed longer rather than shorter( I could feel a beard upon my face and my hair dangling to my shoulders), I began to notice a small, glowing dot in the distance. A tiny golden pearl in this otherwise black hell.
I began to feel anxious, perhaps at the realization that there existed other things beyond this ship in a lifeless sea.
After yet more time had passed, perhaps a day or two, I was only hours from the shore of what appeared to be an island. I realized then that the ship had gained velocity. By what force it was being driven was a mystery.
As the ship neared, it became evident that the light shone not from the island itself but from the water surrounding it. For a short distance around the island, yellow light was emitted from the water illuminating the outer edges of trees and sand near the shore. I had studied phosphorescent bacteria and plankton before and was intrigued by this occurrence in such a place.
Emerging from the water about a mile away from the shore were immense statues standing upon rocks. In the eerie upward-shining light, I could half-see the features of the statues, which were hellish in nature, a mixture of man and fish. A nightmare being I cannot describe in normal human language.
I remember distinctly that the feeling I had as I looked upon those ancient stone creatures was one of primitive fear. It was a fear I could not consciously control or find reason for. I knew that I should be afraid deep in the back of my mind, perhaps in a region of the cerebrum that was active hundreds of generations ago to aid in the survival of our ancestors when man was still among the bottom of the food chain.
I thought I saw human-sized beings fall or dive from atop the heads of the monolithic statues as I passed them(though, surely, no man could survive a dive from that altitude).
When the ship touched land I was reminded again of the silence which this world existed in. Even now as I stood at the helm of the ship and stared into the dark jungle of the island my ears rang with the absence of noise.
There was no wind, so when I heard rustling from within the vegetation of the island, I knew I was being watched.
I wished that I could push off and depart from this place of hidden evils but before I knew what I was doing I was descending a rope ladder onto the sand. I had not realized that I was barefoot until my feet touched the ground, which was more like mud than what was traditionally found on a shore.
It was not long until I reached the beginning of the trees. There was no cut path and I did my best to go between overgrown weeds and fallen tree trunks. It occurred to me that the island was more swamp-like than a tropical island.
I was no more than fifteen minutes into my exploration when I began to hear strange guttural sounds sonically enlaced with clicks from somewhere behind me. Soon after, the sounds were mimicked up ahead and on either side of me.
I tried to flee but successfully gained no more than four steps before I was grabbed by at least a dozen slimy hands.
My vision faded and I lost consciousness as silhouettes closed in around me. I regained consciousness in a small cavern with phosphorescent walls. Seaweed was strewn about and the ceiling was dripping with moisture and the same slimy substance which I discovered on the ship.
The ship! I immediately decided I must return to the ship and sail away from this island lest I encounter the same horrors which drove my father to insanity.
I rose to my feet and attempted to walk towards the opening on the opposite side of the cave but was immediately pulled back to the floor by a tentacle which held my waist. As I fought to be set free, the tentacle seemed not to become any tighter, nor any less tight. Nor was it fighting back. I calmed myself and inspected the tentacle closer. That which I had taken as an assailant was nothing more than a length of braided seaweed tied crudely and primitively around my waist as if to bind me to the cave like a canine to a tree. It troubled me no more than a minute to free myself of the slippery vegetation.
I was soon through the passageway and heading in any direction hoping to see light from an opening to lead me out. I had no sense of direction or depth and had only the dim glow of the luminescent slime coating the walls to see by, which my eyes were beginning to adjust to.
I was constantly coming to forks and intersections in the passages. I could not tell whether I was getting closer to finding my exit or going deeper into the island. With each step it was getting warmer and I could hear the pattering of footsteps on the soft ground behind me.
Suddenly my palms and waist began to itch where the
seaweed touched me. I scratched myself with my nails as I walked but it did no good.
I turned down a corridor and was perplexed by what I saw. This passage was slightly brighter than the rest, as there was more of the curious slime on the walls. That which intrigued and disturbed me was not the slime, but the markings on the walls. It seemed to be an ancient hieroglyphic language which I could not read nor do I believe I would understand it if i heard it spoken.
The itching on my hands and body intensified to slight burning. I could not resist scratching harder yet with my fingernails. I began to feel dizzy which I suspect was due to an increase in temperature and decrease in oxygen.
My thoughts were becoming fogged, distorted, and not my own. I began to recall memories of an ancient palace under the sea, though I had never explored the deeps of the ocean.
I noticed something next which momentarily cleared my mind and reminded me of the goal of reaching the ship and returning home.
Home?
At the very far end of the corridor(whether it was the same one or whether I continued to walk and turn corners, I was unsure), I noticed an opening through which light was shining.
The itching was now near unbearable, a million fire ants seemed to be disassembling my flesh with their tiny jaws to feed their queen. I wished I could remove my skin if it would stop the burning.
I began to move toward the light and almost fell. I was dizzy and my legs felt heavy. Stumbling, I made my way. The itching now consumed my body in maddening invisible flames! Sweat poured down my face and glued my clothes to my body, the heat like an open furnace in a boiler room. Dozens of footsteps sounded behind me.
I had reached the exit which I hoped would lead me to salvation and realized the things behind me had chosen not to catch me. Instead, their intention was to herd me like cattle to my damnation.
I soon learned as I crossed the threshold that it was no exit, other than from sanity. It was an entrance into what I can only assume was the core of the island and the gate to Hell itself.
I stumbled into a large, open cavern with a small lake in the middle. Seated upon a rock in the center(similar in posture to the way a lion sits) was a statue far greater in size and hideousness than those which stood guard outside. It contained more of the strange writing around the base. Large bat-like wings were folded behind its back and terrible claws sprang from its feet. The most sickening feature was the mass of tentacles which covered up, or made up, the bottom half of its face. The statues eyes were intense even in their stone existence and stared through me to my very soul, which I was sure was no longer mine.
I could see this as clear as day due to the water being extremely luminant, lighting the cavern like an aquatic sun. The cavern walls were made of some clear stone, allowing the black ocean to peer through. I concluded it was through here that the light shewn upward through the water and lighted the island outside.
Boiling was the heat within the cavern, mixed with the razor-ripping sensation of my skin and fear of the daemonic statue, my mind began to crack. I felt claustrophobia begin to settle deep within my chest, feeling trapped and hopeless beneath this accursed island.
I began to scream and several hot, slimy, webbed hands grabbed me from behind, ushering me toward the water and the statue. I fought to free myself but given my weakened state, they were too strong for me.
They thrust me to the floor some six feet from the edge of the water, forcing me to kneel before the statue as a man to be judged before a mad king. The water was beginning to boil and I attempted twice to return to my feet but was quickly overpowered and had not the strength to attempt a third.
The light of the water faded until only the slime coating the ceiling provided dim light to see by. In the soft light I noticed what must have been hundreds more of the beings, silhouettes in the semi-darkness, entering the room and crowding the edges of the water.
A chant rose from the group in their guttural language. Light slowly returned to the room as they chanted, though not from the water. Through an opening in the ceiling which I had not previously noticed, moonlight began to replace the black emptiness, sliding sluggishly down the walls until everything was ablaze in flames of pale light.
I looked down to the water which was a chaotic, boiling cauldron now, adding pain to my skin with every splash that hit me(it did not seem to affect the other beings).
My attention moved from the water up to the face of the hellish statue and my heart sank to my stomach. Something odd perhaps about the angle of the moonlight shining on the face of the monument made it seem different, alive almost.
Sudden silence as the group simultaneously stopped chanting pulled my attention back to the ground and I realized every set of eyes were upon me. For the first time I was able to see the faces all around. Terror gripped my skeleton. These beings surrounding me were the same sickening combination of fish and men as the statues outside!
During a hunting campaign my father led in his late twenties, a rifle of one of his hunting partners misfired, grazing his face and burned a deep scar beneath his left eye… One of these monsters to my left bore the same marking! No, it could not be.
I began to scream once more, shattering the silence. It was then that two of the fish-men lifted me to a standing position and pushed me closer to the water until I was one step from a boiling death at the clawed feet of the beast.
They began chanting again, only this time in a lower volume and in a tone which rang with a greater malevolence. At the base of the statue the hieroglyphs began to glow as I felt a push from behind.
That is where the terrible nightmare ended as I was ripped from the realm of dreams by my own voice, screaming at full force. I have written down all that I remember. More details may have been left out but I cannot remember, as my mind is in a fog. I feel sleep beginning to overcome me once more, lulled by the resumed ticking of my father’s watch. It may be a peaceful sleep, if not for the oddly ticklish itching of my hands and waist…
Along For The Ride
Along For The Ride: And Other Stories Page 3
