White Beach Part 5

I woke screaming once again. Through weakness, I quickly fell back on the improvised bed I had been placed on. It seemed to be made of sailcloth. I appeared to be in some sort of homemade wooden hovel. There was a half-filled metal canteen next to me that I quickly chugged down. It was again that utterly pure water. Everything was half-swimming and once the ripples in my vision had died away, I saw the pile of rags, the madman, stood over in a corner. He was flicking through a crusty magazine or thin book. I tried to quietly get up and sneak away but my body betrayed me. Pain spasmed through me and I didn’t have the strength to suppress the groan. The rag pile turned and again those moon-like eyes stared right through me. He threw the thin book behind him and shuffled closer towards me. A torrent of words erupted from him again.

“I am so very sorry for hitting you with the can it’s just I was sure that they would come for us and I would have liked more time to prepare. Lucky really that they haven’t noticed you yet because as soon as they do… well we shall both be in for an interesting time. Have you seen the hunt yet? It was a good one last night, very successful. They grab the prey and then they go to the pole and then they decide which one goes to whom and then they complete it and it’s done and ol’ Nail-head and his boys go back triumphant to their city and they rejoice and dance in the waters. I’ve seen it you know. They ignore me because I am only one and they think me too damaged with this hand of mine to bother giving to her so they have left me to do as I please. They must know of humans and know that we pose no threat to them, at least in the small numbers we have currently come to the island in, for I’ve seen some of our cousins down on that beach before HA HA HA! Yes they know of us but they do not care if one is wandering around. Although, I’m very bored of wandering I must say…”

He walked over to a bubbling blackened pot that was suspended above a fire and stirred it with a large wooden spoon. Lifting it up, I could see there were the black feathers of the crows, wet and flopping, stuck to the spoon’s bowl. If I had the strength I would have thrown up.

“Good, good soup yes, perfect to get you back in tip top condition. Have to have you nice and strong now. So much to do so much to prepare. I must go and fetch my things. Can’t leave them waiting now that would be very rude and as my grandmother always said “The rude will go to Hell!” Well I can tell you I have no intention of going to such a place as Hell. I already have my destination booked. Then again, don’t we all? HA! Yes, it is an inevitable fact of life. We shall all go marching into that open maw one day. Yes… Right into eternity…”

He continued to gibber away and rubbed at his stump as he had done before but tailed off as he shuffled into an adjoining room that was separated by hanging beads. I looked around desperately for some sort of weapon in case he came back with another can or something worse. The blackened pot was heavy and could well have been lethal but it was too far away and probably too heavy for me to wield. The knife and flare gun were gone now and there was nothing in reach. I could barely move but the pain wasn’t quite so debilitating and I could at least hold myself up. I saw on a small table a bandage and a pair of scissors which must have been used to cover up some of the larger scratches and cuts on my arms, just off to the side and behind me. As I tried reaching across for the scissors, the pile of rags burst into the room suddenly and screamed out “I NEVER TOLD YOU MY NAME! A thousand pardons Sir, I am so forgetful these days. I don’t know if it’s my age or my time spent here that has so riddled my brain with holes but again I must apologise because you see my name is… Um… Well you can call me John, yes. John is a good name, a strong name, a name of kings and royalty. Not of course that I am royalty although I do remember talk of an aunt that had spent some time at the palace. I can’t remember which palace or what she was doing there but it WAS a palace. For all I know she could have just been some dirty scullery maid! Still though I truly feel that even being close to royalty can rub off on a person. Just the… essence… of… perfection… can… leave… marks…” He lapsed into silence and his eyes seemed even starrier than they had before. He stared forwards at a point just above my head. I turned and screamed.

For the whole time I had been there, behind my head had been, drawn onto the wall with charcoal, ash, mud and other substances I dread to recall, a giant portrait of that hellish dragon face. It stared down at me with those demon eyes and chilled me to my core. I turned away from it and saw that ‘John’ was still staring at it with, well, I can only say with a look of absolute adoration and love. I felt sick to my stomach. The fear and loathing gave me new strength and I rocked to my feet and grabbed the scissors. I stuck them out in front of me at that enraptured old crackpot and backed away through the beads into the adjoining room. The floor was stained brown. There were shelves lining every wall and they were groaning under the weight of bones. A pile of skulls was grinning at me from one corner.

“They aren’t the only ones that must pay up.” I heard the old man say over my shoulder. “When she comes we will all burn and be consumed not just them. We must share our abundance with her. We must give half then she will come and devour whole. We will all be one with her for eternity.”  In the centre of the far wall was an altar made of bones. A blunt hatchet and a black metal bowl sat on top of it. In the bowl was the fresh head of a deer, split in half, brains oozing out. I fell back. Weakness overcame me and darkness closed in on all sides. The last thing I heard was “Yes, now we must prepare for them…”

Cold water was thrown over me and instantly my ears were filled with the babbling of the rag man. “Come now you can’t be asleep for when our guests arrive. It’s rude to sleep when you are supposed to be entertaining. Now, it’s just getting dark so they should be heading out to hunt soon. They’ll see my message, they should be able to understand it. They’ll see that I’m ready now to go to her. With two they can now complete the ritual. I’m so excited! Isn’t it exciting? I shall join her in eternity. Sadly you shall go to them and I shall be taken into the lake, but fear not because one day she will come and devour whole. Then we shall all be one. But yes you shall have to go to them. Your bones will bleach on the beach. Oh! That rhymed didn’t it? I can’t believe I haven’t said that before. I must have said it but then forgotten. Oh I do forget so much. I mean these days my brain is so full of holes!” I was tied down by the wrists with old frayed rope to a ring that was screwed into the floor. The old man was shuffling around, picking bits and pieces up and putting them back down very precisely. I had this strange flashback to my mother preparing for a dinner party. He floated about happily, sorting and resorting the junk, rubbish and sea-detritus that he had accumulated over the years of his abandonment. He stirred the blackened pot which was still bubbling and stuck another log onto the fire. I pulled and tore at the rope but it held firm. I looked around and saw in a box on a shelf, the glints of the flare gun, flare cartridges and the knife. I tried reaching for them but my hands were just out of reach, which was really part of an oar. 

“Do you know,” the man turned and looked at me now “I once wanted to escape from this island? I truly did. I wanted to sail away and forget everything. Forget HER even! I had a boat on the Northern side over the ridge. A little bay up there. Took me forever to fix it up. Had to make my own tools and fix it up. The day it was ready, I was drawn to the beach. I guess it must have been Her that led me there. I reached down for a drink and one of them came and took my hand. A little one. Only a baby. Didn’t know the rules of the hunt. They were so angry. It wasn’t that I had been hurt, they don’t care for me like that, no, that little one had broken their laws. Hunted out of season, so to say. Dared not to give half to Her. Nailed to a tree upside down. It hollered for days. I managed to patch my arm up but I couldn’t take the boat out.” I stroked his stump absentmindedly “No I couldn’t take it now. It might even still be there. It was a stout little boat. I haven’t been over there for years though. Been far too busy!” With that he turned back to his collection and shifted and sorted through it.

Suddenly there was a coughing roar from far off across the island. “Aha!” he said “Now we begin!” He went into the back room through the beads and I began to tear manically at the rope. I had to get away before those fish beasts came for me. Obviously, the castaway wished to be torn apart by them but I didn’t fancy the same fate. I tore and pulled and gnashed my teeth on it and finally it started to come loose. I kept at it and a sudden snap brought a rush of relief and joy like I’ve never known before.

That warmth though was suddenly extinguished by the sound of a thump at the door. I ran to the box and snatched up the knife, the flare gun and the cartridges. “Those won’t help you now I’m afraid. Far too late. They are here now and they will do what they have always done.” The castaway was dressed in a grotesque robe, bones sewn onto it in strange patterns and designs. Some of the designs seemed reminiscent of the ones on the great carved tree stump. His eyes shone in the darkness. “Yes. Now they are here!” The door splintered inward from the force of a battering ram. The whole shack shook. The castaway laughed as his collection jumped from their resting places and were thrown around the room. The thumps kept coming. I knew in that moment that, whatever my actions, I was a dead man. Sudden courage leapt up within me, though it may well have been suicidal recklessness, and I jumped forward as the creature that I could see gleaming through the cracks leaned back to smash it’s great armoured head through the door. One split was large enough to stick the flare gun muzzle into and I fired a round off. A great red light, sparks, fire and screaming erupted behind the door. The screams died off to a gurgle but the sizzle of burning flesh continued on as the light sputtered out. There was silence and nothing moved for a moment. Even the castaway looked puzzled for a second. Then another roar that shook the very ground. I reloaded the flare gun just as the door and the whole wall caved in. Three or four armoured heads battered their way through. The falling wood knocked me back but I managed to keep hold of the flare gun, shoving it into my waistband. I got up, ready to run, but in that moment the wet, shining monsters closed the distance and one head-butted be to the ground. The world span and I had to sit back on my heels.