The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos (14 page)

I met no one on the road, and there was only the sound of my own footsteps in the muffling mist to keep me company as I passed the sightless, staring windows. This was a place in which I did not care to linger, and I was glad when I finally came in sight of the solitary house set a little back from the road, the only one which showed any sign at all of human habitation, a thin wisp of smoke curling from the single chimney.

It was easy to understand why few outsiders ever came to Tor Mount, for unlike most other tiny fishing villages of the South Devon coast, it appeared to shut itself away from prying eyes, to shun visitors; and there was no air of welcome about the place, although at the time I put it down to the early hour of the morning and the abominable weather conditions.

Hedley Lindennan was a man in his early sixties, evidently well-educated, who greeted me courteously and seemed curiously pleased to see me. He lived alone, but insisted on preparing a meal, waiting until I had eaten before explaining his reasons for asking me to come.

Then, sitting in the comfortable chair in front of the fire—for the morning was still cold for this time of year, I heard the story of Tor Mount and in particular of the Keeper of Dark Point; and as the story unfolded, I knew that my fears concerning the place had not been ill-founded, and I found myself shivering incessantly in spite of the clammy heat in the room. Often, I found it almost impossible to believe certain parts of his narrative, for my mind told me that in this day and age such events could not happen, had no place in this sane, everyday world of the twentieth century.

When Lindennan had finished, I did not wonder that people shunned Tor Mount, nor that the fisherfolk preferred to shut themselves away from the outside world, for if there should be even the tiniest grain of truth in that fantastic, horrifying tale, it would be more than enough to explain the air of utter desolation and decay over the village, the mouldering houses, and the weed-choked gardens.

There had been many legends and whispered tales in myth-haunted Tor Mount for several centuries, Lindennan said, stemming originally from the ruined village of Torsands which had once flourished more than five hundred years before and half a mile from Lindennan’s cottage, closer to where Dark Point now loomed on its rocky promontory. In spite of its small size, it had been a wealthy place in those days, with the sea abounding in fish and crab. Then tragedy had struck at Torsands. The supply of fish dwindled, the boats returned day after day with empty nets and pots, and according to the legend, certain evil and shocking practices took place in the village after that. The stories were, as always, deliberately vague and misleading as to the exact nature of these rites, but the terrible outcome of them was sufficiently well established and authenticated. One wild, storm-filled night, so Lindennan understood from his reading of certain old books and documents, a large group of the villagers made their way up to the strange circle of stones on top of High Tor where the Devil held court, and here, in the midst of lightning and thunder, the most diabolical scenes were enacted. The tales told of wild sounds, screechings, and snarlings, bestial grunts and hideous barkings such as could have been uttered by no human throat, and a stench like that from the deeps of the most abominable pit of Hell.

Before dawn the next day, a great wave sweeping in from somewhere far out in the Atlantic overwhelmed Torsands completely, wiping the place clean of any life which had existed there, shattering the buildings, smashing the boats drawn alongside the quay, destroying everything in a cataclysmic fury that surpassed anything ever previously known. Now, all that remained were empty shells of houses, mounds of shattered stones, and the ruined spire of the church, which had earlier been the very centre of these heathen ceremonies.

Ever since that time, there had been reports at irregular intervals of odd things happening in the area. Curious inhuman marks found on the sand at low tide, hideous flopping sounds heard at dead of night when the evil stars shone from the clear, moonless vault of the heavens, misshapen shadows glimpsed from the road by the keepers of the light whenever they made their way along the cliffs to Dark Point from Tor Mount.

There was, too, Lindennan had heard, a book filled with unknown ideographic symbols which had some bearing on this mad period of the region’s history; and throughout the intervening centuries, the more superstitious people of the village spoke in hushed tones of flickering lights seen on top of High Tor and mad sounds issuing from that circle of half-ruined stones.

Philip had learned of the existence of this strange book shortly after his arrival in Tor Mount, and had spent much of his time searching for it, determined to interpret the weird symbols it contained, confident that it would tell him all he wanted to know of the curious past history of the place, especially of the ruined village of Torsands, which fascinated him unutterably.

He had taken to wandering among the shunned spots, especially after dark, although he had been warned on countless occasions, both by Lindennan and others, to stay away from such shadow-haunted places. The villagers appeared to be sullenly banded together against the intrusion of strangers, whom they regarded with both suspicion and dislike. Some strangers, Lindennan hinted, had already vanished mysteriously long before Philip had arrived in Tor Mount; but for a time, although most people outwardly shunned him, no active action had been taken against him. He had bought one of the decaying houses along the front, and there had been intense speculation about his doings, particularly the long hours after dark when he would return from his nocturnal wanderings, and a solitary light would burn in one window of the cottage until almost dawn.

On May fifteenth—Lindennan recalled the date well, since there had been a tremendous storm later that night—my brother had been seen by several people making his way down from the summit of High Tor, where he had been spending more and more of his time striving to interpret the crudely hewn hieroglyphics carved on the oddly angled stones; but instead of taking the road down the hill to the village as he usually did, he had abruptly turned and made his way along the beetling brow of the hill towards the spectral tower of Dark Point lighthouse.

In answer to my questions, Lindennan confirmed that the lighthouse had been abandoned for close on seventy years following the building of a new tower some three miles along the coast. Apparently, the rocky promontory on which Dark Point was situated had become riddled by subterranean clefts and shafts by the prolonged action of the sea, and the foundations were so insecure that the entire structure was in danger of collapse.

Lindennan himself felt certain that Philip had reached the lighthouse before the storm had broken. It was less than three-quarters of a mile from the top of High Tor cut down to the crumbling ruins of the tower, but what had happened then no one could say, although several rumours were rife. For the first time in more than three months, no light was seen in the cottage on the edge of the village that night, but with the storm raging over the headland and the lightning flashing and forking across the cloud-scudded heavens, little notice had been taken of this. It was not until three days later, when nothing further had been seen of him, that anyone decided to go up to Dark Point and see for themselves whether there was any sign of him there.

Hedley Lindennan had been among the party, and he could therefore speak from first-hand knowledge of the black horror that had preceded them. Some of the terror of that visit communicated itself to me in the hushed, whispered voice of my host. The sheer bulk of the lighthouse had had an oppressive effect on the small group of men, and first none had dared enter that haunt of dark and shadow, yet there was some irresistible lure about the place, which had a profound effect on them. The main door was locked and barred by massive lengths of wood, securely nailed down, but on the seaward side, a yawning aperture in the crumbling stone afforded them entry. Over everything lay an inch-deep shroud of dust faintly lit by the pale light filtering in through the gaping opening. Cautiously, they let themselves in, Lindennan in the lead. There was little to be seen on the ground floor beyond some indistinct marks in the dust, but as they made their way up the steps to the living quarters they received a positive shock of objective horror. Two of the men cried out inarticulately and attempted to cover their eyes. Only Lindennan managed to retain sufficient of his mental and physical composure to go forward, something rendered more difficult, since he was in the lead and came upon it first.

There were strange markings around the vast, circular stone walls, very similar to those on the graven black stones atop High Tor, and other blasphemous designs etched on the floor itself—and set in the very centre of the room a tall pillar of octahedral cross-section, on the top of which reposed a hideously carved figure made from an odd kind of stone which had a peculiarly soapy feel.

My host’s voice trembled as he attempted to describe that monstrosity. It was, he claimed, like nothing he had ever seen before, something quite outside of his previous experience; a nightmare creation resembling some form of anthropological impossibility which could, in Lindennan’s opinion, never have existed in real life. Yet even this faded into insignificance beside what they found on the dusty floor behind the stone column. There were bones there, half-covered in the fine white dust, some evidently human, but others which completely baffled and frightened the men, bearing no resemblance to any creature known, nightmarish things spawned in outer darkness. All of the skeletons were of an incredible age. Lindennan firmly believed they were at least three or four hundred years old, dating back to the time before the great tidal wave that had swept in from somewhere far out in the ocean and engulfed Torsands and the surrounding area.

Here there were definite signs of someone having been in the tower recently. A few of the bones had clearly been moved, as if someone had bent to examine them more closely, and the dust on the steps leading up to the very top of the lighthouse had been disturbed, although the prints were not easy to define.

I questioned Lindennan more closely on this point, struggling to hide my fear and apprehension concerning his discoveries. In answer to my questions, he replied that he felt certain the footsteps had been made by my brother, as no one else in the village would have dared to go out to Dark Point alone. But even while he was talking, it was evident that there was more to come, that the small party from Tor Mount had found more in that dreadful and accursed place and he was having some difficulty in getting to the point.

Remaining together, they had searched the Dark Point lighthouse thoroughly with the exception of the room at the very top. There had been a mouldering wooden trapdoor at the extreme top of the splintered stairs, but as they had stood there in a tiny, huddled group debating whether to go any further and complete their investigations of the place, they had become aware of the frightful fishy odour coming from above, and several of the men had fancied they had heard a faint movement from beyond the trapdoor. Afterwards, they had been unable to describe exactly what they thought they had heard. Some considered it to have been a sliding, scraping sound as though a heavy body was being dragged across the floor; others thought it had been a slopping sound almost as if some semi-liquid body had fallen onto the upper floor. Lindennan was of the opinion that it had been nothing more than the wind howling through gaps in the upper structure, putting no supernatural context on it whatever. Nevertheless, the fact remained that no one had ventured into that topmost room.

Something more than fright had now come over all of the explorers in that terrible tower of crumbling stone. Each man would undoubtedly have turned and fled had it not been that he feared the scorn of his neighbours, and all were relieved when they finally moved out into the open again to search the ground around the base of the rocks. Even here, horror hung broodingly over everything, for they saw in the smooth sand, left by the low tide, faint prints leading down to the water. One set was clearly identified as human, made by size eight or nine boots—my brother took size nine—the others were pure undiluted horror. As the men examined them in the pale sunlight, they shuddered visibly, for even though the tide had partially obliterated them, there was an obviously unnatural look about them. Huge rounded prints with a set of deeper marks around the edges as if they had been made by a curiously shaped sucker rather than feet, and, according to Lindennan, there were too many to have been made by anything walking on
two feet!

Something had lumbered or slithered across the sand, something mountainous and monstrous, which had walked clear into the sea. Whether it had returned from the water, none of the men could ascertain with any degree of certainty but one thing they were all sure:
those human prints led only one way!

* * * *

It would not be easy to describe the mood in which I was left by these revelations—grotesque and terrifying, I could no longer doubt that those prints in the sand and in the dust of Dark Point lighthouse had been made by my brother—and when Lindennan insisted I should stay with him, rather than at the solitary inn in the village, I readily agreed. From what little I had seen of the village and its other inhabitants, I doubted if I would find ease or comfort there.

During the day, I questioned my host more fully concerning the ancient legends of the place. By now, I was certain that if I was ever to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding my brother’s disappearance, I would have to go far more deeply into these whispered tales of vague forms seen on High Tor, hideous noises that tore the black, moonless nights asunder and woke half of the village with their bloodcurdling shrieks, and even go up to that accursed place of black stone columns and graven ideographs far above the village.