The Lurkers & Other Strange Tales Read online

  As the ferry drew near the island, Penny could see a small harbor with a mooring for the ferry in addition to a more conventional dock and boathouse. A jeep was racing down a one-lane dirt road that ran along the shoreline. Penny’s eyes followed the road up as it wound its way along the seaside cliffs to where Blackwater Manor stood. She’d caught a glimpse of the mansion from the ferry, but it was now out of sight, nestled back from the cliffs among the foliage. Only its highest points were still visible.

  The ferry arrived at the mooring just as the jeep was coming to a stop by the dock. A man jumped out and strode up to Richard and Penny. He was a bearded, dwarfish person on the advanced side of middle-age, rather rustic-looking and dressed in workman’s clothes.

  “You’re the Cadeaus?” said the man with a cheerful, toothy grin.

  “Yeah, that’s us,” Richard said, extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Richard, and this is Penny.”

  The man stood, smiling and staring up at Richard for a long time before finally shaking his hand.

  “Richard, eh?” The man made a little chuckling sound, accompanied by a tiny snort. “George Brooks, island warden. Follow me up to the house.” With that, George got back into his jeep.

  “Short and sweet,” Richard said. “I like that.”

  Richard and Penny exchanged a conspiratorial glance before climbing back into the rental truck. They proceeded to follow Brooks up the dirt road, heading for the cliffs in the distance.

  The road wound along the island shore and up the cliffside for twenty minutes before the tiny convoy reached a pair of metal gates. Blackwater was spelled out in wrought iron above them, and they were standing wide open. The jeep sped straight through with Richard and Penny close behind.

  At long last, Penny caught her first good look at Blackwater Manor. It was gargantuan. The picture she’d seen in Mortel’s office didn’t do the house’s utter magnitude justice. It was constructed primarily from black stone, though Penny couldn’t readily identify the type. She thought the place looked straight out of some kind of horror film, the ones where teenaged couples stopped at some remote house to use the phone on a stormy night after their cars broke down.

  Penny’s original guess about the architectural style being gothic was only somewhat off-base. Gothic was in there, for sure, but the manor was actually an amalgam of different European styles. The place had a rampart, flying buttresses, and two lofty stone towers on either side. And she saw gargoyles, too, strange ones with wings and … were those tentacles? With a mixture of excitement and apprehension, Penny wondered, not for the first time, what she and Richard were getting themselves into.

  “Wow! Will you look at this place?” Richard turned to Penny and caught what was probably a look of skepticism on her face. “Look, it’s just for a year, then we can move back to the city or wherever, and the money will be all ours.”

  “I don’t care about the money. I never did.”

  Richard snorted. “Yeah, well, we need the money. Maybe not quite this much money, but the proceeds from my last book and that sorry excuse of an advance for the new one were barely getting us by. Trust me. This is a win-win situation.”

  A few minutes later, Penny and Richard were following Mr. Brooks through the front door of the mansion, into the grand foyer. The sheer size of the place was staggering. Richard whistled.

  The walls were layered with dark wood paneling from top to bottom, and the floor was made of polished, black marble. Twin staircases curved up both sides of the room, intersecting at a landing before continuing to the second level. The banisters were beautifully carpentered, all custom work.

  “Go ahead and make yourselves at home,” said Brooks. “It’s your home after all now. Have a look around, and I’ll send for some men from the town to unload your belongings. There’s a telephone in the parlor, off through there.” He pointed toward a set of double doors on their right, then indicated an open archway opposite them, beyond which was what looked like a twenty-person dining room. “The kitchen’s that-a-way, and it’s fully stocked.”

  “Do you live here on the island?” said Penny.

  Brooks nodded. “Ayuh. I live at the lighthouse.” Then with a weird glance toward Richard, he said, “Run it with my son, Ed. There’s a telephone there if you ever need to get ahold of me. I do the repairs around here and keep the grounds.”

  Penny nodded. The lawyer, Mortel, had already explained that Mr. Brooks had been a long-time employee of the Mallow estate and would continue to draw an annual salary from the money left to Penny. This, it seemed, was another non-negotiable stipulation of the will. Brooks could not be removed from his post for the entirety of the one-year period.

  When the man left them alone, Penny and Richard began to explore their new home. It was no small task as the place was vast. Penny mused that she’d never been in a house this large, not even when she’d been selling real estate in Sentinel City. The manor seemed to go on and on.

  The ground floor consisted of the main foyer, and to its right was an inviting parlor with a large, stone fireplace, the old kind in which a fully grown adult could stand upright. Beyond the parlor was a two-story library, filled with leather-bound volumes. A circular staircase provided access to the library’s upper tier. Richard nearly squealed in a very unmanly fashion when he laid eyes on it.

  “This will make a great office,” he said, dreamily. “I’ll get a lot of writing done here.”

  On the opposite side of the main foyer was the formal dining room, with an immense kitchen just beyond. Underneath the main staircase, a set of double doors led to a beautiful ballroom, complete with crystal chandeliers. But Penny’s favorite room on the ground floor was the large solarium at the back of the house, filled with a variety of flowers, including Penny’s favorite—orchids. A tranquil fountain trickled at the solarium’s heart.

  The upper floor was made up of several large bedrooms, the most considerable of which, the master suite, was situated at the back of the house, overlooking the expansive yard. A garden lay beyond that, completely overgrown with foliage. From this room, Penny could also see the lighthouse on the opposite side of the island and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.

  Of course, the entire house was completely furnished. Obviously, Cousin Eugenia couldn’t take any of her many belongings with her to the great beyond, so everything went to Penny with the house. The late owner’s tastes had been quite a bit less modern than Richard would have liked. But the furniture was all antique, so Penny was in heaven, especially when she saw the king-sized, four-poster bed in the master bedroom, complete with velvet curtains. Penny threw herself upon the bed and stretched out like a cat in the sun.

  “It’s almost too good to be true,” she said with only a measured amount of her usual wariness. She was starting to think she could get used to the idea of owning a mansion on an island.

  “That’s the spirit,” said Richard. “Get comfortable. I’m going to get my computer set up in my new office and call my editor.” He pulled out his mobile phone and looked at it, frowning. “No service. That’s … not ideal.”

  “Just use the land-line,” said Penny. “It’ll be nice to not have to deal with the technological distractions of the world for a change.”

  Richard didn’t seem convinced. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that. We’ve got money now. Maybe we can get the cell phone company to put up a tower or something.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” said Penny. But it came out as nothing more than a dreamy murmur, and only a few moments passed before she drifted off to sleep.

  3. The Oubliette

  Over the next several weeks, Penny and Richard settled in to their new life at Blackwater Manor.

  Richard spent his days in his study, working on the new novel. When he wasn’t writing, he was perusing the stacks in the library. Penny whiled away the hours exploring the house from top to bottom, as well as the prodigious grounds.

  Neither of them found much cause to leave the island a
nd only went to town a handful of times since arriving. The couple had at their disposal a motorboat, which came with the residence and was stored in the boathouse down by the dock. But the house was amply equipped with supplies—including a generously stocked wine cellar—and if they ever needed anything, they only had to phone Mr. Brooks and ask him to bring something over on his next trip to the mainland.

  The estate didn’t employ any staff, save for Mr. Brooks, but Penny accepted she would probably need to rectify that at some point. Brooks spent the majority of his time on the considerable landscaping duties, and Penny saw no way to manage the housekeeping of such a large place by herself. She’d managed to keep the place relatively tidy, but the dust was beginning to accumulate. No, a few maids and possibly a cook were definitely in order. Plus, the house was in need of a few repairs and renovations. Penny’s mind was bursting with a slew of home improvement ideas that would necessitate the timely consultation of a contractor.

  Six weeks to the day since arriving on the island, Penny awoke with a mission in mind. She was determined to begin clearing the foliage in the garden behind the house. Mr. Brooks promised he would see to it, but with Richard busy on his book and not much else to do, Penny was excited about taking on a new project.

  She donned some old work-clothes and marched outside with a sense of purpose, armed with some garden tools she’d found in the carriage house, including an old rake, a hoe, a slightly rusty shovel and a decently sized gardening trowel. She’d also discovered a machete, which was duller than Penny would have liked, but the tool would still probably do the trick.

  Penny went to work, hacking away at the overgrown bushes with the machete and upturning weeds with the hoe. But the garden was like a small jungle, and it didn’t take Penny long to realize she might have bitten off more than she could chew. Still, the harder it seemed, the more obsessively determined she became. She swore she would make a sizable dent in the undertaking before lunch.

  Penny was chopping away at an especially stubborn section of thick, vine-like plants when she fell through the hole in the ground.

  The opening was completely concealed by years of overgrowth, and she had no time to react before the earth swallowed her whole. One second she was there, the next she was gone. If someone had been watching and turned his head away at that precise moment, he would no doubt have sworn Penny vanished into thin air.

  She fell for what seemed like an eternity, screaming and clawing at the sides of the chute that had unexpectedly opened up beneath her. But the shaft was made of smooth, glass-like rock, rendering her attempts to get a finger-hold completely futile.

  Then the shaft walls disappeared, and Penny was free-falling in darkness. A split-second later she hit the bottom and heard a loud crunching sound as the ligaments in her ankle tore. A flash of searing pain shot up her leg, and she fell back, arms flailing in the pitch black as she desperately clutched for anything to hold onto.

  Penny’s head struck something cold and hard. Her eyelids fluttered, and she slipped away into unconsciousness.

  When she finally opened her eyes again, it took her several moments to recall what happened. She forced herself to stay calm and attempted to assess her situation. Her skull and left ankle throbbed with dull pain. She lifted her head just enough to feel the back of it with her hand. Her scalp was wet, and when she took her hand away, it was covered with blood.

  Penny realized the fact she could actually see the blood meant the cave she was now in was getting light from somewhere. Hopefully that meant she would be able to find a way out, but she wasn’t yet sure whether she should even attempt moving.

  Penny called out for help; her voice echoed against the solid walls. She listened for a response, but none came. She couldn’t tell much about her surroundings, lying flat on her back. She could see she was in a cave and was just able to make out the hole in the ceiling through which she’d fallen, though she couldn’t detect any light coming through it. She concluded she must have fallen quite far.

  Penny told herself not to panic, reasoning that doing so might mean the end of her. She’d seen enough nature survival shows on television to know the best thing to do was keep a level head, no small task since she was quite sure she had a concussion.

  Penny lay still and listened. She could hear the ocean; the powerful waves were breaking against the rocky cliffs upon which Blackwater had been erected. The water sounded close, which might be a good thing if she could find a way out to one of the dozen or so cave openings she’d noticed on her maiden trip across King’s Strait some weeks ago. The light in the cave most likely indicated a connection to the outside.

  As Penny lay there, listening to the waves, she also noticed another sound, a strange clicking. It was close, somewhere to her left. The clicking sound grew nearer until it was right next to Penny’s ear. She turned her head slowly and found herself staring at two, beady eyes attached to slender stalks. A crab, black as obsidian and as large as a small dog. As soon as she looked at the thing, the clicking sound it was emitting became faster, more excited, like one of those handheld radiation detectors Hazmat people always carried around in sci-fi movies.

  The black crab started scurrying toward Penny’s face, snapping its knife-like claws. Penny screamed and sat up. A stabbing pain exploded behind her eyes, but she ignored it and kicked out with her good foot, trying to push herself across the rocky floor, away from the mutant monstrosity.

  Then Penny saw the rest of them. Two dozen or so of the black-shelled creatures surrounded her on all sides, their palpi twitching excitedly. Each one seemed bigger than the last. The repulsive twittering sound multiplied as the beasts started skittering in her direction, clacking their claws. Penny moved her hands across the ground, never taking her eyes off the approaching monsters. She grasped desperately for a rock, anything with which she might fend off the agitated crustaceans.

  Penny’s hand closed around something that felt like wood, and she heard the scraping sound of metal against stone—the machete she’d been holding when she fell through the hole in the garden.

  At that moment, the crab nearest her lunged onto her legs and scampered—faster than she would have believed possible—up her stomach and onto her chest. Penny swiped at it with the machete as hard as she could before the thing could sink its razor-sharp pincers into the soft flesh of her face. She made contact, and the crab flew through the air before slamming against the cave wall with a sickening crunch and then falling to the ground. It was stunned but clearly not dead, and after a moment, it started skittering back toward her.

  The majority of the other crabs were almost upon her, so Penny pulled herself into a kneeling position and started hacking and slashing at the crustacean attackers indiscriminately with the machete, wielding the weapon like it was a hammer instead of an edged implement. With each stroke of the blade, she almost relished the crunching sound of chitinous exoskeletons being pulverized. Pink crab meat flew through the air and splattered onto Penny’s clothes and face.

  When it was finally over, Penny found herself kneeling before a mushy mound of crab flesh and broken pieces of shell. Her arms felt like rubber. She gulped in air as she scanned the subterranean chamber. She saw no signs of any more of the little beasts, and Penny took her first good look at the oubliette.

  The cave was ten feet high from floor to roof. At the far end was a pool of sea water, and she realized the monstrous black crabs must have come from within it. Penny guessed the pool connected to the outside somewhere underwater, which probably was an indication she was at the sea level. The cliffs upon which Blackwater stood were about a hundred feet high, which meant she must have fallen as far; it was a wonder she was still alive.

  Penny discovered the light was coming through an opening in the wall beside the pool. She peered through it and saw another chamber beyond, much brighter than the one she was in. She could also hear the surf much more clearly through the hole. There had to be an opening to the outside, just beyond her field of vi
sion. It would be a tight squeeze, but Penny thought she just might be able to fit through.

  The gap was too narrow for her to put her arms through first; she had to keep them at her side as she pushed her body through with her good leg, making her feel like a contortionist in a sideshow. Penny’s arms scraped against the jagged stone as she squeezed through. She briefly panicked when her hips got stuck in the opening, her hands trapped on either side of her. But she took a deep breath and pushed even harder, ignoring the pain coursing through her body.

  Finally, Penny broke free and fell into a pool of freezing salt water. It was deep, and she felt the strong tug of the current, threatening to pull her out to sea.

  Penny broke the surface with a gasp and kicked and splashed with her legs and arms as fiercely as she could. With effort, she was able to grab hold of a rock shelf a few feet away and yank herself up and onto it. Soaking wet, she instinctively pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself, trying to eradicate the chill caused by the cold ocean water as she looked around.

  When she saw the chamber she was in did indeed open up to the outside and to the water of the strait beyond, she felt elated. But the ocean waves were violently crashing against the mouth of the cave, and she had no idea how far she was from the island’s little harbor. She remembered how the cliffs under Blackwater rose directly from the sea below, with no shore to speak of for several miles along the waterline. Rescue was the best she could hope for, and if that didn’t happen before the tide rose, she was probably good as dead.

  As Penny contemplated this, she heard the familiar clicking sound behind her and nearly jumped right out of her skin. Spinning around, she saw more of the black crabs, dozens and dozens of them. Feelings of panic welled up within her; the machete she’d used to defend herself was back in the other cave. Her adrenaline again surged as her body prepared for another fight. But then she realized something strange. The crabs were all turned away from her, facing the back of the grotto, almost motionless. It was as if they were asleep. She peered beyond them and what she saw amazed her.