Creepy - The Bone Merchant & The Island

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

The Bone Merchant***Written by: Robert Luke Wilkins and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***The Island***Written by: Dannye Chase and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents The Bone Merchant Written by Robert Luke Wilkins

And narrated by Owen McCune Deakin set up his wagon near the edge of the town square He had it painted red and gold to draw the eye And he'd chosen the spot So that it could be seen from as many angles as possible Here he was the ringmaster The Frontier Town, his circus cross.

From behind the blanket covering the back of the wagon, he took out several standing poles, topped with skulls, and marked with strange symbols that he didn't understand, though he often claimed otherwise. The best of them was the skull of an eight-year-old child atop a black wooden pole. If folk couldn't be baited with their own mortality, then that of their children was a potent incentive. A curious crowd was already gathering and examining the skulls, and as soon as a dozen were close, he took hold of the blanket covering the wagon and threw it back. He heard a gasp from the

crowd and suppressed the smile. That reaction almost always meant at least one sail. The back of the wagon was occupied by a single brass engine with turning wheels displayed prominently, steam pipes hissing and crystals turning slowly on brass mounts, but the coup de grace rusted at the center. a pair of brass balls on black metal rods three feet apart. For now, they stood silent. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to one of the true wonders of the modern world. Deacon's voice was rich, resonant, and practiced, and carried easily across the square. More people began to gather to see what was on offer.

What I'll reveal here today is a great secret, one precious few ever discover. It was taught to me by an Eastern mystic, and to be honest, ladies and gentlemen, when I first heard it, I didn't believe it myself. That was partially true, if inaccurate in the details. The Eastern Mystic had actually been his cousin Frank, a skinny wretch with a head full of fluff who Deakin had bullied for years. He had lived out east, though. And in truth, he still didn't believe it. But Frank had, and Frank had gone and made this wonderful machine. And while it might not do what he had claimed, it sure could spend money.

And when I tell you, well, you won't believe me either. You'll say, why, that man over there is crazier than a jackrabbit who sat on a cactus. But I've seen evidence of it with my own eyes. And I promise you, every word I'll speak today is God's honest truth. He placed his right hand over his heart. And may he strike me down if any word is a lie. Not that he would, of course. Deacon had traveled too far and had seen too much darkness to believe that God's hand was truly at work. If God existed at all, which Deacon doubted, then he seemed entirely ambivalent to the fate of the world he had created.

But even Deacon had to concede that he was a tremendous salesman. Deacon reached over to the machine and pulled a lever. There was an ascending wine and then a bolt of electricity arced from one. one ball to the other, crackling and fizzling. It wasn't magic, and it hadn't been a part of Frank's original machine. Deacon had bought it from a flashy science show on the coast, but it sure looked good. This machine, he said, patting the side of it, is the engine of life itself. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that mystic told me that his people had found a way to cheat death.

No, ma'am, you heard me quite rightly. No need to clear out your ears. Frank had actually called it the lock of mortality, but Frank was full of strange ideas. He'd claimed they were sent to him by God, but the townsfolk had come to a darker conclusion, ultimately freeing him from the evil by way of a rope and a tree. Afterwards, Frank's mother had been more than happy to give the infernal machine to deacon, and he had found a way to put the devil's mischief to better use. He clapped his hand on the machine twice, striking it with his ring so that the clang of metal rang out.

"'This here is a blessing,' he said. "'God's true grace given form through man's ingenuity. "'He placed these secrets here on earth for us to find "'and waited for us to advance along the true path he had prepared.' "'The crowd was wavering, "'but while one or two stragglers had already left, "'there were others joining. "'At the back he saw an old face watching,

"'and from within it a pair of bright eyes glared knowingly. "'For a moment he paused and wondered. Had he visited this town before, maybe? But no, he'd never worked this trail before. This was a new market, now primed for selling. Many in the crowd wanted to believe. He could feel the bubbling, eager hope that he was selling a true miracle, and he knew the moment had arrived to push their last doubts over the edge.

He knelt down beside the wagon and opened a wooden drawer to lift out a small, square glass bottle that was decorated with intricate gold leaf. It looked extremely expensive, but he'd bought them cheaply from a guy in New York. The gold would peel if you scraped it too hard, so you had to be careful. He rested the bottle gently in a hollow in the front of the machine before fitting a small funnel into the neck.

Then he reached to one side and pulled a lever. This was all Frank's original work, and it really was amazingly crafted, especially given the fact that Frank was a first-class knucklehead. Hidden inside the machine were four tanks of liquid and a selection of human bones in a large, fluted sieve. The liquids were expensive and hard to find, and the bones were a matter of careful grave-robbing.

And while Deacon fancied that he had become a competent grave-robber, he'd had precious little luck finding cheap alternatives to the liquids. He'd experimented with many, but it had taken him until a year ago to find even a single replacement, and with the other three he had no success at all. Still, even with the high cost of the original liquids, his profits were handsome. Hidden within, the four liquids sprayed out over the bones, the machine's workings controlling the proportions as the wheels turned.

They mingled together on the bone, lightly dissolving the surface, and the resulting mix dripped down through an opening and into the small bottle. As the mixture came together, it took on the faint luminescent quality that Deakin had tried and failed to replicate on the cheap. When it was complete, the liquid swirled beautifully in its tiny elaborate bottle, the slight glow accented by the liquid's chortoyant silver-blue sheen. Before his tampering with the recipe, the resulting liquid had been golden, but the silver blue was still impressive enough to sway a gullible crowd.

He released it from the machine, screwed a golden cap on top and lifted it up, watching the awestruck eyes and listening to the murmur of the gathered crowd. He could almost hear the coins falling into his pocket. And here is God's great gift to those of us fortunate enough to have been born into this age of wonders. Drink it, and you'll live out your days here on earth, not aging even a single day until Christ himself returns,

ready to gather us up in his arms and carry us through the gates of his kingdom. He lowered the bottle again, holding it in cupped hands. And now I know what you're thinking, he said. You're thinking for something so amazing he must charge a fortune. We're simple working folk. Surely there's no way we'll be able to afford it. But that's where you're wrong, ladies and gentlemen. I am on no quest for money, nor is this some cheap traveling market stall like so many others that pass through.

This is my service to God and my duty to the world. All I ask in return is that you pay me enough to keep his machine in good running order and replenish my supplies so that those in towns ahead might be blessed with the same good fortune. So come on, don't be shy. There's plenty for all gathered. By the time he rode out of town, he'd nearly been proven a liar. The machine had been well supplied, with the liquids topped up and the bones having endured only a single town prior. but the town's folks' enthusiasm had surprised him. If many more had come, the bones would likely have shattered, and then the machine would have started spitting out a foul brown liquid.

That had happened to him once before, and it had turned the crowd uglier than the stuff itself. He'd escaped, but not without injury. But this time they'd endured, and he'd reap the town's purses as he handed over the glowing bottles. Now he had money in his pocket, fresh meat from the town's butcher and a song in his heart as he rode north whistling at the thought of San Francisco and the fresh markets that lay beyond. But the sun was beating down and his mood began to be sweat into misery.

The summer was no time to ride through the desert, and after an hour he pulled out his crumpled map and picked out a short north-south canyon to head into just a couple of miles north of where he was. The canyon walls provided some shade from the sun, and the shallow trickle of water, seemed to cool the air a little. Several miles into the canyon, he saw the sun beginning to set, and he made camp beside his wagon in the shelter of a sloping wall. He lit a fire and skewered a skinned rabbit to roast over it before going to check the machine. He unlocked the back of it with a small brass key, and from within lifted out the basket of bones. They were yellow, lightly steaming, and pockmarked with brown spots. He winced at the smell. He winced at the

He'd thrown bones into streams before, but these smelled like they'd kill all the fish from miles. He walked around camp instead until he found a shallow, dry hole that he dumped them into. There were no more bones in the wagon. He'd barely escaped from the last graveyard he'd ransacked without being discovered. And though he had planned to try his luck at the last town, their graveyard had been in a full view, far too open and obvious to try and rob. But he needed fresh bones, before he had to try and rob. bones before he headed north. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his map again. No towns,

save San Francisco, lay ahead on it, and between there and the Northern Trail there was nowhere obvious to resupply. Maybe in the city he could buy some, but he didn't like the thought. Body snatching wasn't looked upon kindly, and if the thieves he hired proved incompetent, doubtless they'd sell him out. He searched the map again, hoping to see some sign of a small village or town that he'd missed, but there was nothing. It would be San Francisco then, or nowhere. He spat into the fire and reached over to turn the roasting rabbit. A bullet whistled by his head, and he ducked to the ground as the retort of a rifle echoed

down through the canyon. The rabbit fell into the fire as he ran to the wagon, crouched over. A second bullet whistled past him as he ran, and a third struck the wagon as he sheltered against it, chipping off a piece of the woodwork. The shots had come quickly, so the shooter was more than likely using a Winchester. And that meant many more bullets to come. He looked up. His own rifle was in a scabbard slung alongside the driver's seat, far out of reach.

Hey, whoever you are, he called. If you want my wagon or my money, you're welcome to it. Take whatever you want, all right? It's yours. Just take it and go. Another bullet clattered against the wheel and skimmed one of the spokes, leaving its left edge splintered. So much for conversation.

He rolled under the wagon and crawled backwards toward the horses. Another bullet struck the earth nearby, but he scrambled up and climbed the side of the wagon. He crouched low, using the back of the driver's seat for cover as he grabbed and drew his rifle from the scabbard. The feel of it in his hands was reassuring, but the odds were still far from level. The shooter could see him in the firelight,

but the shadows and echoes of the canyon concealed the shooter's position. Another bullet struck the wagon. Deacon stood and quickly aimed and fired a single blind shot into the dark before he ducked down again. He looked over at the fire. The rabbit had saved his bacon, but it was burning black now, and the thin haze of drifting smoke only made it harder to see.

Without the smoke and blinding glare, he might have had a chance of spotting a muzzle flash in the shadows but there was no way for him to safely put it out. A pair of shots rang out in rapid succession. The first struck the rocks behind him, but the second stung his ear as it passed, and he ducked down further as he reached up to check. His fingers came away bloody.

Lucky shot, you bum, he called. I'm surprised you even hit my wagon. But it wasn't, and he knew it. He was too visible, too obvious. He had to run to get out of the firelight. He clambered clumsily forward and dropped down between the two horses hanging between them for a moment as he waited and caught his breath. He let go, dropped to the ground, and ran. He tried to visualize the shooter behind him to guess his position and keep the wagon between the two of them as he ran.

A shot rang out and he felt a bullet tear through the flesh of his arm as the report echoed. He yelled out in pain, but the shot wasn't lethal. He turned and ran hard to the side, and at last found shelter in a small alcove in the rocks. He sat for a moment and reached to touch the wound. It was bleeding badly, but otherwise felt superficial. It could be bandaged easily enough, given a little time, and he flexed his fingers. It would hurt, but he could shoot with it if he had to. Still, he would keep that to himself.

Ha! Better that time, better, he called. But I reckon your eyes are failing. Think you can catch me before I'm out of range? He checked his rifle to make sure it was loaded, wiped his bloodied hand dry on his clothes, and took aim towards the empty firelight. Would the hunter be goaded out? If he was a patient man, this standoff could last a while,

and Deacon wasn't in the best shape to endure it. But whoever was hunting him seemed to have a grudge, and hate could spurn a man to foolish actions. minutes passed in silence and sweat ran down the back of his neck the air was cold but his nerves were getting to him the blood running down his arm hadn't slowed and it felt like a timer ticking down and the hunter still wasn't wait at the edge of the fire's light he saw a shadow it moved slowly carefully trying to stay out of sight but just like him they had been betrayed by the firelight he smiled At last, the tables returned. He aimed, took a deep breath, and fired. The bullet struck the man high in the chest, and Deacon saw him drop the rifle as he fell back next to the rear wagon wheel.

Ha! The man may have been a decent shot, but he had none of Deacon's luck. You should have just taken the wagon, he called, as he stepped out and began to walk back. Now all you get for your efforts is an unmarked grave, and maybe not even that. He walked over to the groaning man and recognized the old fellow he'd seen back in town

glaring at the back of the crowd. He had to be 80 or 90. The Winchester rifle now lay under the wagon beyond his reach, and blood was pulling quickly beneath him. But as his bright eyes met deacons, they turned black with hate. Warlock, murder!

He hissed. His voice was weak and crackling. you killed my wife and our son and me now how much did the devil pay you what are you talking about i've never met you before you witless old goat the old man laughed and spat up blood never you say ha the man who presumes to hold god's secrets now plays ignorant and let me remind you he pulled a silver locket from his neck and threw it at Deakin. The throw was weak, and Deacon had to stretch to catch it. Open it! Deacon paused for a moment before he clicked it open. A pair of photographed faces stared back of a man and a woman.

The woman was beautiful, the kind he'd have remembered if he'd seen her. She was his type. But the man, now that he thought on it, he did remember him. A young fellow from Colorado Plainstown he'd passed through. He'd bought several of the bottles, and... He looked at the locket photo again, then back at the face of the dying old man, and bent down to hold the picture next to him.

His eyes darted back and forth and found a scar under the eye. Small, but it was there on both men. Far older, definitely, but the same man. Yes. "'Now you remember,' said the old man. He smiled for a moment, but then the anger returned. "'Look at me now. See what your witchcraft has wrought!' He coughed up blood and wiped his hand across his mouth.

He glanced at the blood and then glared at Deacon, his eyes alive with vibrant hate. "'I may die here, but I won't be the last to guess your works. Others will divine your true nature. They will come as I have. And one of them will end your evil. The old man laughed again and spluttered on his own blood. There was a choking noise, but his eyes stayed locked on Deacons as the anger within them faded to nothing. Deacons stared at the old man's body and then over at the wagon.

him. How much did the devil pay you? The purse on his hip felt suddenly heavy. For a full day, Deacon remained camped in the same spot. After he bandaged his arm, he dragged the old man's body away from the fire, but the vultures found it at daybreak. They picked it over eagerly, and soon all that remained was bones and shredded clothes. Bones. A few days ago, he'd have been glad of him. He'd not looked inside the wagon as if somehow the sight of the machine would make things worse. Death was an old friend on the frontier, and it could often be cruel, but this death had rattled him. It felt unclean. A big part of him wanted to pull the machine apart, destroy what he could, and scatter the remnants throughout the canyon. But another part whispered that the

idea was foolish, perhaps even madness. After all, who knew if it was truly the machine's doing? Oh, the old man might have thought so, but what if he'd simply fall and foul of some frontier disease? There were plenty to pick from. And if it was the machine, well, that still wasn't his doing, was it? It was his cousin's contraption after all, not his own. And he swore he'd built it by following the voice of God. So perhaps it was all God's will in the end. Or the devil. Perhaps the townfolk had guessed right about who Frank had been listening to. He shook his head and laughed. God and the devil.

He had faith in neither, save his tools to sway a crowd. And no matter the life you led, there would be no afterlife and no judgment beyond the gastronomical considerations of the worms. Any gods and devils that existed seemed to take precious little interest in the machinations of their creations. No, the machine had not been built to either holy or infernal design, but to the crazed musings of a madman. And perhaps it killed people.

But he couldn't be sure, could he? And there would be time enough to figure that out. Perhaps if another man showed up, then he would think again and destroy his machine. Or perhaps not. Twice, after all, could still be coincidence. Maybe two more old men hunting him. Or three, maybe that would be enough to accept the tale to truly damn the machine as a wicked contraption.

But until then, he would give it the benefit of the doubt. And in the meantime, there would be money to be made. Not of the devil, certainly, but money. And unlike death, money was hard to come by. He took his purse in his hand and waded again. It didn't feel so heavy after all. And over near the bushes, fresh bones were waded. Creepy presents, the island, written by Danny Chase, and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer.

Tina was a waitress at Raymond's favorite local cafe. Her hair was dark and her skin pale. Her fingernails unpainted and her feet very small, just like the others that Raymond kept in the basement. Tina also had a faint tick that made the eyelashes of one eye. Flutter out of step with the other. Raymond had imagined Tina resting on one of his plastic tubs, wondering if perhaps one eye would freeze open in death, and the other closed,

as if she were peeking back at the life she'd left behind, before Raymond put the lid on and sealed her up. Raymond had no plans to kill Tina, of course. That would violate the rules of common sense. She lived in his hometown. She was well known to him. And anyway, there was no more room in the basement, where the tub sat behind the ever-expanding drywall,

carefully wrapped in plastic, to keep the smell in, and everything else out, all the creeping, messy bits like roots and worms. So that was that. Until the cafe changed. its menu, mud pie. Children made them. Raymond knew this. Their fat little hand shaped pies of sand and dirt, what enough to be goopy. So when Raymond saw mud pie on the menu, his first

reaction was revulsion. And then bewilderment. How on earth could a cafe serve mud? The question made Tina laugh. It wasn't much, she explained, but chocolate from the refrigerator. Tina produced a clear plastic cup full of brown goop, chocolate moose. But that was only the beginning, Tina said, a mischievous expression on her face, because now it was time to add the worms. Raymond didn't hear much of the rest of the explanation. He remembered it all visually, though viscerally.

The gummy worms are red and white, blue and pink, yellow and green. They curled gently around Tina's fingers as she pushed them into the mud, leaving their heads to stick out of the muck that rose higher all around them. Then she produced a container of dirt, chocolate crumbs Raymond realized, and poured them in, till the... the dry choking bits concealed all but the tips of the worms. There was dirt all over, Tina's fingers when she was done, sticking to a trace of mud here,

the sticky ooze of a worm there. In between, the long bones of her fingers moved gently. Raymond was horrified. He was ruined for anything else that day. That entire night, He sat in the silence of his basement and thought about the blue and pink worms and pale white fingers. And then he thought of the lake. Quail Lake formed one border of the town.

The rest was the cornfields. It was deep enough to drown in, Raymond knew, because every once in a while he'd hear that someone had. But Quail Lake played a much larger part in local history. Every few years in Raymond's town, a small number of people would go missing, seemingly on the same night. Raymond, who was responsible for quite a few disappearances himself, carefully spaced in time and geographic location, suspected that very few of these missing people were ever really missing. People got tired of small town life and left. children ran away. People fled their families. Certainly that was the reason that some people

Raymond had killed had never been reported missing. But it was also said that on those particular nights when people would vanish, the water level and quail lake would drop. Raymond wasn't sure if this part was true, but he didn't really think it really mattered. Surely there were reasons that the lake water would recede. The pull of the moon, the shifting of the earth, changes in underground streams. Perhaps such a thing had once coincided with someone going missing, and thus a legend had been born. In any case, what interested Raymond now was the fact that in the center of quail lake, there was an island. No one lived there, or moored a boat there, or really spent any time there at all. What Raymond could see of the island from the shore was that it was rocky,

with the occasional trees whose roots were probably the only reason that the soil hadn't crumbled into the lake years ago. It was the perfect place to bury a body, if Raymond was really going to bury one. And little by little, he realized that he was. Not Tina, of course. Raymond hadn't lost all of his senses. Instead, he traveled to a town where he hadn't hunted in several years and returned with the body.

Raymond had established earlier that there was a rowboat that had been left on the shore of Quail Lake. What he hadn't expected. was then as he rode to the island. The dirt in the boat started to cling to the sheet wrapped around the body. The dead man was getting stained even before he went into the ground. Raymond could not look away from it. But when the boat bumped gently against the island shoreline,

Raymond felt some serious misgivings. The island was large enough, but it was mostly rock. rocks, sharp and smooth, crowded together. The few trees seemed locked into battle with each other over where the earth was, gnarled roots jutting out of the ground to claim territory. Raymond despaired suddenly for his cold, quiet basement, with its nestled tubs and white walls. But there was no room there. There was no room. And now, That he'd come this far. Better to put the man into the island than the lake, which might give him backup.

Raymond climbed cautiously onto the island. The dirt was wet in places and dry in others. Raymond knew that his shoes would never recover. He'd have to chuck them into the lake on the way back, he decided. Drive home barefoot. And next time, bring plastic bags as protection. Next time. Surely, there would not need to be a next time,

with barely enough open space here to bury one body. But as Raymond finally stood on the island, among the roots and rocks, his stained shoes sinking into the soil, he knew. It wasn't perfect here, but it was right. Raymond was seized by the memory of Tate. Tina, with her fingers in the dirt, and suddenly, he couldn't wait to put this one in the ground. The shovel he'd bought dug eagerly into what grass he could find, chopping at tree roots unearthing black, rich dirt that clotted on everything as it came up, congealing onto the shovel, covering

the grass. It wasn't a full grave, not six feet down, at least, and not long enough for the body to to go in straight, but he was used to curling them up to go into the tops. When it was time, Raymond took the man out of the sheet. That was the first real difference. In the basement, he wrapped them tidily in a proper shroud without a hair showing. The body he held in his arms, cold skin smudged with dirt. He dropped him into the ground hole. The man landed with a soft, wet smack, and the mud oozed up around him like a cradle. Fine soil coated Raymond's clothes.

Mud clung to his shoes, and sweaty trails of filth covered his neck. He sat down in the dirt and watched as the first insects came. One tiny one crawled across a dead man's forehead. Eventually, a black shining body propelled by a white, horrifying number of legs wound its way among his fingers. Raymond finished burying the man then, packing in the soil and the dirt, making the ground as level as he could. Then he walked back to the shore and threw up into the lake.

Raymond couldn't explain why he kept bringing more bodies to the lake, except that the memory of Tina's fingers and the chocolate was as potent to him now. as the memory of his hands around the throat of his first kill. But not for the same reasons. Raymond's world was shrinking, like the free space in his basement had, until there was no place he could go that he didn't feel claustrophobic. Every time Raymond killed, he was consumed with the fear that there would not be enough room for another body on the island.

And thus he'd have to reopen an older grave and put the new. worn on top. The idea felt wrong, revolting, terrifying. He never looked into the tubs, never, and this was no plastic casket. The bodies on the island would be making mud with their own fluids, covered in bite marks from every conceivable creature. And so Raymond was spending hours chopping open a grave every time he bought a new body. Enduring, back-breaking, filthy work to make holes amid the rocks.

Eventually, Raymond understood that this new compulsion was going to doom him. Even if no one ever noticed him making all-night disposal trips to the island, there was still something worse coming. The kill of someone close. Because four bodies in, four torturous graves dug, and he was only more hungry. Raymond was not going to be satisfied until it was Tina's body in the muddy ground,

until he sat there, hour after hour, waiting for real worms to crawl amongst her fingers. Raymond lived a few weeks in careful, controlled despair before the answer came to him. The legend of Quail Link. When the water went down, local people disappeared. Every day, Raymond got up early and left his orderly house, wearing dirty shoes.

He had to start wearing sunscreen and bug repellent. A sweaty hat crammed onto his head. And yet, he was happy again. One morning, Raymond smelled fish as he approached the lake. There were a couple flopping in the muck where there was normally water. The lake was still mostly intact, but Raymond was filled with such an excitement that he'd worried he'd pass out. By the time night fell, Raymond had never felt so alive.

He took Tina, sweetly, right there at the cafe as she closed up. The wrongness of doing this so close to home was overshadowed by his elation at finally having his fantasy come true. Poor Tina, she looked so confused when he reached for her throat. Getting the boat to the island was going to be difficult, of course. With less water in the lake and with people gathered to gong. But by the early morning hours, Raymond found the lake to be dissoned. There was no one to watch him force the rowboat through the sucking soil of the lake bed among the rotting fish. Finally, they got to open water and Raymond could row faster than he ever had before.

As they neared the island, Raymond could see lower parts of it, places that were normally covered in water. He'd expected to see roots dripping wet. and those were there, but that wasn't all of it. The island wasn't like a mushroom on a single stop. Instead, it seemed to be rising up on several separate columns of Earth. Raymond knew the reason that the island looked taller was because the water level had gone down. And yet, could it possibly ever had been that tall?

The surface of it was so high up now. that Raymond had to claw his way up towards it, digging his hands into the soil, using the shovel as leverage. He was completely covered in mud by the time he realized he'd never make it, especially not dragging Tina along with him. So Raymond did the only thing he could. He dropped back down to the boat and used the shovel to start digging. He dug a hole into the side of the island,

where there was some loose earth. Almost immediately, Raymond noticed that there were far more bugs in this soil than when he dug from up top. Muddy as it was, they were all over him already. Shiny black beetles and coiling worms. Raymond frantically tried to shake them off,

but they were everywhere. Raymond told himself to simply focus on what he was doing. After all, He could drop into the lake all the way back and drown them all. The bugs got bigger. The farther in Raymond dug, the large of the creatures that flung from the shovel to hit the boat, the lake, Raymond's body, and the sheep that shrouded Tina were. They were all black and crawling.

And then there was one that was a bright, shining yellow. It came loose from the source. soil with a sucking sound and hit Raymond's chest with a wet smack. Raymond stopped digging and looked down at it, his horror slowly growing. The yellow object was not a bug. It was an earring, and it was still attached to an ear. Raymond had found one of his other bodies. There shouldn't have been one all the way down here. They were buried far. too shallowly, too close to the surface. But here she was. Sticking out of the dirt, a bit of blonde hair, a pale jutting jawbone that held perfectly even teeth. A leg bone shoved up against the

rotting face. Raymond reached out a hand to touch her, a muddy finger against blotchy skin. Then his gaze fell to Tina's body in the boat, and he fell to his knee. He fell to his knee. knees to unwrap her. He lifted her like an offering and began to shove her body into the shallow cavern he'd made beside her companion in death. It was not until that moment that Raymond finally realized that something was truly, horrifically wrong. It only took one push, and then it was like the island inhaled, sucking Tina into it. Her arm went first. Then her body pivoted and the muck surged over her legs. She slid into the mud as slick and quick as a worm.

Last thing to go was her other hand. And Raymond was frozen in terror as the island slowed to consume her fingers one at a time until she was gone. Raymond understood then, because he too was a ravenous thing with unholy tastes. This was no island, but a living creature was a living creature. with thick legs sunk into the ground, an endless muddy mouths that the lake hadn't fallen, that the island had simply stood up, and it was still hungry.

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