TERROR (sequel to Horror)

Dr Frankenstein💀

          The Western Isles of Scotland must have seemed like the edge of the world to our ancient ancestors as they moved ever northwards against the retreating ice. Even with our knowledge of the world as a circumnavigated globe, these islands can still seem as if they stand sentinel at the ends of the earth.

            It was along a bumpy track on the western shore of one such island that a pony and cart made it's torturous way, an inconsequential dot against the wide expanse of moor, of fund, of sand and sea. A small group of houses was visible a couple of miles or so ahead on the shore of an inlet, huddled round a squat church.

           Dr Frankenstein winced as the wheel of the cart he had insisted on driving himself juddered over yet another pothole. Daniel turned away from his father and looked out over the wide bay of bone-white sand with blue-black mountains beyond, their summits wigged with willed clouds. His father pulled the reins and called to the pony to stop, which it happily did, immediately turning its great head to munch at some grass.

          "We'll take a wee walk," he said to his son. "Stretch our legs, eh?"

           "But won't we be late?" Said Daniel sulkily.

             "Come on," said his father. "I think we can spare a few moments to look at the view."

             Dr Frankenstein climbed down and Daniel followed him over a low stone wall, his father rhapsodizing about everything that came into view, from the wild flowers to the cloud-covered hilltops in the distance. Daniel said little in response.

            They crossed a patch of hummocky grass, closecropped by rabbits whose burrows could be seen to the right and left as they climbed to the top of a mountainous sand dune and looked out over the wide Atlantic.

"Nothing like this Edinburgh, eh, Daniel my boy?"

Daniel said nothing. What was there to say? Of course there was nothing like this in Edinburgh, just as there was nothing like Edinburgh in this empty wasteland.

But he had to admit it was dramatic. Even though it was a sunny day, the wind and sea roared so loudly that it blocked out most other noise, save for the hoarse shrieks of seabirds. Daniel's father had to shout to make himself heard.

"What a place!" He called. "What an extraordinary place!"

Daniel still made no reply. His father's smile slowly faded and he turned to walk down a cleft in the dune towards the beach. Daniel let him get a fifty yards ahead before he followed him.

Daniel understood that his father had not been happy in Edinburgh since Daniel's mother had died. He understood that his father wanted a new challenge to occupy his grieving mind. But understanding did not make Daniel forgive this move away from friends: away from the city he had grown up in, away from his mother's grave in Lunfrairs. A move to the outer Hebrides was a move to a world of barren nothingness.

   The outer Hebrides: even the name had something mournful and final about it, like the name of some remote destination in a Greek myth or norse saga. It sounded like a place people were banished to or washed up on.

              They were building a great herring-packing site and Daniel's father was to be employed as doctor to the workers and to the rest of the population. But daniel found it hard to marry the idea of a modern fishery with this backward place. He would be less surprised to see a Viking ship round the headland than he would a steamer.

             This impression was only compounded when Daniel and his father noticed a tall stone stabbed into the top of the nearby dunes like Excalibur. As they walked towards it, the sunlight shifted theatrically, a spotlight beam rushing over the tussocks and lighting the stone as if it were an actor on a stage.

           The stone was very tall --- Daniel thought it must be well over seven feet --- and bent over. There was something human about the way it seemed to learn into the wind. Daniel had the disconcerting feeling that were he to tap it, the stone would turn to face him.

            He could see that the stone was a long block of granite or some such, salmon pink and grey, with quartz crystals twinkling here and there, though there was little of the rock visible.

It was covered in all kinds of lichen: pale blue-grey, white, blotches of egg-yolk yellow and light seaweed-like tufts; the whole thing looked like a stone one might find at the bottom of a rock pool, hauled up and set on end to dry in the incessant wind.

There were bird droppings on the top and dripping down the sides, and fragments of mussel shells at the foot.

"A bird had been using this as an anvil," said his father with a smile. "They break the shells to get at the food."

Daniel nodded absent-mindedly. His father had spent his boyhood on the island of Mull and was always trying to interest Daniel in the natural world - a world in which Daniel had not the slightest interest whatsoever. He longed for the smoke-blackened walls and cobbled streets of Edinburgh.

Daniel's attention moved to the ground on the other side of the stone, for there were more things there than just pieces of shell. He crouched down for a better look.

Half hidden in the tussocks of grass was another stone set into the ground. It had a cleft in it and stuffed into this gap was a strange collection of objects. Daniel's father had come round and also noticed the things at the stone's base.

A brass candlestick glinted in the sunlight next to a piece of lace; a silver spoon lay next to those, and behind them Daniel could also see a book, something that may have been a hat pin, a silk scarf, a brooch and various other items of jewelry.

          "You there!" Shouted a man some way off, standing on the track. "Come away!"

          Daniel stood up straight away and saw his father bristle at the manner of this address, but like Daniel, he had seen that the man was carrying a shotgun and was pointing it in their direction.

          "Come on, Daniel," said his father hoarsely.

            They walked back across the grass towards the man with the gun. He did not lower it until they had scaled the small drystone wall and were back on the track.

        "I do not take kindly to having a gun pointed at me," said Dr Frankenstein, frowning at the stranger. "Nor at my son."

         "You have no right to be on that ground." Said the man, who Daniel could now see was old, grey hair peeping out from under his cap. His nose was red and had the look of worn leather about it. He was quite the most unfriendly looking person Daniel had ever met.

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...........it's genuinely, thrillingly horrible........spooky and scary 🦅

Stream out for more intense chapter from Daniel and his father

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