Nellie van Oven, art historian, Dutch
Anders Strandberg, bank manager, Swedish
Selma Strandberg, financial consultant, Swedish
Bruce Ballantyne, wine merchant, Australian
Jack Ballantyne, teenage son, Australian
Iain Mackinnon, gap year student of geography, Scottish
Katie Drummond, ditto but archeology, Scottish, Iain’s girlfriend
Laszlo Michaleczky, computer programmer, on honeymoon, Hungarian
Zsuzsa Michaleczky, lawyer, on honeymoon, Hungarian
Our ages ranged from a guesstimated 65 for our general down to 15 or 16 for the American girl Alice who kept chewing at her lip, looking scared, scythe in hand. Fortunately there were no small children among us.
“Here is our defensible base,” announced Thomas Henkel, gesturing at the office and other structures beside the gate. “Next we must consider water and food and toilet facilities.”
An enquiry by Gabriella quickly elicited from Rudolfo that only some bread and sausage and cheese was in the office, although of course the building contained a toilet. Gianni went back inside, and emerged to declare that a tap was producing water at about half the usual pressure.
“At least there’s water,” said Gabriella.
“Not to be wasted in a toilet,” said Henkel. “We shall resort to latrines in the grounds, behind trees or bushes. We have ample digging tools.”
The two Scottish students had wandered, whispering, to the near end of the innermost gallery of slabs and statues.
“Something’s coming!” the Scots lad called out. “Jesus Christ!”
Most of us rushed to witness. What had come into sight at the far end of the sepulchral gallery had nothing to do with anything divine according to human understanding and everything to do with what we’d glimpsed on TV. Two and a half meters high, tentacle-faced, it was a human-scale iteration of one of those monstrous creatures from out of a nightmare, or from the warped mind of some special-effects genius on drugs, or from somewhere utterly other.
As the thing proceeded towards us, we gripped our various gardening implements, in my case with trembling hands. A hissing invaded my awareness, similar to static on a radio or a breeze through holes in ancient stones on some windswept mountain: thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo, a mesmeric sound that seemed to be rustling within my mind rather than coming from outside to my ears.
The creature’s great warty body was gherkin-green. Under the swollen, thick-veined dome of that pulpy head brooded baleful red eyes. Suckery tentacles or feelers dangled, writhing, from those inhuman, inhumane-seeming features. Webbed frills jutted where ears might be — or was I seeing some sort of fin, even a vestigial wing? The body seemed covered with rubbery warty scales. Two principal muscular tentacles appeared to serve as arms, branching at their tips, and branching again into clusters of anemone-like fingers. Huge triangular feet, that left a glistening snaily trail behind them, bore savagely hooked claws. thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo
A vile odor assaulted us, like the glutinous stench of some coral newly torn out of the sea, although more intense, a penetrating smell of primitive biological slime that oughtn’t to be released into the air but should stay masked underwater, a concentration of the reek of seaweed-coated rocks at low tide. thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo
Abruptly the romantic novelist screamed, setting off likewise the Dutch art student. This broke a kind of paralyzing horrid enchantment, as felt in dreams where you can’t flee, or can but feebly and very slowly, from what menaces you. We retreated so as not to see what was coming — except for the Australian wine merchant, Bruce, and the burly Hungarian who must have felt that he was defending his bride. Those two stood their ground, armed with a fork and a spade.
What happened next was abominable.
As if the creature had speeded up, or even shifted instantaneously, all of a sudden it was upon the two jabbing men, its arm-tentacles wrenching their weapons from their grip with evidently great strength, to be hurled aside. A clawed foot casually tore open the Australian’s clothing and abdomen. A tentacle snaked into the bloody wound to jerk free the tubing of his intestines, hauling his bowels out and out, two meters, three. Bruce Ballantyne may have died of shock before his body hit the flooring, since it didn’t flop about like a beached fish. At the same time, the other tentacle gripped the Hungarian’s neck — and impossibly hoisted his head aloft atop his spinal column coming right up from out of his shoulders. No natural force could have done that to a man! Could the creature manipulate matter by thought, by malign imagination, as well as physically? Head and spine were discarded even as Jack the son howled, “Dad!” and the newlywed Zsuzsa shrieked.
My list, drawn up only a few minutes earlier, began to seem futile except as a probable In Memoriam. Yet the creature didn’t proceed to hurl itself upon the rest of us as we variously cowered back or made a show of defending ourselves. It regarded us, almost as though the two hideous deaths constituted a demonstration of power.
thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo
The American evangelist and his wife sank to their knees, praying loudly, “O merciful God. ” And the creature’s feelers began to move as though conducting an orchestra, almost as if it understood it was sardonically accepting obeisance and encouraging more.
“Kneel and pray for salvation!” Pastor Jimmy Garrett urged us before resuming his chant. Although Rudolpho and Gianni probably didn’t understand what the American said, the two Italians collapsed to their knees, crossing themselves repeatedly.
“Pray to that?” bellowed our general. “For that’s what it looks as though you are doing, sir! Come, we must retreat in an orderly manner! You,” pointing at the Swedish bank manager who had an avuncular look, “see to the Australian boy. And you,” indicating his wife, “guide the shocked widow. Signora Vigo, you take us all to some safer and higher place. From the look of it, the kraken may have difficulty climbing. Quickly now, but do not run in case instinct impels it to give chase.”
Instinct? Or was that creature intelligent, maybe far more intelligent than ourselves, and cruelly so, so that we were to it as a rabbit or a rat is to a human being.?
Presently we’d cut across the huge open area of more modern and simpler graves, most with fresh flowers in vases, hoping that the closely-set white marble gravestones might obstruct the bulky thoooo-loooo creature (I still heard its whisper). And we were ascending that broad flight of steps we’d seen earlier — Selma Strandberg hugging and pulling bereaved Zsuzsa — towards that scallop-tiled pantheon from which colonnades stretched away, behind which, and beyond, groves of cypress and juniper and other trees rose steeply and extended afar, innumerable tall mausoleums poking up amidst the foliage like miniature churches topped with small domes, stone lanterns, finials, crosses, so many ornate habitations of the dead. Could we take refuge in one of those; achieve sanctuary?
Shady pathways wound upward through the groves. As a child, how enchanted I would have been to explore this place, thinking of it as a secret garden. But now.!
At the top of the flight we paused to regain our breath.
Thomas Henkel, unwinded by our journey, surveyed where we had come from. He was a field marshal, if the grave-crowded expanse beneath us were a field. He should have worn a monocle and pointed with a swagger-cane.
“Straight over there!”
Where a broad, tree- lined pathway led from the triple rank of galleries abutting the threefold principal arched gateway stood the thing that Henkel chose to call a kraken, gazing at us from afar and directly opposite. A shiver ran down my spine, for in that moment, despite the distance, the creature seemed to fix on me, like the pin that fastens a butterfly in a display case.