Island Life

ISLAND LIFE

By

William Meikle

Duncan McKenzie is a marine biologist working on a research project on a small island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. The island is sparsely populated, with an indigenous population of only six people but the island is being visited by a team of archaeology students who are opening up a burial mound.

Duncan has been having some problems with his research, in that there seems to be a sudden drop in the fish population around the island. In an attempt to get to the root of the problem he takes out a small dinghy to do some sampling but is run aground when something rips the bottom out of the dinghy.

Back on shore Anne, the manager of the post office and pub is abducted from her home by a large powerful creature that doesn't seem wholly human. Her husband is murdered by the creature, but her daughter Margaret manages to escape by locking herself in the cellar.

On the other side of the island, two lighthouse keepers, Dick, a young trainee and Tom, an old hand with many years experience, are disturbed in their work by the appearance of a dazed female student, badly traumatized and bruised.

The student tells of the slaughter of the rest of her party by something which they have released from the burial mound. While Tom is calling for the police to come across from the mainland, Dick goes to investigate and finds that the girl's story is true and that the students have been killed. Not just killed, but mutilated.

On returning to the lighthouse he finds a helicopter arriving, bringing a local policeman. Dick and the policeman return to the site and discover a cave entrance inside the mound leading deep underground. They enter and descend deep beneath the island where they hear a guttural chanting. They are surprised by the appearance of a wide-eyed, sharp clawed creature, which Dick kills with a blast of his shotgun. They flee, back to the daylight and the lighthouse, but it has been too much for the policeman who suffers a coronary. Before Dick can get help for him, the policeman is abducted by the creatures. Dick returns to the lighthouse to find that the helicopter pilot has taken the student to the mainland. Dick and Tom lock themselves in the lighthouse as night falls.