Ken avoided churches. He couldn’t remember darkening a door since Pastor Caleb’s death. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. Caleb was a minister who made it his business to know why anyone laid out of church, even on a rare basis. “Been reading the Good Book lately?” he’d ask a potential backslider. It didn’t matter if they were at the supermarket or sitting in the doctor’s office. “We miss seeing you at Sunday luncheon. Can’t remember the last time I heard your wonderful singing voice. Have a prayer need we can help you with?” He had a book’s worth of lines to convict the wandering sheep back into the fold. If the man was still alive, he’d harass Kenneth Rogers until he was amongst the congregation again, singing the hymns with the best of them.
Despite keeping his distance, Ken was no heathen. Resting on his shelf, a worn-out Bible sat separate from the other texts. Learning from an early age that the fear of God was the beginning of wisdom, he spent many mornings reading passages for guidance. Man was in a precarious situation. Though formed in the image of God, he had a terrible nature leaning towards rebellion. It consumed his heart, longing to cut all ties with his creator. Giving into that nature would lead him down the path of destruction. As an officer, he saw many people who surrendered to their darker impulses, many ended up in the cemetery long before their natural time. It was enough to leave a man in the pits of depression.
During his life, Ken found places around the island he could find complete solitude, where he could clear his thoughts. They stood in just such a place: Dana’s Sanctuary. It was a beautiful grove of Hazel trees, located in the heart of a forest of Turpentine trees. The Irish settlers planted them in honor of their patron goddess. On days when he couldn’t handle the world’s wickedness, he wandered through the forest until he found the grove. After his arrival, he made his way to the altar, where the Irishmen worshipped their goddess.
As age wore down his joints and creased his skin, Ken found it more difficult to take those long walks through the woods. In time, the forest’s terrain became foreign to him, but the sanctuary would always be his Northern Star. From here, he could find his way out of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. “Just need to find the altar,” he thought as he searched the woods with his Tiger’s Eye. Without his unique family heirloom, it would be impossible to find anything in the fog. What he was looking for was a simple weather-worn stone bench, etched with Celtic crosses, but by using the southeastern corner, he had his straight line to the old village. “Everything works out in the end,” a voice from the past whispered.
Does it? he wondered. For the last few years, Ken found it hard to believe that the simple mantra had any sliver of truth. As he passed through the foliage, he discovered that his wary feeling was correct. The altar sat in a state of pitiful desecration. Five squirrels lay strewn around it. Fur, flesh, and blood splattered every inch of the blessed stone. He fought down his overwhelming need to cry out in surprise. Ken was the furthest thing from an animal lover. “Mangy beasts,” that was what he called them. Regardless, the display before him was nothing short of vile. Nothing so ancient deserved such utter disregard.
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Do I have to add crazed wild animals to the list of oddities for today? he pondered. In his long years, he hadn’t witnessed any animal commit a massacre of this scale, but it was the only thing that made sense. No one would be at the altar this early. Did anyone visit it anymore?
"What's that smell?" Ron asked, head whipping around helplessly in the fog.
Before Ken argued there was nothing to smell, the pungent odor hit his wrinkled nose. It was hard to catch smells at his age, often needing a younger body to notice first. He detected the ugly smoky aroma that only burnt flesh produced. Stepping closer to the altar, he realized that a sixth squirrel was among the remains. Nothing was left but ashen bones. Blacken chunks of laid scattered about. This was done by no animal, he concluded. Only mankind had the ability to burn all the flesh off a beast and leave a skeleton behind. “Someone was here,” Ken said.
A dark foreboding of the times ahead, a wizen woman’s voice echoed from a distant memory.
“And where is here?” his partner asked.
Before he had a chance to answer, a great tremor coursed under their feet, hurling Ken to his knees. He held the Tiger’s Eye in a tight-fisted grip so he wouldn’t lose it in the water. Ron staggered, wrapping his arms around a tree. “What’s going on?” Ron exclaimed. Struggling to rise out of the water, Ken wanted to give him an answer, but with every passing moment, he was more unsure. Fuzzy recollections from his childhood rose to his consciousness. His mind began to wander back to his dust-filled library. Perhaps the answer...
His old grandmother sat in her rocking chair. An old yarn ready to spring from her mouth without a moment’s notice. “Now, Kenny. You must never tell anyone what you hear. This isn’t meant for just any old body’s ears,” she always warned before she told a fantastic tale of horror, heroism, and a strange magic the world had forgotten. “This is a tale of the dreaded beast of the deep...”
No. He fled from the memory. Children’s stories and fables, he reassured himself. However, he had to admit that those old stories were making more sense by the second. When he regained his footing, a sudden chill ran up his body. Glancing down, he saw water lapping up to his waist. Wait, he thought. We’re miles away from the shore. Nothing should trouble the water to this frightening degree.
His eyes fell back on the disgraced altar. His grandmother’s words came back, speaking of an old story concerning a hermit and a monster from the sea. Dropping to his knees, he folded his hands together in desperate supplication. “Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name,” he began. The familiar prayer tumbled from his lips as he hoped beyond hope that somehow the two friends would endure whatever darkness was about to befall their pitiful island. As Ken’s words reverberated in the grove, praying to be delivered from evil, a wicked spirit began to make its way through the fog that foretold its coming.