If you’re between Edgewater and Riva, come take a peek at our little town. We’re small, but boast some of the best a small town can possibly offer. Here’s a small set of Do’s and Don'ts to make everything all the more enjoyable for you and anyone you take along.
DO’s:
â– Tip your barista. She's had a rough time, no matter how wide her smile.
â– Ask before petting any dogs, especially if you don't see an owner.
â– If fishing or crabbing, toss back the first thing you catch. It's polite.
â– Wave hello to old man Mcbride if you see him. He's usually surrounded by cats.
â– Ask around enough, and you can find a fun rave near the warehouses. Bring Kandi.
â– Jojo's Diner has the best coconut cream pie in town. Coffee's a little weak, though.
â– If your dog slips its lead and runs into the woods, it'll be home by midnight, unharmed. Promise.
â– Feel free to toss bird seed in the park. We need the poor things to readjust to normal food.
â– Gazebo Three is the smallest gazebo in the park, but it's plenty... entertaining.
DON’Ts:
â– The town pool has been closed for decades. Ignore the open gate.
â– Don't go near the bay during storms. Ever.
â– Related to the above point- Don't chase rabbits, no matter their color.
â– Don't go near the gas station across from Acker Auto & Tow. It is closed.
â– If old man Mcbride asks if you want to see his cat, Tigress, politely decline, and leave.
â– Don't mind the dark shape in the woods. It's not after you.
â– The person at raves wearing a wolf skull mask is not fond of questions.
â– If your dog slips its lead, DO NOT follow it into the woods. It WILL return to you by midnight if you let it be. Promise.
â– The island with a small cabin is private property.
All these tips aside, I know you’ll enjoy your visit, however short or long it may be. Thanks again for stopping by. If you have any concerns, pop by my office downtown. I’ll help you out as best I can.
I won a private island in a local raffle. Complete with a house and a dock. You'd think I'd be ecstatic, but I'm not. It's not some slice of tropical paradise; it's this tiny, lumpy thing with a shack stacked onto it. It sticks out of the Chesapeake bay like a turd in the sun. The shack itself could fit in a two-car garage with wiggle room to spare.
I didn't know it was gonna be like that when I put down fifty bucks for a ticket. The island that was used in the gas station poster showed a big, wooded couple of acres, far from our little town. An aerial view, showing a huge dock on one end, and a large, log cabin in the dead center.
I'll tell you now, that's bullshit, but, I'd won it fair and square. When I came forward to claim turd island, it was pretty easy. A half hour of signing papers and talking to some people, I was handed the keys to the shack, and driven to the dock by the boat. Leading up to the tiny shack was a sun bleached path of wooden steps, all the way to the rickety porch.
Turd island was such a letdown that the interior of the shack was an improvement. Barely. It seemed to be in fine enough shape. Square living room, with a big, funny looking rug on the floor. Couch and coffee table to the left, an antique roll-top writing desk to the wall on the right. Back third was where the bathroom and kitchen were, first to the right, second on the left.
The walls were covered in shelves, full of strange things. Candles everywhere, tiny and huge, in every shape and color. Some were melted, some pristine in their holders and jars. The right wall, with the desk flush against it, was covered in shadowbox shelves, each compartment with something or other inside. A bundle of herbs here, a jar of stones there. Sea shells, coins, feathers, and tons of tiny, weird shit all over the place.
I looked upwards. Above me was the loft, where I was told the bedroom was located. Tiny broomsticks dangled from the low ceiling. Dream catchers and chimes swayed lazily at the windows. I recognized the Evil Eye, the blue and white glass tied to a broomstick hanging from a shelf. It was so small, but it was... homey? Cozy? I wasn't sure. Â
This place was dated, at any rate. A couch from the seventies, a table from the fifties, an antennae sticking out of the roof when I got here, but the fridge and stove were practically new. A small, older flatscreen TV rested in the corner before the kitchen. That roll top desk had to have something inside it. I doubted anything in this place was for show.
Lifting the segmented wood cover, I found a few pens, sketch pads, a leather-bound notebook, and a folded up piece of paper. One edge of the paper was shredded, as if torn from a book. Chicken-scratch sprawled across one of the blank sides, addressed to myself. Not by name, but who else could the letter be for?
To the New Caretaker of Checkerspot Island
I remember laughing quietly in the emptiness. Checkerspot didn't have the same ring as turd island. I sat at the desk, and flipped open the yellowed paper.
You're gonna be pissed by the end of this letter. I was pissed, too, when I got landed with this place. Nothing for it, now. You've likely won a raffle, and you've signed enough paperwork to make your eyes go cross, so, here's what you have to know.
This island has been around for as long as sailors have been at sea. It's old, it's small, and it's holding something underneath it, in the muck of the bay. Checkerspot Island has been left to someone new, every five to thirty years. The times dependent on how good, or bad, the caretaker is. Someone new has been coming onto this island for hundreds of years. Those leather bound books upstairs date back to at least 1780. People willingly came here long before then.
It wasn't until 1940 that the raffle began. People stopped coming forward the faster modernization rolled in. For a buck, you could win your own, private island, complete with house and dock. The winner would be drawn a month or so after the drawing closed, and the island would have a new caretaker. Simple as that.
Or not.
This place isn't made for more than one person at a time. Right now, that person is you. You won the raffle, and you signed the contract. This island and everything on it is your responsibility, whether you like it or not. I gotta make that clear; this is your home, now. For at least five years, but no more than thirty.
Under the woven rug in the living room, you'll find a trap door. It's covering the reason you're here. Inside, you'll find a pipe, made of cast iron, surrounded by concrete. There's all sorts of scribblings on the underside of the door, all meant to keep that thing underground. You can probably fit your arm up to the elbow down the pipe, but I don't recommend that. That's how you lose fingernails.
What's inside the pipe? Well, it leads to the thing beneath the island. What's under the island? Hell, no one's sure. Look through the books upstairs, they're records of previous caretakers. It's different for everyone that looks. A gaping mouth, a humanoid void, boiling smoke, it's never the same. It's... just there. The one thing people can agree on, I've found, is what it does; corrupt.
Not the political or monetary kind. The visceral kind, that leaks out and into the town. Shadowcrest isn't the only place the corruption has reached for, but it's pretty much staying in the town boarders. Annapolis is getting a little of it, and Riva is doing well, but Shadowcrest... that's the epicenter. Where most of it comes to a head and lashes out.
I've seen it. I didn't understand it, but now that I've been here for twenty-odd years, I know. It touches people that look for things they shouldn't. It's not just limited to ouija boards and tarot cards. The corruption finds the weak ones, the broken and angry people. The ones willing to sell their souls for anything from a winning lottery ticket, to one more hit of heroin. The ones willing to lure a little kid away from home because they're already sick, and the corruption was close enough to give them one, little push...
From what I do know, it has the habit of manifesting through water. Wild water, not well water. The bay itself has enough salt to brine a hundred corpses, but this thing, the corruption, it dives down, deep. It comes out in creeks and springs. Pops out of the ground to hide in puddles and snow after rain and storms. It's weak, but so are those it prays upon.
That's the problem. It can't get stronger, but it's able to spread. No amount of incantations and sage will stop it from that. The corruption, however, it gets weaker every few years. Just a little, but enough to call it progress. A positive thing, for once in this hell.
You're gonna wanna leave when this letter is over, but that's the catch; you can't. Soon as you signed that contract for the island, you signed away your life. Nothing will kill you, or harm you, no sickness or death will happen. But, if you try to leave the island, be it by boat or blade, you won't be able to. Trust me. I tried so many times myself. Try as you might, you're stuck until some other poor bastard gets the winning raffle ticket.
Here's some of the most important things you need to know, because if you're anything like me, you're gonna try to leave, rage for days, and then get to reading those books. So, here's the big three things you need to know in order to survive this place ans stay sorta sane.
If you look into the pipe [you will. I did it on my first day.] rub a clove of garlic over your eyelids, then swallow it whole. Don't open the pipe hatch for at least three days, or you're gonna have to do the whole thing over.
If you hear whispering coming from the pipe, wrap equal parts cumin, sea salt, and onyx chips in a few basil leaves. Drop it down the pipe. Chase that with a quart of solar water if there's any screaming. [solar water is the jar on the porch. Lunar water is the jar in the kitchen.]
And, for fucks sake, if you hear someone you know calling from the pipe, plug your ears, and do the following;
Get the cauldron from the shelf by the evil eye besom, and light a buddy burner under it. [top draw of the desk] Add a pinch each of black salt and blood root. Crush and add a single sloe berry to a cup of red wine in the cauldron. Wait for the mix to steam, then add two to four drops of styrax oil. Open the hatch, and dump the whole thing into the pipe. Slam the door shut, and light a black taper candle. Seal all gaps around the door with the wax. Do not open the door until you hear weeping from below. Toss a blue lace agate down there if you feel bad about it. [I never did.]
Everything's labeled, and you've got enough food to last you the first week. Someone's gotta keep watch over this thing, and keep it subdued. No one's found a way to kill it, and we're barely able to contain it. That's all the hope we have, and you're the next in line to do it.
By the time you've read this all the way through, I'll already be under the house. There's a hatch under the dock steps that you will go through one day, too. It's the only way to get to that thing underneath. I swallowed a little of every herb, oil, and gem I had, and chased it with as much blessed water as I could. You're gonna have to do that, too, one day. You won't be able to open the hatch until your replacement comes. Only one person can be on this island at a time, and the old caretaker always ends up under the house, with the corruption.
Now, the part that no one tells you; no one's gonna help you. The cops are told this place is abandoned, and your calls won't go through to anyone, anyway. It's the local government who gets things into gear. Puts up posters, advertises, collects money for the tickets. They even pay the supplier a good sum of cash every year, just to boat across the bay to the dock. I just got a letter in my last supply drop, saying I was free to go on January 17th. The money for the tickets goes to your food and electricity, so you're not gonna starve to death.
So... you're going to have to wait it out, like me. Best of luck to you. Your supplier can get you anything you want short of a firearm. He comes on Sundays, before noon. He can come to the end of the dock, before the hatch steps, but no farther, you got it? Oh, and, there's a half-drunk bottle of scotch behind the flour tub. You're gonna need it.
A.K. Grant,
Caretaker of Checkerspot Island.
1994-2016
I thought it was silly. A joke to get me to reconsider. A well done little prank, but nothing serious. I looked about the place again. It was... confining. Couldn't be over 300 square feet. A ladder lead upstairs, where I guessed the bed was supposed to be. The tiny broomsticks overhead swayed slightly. Sun catchers spat red and blue flecks across the walls. The scent of wax and burned herbs hung heavy around me.
I decided to leave. I couldn't have been gone for more than an hour. I figured the boat and its driver would still be there, waiting for me.
Stepping outside, peering down the wooden walkway, I saw no boat. Only a bleached dock, stretching out into the murky, brown bay. The lights of the houses across from me glittered, mocking me. I had my cellphone, but I didn't know anyone who had a boat. Calling the police wouldn't do much, either. Even if I did, the island had almost no reception. Letter or not, I knew that I was screwed.
I tried to jump off the dock, maybe swim to the shore, but it was like my ankles were tied to the boards. I tried to walk into the water, but I couldn't go past my knees. It was like a rope cinched around my waist, tethering me. I did everything I could, for a whole day, I tried.
Yes. I tried to kill myself. I vomited the pills I swallowed. The knives barely made a mark no matter how hard I pressed them to my wrists. There's no rope to tie a noose, and no beam to throw it over, anyway. I was so desperate, that I climbed the roof, and jumped from it. I woke up on the biggest pile of leaves I've ever seen, with a headache to rival all others.
Four days of crying and swigging scotch from the bottle, and it happened.
A voice, from the pipe.
Blurry from tears and booze, I fell to my knees and crawled to the source. Flipping the rug from the floor, I found the door. Already halfway to the ground, I pressed an ear to it.
A voice, soft and sad, called out. “Baby, are you up there?”
I knew her voice in a second. “Abbey?”
A sad laugh. “It's me, baby. What are you doing up there?”
I opened the door, no more than a square foot of wood with an iron D-ring set into it. There, in the floor, surrounded in concrete, technicolor wax, ashes and dark stains, sat the lip of the pipe. Black, matte, and sticking just a bit out of the concrete, it sat like a gaping hole. I shouted down the pipe, “Abbey, why are you down there?”
“They trapped me, baby! They trapped me so you'd never find me!”
Even in a scotch-soaked stupor, I knew better. “Who trapped you?” No answer came. Not for a minute, at least.
“Let me out, baby!” But I could feel the resonating bass growl behind my girlfriends pleas.
“Why?”
The growling grew violent, fierce. Abbey's voice cried above the din. “Please! Let me out!”
I couldn't help myself. I fucking knew better. I'd been the one to ID her at the morgue. I knew better, but... I was being called. I had to know. But, leaning forward and looking down, into the gaping maw of the iron pipe... I saw it. Or, my idea of it.
A windmill of greasy, black feathers rolled and spun, shaking. Eyes, black and wet, peeked up at me from the cracks between the feathers as botflies from a carcass. It hissed like cicadas, stunk of rotten berries, and a hot, damp breath hit me full force. I lunged backwards, and hit my head against the writing desk. The letter fluttered to the floor.
The hot, damp breath smelled of menthols and Budweiser. The smell that spelled fear when I was just a kid.
Abbey was gone, her voice replaced with that old, drunken rasp I'd spent years trying to erase. “C'mere, kiddo.” His husky, hacking laugh. “C'mere, sit on daddy's lap.” The last word ended with the roar of cicadas, and the stink of menthols filled my nose.
I vomited, planting my hands on the floor. Scotch and bile splattered the floor. I moved away, still hearing, but blocking it best I could. Under my left hand, I heard the crinkle of paper. The letter had been spared my vomit. I didn't have earplugs, but I had the letter.
Kicking the door shut to silence the now raging thing below, I reread the list of things I needed. Thank god, the jars and bottles were labeled. Cauldron ready, I began. There was a giant, glass jug of shitty, red wine under the desk, and I couldn't measure for the life of me when drunk, but I had to shut that rasping thing up.
I fumbled my way through the instructions, waited for the steam, dropped, mixed, and plucked the burning hot cauldron from its perch.
Opening the door once more, I settled on my knees, and started to tilt the mix toward the pipe.
From below, raging louder than all the cicadas and bass growlings the pipe could spew, I heard my father's voice shout, “You little shit!”
I dumped the mixture down the pipe, my fingertips raw from the hot metal. I heard the screaming of a thousand outraged beasts, and shut the door. Black candle wax filled the gaps, and the screams, slowly, were muffled.
I dropped the cauldron. Panting, far more tired than I'd ever been in my life, I stood on shaky legs. I needed rest, to get away from that thing, but if I didn't clean up the puke, I'd kick myself over it in the morning. Rag in one hand, rusty bucket in the other, I kicked the rug out of the way. It unfurled onto the floor, washing the wood with purple.
That rug wasn't funny looking because it was old, or ugly. It's one of the most intricate things I've seen in my life. Symbols and glyphs were hand embroidered into the fiber. I saw the evil eye here, an outward facing hand there. A human with long hair and a flute of some kind. A circle with two, outward facing crescents on either side of it, and so many more. Black and white symbols, swirling and interconnecting on the huge, circular, rug.
The bare few symbols I knew meant about the same thing; Protection Against Evil.
That was a few days ago. I didn't forget to clean the vomit, or the garlic on my eyelids, you know. If the wine mix could shut the thing below up, I have to try the rest of the things listed. There's dozens of spells and mixtures I have to catalog for my own book. Am I okay with all of this? Hell no, but what else can I do? I can't leave. I can't die. I'm done trying. According to the letter, the delivery of supplies will be here, Sunday, before noon.
I'm gonna have to ask for more scotch. Maybe whiskey, I've earned it. I'm gonna need some bandages for my fingers, but that's a given. Guess I'm gonna have to take inventory for all these things. I'm just happy to have my tablet with me. Someone should know where I went, what's happened to me. Reception out here is choppy, at best. I have to stand on a chair just to get one bar.
I hear weeping from the floorboards. I have to go.
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