To anyone reading this, may my testimony serve as a warning. I’m writing this as I fly far away. I’m going back to the hinterland, to my family, and I’ll try to get my life back… if possible. I’m not sure what miracle or prodigy a therapist should perform on me, if they will ever be able to help me sleep at night, or if they will think I’m crazy. Maybe I’m doomed to relive those moments forever, for the rest of my days .
Therefore I consider it my duty towards others, however painful and shocking, to share those moments, so that my message can be spread.
Stay away from Heapswitch.
I visited the island two years ago. Although calling it an “island” is probably an exaggeration. It is located a few kilometres from the coast, someone could perhaps even reach it by swimming, due to the calm and shallow waters. The jagged rocky seabed dazzled me as I travelled there for the first time. The ferry’s captain, an elderly man with a white beard and a foreign accent, as well as the only living soul on the small boat, besides me, said that as a boy he had risked hurting himself several times on those seabeds, playing with his peers and trying his hand at diving competitions.
We arrived at the harbour late in the morning. It smelled of salt, but it was really pretty and peaceful. The profile of the island reminded me of that of the Chianti hills, where I used to visit an old uncle during my childhood. The round shapes, those uneven humps that stood out on the horizon, the captain said were the origin of the name of the island.
Legend has it that Heapswitch was the refuge of a coven of black magic practitioners in past centuries and that, once discovered and convicted of witchcraft by the authorities of the time, the alleged criminals committed massive ritual suicide, after which the only survivor, a mad boy who was later locked up in a mental asylum, where he perished, had built those heaps, which were no mere hills, but funerary mounds, colossal tombs for his brothers and sisters. How a single young man could have accomplished such a titanic feat was shrouded in mystery, which according to the captain confirmed that the whole thing was a legend, probably invented by the people of the coast for fun, or by the islanders themselves to keep visitors and the tourism industry away.
However, he told me that, again according to legend, the boy opened the doors to another world, and from those doors he invoked bizarre, unspeakable allies, who assisted him in the undertaking as a reward for the services and loyalty shown by his congregation.
Since then, Heapswitch has been nothing more than a place forgotten by everyone, except the occasional tourist, like me, attracted by the idea of a peaceful place, far from modernity, from traffic, from everything. There were no roads or industries on the island, and only recently a telephone company had built a relay, bringing phones and the Internet to that remote place for the first time only in the early 2000s.
I learned that the place was used almost solely for housing, a small paradise for its inhabitants, mostly retired folks, and the occasional young’un who appreciated that unusual lifestyle, even at the cost of living as a commuter travelling by boat every day.
Once we landed, the captain directed me towards the only pub on the island, after I asked him where I could get something to eat. I had rented a bungalow through an agency, but I needed directions on how to get there. I also knew of the existence of a small general store where I could get basic necessities, however after spending many hours on the train and on a boat, I wanted to relax and perhaps chat with the locals. The captain had been good company with his gentle manners, his sinister tales decidedly less so.
I managed to find my way around the maze of dirt paths quite easily. The buildings on the island were so few and far between that you could spot your destination at a glance from almost any angle. I arrived in front of the “Gate of Hell” just before noon. After laughing at the restaurant’s sign, wisely designed with gothic characters and complex decorations, almost as if it were the logo of a heavy metal band, I entered the pub.
I was greeted by a noisy environment, the exact opposite of what I was looking for in Heapswitch, yet the familiarity brought a smile to my face. I realised that life in the city had made me allergic to loneliness, to the point that I was happy and relieved to hear that overlapping of voices, the dubious rock music coming out of the sound system, the smell of cigarettes.
In the tiny, dark pub, there were a dozen people. I attracted numerous glances as soon as I crossed the threshold and deduced that these people did not receive many visitors. Most of them were middle-aged men, former hippies or something similar, judging by their clothing, and they made me feel out of place, so I headed briskly to the pub’s solid wood counter, which probably had not been lacquered in twenty years or so, and was covered in cuts and sticky substances.
A lady in her late forties welcomed me, with a cadaverous complexion, in stark contrast to the rest of her appearance. Defining it as “gloomy” perhaps wouldn’t convey the idea. Her heavy black makeup was arranged to look worn, as if it had run down her cheeks from crying. Her raven hair was plate-straight and she was covered in semi-transparent black veils, which revealed her abundant curves. She smiled at me, her teeth almost shining amidst the lipstick she was wearing, rigorously black.
I asked her if I could get something to eat and she recited a surprisingly long list of dishes, given the modest size of the place. To be on the safe side, I asked her for a portion of pasta with cheese, which she said was pre-packaged and frozen, and a Dutch beer, the name of which I gave up pronouncing, but she praised so much.
If I could go back in time, my feelings in the moments that followed would be totally different. Since I will probably be thought of as crazy anyway, and for the sake of the objectivity of my story, I will try not to allow hindsight to influence my testimony. Let it only be known that this is probably impossible, due to the nightmares that still torment me today, and the desire to be able to warn myself of the past, warn him and order him to flee, although it’s nothing more than a silly and feverish fantasy , it’s very strong in me.
I sat on a stool at the counter, since the barmaid, although odd-looking, undoubtedly had friendlier manners than her customers, who had become much quieter since my arrival. I wasn’t sure if my clothing, cheap trousers and a blue checked shirt, had made it obvious that I wasn’t from those parts, but I didn’t have time to think about it or decide whether to try to break the ice, because someone got ahead of me.
I was approached by a young woman, probably the same age as me, who looked too tidy to fit in with that den of grumpy people. For those interested in her real name, perhaps you can find it from the police reports, but I, for fear of repercussions and because of a general, irrational terror I feel at the mere memory of it, will call her Maureen.
Maureen introduced herself and welcomed me to Heapswitch. She placed her bottled beer on the counter next to me, thus letting me know that she had no intention of leaving until she had heard my story. Then, resigned to the idea that I had been singled out as a foreigner, I thanked my luck for having made me meet with someone extroverted enough to speak to me, rather than just staring and whispering as the hippies were still doing behind my back.
Maureen was a charming woman in her thirties, with long dark curls, a pretty face and a smile that would win over anyone. That day she wore a garnet blazer, despite the heat, and elegant dark gray trousers combined with summer shoes that matched the jacket. Her hazel complexion and exotic features, along with her unusual hair and bright clothing, made her stand out among that crowd of nostalgic caryatids, and her manners were so much friendlier, to the point that I couldn’t help but feel immediate sympathy. for her.
I chatted with her for a long time. We had a beer together, then a second one. The bartender served me the food I had ordered, which looked tasty, contrary to my expectations, and tasted even better thanks to the pleasant albeit unexpected company. I learned that Maureen was one of the few people who lived on the island without government’s support. She said she was a medical researcher and was studying experimental active ingredients in the quiet of Heapswitch, then sharing her findings with a pharmaceutical company with which she was affiliated. I was shocked to discover that her research was playing an important role in the development of a remedy for the Nipah virus, a zoonotic disease that remains mysterious today and for which no cure has been discovered yet.
I told her about my much less impressive career as a web designer, but my sense of inadequacy was proved uncalled for, as she expressed genuine interest in the topic. I was happy to find myself in front of a cultured and intelligent person, enough to make me feel at ease in a place unknown to me, among gruff and unfriendly people, while eating frozen pasta and listening to old rock music.
I will not attempt to belittle the events that followed, although my sense of pride suggests otherwise. I simply implore the reader to have an open mind, to identify with the situation and to remember that the human soul is full of darkness, traps and weaknesses. Mine was undoubtedly lust.
I have always considered myself a good-looking man, so I wasn’t particularly surprised when Maureen, perhaps with a little help from alcohol, became more expansive. Initially her tone of voice became a little higher than it should have been, then she became even more cheerful than she had been in the first place. After the fifth beer she started touching me, and offering to guide me around the island.
I accepted her proposal, but, after yet another round of beer, my new friend began to wobble far too much for it to be a good sign. I suggested to quit it and she agreed. Her state of inebriation was so evident that it attracted the concerns of the barmaid, who became worried about her health.
When Maureen expressed her desire to lay down a bit, the bartender offered to let her rest in the back of the pub, but she refused, asking me to take her home. Uncertain of the severity of her condition, and quite tipsy myself, I agreed to escort her, although I had no idea where she lived.
Maureen almost got angry when I tried to pay her bill. The bartender told her she could come back the next day, so I gave her my share and dragged Maureen out.
It was then mid-afternoon. The sun was still beating down intensely and the fresh air coming from the sea filled my lungs that had been breathing stale air and secondhand smoke for hours. Maureen also regained some sense of balance. We took a breather outside for a few moments, and finally she was able to speak coherently again.
Arm in arm, she led me along the steep roads that ran between the hills. We crossed mostly elderly people in sports clothes, some even carrying rackets, who greeted Maureen enthusiastically and eagerly asked for me. Everyone seemed to know her and like her, understandably so, and the simple fact of being close to her allowed me to benefit from her popularity, albeit reflexively. Some passers-by expressed concern about her condition, but she explained that it was just a simple hangover. One particularly old lady gently scolded her for having overindulged in alcohol, and gave her some sweets that she kept in her pouch.
We walked for more than half an hour, moving away from the town centre. The hills were bare, covered only with grass and the occasional tuft of flowers. The wind whipped the island constantly, the meadows swayed like a green sea moved by the breeze, no shrub or tree dared to grow in that place which looked as pleasant as it was barren.
We had basically crossed the entire island, when I finally spotted a solitary building, standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, reachable via a depression between two grassy hills. It was a lovely, elegant, one story modern chalet, surrounded by a light wooden terrace with a fence of the same material. The slopes of the roof were covered with solar panels, and the terrace was full of potted plants, some exotic looking, others I recognized myself, like cooking herbs and a cannabis plant.
I escorted Maureen to the entrance. We had some difficulty climbing the steps that gave access to the terrace, raised above the ground. The scent of her suspended garden inebriated me instantly, which, together with her company, chased away that sense of nostalgia I had felt for my natural environment, reminding me that I was there precisely to relax and leave the city behind my shoulders for a few days. She rummaged for a long time and laboriously in her trouser pockets, and with even more difficulty she managed to hit the lock of the glass door with her key. The sliding door opened silently and she invited me in.
Her place was as pretty as it was messy. Every corner of the house was filled with knick-knacks, decorations, so many that it was difficult to distinguish everyday tools in there. The place was rather claustrophobic, but in a pleasant way. It felt lived-in, a safe haven filled with personality.
The entrance room boasted an electric fireplace, turned off at the time, above which Maureen’s academic achievements were framed. At the sides of the fireplace, on the right, there was an old dark sideboard, with lopsided doors, topped by a collection of wax statuettes, about forty centimetres tall, depicting biblical characters, some of which I could not distinguish. On the left, below a barred window, a worn brown bean bag chair had retained the shape of the last person who had sat on it. In the centre was an old dark leather sofa. In front of it was a small table on which a purple can containing a sweet drink and a remote control were left. I noticed in the upper right corner, suspended above the statuettes, a large television supported by a metal arm screwed into the wall. To the left of the entrance was an old-fashioned coat stand, to which a long, dusty grey trench coat was clinging.
At the far left was the entrance onto a narrow corridor, without windows, which led to the rest of the house.
Maureen staggered forward when we finally made it inside, and leaned on the back of the sofa. She laughed out of embarrassment when I helped her up, and apologised countless times for the trouble she was causing me. While reassuring her that everything was okay, I asked her if she wanted some water. She nodded and pointed to the hallway, telling me that the kitchen was behind the door on the right.
After sitting her on the couch, I followed her directions.
The narrow, dark corridor led to three different doors. The one on the left was ajar, and I saw a double bed, deducing that it was Maureen’s bedroom. The door in the centre, made of thick wood like the others, at the end of the hallway, was closed, as was the kitchen’s. I lowered the cold iron handle in that house whose insides looked from the last century, except for some obviously contemporary pieces of furniture, expecting a 1950s style kitchen, but instead I discovered a small closet, the walls made of wood covered with white tags decorated with pretty painted purple patterns, apparently meaningless. The kitchen counter was made of plastic, black doors and a white shelf. On the left was a large refrigerator, side by side to a washer-dryer. In front of it, on the opposite wall, there were airtight waste bins. There wasn’t a table or anything like that, so I figured Maureen used to eat dinner on the couch or something of the sort.
Still tipsy after our performance at the pub, I didn’t even wonder if the tap water was safe to drink. I found a large glass tumbler conveniently abandoned next to the sink, filled it and returned to the living room.
I found Maureen curled up on the sofa, barefoot, with a hand on her forehead. When she noticed me she smiled embarrassed. She thanked me for the water, which she drank greedily and invited me to sit next to her. I tried to make her feel at ease by starting a conversation about her degrees, hanging right in front of me, and for a few minutes I was successful. Maureen talked about her research for a while, getting so technical that I had trouble following her. The hangover had also had a deleterious effect on her ability to make conversation, or so I thought, since in the pub she had been thoughtful enough not to go into too much detail that I couldn’t understand.
It was almost sunset, when she clung to my shoulder and, in a dry voice, begged me to accompany her to her room. I supported her as she got up from the sofa, feigned ignorance by asking her which door the bedroom was and accompanied her inside.
That environment was much less claustrophobic than the living room, or colourful than the kitchen. On the contrary, it was rather sterile. The double bed lined with blue fabric was sitting against the back wall, overlooked by a large window, also barred, hidden by a thin white curtain. To the right of the entrance, there was a very tall and cheap wardrobe, made of plastic-coated blue wood, with silver handles, and a shelf in the same colour and style, loaded with series of comics mostly popular among kids, and the occasional volume of obscure literature, a must in the collection of a person so eccentric.
I helped her lay on the bed. She refused the blanket and told me, after apologising for the umpteenth time, that I could have made myself comfortable in her house if I wanted to, and that as soon as she had recovered a little she would have been a better guest. After making sure it was the best choice, I left the room and closed the door. I didn’t close it completely out of fear of not hearing her, in case she felt sick.
Curiosity is part of human nature and I was no exception. The journey had been very boring and I had come to Heapswitch looking for tranquillity, but instead I had found an attractive woman and a very interesting person, so I couldn’t help myself when my gaze fell on the door at the end of the hallway.
I approached, trying not to make any noise and grabbed the handle. To my surprise it opened without making a sound, as if it had just been oiled.
From inside came a faint scent of some chemical that I couldn’t identify. The room had no windows. After groping for a few moments, I found a switch that illuminated the room with a cold white light, perfectly in tune with what I found.
The lighting that reminded me of a hospital revealed a small laboratory. Arranged in an L in front of me and on my right were two counters, in the middle of which was a glass case, whose transparent doors allowed me to observe vials, syringes and other tools of the trade inside of it. On the left, however, there was an enormous vase, from whose soil a climbing plant emerged, which grew by clinging to bamboo supports. Below the plant, on the bare earth, there were some jars that caught my attention. Some contained powders and liquids unknown to me. Despite my non-existent medical knowledge, I wondered if this was the correct way to store laboratory products, or whatever they were, so I inspected them more closely, curious to find out if they had any label that might help me understand what they were.
I should have then noticed the sign that something was wrong in that place. Even at the time I found it downright bizarre and inexplicable how, among the jars containing mysterious items, one in particular caught my attention, as I thought I recognized what I saw in there.
A large black cricket lay at the bottom of the jar. It was truly gigantic, at least eight centimetres long, but what disturbed me was not so much seeing it contained in a jar, as in a sinister story where the unaware protagonist discovers the secret laboratory of a mad and evil alchemist, but rather its conditions.
I had no idea how Maureen’s research could benefit from a cricket in a jar, and I certainly couldn’t understand why it had been reduced to this state. The poor creature had no legs or antennae, but above all it still moved.
Disturbed, I observed the little animal wriggling, probably exhausted and close to death. A lump in my throat assailed me as I found myself reflecting on how agonising and cruel its condition must have been. I have never been the emotional sort or an animal rights activist, but there was something fundamentally wrong with what I saw in that laboratory. I decided to leave, since I should never have entered in the first place, not without the owner’s permission.
The effects of the alcohol, the long day and the pasta and cheese had a toll on me. Thirsty as hell, I headed to the kitchen.
That time, having fully recovered my mental faculties, I stopped to wonder if the tap water was actually safe. I reasoned that Maureen had drunk it, but she was dead drunk and didn’t know the source. I sincerely hoped that I hadn’t foolishly given her water that wasn’t suitable for human consumption. I approached the refrigerator, assuming that she wouldn’t mind if I helped myself to a can of drink like the one I’d seen on the table in the living room.
I barely held back a scream when I opened the fridge door.
On the top shelf, exactly at my eye level, wedged between cans and food containers, a large jar, similar to those in the laboratory, had been left there. It contained a transparent liquid, in the middle of which something was floating, something that shocked me so much that I refused to believe my eyes, untilI I stared at it for several seconds, risking fainting at any moment.
The vacant eyes stared back at me with an absent grimace. Above his balding head, thin hair floated, his plump face contoured in an expression of pain.
There was a human head in that suspension.
I slammed closed the refrigerator and held back a retch. My body refused to move, in fact, it begged me to be allowed to collapse on the ground, on my knees, but my mind did not agree. Although shocked and uncertain of my own perceptions, I thought that I was in danger, given my chilling discovery. Without hesitation or thinking further, I decided to flee.
My blood ran cold when I passed Maureen’s room and could see her feet through the crack of the half-open door. Luckily for me she was still in bed, so I took advantage of it. Silently, I headed towards the entrance and, once I crossed the terrace, I went down the steps. As soon as I put my feet on the dirt path, I started running.
The soft and placid hills seemed desolate and sinister to me as I fled towards the town. First of all, I wanted to put distance between me and that house, and then I would have called the police. I ran at full speed against the wind, as if the legend of Heapswitch was screaming at me, trying to stop me before I could reveal its evil secrets to the world, once again as in the past.
I didn’t stop running until I saw the light-coloured houses around the harbour. I had no idea how much time had passed since I had escaped, but it certainly didn’t take me long to return, unlike when I had accompanied Maureen on the way out, due to her being slow and staggering.
Led by instinct and terror, for no specific reason I headed towards the only place that was familiar to me, the pub. The “Gate of Hell” sign didn’t make me smile like it did that morning, on the contrary it struck my tormented mind with further doubts. Before my overstimulated and frightened brain started concocting bizarre conspiracy theories involving other islanders, I forced myself to do the sensible thing and contact the police.
An agent with a deep and calm voice answered me. I realised I was babbling incomprehensibly when the man asked me who I was and where I was for the third time. I allowed myself a second of recollection, after which I managed to provide my personal info. I became agitated again as soon as I told him what I had seen, and the silence I received in response almost threw me into a panic.
The officer asked me to repeat my story, probably having a hard time believing me, and asked me if I was still at the scene of the accident. Cursing myself for not at least taking a picture of that incriminating evidence, I begged him to send someone.
The policeman tried to calm me down and assured me that a helicopter was coming in a few minutes. He comforted me by explaining that given the gravity of the matter he would have taken me seriously, even though my story was almost unbelievable.
I looked around still shocked, fearing that I would find myself surrounded by the members of the coven I had heard about that morning. Fortunately this wasn’t the case, but when I caught an elderly man staring at me, observing my state of agitation with an understandably worried look, I no longer felt safe. I begged the officer to tell me where the helicopter would land. He explained that there was no helipad in Heapswitch, so the pilot would have to land in an open space among the hills, halfway between the harbour and the cliff.
Although I wasn’t anxious to get close to Maureen’s house again, I was even less willing to stay there, so I set out hoping to locate the exact location where the police would arrive.
As promised by the police agent, after a few minutes I heard the roar of the helicopter blades. The vehicle flew over the island, passed over my head and headed towards a large expanse of grass which, as I had predicted, was actually where it would land. The propeller thundered and drowned out the wind, the grass became even more agitated due to those unnatural gusts. I didn’t dare get too close, fearing it was dangerous, so I waited about a hundred metres away, waving my arms so the officers could see me.
Four men in uniform dismounted from the helicopter and immediately walked in my direction. The helicopter’s blades began to slow down. I saw the pilot wave to one of the policemen as they walked away from the vehicle. They seemed far too relaxed, so I imagined that they had responded to my call out of duty more than anything else. I couldn’t blame them, my report sounded like something out of a low budget horror movie, and they had probably received similar ones in the past, given Heapswitch’s reputation.
One of the policemen, probably the officer, asked me to identify myself, and confirmed my suspicions when he asked me if I knew what the consequences were for those who report false crimes and mobilise the police for no reason. I offered to accompany them to demonstrate I was telling the truth, but I regretted the choice when I realised that it meant returning to that place. On top of that, the officer did not look impressed by me showing off. On the contrary my behaviour confirmed to him what he probably thought of me, that is, that I was nuts, and that, caught in one of my delusions, I was trying to show myself convinced of my hallucinations.
Once again, I headed towards Maureen’s house, that time together with four policemen, who were whispering behind me, annoyed that they had been forced into a field trip by some crazy guy from out of town, who had allowed himself to be influenced by local folk tales and the isolated nature of the place.
When I saw the cabin again, I almost vomited. The rosy sky at sunset, streaked with black due to the dark clouds that were accumulating in the surrounding area, gave the house a sinister appearance, as idyllic as it had previously seemed to me.
The police officer ordered me to wait outside with one of his agents. Accompanied by the other two, he went up onto the terrace and knocked on the door. Shortly thereafter he announced himself as police, and the door opened. The three disappeared inside that mysterious place full of chilling secrets, and I could only hope that they would come out safe and sound, unlike the poor decapitated soul I had found.
After just a couple of minutes, the officer who was with me received a message on the two-way radio on his belt. He told me to follow him into the house, that the area was safe, and that the sergeant wanted to talk to me.
I followed him reluctantly. Even though his superior had guaranteed that there was no danger, my more emotional side couldn’t get rid of a sense of uneasiness, as if there was a threat looming in that place. I tried not to freak out, or I would have started screaming for our lives, and I would really have looked like a fool.
The officer almost had to drag me inside. He stopped several times to wait for me, insisting that I hurry. When we entered the room and I saw Maureen’s face again, I almost fainted.
Maureen stared at me, confused, but the officer immediately called her attention. He ordered everyone to move to the kitchen.
The refrigerator was open, the jarred head was resting on the kitchen counter. The officer who had accompanied me was paralyzed by the spectacle and asked his colleagues if it was a joke.
The officer sighed, nervously, and gave the floor to Maureen. In response, she opened the jar and stuck her hand inside. I struggled not to look away, unsure why the policemen weren’t immediately restraining her.
Then I felt like an idiot.
Maureen took out a sheet of paper from the jar, on which was printed a photo of a man’s face, whose grimace was exactly the one that had terrified me moments before. Maureen immersed the paper in water again, explaining how due to an optical illusion, the paper acquired depth and the head looked three-dimensional. She said it was a memory she kept, a gift from a university colleague given to her during her goodbye party.
When asked by the agents why she owned such a macabre, albeit harmless, object, she replied that her colleague had found it funny that she, after graduating, had holed up on a remote island with a sinister reputation for carrying out niche research. Claiming that this made her a witch of legends, her colleague had given her a farewell gift according to his weird sense of humour, which she had decided to keep anyway.
Maureen gave me a resentful, disappointed look. I didn’t know what to say, since I had been deceived by one of her absurd ornaments, and in all likelihood I had ruined what could have been a beautiful friendship.
How wrong I was.
The police officer apologised to her and suggested that she get rid of that horrid object, or at least keep it in a place where no one could see it and believe it to be a real severed head. Later, claiming it was mere formality, he asked her to check the house, in particular the laboratory she had mentioned. Maureen left the kitchen with the officer, while his colleagues escorted me into the living room, mocking me and telling me that I would have faced a heavy fine for wasting their time.
I ignored them. They had been right about the severed head, and certainly the stories told by the ferry captain that morning had strongly influenced me, yet I still didn’t feel safe. I stared anxiously at the closed door of the laboratory, inside which both Maureen and the police officer had disappeared. Several minutes passed, but the policemen would not allow me to leave. One of them forced me to sit on the sofa, while another looked amused at the figurines of biblical figures, making fun of me and asking if in my opinion they were real people, miniaturised and stuffed by the witch.
His arrogant laughter died when we heard that.
A chant, a chilling dirge, sung softly, but as intense as thunder during a summer storm, almost made the house tremble. I looked around, as it seemed to be coming from every direction, wondering if there was a surround sound system in the house. An officer seemed to think the same thing, as he looked at the television, but it was turned off, a black mirror that reflected our faces and nothing more. Yet his gesture confirmed to me that he too heard it, that voice, or perhaps voices, feeble and childish, singing as if they were reciting a wordless lullaby.
Na naaa, na naaa, na oooh, naaa oh.
One of the agents laughed nervously, claiming that there was a woofer hidden somewhere, or a bizarre cuckoo clock suited to Maureen’s absurd tastes. No one listened to him, because no matter how rational his thinking was, he couldn’t justify what we had heard. It hadn’t been a muffled sound from a hidden woofer or anything like that. It had come from nowhere, and had enveloped us, as if the walls themselves had begun to speak, as if someone was watching us.
I returned my attention to the laboratory door. I got up struck by a sinister premonition. One of the agents ordered me to sit but I ignored him. A second one shared my concern and preceded me. I followed him into the corridor, while he called out to his superior, receiving no response. As he walked towards the door he tried to call him again, even on the radio, in vain.
Before I could warn him he threw the door open.
I am perfectly aware that my story, however unusual, so far may sound credible, perhaps fictionalised a bit, and that at worst it will be a source of ridicule in the media or the cause of my internment if I am actually diagnosed as a serious psychiatric case. However, once again I implore the reader to believe what I am about to describe, since I myself find it difficult to believe it, and just retracing those moments in my mind causes me such discomfort and profound terror, that I have decided to put my testimony on paper once and for all, so to never have to rethink of that day again. I therefore invite anyone reading this to approach what follows keeping in mind that there are things in the world and in the universe that still evade human understanding, our science. Their nature is mysterious to us, but their existence is undeniable, proof of which is that, even today, in the age of information, some people believe in the mystical, in the occult, and dig into its mysteries in search of secrets that science cannot explain, often revealing threats that would be better left dormant, horrors that have certainly been observed in the past, and the few foolish and lucky ones who survived to be able to tell about them, have warned future generations, through stories that have then become myths and legends.
That day, unknowingly, I found myself being one of those crazy explorers, and today I consider myself one of those lucky ones who can warn the world of the danger hidden in Heapswitch.
The police officer was lying on the ground, on his back. His torso had been stripped, his pants pulled down. The uniform lay thrown in a corner of the laboratory. It had been cut with a blade, like when doctors in hospital remove clothing from patients otherwise unable to undress.
A deep incision had been made from the base of his neck to his pubis. Although a surgeon or any sane person would have objected to the state of hygiene in operating on someone while they were lying on the floor, it was undeniable even to me that the cut was of impressive precision, certainly made by a steady and expert hand.
I felt my blood pressure drop as it left my face, when I recognized his pitiful state, comparing it to that of the cricket in a jar I had seen a few hours earlier.
The sergeant’s chest and belly had been split open. The muscle tissue had been stretched to the sides of the incision, as if on an operating table, and I was able to admire his insides still moving, all with very little blood leakage. I made out his lungs, rhythmically inflating and deflating. His face was paralyzed in a blank expression. He stared at the ceiling, like a corpse, but was clearly alive, perhaps even conscious.
His limbs were no longer where they should be.
Shocked, bewildered, I looked around, trying to locate his arms and legs, but they had vanished. Furthermore, I didn’t have too much time to worry about looking for them, since what lay next to him is the true object of my nightmares, a vision that haunts me far deeper than that macabre and absurd, inexplicable demonstration of cruelty.
I recognized Maureen’s gorgeous curls, but that was all. That thing was curled up on the ground, next to the sergeant. It was covered in brown, sparse fur, among which grey, thick and wrinkled skin could be seen. It had no legs, instead it had two long and arched bony arms, also covered in dark hair, which culminated in two large hooked claws, dripping blood. I imagined those foul claws dissecting the poor police officer, as tears blurred my vision, making what was clearly before my eyes even harder to believe.
The creature looked like a human torso, but there was nothing human about it. The slender arms had transparent and viscous membranes, which spread along its hips, and quivered like a sheet exposed to the wind, or a spider’s web that captures the vibrations of a prey.
When the creature turned its head, I actually almost lost consciousness, for there is nothing more horrible than the unknown, than what was once familiar to us, and now is no longer.
Maureen’s face, exactly as I remembered it, her graceful features that had bewitched me that morning, were unchanged. Her face, her beautiful face, towered atop that deformed and monstrous entity, almost as if they were two separate things, merged into one, an abominable chimaera born from the mind of a mad artist, and stared into my eyes.
The officer’s screams brought me back to reality. Before we could react, the creature stretched its hooks towards the ground, which tapped the floor with an ominous sound, took hold, and leaped.
One of its paws brushed my shoulder, passing me so close that I could recognize the stench of alcohol it gave off. My mind stopped working, terror and instinct took over me. I turned and started running.
The officer continued to shout. I heard the sounds of a fight, gasps, growls that did not belong to a human being or even to an ordinary animal. Then sounds of tearing, something breaking, more gasps and moans.
The two officers in the room rushed into the corridor and started screaming as well. They called their colleague’s name, one of them started screaming into the radio, while the second pulled out his gun.
I kept running. My vision was blurred with terror. I kept my gaze fixed on the front door, stumbling with every step. My legs were shaking and struggling to support me.
My knees definitely gave out when it happened again.
Na naaa, na naaa, na oooh, naaa oh.
The chorus of distorted and sinister voices echoed in the room again. I shouted as if to chase them away and at that moment, behind me, I heard a shot.
I turned in terror just in time to see the creature pounce on the officer who was shouting at the radio. The poor guy was thrown to the ground, and the being pierced his face with one of its claws. The policeman’s body instantly stiffened.
Na naaa, na naaa, na oooh, naaa oh.
The last agent left standing screamed at the top of his lungs and started shooting over and over on the thing’s back. I didn’t waste any more time and dragged myself to the door. I grabbed the handle, opened it wide and ran onto the terrace. I skipped the stairs, landing on my knees on the bare ground, as the evening light was now enveloping Heapswitch, and I ran, and ran, never looking back. Screams and gunshots accompanied my escape among the brown hills, and a single thought took hold of my mind, that if I wanted to save my life, I had to get away from that island.
I reached the clearing where the helicopter was waiting in no time. I found the pilot smoking a cigarette, leaning against the side of the aircraft, and shouted to get her attention.
The woman winced and her cigarette fell to the ground. My voice was so full of tension that she walked towards me to ascertain my condition. She helped me stand, and I tried to explain to her what I had seen, but my body betrayed me, and I could formulate nothing more than babbles and disjointed sentences. The pilot asked me where her colleagues were, but all I could tell her was that we had to leave as soon as possible. She listened to my words with scepticism, went to the helicopter and reached for the radio.
After a few futile attempts to contact the other agents, she returned to me and picked up a pair of handcuffs from her belt. She explained that she was taking me to the police station, and that I was under arrest. I didn’t object, understanding her distrust, but above all eager to leave as soon as possible, to the point that I would even have accepted being locked up in a cell rather than staying another moment in Heapswitch.
The pilot handcuffed me to a safety bar at the back of the helicopter, put a pair of soundproof headphones on my head, closed the door and then went to the cabin.
I didn’t feel safe even when the propeller blades started to rotate, not even when the helicopter lifted off the ground. The pilot kept asking me questions through the headphones we were both wearing, but unfortunately I was unable to give her any answers, too shocked and unsure of what I myself had seen. I called on all my common sense and strength to try to calm down, to say something coherent, but my efforts were thrown away when I heard it again.
Na naaa, na naaa, na oooh, naaa oh.
The pilot spoke into the radio, believing it to be a communication. I didn’t dare ask how it was possible that she hadn’t heard the voice of her colleague, who had begged so much, asking for help, before being attacked inside that cursed house. When she didn’t get a response, the officer asked me if I knew anything about it, claiming she’d heard it several times before too. I didn’t answer, I huddled in a corner against the steel walls of the helicopter and didn’t move until we landed at the police station on the coast.
This is the account of what I saw that day in Heapswitch. The police reports will certainly contain more coherent details, along with more rational hypotheses about how four officers and a civilian disappeared, certainly many of which point to me as the culprit or at least involved in the matter. I have told my story several times to scholars, criminologists, even artists, in an attempt to draw that thing that looked like Maureen but wasn’t, or to digitally reproduce that terrifying dirge that has haunted me ever since.
I hope that whoever reads this will be kind enough to at least try to take me seriously, and if so, if you are that person, I thank you for believing me, and I leave you with a warning: beware of Heapswitch, beware of the chant that, too late, warns of the irreversible horrors that already have occurred.
Na naaa, na naaa, na oooh, naaa oh.
