Prompt#10: "It's Alive!"

Word Count: 498 of 500 MAX
DAY 10 Prompt: "It's Alive!"

         He stammered those two words through blood stained lips held close to my ear. The old man began coughing violently causing me to involuntarily lean away lest any of his blood spray on me. He began to jerk and spasm and not knowing what to do, I got up and stepped back. His back arched at a violent angle and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He made no sound, stuck in that awful pose; a nightmarish mask of anguish on his face. Then just like that it was over. His lifeless body slowly sank back to the dirt floor. Pink froth dribbled from both nostrils and bubbled out of his gaping mouth.

         I remember feeling sick and running away. I left him up there the rest of the day and all that night. I couldn’t bare the thought of going back in the dark.

         I spent the night wondering what I should do. I’d been a castaway on that island for six months and that was only the second time the old man had ever spoken to me. He was there when I washed up on shore, standing on the hillside above the beach just watching. I found his hut the next day. He told me two things then. First, leave him alone or he’d cut my throat one night while I slept. The second was never take more than the island offered or I’d be just as dead but not by his hand. I thought he was crazy and maybe he had been.

         Dawn came too soon. It was still early by the time I arrived back at that hut. I can still remember a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t tell then what it was but, its saved my life countless times since. I had no idea of the horror waiting for me inside.

         The body was gone. There were no drag marks, no prints; nothing to indicate something had taken the corpse away. What remained was a dark stain in the dirt where he’d bled out. The ground where he had lain was slightly indented and the earth was churned. Crouching down I discovered bits of flesh and bone strewn across the wet soil. As I watched, tiny green tendrils sifted out of the dirt and pulled every last piece under. In a matter of seconds all that remained of the old man was wet earth.

         It was the island he was warning me about all those years ago. ‘Its alive’ he had said. Yes it certainly was. Is. It’s a monster, cunning and intelligent. It plays with me like a cat with a mouse. I don’t know why he never said something sooner. Maybe he’d been afraid; scared it would seek revenge for telling its secret.

         I stand on the hilltop and watch as a battered dinghy washes onto the beach. I’m the old man now. What do I do? Behind me, the island waits…