Out of the Madhouse by Iain Maitland

Author:Iain Maitland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784506872
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2017-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

A FORETELLING

The boy slumped on to his straw bed in his hut on the edge of the village, exhausted but free. He had fought a long and terrible battle with the tentacled monster that had terrorised him for years. Now he had won at last and he could marry the girl he had given his heart to so long ago. And they could live happily for ever.

As he lay there, he remembered the first time he had seen the monster. He had been walking in the woods for ever such a long time and thought he was all alone as he looked for roots and vegetables to pick for his supper. But he heard a rustle from amongst the trees and, turning, he caught sight of the monster’s malevolent eye upon him. The boy hurried back to his hut and did not tell anyone about it.

The next time he went back into the woods to find food, the boy kept a watchful eye out for the monster and listened carefully as he walked, trying to hear if the monster was nearby, moving about. He saw and heard nothing until, as he returned to his village, he heard a slow, slithering noise behind him.

He turned and saw the monster on the path. It was big and wide and green and had ten or more tentacles, each one writhing about as if they were fighting and trying to strangle each other. The boy stared for a long time as the monster and its tentacles slowly became still and then, watching him, started edging forwards. This time, the boy turned and ran as hard and as fast as he could back to the village.

After a while, growing accustomed to seeing the monster, the boy started to ignore it. The monster, who would sit and watch and follow the boy, grew bolder as the days and months passed. It began slithering along a few paces behind, then so close that the boy could feel the swish of the tentacles at his back and, eventually, the monster would wrap all of its tentacles around him as he struggled slowly along the path. The monster would only release the boy back to the village when he promised he would not tell anyone.

This went on for a long while. Every time the boy entered the woods for food, the monster would wrap itself around him, some of its tentacles clinging tight to his arms and legs and others writhing about his face. The monster made the boy feel sick and his head hurt too. Eventually, it made him want to die. But he did not know what to do and he was too frightened and ashamed to tell anyone about it. The monster would release him only when he got back to the edge of the village and repeated his promise not to say anything to anyone.

One day, the boy’s sweetheart, seeing how thin and ill the boy was looking, followed him into the woods and saw what was happening.

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