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The next day was bright and the late September winds had died down to a gentle yet still palpable autumn breeze. The folk of Queensport emerged from their houses cautiously. Could those inhuman cries they heard during the night have been the storm after all? When all appeared at first glance to be as it should, they steadily went about their business. About midmorning one of the citizens was taking a brisk walk along the shoreline when he saw what looked like a trunk of driftwood caught in a swell. On closer inspection it was a body. The police were called in and the corpse identified as that of the outsider by the family with whom he had been lodging in Queensport. They were initially held under suspicion of the murder until certain facts came to light. Principally, a closer inspection of the body revealed certain inscrutable details. Whilst the outsider’s back had been broken by a fall, or push, down the cliff, this was determined by the pathologist not to have been the cause of death. That was attributed to two deep puncture wounds to the throat, made as if by fangs of some enormous beast. Suffice it to say, the case was never solved. Gradually the whole affair dimmed in the collective memory of Queensport, though the same could not be said for the individual recollection of those that had seen the victim’s face at close hand, frozen as it had been in a singularly contorted grimace of terror. As for the Old Man, no lights were ever witnessed burning at his hovel again. Reconnoitres by certain of the bold children reported that nobody was present and that the once easily perceptible mounds of trinkets and detritus within were plainly absent. In time, as the already dilapidated building crumpled into final oblivion, others struck up the courage to draw near and all concluded safely that the Old Man of Queensport was no more. Soon after, the unsavoury aura that had suffused the town began to dissipate, withdrawing into the shadows from whence it came. The bogs were drained and the ancient menhir was sealed off forever after a mudslide buried the entrance tunnel. Visitors began to trek the coastal paths and see the sights of an ancient and pleasant corner of the country. But one must be careful not to scratch too much at the surface of things that are strange and that you do not understand, for few can divine the doom to which you may become destined.
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