The Eldivore

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The candle burned brightly, casting a warm and welcoming glow out into the rainy winters night. Light and shadow twinkled down a meandering path, through lichen covered trees, to where a weary traveler approached.

He trudged slowly up the muddy mountain path. A middle-aged man wearing glasses and a soaked raincoat, his hood pulled up over his head in a vain attempt to keep himself dry. Water dripped down from the hood of his parka in a steady stream, obscuring his vision. He squinted through his rain soaked glasses at the light up ahead. At last, a cabin!

“Oh, thank god!” he said, and hurried up the root strewn path toward the light.

“Hello?” he called. There was no reply. The cabin was old and rotting and appeared to have been uninhabited for years. The once straight floorboards of the porch were warped by water and time and covered in a slippery carpet of moss and fungus. But there was no denying the candlelight streaming from the window above.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” He stepped up to the porch, the ancient wood squelching beneath his equally wet boots. He was about to knock on the door when he heard a sound coming from inside. A low rumbling sound, and he stopped.

Then the door opened, and a young woman stood before him. Tall, fair and slender, her long blonde hair was caught back into a casual ponytail over her shoulder. Pale blue eyes regarded him with interest, and lips parted to reveal teeth of perfect white.

“Hi!” she said and smiled.

“Um, hi!” he stammered, feeling awkward as a teenager before this breathtaking young woman.

“I’m Rhea,” she said.

“Oh, forgive me, I’m Daniel.” He offered her his hand, and she took it confidently in a firm, strong grip.

“Come inside,” she said, still holding his hand and guiding him through the door, “I won’t bite!”

It was warm inside the cabin, the small room heated by an old wood stove burning in the corner. Two comfortable looking armchairs were pulled up next to the fire. On top of the stove was a simmering kettle, and a bubbling pot of what smelled like stew. The candle in the window threw a soft light. It was hard to believe such a cozy room could exist inside the rotting outer shell of the building.

“Are you on your own?” Rhea asked.

“Yes, and no. I’m lost. I was with a hiking party, and I set out from camp by myself, then it got dark and …” he tapered off. “Truth be told, I’m feeling quite foolish.” He took out his mobile phone for the millionth time and looked at it. Still no signal.

“Well, not to worry, you’re safe now,” she said. “Stay here and rest tonight. There’s a communications hut about three hours hike from here. We could go there in the morning, and you can call your friends from there.”

Daniel thought about this, realized he didn’t have much of a choice, then laughed and nodded his agreement.

“What about you, he asked. “Are you hiking alone?” He noticed her backpack propped against the rear wall.

“Yes, she said simply. “I like to stay here sometimes.” Then she pointed to the pot of stew. “You want some?” He did.

The stew was hot and delicious and warmed him to his toes. Meat flaked off what looked like shanks but tasted like pork. Rhea was slender as a model, but she was voracious when it came to food. Daniel tried not to stare as she devoured her meal with wolfish ardor. It was faintly disturbing to watch the way she cracked open the shank bones with her teeth and slurped down the marrow.

After their meal, now fed and warm, they sat down in the armchairs beside the wood stove with mugs of hot chocolate, listening to the rain falling outside.

“Just like sitting around a campfire,” Daniel said. He sipped his hot chocolate and added, “All we need is marshmallows and a scary story!”

“Well, as it happens,” she said, “I have a story you might like.” Rhea cradled her mug and leaned forward, eyes glinting in the candlelight. “Have you ever heard the legend of the Eldivore?”

“The Eldivore?” He rolled the name over his tongue, tasting it. “No, I don’t think I have. Is it European?” he asked.

“Oh no,” she laughed, “it’s much older than that. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, please,” he said.” Rhea sat back in her chair, face now shadowed in the flickering light and began.

“The Eldivore is an ancient being,

rarely heard of, and never seen.

It was born before the time of men,

when it fed on fairies in the fen.”

Daniel felt a warm sleepiness come over him as he settled into his comfortable chair. He was exhausted from his long walk and had the feeling he could blissfully nod off listening to the rise and fall of Rhea’s voice as she told the lyrical story.

“It lived in the old places of the world,

and while cities of men grew and unfurled,

it lurked in caverns, caves, and crofts,

the hulls of ships, and abandoned lofts.”

Yes, he thought, old places from another time. Remote and abandoned places. Places like this very cabin. Not an entirely pleasant thought. He glanced across at Rhea and she looked back at him and smiled. In the flickering glow of the candle, Daniel thought for a moment that Rhea’s eyes had turned a deep black. He blinked and they were blue again. Don’t be so silly, he told himself, just a trick of the light.

“Sailors tell of sirens singing,

wraiths from the depths, destruction bringing.

It can stay beneath the waves for hours,

and take the form of those it devours.”

Takes the form of those it devours. Wraiths from the depths. Daniel shifted uneasily and glanced at the backpack propped against the wall. The name RHEA was emblazoned upon it in large pink letters. Rhea followed his gaze and smiled again. Come on man, he chided himself, stop being ridiculous. It’s just a creepy poem.

“A hundred years it sleeps before,

it wakes to hunt and feast once more.

A hundred days it feasts unabated,

and sleeps again once desire is sated.”

Rhea paused and Daniel watched her in silence, all former drowsiness gone. She licked her lips, and for a moment he glimpsed teeth as sharp as knives. He thought of the way she had devoured her meal and cracked the bones. The light in the cabin began to darken and shrink.

“Wanderers and Pilgrims take care,

lest you stray into the Eldivore’s lair,

where it sucks the marrow from the bones,

of travelers roaming far from home.”

As Rhea finished her narration, her black eyes regarded Daniel with a cold, predatory interest. She smiled, but this time the smile was much too big for her face. The lips parted, revealing a mouth full of shark like teeth, in a face that was no longer human.

She rose swiftly from the chair, growing taller and taller, mouth growing wider and wider. He wanted to flee, but could not move. The glamour gone, the once cozy room could now be seen as it really was, a fetid, rotting hulk filled with decay. Rhea’s backpack was still there, and Daniel understood that whoever Rhea once was, she too had been lured here by the candle as he had, and devoured.

The shadow of the Eldivore loomed upon him, blocking out all light. Daniel looked helplessly up into that gaping maw and began to scream.

Outside the rotting cabin, the rain continued to fall. Frenzied screams pierced the night, followed by gurgling, wet, choking sounds that slowly faded into silence. Then came the low rumbling growls of a predator feeding. The chomp and crunch of splintering bones and the tearing of sinew and flesh.

Inside the cabin, the candle went out.

.