HONEYMOON

They pulled up in their rented red convertible to 76 Achlys Cove. Morgan let out a gasp.

“Oh. My. God.” Can you believe this?”

“I can’t wait to see the view!” Miles said.

She raced up to the door and put the number to the house, while he unloaded.

He looked up at the old mansard mansion. The paint was peeling off the boards and the roof looked as if it sagged in a spot, but he loved it. The house looked like something straight out of a Victorian dream. Or an episode of the Addams family depending on who you asked. But they were a different sort of couple. Hence why they were spending their honeymoon on an island in Downeast Maine, at the end of April, the off season. They were set to stay here for four or five days and then finish their trip up in Bangor where they would be taking the Stephen King Tour before flying out. Miles was a huge horror fan.

They were hikers, and they were there to explore the world-famous Acadia National Park. Busy season began in May sometime, so they decided to beat the crowds and the costs by coming early. So far, it had really paid off. Things were much cheaper, locals were more friendly since the tourists had not worn them down yet, and the house they booked had been the only one even remotely close to the park. Miles and Morgan didn\'t know if that was because it was still not full-on tourist season yet, or if that was because of the limited amount of lodging available.

The house they’d found had been dubbed a “rare find” by the vacation rental service they were using. Miles would have rather stayed at the nice hotel in Bar Harbor, but it wasn’t open for the season. The house itself was on its own island, Maramouth Island. Maramouth island was about an hour from Mt. Desert Island. Caligo, was once a bustling town, but had practically turned into a ghost town since the 1940s

The view from inside the mansion was beyond beautiful, the water seemed to come right up to the windows. Far across the bay, the mountains of the park were visible, jutting out of the water. There was also a small island with a structure in the distance, but he couldn\'t quite make it out. He looked down toward the walkway and saw that there were boats tied up. He couldn’t wait to go sailing.

“What a great house, great view, and it is only an hour away from the park!” Morgan said.

Miles didn’t say it, but he wondered if there was even a grocery store here on the island. Getting to the island had been somewhat eerie. They had to use a thin two laned bridge, which disappeared into the thick fog which obscured the island from view. They’d driven through the town briefly before stopping at their house, and it was a ghost town. Houses dotted the landscape, but judging by their dilapidation and their peeling paint, they seemed abandoned. Tourist spots such as lobster shacks and putt putt golf courses sat forsaken. Fog rolled through the empty streets and heavy painted signs for ice cream and t-shirts hung from their chains and swung back and forth like a hangman at the gallows. Pictures of cartoon lobsters and whales seemed to almost leer sinisterly. It felt more like a facade of a town than a town itself.

There was a book on the counter, “Hikes in Maine”, and there were a few bookmarked. How nice of the host to do that! Morgan turned to one which was a trail leading to a secret sea cave.

“Not many tourists know about this one, just the locals” the note next to the hike read.

“We definitely have to check it out!”

The hike down the trail was a winding trail that led them down the side of a sheer cliff. The path wove back and forth, leading them between outcroppings and patches of wild grass and trees. The views were magnificent. Rough waves crashed against the sheer cliffs dotted with various trees and shrubbery, and the fog rolled in between outcroppings of rock which stuck out from the ocean. It was everything that Morgan had wanted when she imagined the trip. They were from North Carolina and had never seen the ocean meet the mountains and rocky crags the way it did in Maine. It was like they were in another country all together. They seemed to be on the edge of the world, and beyond the fog there was another world, an inconceivable one.

When they got down to the cave, they were amazed. There were so many tidal pools inside and they saw all kinds of amazing fish and anemones inside. The cave itself had such an otherworldly feeling. They saw odd things too. Miles saw some sort of fish, a fish which looked like some sort of mutated cross between a fish and an urchin. Morgan saw a crab scuttling from tidal pool to tidal pool, moving with lightning speed. But with the glimpse she did witness, she thought she had seen the crab with three or four giant pincers instead of the regular two larger arms in front.

As they were heading back out of the cave, they noticed something in the distance for the first time. They were both individually filled with an alien feeling, as if they were witnessing something which ought not to be. Or that they were at the precipice of something forbidden, a haunting epiphany. Only being able to perceive the squirming little parts like cursed beings in the black tidal pools of the abyss, and never being able to perceive that whole, entire vision. That undulating tapestry of cyclical strangeness.

It was a lighthouse on a small island. As Miles looked at it, he thought he heard a humming noise. He bet that the hum was coming from the power that was running the lighthouse. The fog wrapped around the small island, pooling around it like dead milk.

“I wonder if we can see that lighthouse from our place?” She said

“I think we can, I noticed a small island earlier. Do you hear that hum?”

“The what?” she asked, and then a large wave crashed into the rocks and drowned out what she was going to say. Something flashed in her eyes for a moment, she seemed afraid.

“Nevermind”

On the way back from the hike, they stop at the gas station. Morgan ran in to get some drinks while Miles pumped the gas. In the distance off in the water, he could make out the small dot he knew was the lighthouse. He wanted to go over and explore it. Its presence haunted him. He could hear it humming still, even from this far away. How was that possible?

A guy pulled up in a truck with a bunch of empty lobster traps in the bed. He got out, hitting the pavement with a thud. The tree trunk of a man began to pump gas. Miles went to approach him.

“Hey There!” Miles greeted him.

The guy looked at Miles like he had three heads.

“This is probably a weird question but I am not from around here and I figured you might know. Do you know much about that lighthouse over there in the distance? We saw it on a hike and it just…fascinated me.”

“Do not go to the lighthouse.” The man said angrily.

“What?” Miles asked

“Do not go there!” The man shouted angrily. “In fact, you and your wife need to leave this town immediately if you know what\'s good for you. Pick some other tourist trap town to spend all your hard-earned dollars in. This place is… tainted.” He got back in the car and drove off.

Morgan came outside as the man sped away, kicking up rocks.

“What was his deal?” She asked.

“Not sure, some grumpy local who probably hates tourists. You’d think he would be grateful for us bringing some dollars to their suffering economy. He told us we needed to leave town.”

She looked scared “Oh no! You don\'t think he knows where we are staying do you?”

“No, no. We are fine”

“Want to go get a drink?”

“Sure! That and a bite to eat!”

They stopped at a bar on the mainland side of the foggy bridge, a place called the Thirsty Puffin. The guide they’d found in their house had recommended the establishment. The bar, like the town, was once again empty. Miles looked out the window, which was slightly cracked open. The fog was moving faster today. The waves and the water of the ocean churned in a sickening manner, and the thick brine of the ocean assaulted his nostrils. And there was something else underneath it as well. The smells of rotting, beached things. Seaweed, kelp, fish and other strange beings that crawl and float at the bottom of the ocean. The tidal energy, the pulsing of the wind and waves, mesmerized Miles.

After ordering some drinks, they overheard some conversations from the people at the bar. They were talking about how climate change was affecting the lobster catch, how many and where they went, that the temperature of the waters was changing too drastically.

“Soon we won\'t even have any lobster! Think of how much that will hurt tourism!”

Another one of them laughed. “Good I hate those damn tourists. We always have to be beholden to them to make our living. We always have to serve them, serve up our most beautiful parts of our land on a silver platter to them. The rich and the out-of-staters get our best, and we get left with the driftwood. Can’t even enjoy the beaches anymore, most of them are private! You can’t make mother nature your prisoner.” the man said in the thickest Mainer accent Morgan had heard in her life

“They will take and take and then when there\'s nothing left, they’ll spit us out. Move on to the next best thing.”

The bartender came down to us at the end of the bar. “Sorry about them, They’re kooky old timers. Want another drink?”

“Sure, and I have a question for you…do you know anything about that lighthouse out in the distance there?” They could see it from the window, a tiny dot in the distance.

The bartender then told them about the Maramouth Lighthouse. He said there were many odd stories surrounding it but this is the one that was told the most: “In the 1800s, the lighthouse was inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. To combat the lonely isolation of the island, the caretaker had a piano shipped to keep his wife occupied. He probably should have found out her level of expertise before providing this gift, though. Unfortunately, she only knew one song and played it incessantly. Eventually the caretaker could take no more, went a bit insane and destroyed the piano with an axe. Next, he killed his wife and, finally, himself. Today, local folks have claimed to have heard the lone song coming from the lighthouse. There’s another story about three men who stayed out there. Two men and a boy about 15, who was essentially their apprentice. The snow got too bad that winter and they got stranded. The two men…they ate the boy. Bones and all. They’d run out of food. But the worst of it is that the rescue came for them two days after they’d eaten him.”

“That’s a crazy story!” This made Miles even more interested in the lighthouse. He seemed enthralled and unfazed by the horrors that the bartender told him. Meanwhile Morgan was getting more and more frightened. The unnamable feeling she’d felt in the cave had completely crept underneath her skin and into her bones. The shadows in the corners of the bar seemed menacing, and she would catch the few locals who were in the bar giving her a horrible glare.

“The folks that are local around here can get a little weird too. Some of ‘em still worship in the pagan way if you know what I mean. It’s an urban legend probably, but they say some of ‘em worship a goddess. Some call her the Sea Witch, The Fog Mother, the Rotting Goddess, the Goddess of the Driftwood, The Tidal Mother. She is the supreme goddess of these seas, but really, she’s the mother of everything. Because everything came from the sea. That ancient sea. That primordial void. The Abyss. Legends say that the Native Americans used to worship her, that they did deals with her to keep their crops and fishing good. But one time, one of the Natives went against her, and so the Sea Witch punished their kind. Ever since then, the natives did not worship her or speak of her. But when the white people landed here, they learned about her, and some, who had worshipped in the pagan ways in the old country, began to worship her too. But that’s just old legends.”

When they got back to their Gothic abode, the sun was setting.

While Morgan was off in one of the other rooms of the house admiring the strange masks made of seashells and other sea debris which hung from the walls, Miles was in the main room in front of the windows that looked onto the water. He looked on the shelves and found a pair of binoculars and looked out toward the shape in the distance. Sure enough, it was the lighthouse. And Miles could hear it humming. And as he looked out at the lighthouse, he thought he saw someone walking around. But hadn\'t the bartender said the place was abandoned?

Later, Miles and Morgan watched the sunset together on the lounge chairs in front of the windows overlooking the bay. Morgan was talking about their plans for the next day. But Miles was not listening. He was thinking about the lighthouse, and he was listening to the hum.

That night Morgan has a weird dream. In the dream she and Miles were in a boat in the ocean. They were sailing toward something, the black, brackish water crashing against the walls of the boat. She was filled with that sublime terror that often accompanies dreams and visions of madness. As they got closer, she saw that it was the lighthouse. But then it changed. It was not a lighthouse but some sort of magnificent dream structure, a gray tower that emanated immense energies. A sacred structure where something old, something terrible and wonderful lived. Her heart bloomed to receive its wondrous energy. And yet she knew that she was going to be eaten alive.

The next day, Miles woke up early in the morning to watch the sun rise. And to look at the lighthouse. It was humming, pulsing with its magnetic life-force. But as he listened, he realized it was not just a hum. It was a song with a certain haunting, ethereal tune. Miles began to hum the tune.

Later that night, they went to dinner at an upscale restaurant on the island. It was one of the only places open. Normally, they wouldn\'t have spent money on it, but the hosts had left them a gift certificate to go for $200 bucks! They said they are always gifted to the first guests of the season! How nice of them!

The place they went for dinner was fine-dining, and the folks in the place seemed quite stuffy. From their behavior and the snippets of conversation Morgan overheard, they seemed like wealthy snobs. The people that the locals at the bar had been referring to. Miles at one point got up to go to the restroom. While he was washing his hands, one of the wealthy patrons also approached and washed his hands. He was much better dressed than Miles, and he looked Miles up and down judging his outfit.

“This is a weird question, but do you know much about that lighthouse? I am from out of town, and I was…so curious about it.”

The rich snob grinned. “The only people who are interested in it are tourists… There are some tales that surround it but those are just…superstitions.” He spoke in an unbearable transatlantic accent. The man laughed and walked away.

Morgan woke up…the floor underneath her seemed to toss. She lifted her head up to view her surroundings. She was in a boat in the middle of the ocean. She screamed.

“Shhh, Morgan! Baby! It’s okay!” Miles said. He was rowing. It was dark, but she could see a sliver of light creeping up over the horizon. And she could see the lighthouse in the distance. Close. It loomed over them. She didn’t remember it looking so large from the shore near the cave.

“What the fuck, Miles? What are we doing out here? Did you take me out here while I was asleep?”

“I wanted to surprise you honey! I thought it would be romantic!” He said. But the manic, faraway look in his eyes conveyed something else.

They landed on the island, and he let out a gasp in wonder. “Wow looks at that! It’s even more amazing than I imagined!”

Morgan was reminded of her dream. She looked around the island and at first things seemed normal, but as she looked closer, she noticed something was off. All the plants and some of the sea life in the tidal pools looked… off. She couldn\'t say how. It was the same as the ones she’d seen in the caves. The ecology around the lighthouse was warped in some strange way. It was in a subtle way. But when she took in the lighthouse, and everything else all at once, she realized that there was something all wrong with it. It all squirmed and seemed to move…even the lighthouse. The song coming from the structure was now clear. She could hear it now too. And it seemed to be pulling Miles. He walked like a zombie toward the light house. He opened the door and disappeared inside.

“Miles!” She yelled after him.

She followed Miles into the lighthouse. There was a staircase, going up toward the light. But there was also another staircase leading down below. She followed him down the stairs, hardly being able to see her way. At the bottom of the stairs, it opened up into a vast, damp subterranean cave. Water lapped up on the grotto beach, and on that beach stood a grand effigy of a Sea Goddess that had been carved out of stone. On the walls, there was also a carving of a snake and the shape of the moon. There were people in a circle, standing before the giant statue. They were chanting, saying words on top of the song which seemed to emulate from the walls of the grotto. With horror, Morgan realized she recognized all of them, the rich people from dinner. Miles did not seem to notice any of it. He stood in front of the statue looking upon it with sheer sublime wonder. With terror.

“Welcome both of you! We thought you’d never make it” The man Miles had met in the bathroom said. He let out a lecherous laugh. “You’re the first of the season! Must give the old sea hag a nice meal to eat at the beginning, don’t we? Otherwise, the fishing season will be bad and the tourism season will be slow! Can\'t be having that, screwing up our money. Those locals and those savage Indians didn\'t know what they had. Right in the palm of their hand, control of a god. They let her control them. But now it is us who do the controlling. We must give Her some tourists every now and then, but it’s a price we are willing to pay. There’s just so many of you!”

He pointed over to the walls of the cave, the singing walls. She realized that the singing was coming from people, or things that were once people that had become…coral or some sort of growth along the cave walls, their bodies disappearing and becoming part of their environment. Their shivering, squirming growth-like bodies singing that unholy song, their skin glistening like a great fish in the sun, beached upon the rocks.

Morgan also noticed for the first time, two other people off to the side who were tied up, lying unconscious. More tourists? Two cloaked figures, who wore masks made of shells and other materials washed up from the ocean, picked up the unconscious bodies, and dropped them before the large effigy of the statue. They then backed away a few steps. From underneath the sand and rocks, tentacle-like appendages grabbed onto the two bodies. Then they began to feed upon them, latching onto their skin and sucking out their vital essences. Morgan could have sworn she could see the statue squirming, moving almost imperceptibly as if it was waking up. The wet stone of the statue began to take on more of a skin-like appearance. Like the hide of a porpoise.

“Plus there always needs to be a keeper of the lighthouse. An eternal keeper. The right hand man of the Sea Witch. The snake and the moon. The Mother of The Abyss. Mother and her Son, bright Lucifer himself! The keeper is the one who guards the Sea Witch. Who watches and waits. Who serves her eternally. Or until his earthly fleshy vessel falls apart. Then we get a new one. Surprisingly, it’s tough on the body, to contain something like the keeper…something so alien and something so ineffable within our rotting corpses. Miles, you will become our new keeper. And you, my lady… you will be food for the goddess. You will be her first meal of the season. And your blood will feed us. Feed our pockets.

The men grabbed her and shoved her forth from the statue, which was now not a statue, but something else. A creature made of sea-soaked flesh which stank of salt and seaweed. The song rose high and the voices rose to match, and as the slimy tentacles rose from that ruddy grotto floor, she felt them latch into her. And she became One with the Mother. She was the briny wind, she was the waves and the water draining between rounded rocks of marble, rounded by thousands of years of time. She was the sand. She was every squirming thing on the floor of the ocean, she was the bioluminescent nightmarish fish, she was the giant sleeping thing which rested in the deep. She was the storm, the foam was the rotting things upon the shore. She was the things which ate the rotting corpses of fish. She was the warped crustacean within the sea. She was the fog, she was the deep, she was the abyss, she was one with her mother, again. The moon pulling at her stomach, the waves a drum echoing in the expanse, the metronome of the song of the Sea Witch.

She was the Sea Witch. She had always been the Sea Witch. And Miles was her keeper. And he watched over their land and their house.

And they waited for the people to come, to worship the flesh of the mother. To pay with their sublime ecstasy. Their longing in their human hearts to be something more, something beyond. Something flying on that salty wind. Something which lived within the fog, forever. She could feel the waves crashing against her, within her. And the moon again, pulling her deeper and deeper into the embrace of the ocean.

What a lovely Honeymoon it had been, after all.

About the Author

Zak Cowell is a horror author and published poet residing in Bangor, Maine, home of the \"King\" of Horror himself! He has had a collection of short stories published by Madness Heart Press titled: \"Tales From Devil\'s Peak\", and in 2024, his story \"The Tragedy of the Laughing Clown\" was produced for season 21, Episode 12 of the award winning podcast, \"The No Sleep Podcast\". His poetry has also appeared in numerous collections. He is a Horror Writers Association Affiliate as of 2025. When he isn\'t writing horror stories concerning mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the divine dark feminine which resides in all creation, and the strange duality of being both an animal and a man in the modern world, he likes to hike, work in his garden, and spend time with his wife Shelby and his two puppies. His instagram and Bluesky handle is Reprobvte.