Our Bitter Lure

I’m posting here hoping some of you can help me. I heard that a recent post might have some relation to my experience, and if any of you know of any other possible links to that story, or any others, I’d really appreciate it. However, I’m not exactly holding my breath. I’m pretty sure I’m beyond help now.

At the age of three my non-verbal son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. I remember feeling frustrated at the time because nobody could tell us exactly how it would develop. We did the therapy and the treatment which we’d been told could have helpful effects, but as time went on it felt like all the talk of hope and improvement was for someone else because nothing ever really got better. By the time we lost his mother, my wife, it was already clear to me that he’d never be able to function on his own.

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll get this brief feeling of a reciprocal attachment from him, but it’s always fleeting and I often wonder if I’m imagining it. I still love him, of course. He has a million little endearing qualities but it’s been six years since his mother passed and it’s been hard adapting to the crushing loneliness. We’ve since moved to the Welsh coast: the low house prices and the sparsity of roads, cars, and people made it a good choice for us, but it’s only heightened my sense of isolation.

We were going to name him Michael at one point, so that’s the name I’ll use here. But Michael… Michael has flourished in this environment. He can’t write but he likes to take photographs and document the wildlife. He has dozens of thick binders filled with pictures of plants and insects that he’s taken, all organised in some esoteric way only he understands. I think he knows a lot about the world around him, and I think in many ways he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.

It’s like I’m the assistant to some strange professor. I often feel a quiet sort of happiness to following him around, keeping him safe, as he picks out shells on the beach for his collection. For the most part, things have been at a comfortable status quo for many years, but a few weeks ago something started that has me worried for my son. And what worries is that I’m not just fighting the threat of some outside force, I have to fight Michael’s very nature as a living, breathing, human being.

About a year ago Michael started masturbating. I was prepared for the eventuality and I took efforts to make things safe and simple for him. I guess this is where the isolation comes in handy… if Michael were to see a woman he finds attractive, either on the television or in real life, he’d be inclined to start masturbating openly there and then. Thank God I haven’t had to take him on the tube. And y’know, I was a teenager once myself. I remember how overwhelming those urges can feel, but where I had some measure of what was and wasn’t appropriate, Michael doesn’t. In many ways, it’s a compulsion. And what I’m afraid of is that, somehow, something has picked up on that compulsion and knows that it makes him vulnerable.

Something… even just writing it makes me feel stupid. It’s hard to describe exactly what it is. Where do I start?

A few weeks ago we found something washed up on the shore. It was another cold miserable day with overcast skies and a grey featureless sea. Across the channel we could glimpse the ethereal outline of England’s coast that broke up the distant fog. We were trudging along wet sand, stopping to occasionally finger a broken shell or dying crab, when I spotted a broken half-buried figure no bigger than my hand. Pulling it free, I saw that it was a small ivory carving marbled with deep iridescent green that shimmered in the sun. It was a beautiful piece of art that depicted a merman with the chiselled body of a human, and the tail of a fish, but the head of a strange deep-sea creature. Much of the features had long since eroded, but something about the deep slit eyes and rows of glassy teeth sent shivers down my spine. I pocketed the statue, ready to show it to Michael, only to see him awkwardly standing with his back to me, jerking and shaking like he was having a fit.

His eyes were fixated on something in the sand, and when I pulled him around to face me I saw that he was openly masturbating. His eyes were filled with a vacant disappointment when he saw me, and he quickly pushed me away and got down on his hands and knees and started digging in the sand. There was the faint impression of something moving under there, but at the time I wasn’t sure. It took over an hour before he stopped, and I knew better than to try and stop him.

That night he fell asleep with his head on the windowsill, staring out at the sea, while I stroked the statue I’d brought back from the beach. The entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about what exactly it was he’d been touching himself to: my head was filled with troubling thoughts. That morning I found Michael waiting by the door already dressed and ready. He could not typically dress himself, nor was he usually able to break routine, but here my son was, eager to skip the pre-recorded Dexter’s Laboratory and Shredded Wheat.

When we reached the beach he ran straight to the same spot from the day before and, seeing it all now washed away, became sullen. After a minute or two of scuffing the sand with his feet, he moved on and started examining a nearby tidal pool filled with seaweed. I breathed a sigh of relief, and it wasn’t long before I was sat, bored, on some nearby rocky outcroppings while my son carried on doing his thing. By chance, I looked down towards my feet and noticed something looking straight back at me.

It looked like a closed eyelid made of elephant skin. It shimmied up out of the sand and into the light where it remained still for a moment before the folded lids slowly pulled apart. They moved not like eyelids at all, but more like the lips of a mouth, and the folds trembled in the gentle breeze. With horror, I noticed that something else moved below the sand, so far down it barely disturbed a single grain, but so immense in size it caused the whole ground to rise and fall like the gentle breathing of a giant. I could trace the subtle movement all the way back to the sea itself, although thankfully Michael remained oblivious.

The strange eye-thing had started to glisten, the lips now wide enough to reveal a ribbed gullet that ran down into the sand. On one side of the slit, where layers and layers of thick grey skin piled up, a small black orb was sat, no bigger than a fingernail. I grabbed a nearby stick and slowly leaned forward to poke it, feeling watched the entire time. When I gently prodded it, I was suddenly struck by the sense that the whole world had turned upside down. There was a thunderclap of air, a sense of falling into the very Earth, and the next second I was on my back staring at the sky. Soon enough, Michael’s face appeared and he waited nervously as I picked myself up. Bizarrely, there was now a trench, about a metre deep, that ran all the way from where I’d been sat to the very sea.

Michael had no idea what had happened and made no protest when I told him it was time to leave. I wasn’t even hurt that badly, but I wanted to get him the hell away from that damn sea. Something about that strange oval slit and the peculiar glistening fist-wide gullet that throbbed with anticipation had put into my mind exactly what it was Michael had seen the previous day, and why his confused young mind had found it so enthralling.

It was a few days before we saw it again. This time we were walking close to the mouth of a river that opens out into the sea. The silty water flows hard and fast, all brackish and grey. Close to the river mouth, but about half-a-mile from the coast itself, there are flatlands filled with tidepools where Michael likes to photograph various finds. I was looking across the river, out to the open expanse of desolate and over-grown sand dunes that lie on the other side when Michael, who was near to me, suddenly started crying and walking towards the water. I instinctively grabbed a hold of him and tried to pull him back, but we were close to the slick clay banking that slopes down into the water, and I struggled to find purchase on the water-logged soil. Together, we fell, and Michael began to claw his way towards the ocean—digging his fingers deep into the grey Earth.

I kept trying to look up at the water, hoping to see or understand what it was that was calling to him, when something in the water caught my eye. I briefly caught glimpses of grey slick skin bobbing appearing and disappearing behind the rough waters, and an immense shadow beneath the river that trailed back and out into the ocean itself. It started moving towards us, and even as I hung onto Michael, we both stopped to stare at the bizarre sight. There were curving breasts and grey-blue hands that groped and caressed its own skin, and black hair tangled with seaweed. It looked, at a glance, like a woman’s body struggling in the water.

Except, it was profoundly wrong. There were several breasts, hands that emerged from nowhere, sometimes bound and webbed to the thorax, stark white nipples arranged in constellations, multiple belly buttons resting on smooth midriffs that were arranged like the faces of a die, and delicate ribs protruding beneath velvety skin that moved like nervous fingers. The head of hair was not attached to anything specific, and occasionally I saw different parts drift further and closer to one another.

Michael was crying, loudly. His strange wails lost to the howling wind as he struggled to go further into the cloying mud. I had to use every bit of strength to keep a hold of him, so much so I failed to notice that the thing was moving, coming closer and closer.

It landed on the banking with a wet slap. Its presence immediately caused Michael and I to pause, filling me with terror while Michael’s sobs turned into grateful happy whines. I suppose I would describe it as like a bunch of grapes. There was a thick black vine, easily as wide as my arm, that looked like it was made out of half-chewed liquorice. This strange looking cord split into dozens of small appendages along its length, each one terminating with a swollen sickly grey protrusion that, bunched together, resembled a sort of broken Venus. Parts of it writhed in a mocking imitation of a woman on her back, leg’s spread, but the legs did not connect to the hips, nor did the pelvis touch the upper torso. They were just parts, each one roughly the right size and shape, all pulled together in a way that looked a bit like a person. This strange bait hung over the edge of the river banking, suspended by the enormous vine that bobbed ten, twenty, feet out of the water.

Michael was enthralled, his breathing having grown heavy. I would say that it was more than a simple case of mistaken identity. He was looking at it the way a child looks at a mall Santa while sat on his knee, intently listening to a lecture on why they need to be good. He was staring at it with a kind of understanding that I had never before seen on his face. Suddenly, he rushed forward with a surprising burst of speed, shaking free of my tackle. Shambling forward in a half-crawl, he lunged and grabbed onto this strange lure.

Despite my initial terror, nothing happened. Even Michael seemed like he’d expected something to happen. He started crying hysterically, holding onto a black twisted branch that leaked clear fluid down his wrists as he squeezed, even going as far to pull and tug on the shape like a kid trying to drag their parent by the hand. When nothing happened, he fell to his knees and despair came over him. He pressed his face close to one of the many stomachs that showed no sign of reaction to his touch, and I finally got up and rushed over to him.

I was within a few feet of him when the lure began to quiver and shake. With violent force it threw Michael aside and, like the ribs of a torso expanding with a deep breath, the whole shambolic imitation expanded. I froze, suddenly aware of just how large and threatening this thing was. The closer I got the more of it that emerged from the waters until there were dozens of misshapen and mismatched body parts hovering like some kind of nightmarish crib-mobile.

Apprehensively, I moved forward anyway, reaching out to grab my hysterical son and pull him back to me. Carefully, I moved him further away, finding it easier now that he’d fallen into a deep despair. By the time I hauled him back just a few metres he had fallen unconscious and, one by one, the grey fruits slunk back into the river and the sub-surface blot that had birthed them faded away.

I remember how afterwards, I hoped that it would be like a dream, something that just disappeared after we got home, but the effects lingered. Michael grew cold towards me. He started refusing any food or candy I gave him and went out of his way to try and do things without my help. Sometimes I’d catch him glaring at me with contempt, lingering in doorways or stopping what he was doing to scowl in my direction. In some ways there grew a subtle distance between us, one that I found surprisingly hard to deal with. Once I found him sketching a crude picture of the thing from the sea, and when I approached him to look at it he cried out, snatched the papers and ran away, refusing to let me get close.

I spent my time turning things over and over in my head. I became convinced this thing wanted to take my son away from me, but I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t moved or gone for him when he’d broken loose by the river. I knew there was a part of this I was missing, but I was at a loss to figure out what it was. The ambiguity and strange sense of isolation and despair in my own home left me worried and paranoid. Every night, I found myself pouncing towards the window with each scuffle or sound that came from outside. I was never sure, but a few nights I awoke to Michael sobbing by an open window with wet wrists, refusing to let me near while looking at me with hatred and betrayal in his eyes. I couldn’t say if I was right, but I swore I often glimpsed the odd passing shadow insane and frightening shapes.

It grew worse with time. Michael stopped eating entirely and spent more and more time with his door locked. Sometimes I’d wake to find him sitting, naked, on the sofa with a pile of wet clothes by the front door. Days went past but he still wouldn’t eat, losing weight while his strange disappearances grew with frequency every day. The last week has been one long painful panic attack as I wonder if one day I’d finally wake up to find him drowned on the shore. I love him, he is not only my son, he is my closest friend. I couldn’t bear the idea of losing him, but even as it was, I felt like he was drifting further and further away.

Last night, my worst fears were confirmed. I found myself awoken at around 2am by a strange nightmare. In the dream, I floated aimlessly in an infinite abyss swathed in aquatic greens and an eternal murky haze. Below me was an eerie landscape of jagged mountains and sulphurous plumes, through which slithered a mountainous figure swathed in darkness. I awoke only when it occurred to me that it was the figure from the carving, it’s swollen fish like head augmented by a strange glowing tree made of twisting, wretched writhing limbs that seemed to rise up into an infinite cosmic sky.

I would have dwelt on this more except when I awoke, I could hear someone speaking outside. Shaking off the dream, I snuck up to my window and found Michael kneeling by the darkness, muttering quietly. I was flooded with confusion and—I know this a pathetic thing to admit—horrific jealousy. Michael should not have been able to speak and… yes I felt jealous that he spoke to that thing, but not me.

I dressed and ran downstairs, grabbing a shovel on the way before sprinting past Michael and screaming at the top of my voice. I didn’t get far before staggering to a halt, shaken by the terrifying lure that quivered with pleasure at the sight of me. Whereas before it had taken the shape of a woman’s body, it was now a sort of mosaic face the size of a bus. Each branch bore a different clump, including ears, eyes, two swollen lips, and a hollow skull-like cavity for a nose. All of them coming together to resemble a flat, female face that floated and blinked, writhing in a disjointed asynchronous tempo. From behind, I heard Michael start to cry over and over,

“Not me! Not me! Not me!” and I dropped the shovel in utter confusion. I expected the face to speak to me when the lips began to thicken and flush a marbled grey, but instead they simply smiled exposing the garden behind the clumsy toothless grin. Michael pushed past and grabbed the nearest part of the face, whose smile only widened at his affections. I grabbed the shovel once more and this time, steeling myself, I struck the nearest vine as hard as I could.

Again, there was a thunderclap and the world disappeared in a roaring mess of darkness. When I opened my eyes, I was left staring at a patch of dirt with only the sound of Michael’s frantic cries to break the wind.

“Not me! Not me! Not me!” he sobbed.

I pushed myself up and saw him kneeling at an enormous trench that had been rent through our garden. Behind our land lies a small field, and then beyond that some cliffs that lead to the beach. Tracing that tear in the soil I saw a path that led all the way back down the sheer vertiginous drop and into the far-off sea. I was close to the cliffs, squinting at this impossible sight, when I realised that Michael’s crying had stopped. I turned to find him staring at me in the darkness. There was murder in his eyes, his fists clenched and his chest heaving.

In that moment my heart broke. I would have let him kill me there and then, I even had fleeting thoughts of willingly jumping to my death. But Michael spoke to me, for the first and last time in my entire life.

“You!” he hissed, with an astounding hatred. “Not me!”

And with that he went to jump. I’m not proud of what I did next, but I struck him. He isn’t a big lad, but he’s quick. And I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if he managed to actually kill himself. I hit him and I’m ashamed to say I hit him hard and not just out of necessity, but because some part of me was filled with anger and bile.

I remember him slumping to the floor. I remember realising at that moment that our relationship ceased to exist. There was no place for me in his world anymore. That thing… it was driving him insane. I know now there’s no place for me anywhere. I’ve tied him to his bed and, once more to my shame, I’ve drugged him to keep him sedate for a full day or two. I know this is a final betrayal but I hope one day he may come to realise I’ve done this out of love for him. I just need long enough.

I know now that the lure was never for Michael.

It’s done this on purpose. I know that with dark certainty. But it won’t need to take it any further. Tomorrow some people will come and find Michael. I have no doubt I’ll be vilified as an abuser, but I don’t care. I made the right arrangements years ago should I ever die. I have enough money to pay for private carers for the rest of Michael’s life. He’ll be okay, and really that’s all that matters. And like I said, one day he might remember all this and know that I did it for him. Despite how he appears to others, he’s smartest person I’ve ever known.

He figured it out long before me. I’m sure of that.

Come nightfall I'll go wait, statue in hand. It’ll come, and this time it won’t need to use Michael as bait.