Toudouze	Poe
OPENING LINES: My most terrifying experience? Well, one does have a few in thirty-five years of service in the Lights, although it's mostly monotonous, routine work - keeping the light in order, making out reports. Toudouze doesn’t describe the lighthouse until a few more paragraphs until the fifth paragraph: Picture a gray, tapering cylinder, welded to the solid black rock by iron rods and concrete, rising from a small island twenty odd miles from land. It lay in the midst of the sea, this island, a small, bare piece of stone, about one hundred fifty feet long, perhaps forty wide. Small, barely large enough for a man to walk about and stretch his legs at low tide.	OPENING LINES: Picture this place. A gray, tapering cylinder welded by iron rods and concrete to the key itself: a bare black rock, one hundred fifty feet long, maybe forty wide. That's at low tide. At high tide, just the lighthouse, rising a hundred ten feet straight up out of the ocean. And all about it the churning water -- gray-green, scum dappled, warm as soup, and swarming with gigantic bat-like, devil fish, great violet schools of Portuguese man-of-war, and yes, sharks, the big ones, the fifteen-footers. And as if this weren't enough, there was a hot, dank, rotten-smelling wind that came at us day and night off the jungle swamps of the mainland. A wind that smelled like death. A wind that had smelled the slow and frightful death that came one night to this bare black rock.
How did this lighthouse get its name? According to Toudouze’s narrator Jean: Three Skeleton Key , the small rock on which the light stood, bore a bad reputation. It earned its name from the story of the three convicts who, escaping from Cayenne in a stolen dugout canoe, were wrecked on the rock during the night, managed to escape the sea but eventually died of hunger and thirst. When they were discovered, nothing remained but three heaps of bones, picked clean by the birds. The story was that the three skeletons, gleaming with phosphorescent light, danced over the small rock, screaming...	For Escape, Poe never does reveal the origin of the name.
There are three light keepers on Three Skeleton Key. Jean is the narrator, and he names the other two. I had just returned from ly leave at the end of June, and had settled down to the routine with my two fellow-keepers, a Breton by the name of Le Gleo and the head-keeper, Otchoua, a Basque some dozen years or so older than either of us.	In Poe’s story, he shows us the other two. About those other two. Louis and Auguste. What a pair. Louis, he was head man, was a big fellow from the Basque country. Black beard, little hard black eyes and a pair of arms that -- I tell you, those arms were as big around as my legs. Yes, head man he was and what word he let go was law. A silent fellow, and although I spent my first two weeks trying to strike up a real conversation, the most I could ever get out of him was... LOUIS: Jean, I took up this profession because I don't like people. They want to talk too much. It's quiet work, light-tending. Let's keep it that way. You -- you're getting to be as bad as Auguste. I thought maybe for once they'd send me somebody who could keep his mouth shut... JEAN (narrates): That was Louis. When he accused me of becoming like Auguste, I quieted down because Auguste was the talkingest man I'd ever met. The talkingest and the ugliest. He was hunchbacked, stood four feet high, had red hair and big blue eyes. It seems he'd been an actor in Paris. AUGUSTE: Yes, yes, indeed! Played in over two hundred different productions, dear boy. At the Grand Guignol. Oh, but it was monstrous, horrible, the way we used to scare the audiences. I...I was hated. Yes, yes. They used to throw things and hiss and bare their teeth at me. Finally, it got too bad. I couldn't stand it any longer. I gave up the theatre. My nerves, you understand. Yes, gave it up completely, I really did. Couldn't stand it any longer...
Jean sees a ship out on the water ignoring the light, and calls his two mates up to the gallery to see also.. Otchoua nodded soberly, looking at us sharply as he remarked, ''See us? No doubt - if there is a crew on board.'' ''What do you mean, chief?'' Le Gleo had started, turning toward the Basque, ''Are you saying that she's the Flying Dutchman?'' His sudden fright had been so evident that the older man laughed. ''No, old man, that's not what I meant. If I say that no one's on board, I mean she's a derelict.'' And when daylight comes, they see why the ship is derelict: All this time our glasses were riveted on her, and we suddenly cried out together; ''The rats!'' Now we knew why this ship, in perfect condition, was sailing without her crew aboard. They had been driven out by the rats. Not those poor specimens of rats you see ashore, barely reaching the length of one foot from their trembling noses to the tips of their skinny tails, wretched creatures that dodge and hide at the mere sound of a footfall. No, these were ship's rats, huge, wise creatures, born on the sea, sailing all over the world on ships, transferring to other, larger ships as they multiply. There is as much difference between the rats of the land and these maritime rats as between a fishing smack and an armored cruiser. ...And studying the Cornelius de Witt, I turned sick, for her small boats were all in place. She had not been abandoned. Over her bridge, on her deck, in the rigging, on every visible spot, the ship was a writhing mass - a starving army coming toward us aboard a vessel gone mad! We barely had time to leap back, close the door leading onto the gallery, descend the stairs and shut every window tightly. Luckily the door at the base of the light, which we never could have reached in time, was of bronze set in granite and was tightly closed.	Jean sees the ship and calls the other two up to the gallery to join him. AUGUSTE: What is it? What is it? JEAN: Watch north-northwest. AUGUSTE: I know! I know what it is! LOUIS: Eh? What? AUGUSTE: The Dutchman! The Flying Dutchman.! We did a play about her once. Oh, what a performance! "You ghastly galleon, hag-ridden, curse-driven, must on and on....." LOUIS: Shut up, will ya? She's luffing. JEAN: Yes. LOUIS: Sloppy way to come about. She's derelict, that's it. And when daylight comes, they see why the ship is derelict: JEAN: ....I say, do you think she'll ground this time? LOUIS: Hm? This is impossible. Absolutely impossible. JEAN: What? LOUIS: Here, take my glasses. They're better than yours. JEAN: All right. What is it you're --? (narrates) I had to focus, and then my breath froze in my throat. The decks were swarming with a dark brown carpet that looked like a gigantic fungus, but undulating, and on the masts and yards, the guys and all, were hundreds, no thousands, no, mil-- I don't know, an endless number of enormous... rats! LOUIS: See them? JEAN: (Very quietly) Yes, I see them. LOUIS: Now we know why she's derelict. JEAN: Yes, now we know. FOOTSTEPS approach. AUGUSTE: What are you two doing? Here, give me a look. LOUIS (to Jean): Yes, give him the glasses. (to Auguste) Take a good look, chatterbox. Give you something to talk about. JEAN: She's still heading for us. LOUIS: Yes.
	Auguste begins to WHIMPER in fear. JEAN: If she's going to turn, she'd better turn soon. LOUIS: Suppose she doesn't? JEAN: You mean suppose she piles up on the key? LOUIS: It's low tide. JEAN: Yes. Yes, it is. LOUIS: Where's all the conversation, Auguste? Huh? Here, want the glasses again? Want another look? AUGUSTE: No! No! JEAN: She's still coming on. AUGUSTE (to the ship): Go away! Go away! LOUIS (to the ship): Turn, will you! Turn, I say! I pray you, turn!
The ship hits the rocks. But the rats did not drown. Not these fellows! As much at home at sea as any fish, they formed ranks in the water, heads lifted, tails stretched out, paws paddling. And half of them, those from the forepart of the ship, sprang along the masts and onto the rocks in the instant before she sank. Before we had time even to move, nothing remained of the three-master save some pieces of wreckage floating on the surface and an army of rats covering the rocks left bare by the receding tide. Thousands of heads rose, felt the wind and we were scented, seen! To them we were fresh meat, after possible weeks of starving. There came a scream, composed of innumerable screams, sharper than the howl of a saw attacking a bar of iron, and in the one motion, every rat leaped to attack the tower! We barely had time to leap back, close the door leading onto the gallery [the circular walk surrounding the glassed-portion with the lantern] descending the stairs and shut every window tightly. Luckily the door at the base of the light, which we could never have reached in time, was of bronze set in granite and was tightly closed.	The ship hits the rocks. AUGUSTE: The rats! Look! On the water! Like a carpet! JEAN: They're swimming! LOUIS: Sure they're swimming. Those are ship's rats. JEAN: But they're swimming for the rocks! AUGUSTE: The door below! It's open! JEAN: Come on! Three sets of FOOTSTEPS racing down stairs. JEAN (narrates) Down we went, racing down the stone stairs, taking them three and four at a time. Scared? You bet we were scared. LOUIS: Auguste! You get the windows. Maybe they can climb. We don't know. AUGUSTE: Right, chief. But hurry! Hurry! More FOOSTEPS going down, until The FOOTSTEPS slow to a stop. LOUIS: Look! See them? JEAN: No.... Oh, yes, I do. Up at the other end of the rock. The distant sound of millions of SQUEAKING rats, growing louder every second. LOUIS: Look at them! JEAN: Millions! LOUIS: They smell us. Here they come! Close the door. JEAN: Can't! Can't! It's stuck! LOUIS: Here, let me... GRUNTING, they struggle with the door, finally SLAMMING it shut. Muffled SQUEAKING continues. JEAN: Oh, move, you move! Made it! LOUIS: Holy....That was close. A single rat SQUEAKS loudly. JEAN: One got in! Look. There! LOUIS: Get him! They CHASE it, with yells and sounds of kicks.. JEAN (narrates): He was as big as a tomcat. Bigger. His eyes were wild and red, his teeth, long and sharp and yellow. He went for us, starved and ravenous, and we fought him, fought that one rat all over the room. It was -- oh, believe me, I do not exaggerate, it was like fighting a panther. Finally, after a death BLOW, the rat SCREAMS and dies. LOUIS: Got him. JEAN: We better get aloft. FOOTSTEPS going up.
Their first reaction to the rats. Their teeth grated as they pressed against the glass of the lantern-room, where they could plainly see us, though they could not reach us. A few millimeters of glass, luckily very strong, separated our faces from their gleaming beady eyes, their sharp claws and teeth. Their odor filled the tower, poisoned our lungs and rasped our nostrils with a pestilential, nauseating smell. And there we were, sealed alive in our own light, prisoners of a horde of starving rats.	Their first reaction to the rats. JEAN (narrates): The air of the gallery was thick and fetid with the stink of them. The light was dim. Brown. Filtered through the crawling mass that swarmed over the glass all about us. We could not see the sky. Nothing. Nothing but them! Their red eyes, their claws, their wriggling, hairy snouts. Their teeth. The rats. They screamed and howled and threw themselves against the glass. They were starving. And we three, we stood... very quietly. Very, very quietly in the center of the glass room under our beautiful light. And we waited.

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