They Come To Feed

prologue

    A small wiry form scurried up the slight rocky incline with the deftness of a gecko. He was M'boto, a thin, dusky-skinned boy of the Gambusi tribe, the only human inhabitants of this lonely isle. His destination was the mouth of a cave that lay just ahead. He headed there with haste, so that he might beat the gathering storm looming above like a great bird of prey preparing to strike.
    M'boto entered the cave through its gaping entrance, which was protected by a rocky outcropping, like a canopy of granite. He had been there before, having discovered the cave while gathering nuts from the surrounding area on a previous excursion. It had rained heavily on that occasion, and on this occasion, ominous sable clouds were gathering in much the same black mood.     
    The interior of the cave was large and dry, with a nearly level floor. It had several sizeable chambers extending back, away from the entrance. As on each previous visit, M'boto examined the strange surroundings that lay within.
    The roof of the cavern was encrusted with curious crystalline structures of what resembled amethyst and rose quartz. These rough gems emanated a gentle rosy hue which suffused the chamber. But it wasn't the gems with their soft, pulsating glow that held M'boto's attention, the walls of the cave were lined with many peculiar open-faced cubicles climbing from the floor to the ceiling high above, much like the waxen alcoves of a beehive.
    The cubicles were of a dull metal, about three feet wide and equally as deep, hard and perfectly smooth. The many broken shells that littered their metallic interiors attested to their usefulness in cracking nuts, with the aid of a fist-sized stone on M'boto's previous visits.
    A clamorous riot of thunder announced the arrival of the rain. A flash of lightning drew M'boto to the entrance of his refuge, and as he looked inquisitively toward the sky, what he beheld frightened him.
    A maelstrom of many shades and colours seemed to swirl in the firmament over the very mountain in which the cave had been hewn. Tendrils of blinding light and streamers of the blackest jet seemed to grow from the aerial cataract, then suddenly the center seemed to open like a great ebon eye in which a single star seemed poised.
    M'boto became momentarily entranced by the star, the rain and lightning forgotten. The luminous tendrils took on hues of violet and pink and crimson and seemed to reach down enveloping the mountain itself, wrapping it in a fiery cocoon. Frightened, the child receded into the cave. But M'boto's sense of security was short-lived, when he noticed the changes occurring within the cave's confines.
    A ghostly iridescence seemed to play over the interior surfaces of the cubicles like an aurora. As M'boto watched in a mixture of fear and fascination, the insides of the metal compartments seemed to take on an appearance of viscous wetness which gradually congealed, forming into strange pulpy-looking masses that seemed to grow and pulse with life, becoming larger with every passing moment.
    One of the cubes closest to M'boto was nearly full now, dominated by the weird fungus-like organism, but still the boy watched, rapt by the eldritch show. The thing in the compartment looked ropy and moist, its undulating surface a sickly pink, veined with deep purples and blues. Then, with a surprising suddenness, a pseudopod-like feeler reached out to the boy's arm from the palpitating mass. Agonizing pain shot through the child's body, like liquid fire.
    The spell was broken. M'boto ran, terror-stricken, all the way back to his tiny village with all the speed that his scrawny legs could muster, heedless of the pounding rain.
    M'boto burst through the hide doorway of old N'tibi, medicine-woman of the Gambusi, and collapsed quivering at her feet.