Tired of the everyday routine? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you Escape! Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure! Tonight, we escape to a lonely lighthouse off the steaming jungle coast of French Guiana and a nightmare world of terror and violence. As we bring you again in response to hundreds of requests, Three Skeleton Key, starring Vincent Bryce. Picture this place. A gray tapering cylinder welded by iron rods and concrete to the key itself. A bare black rock 150 feet long, maybe 40 wide. That's at low tide. At high tide, just the lighthouse rising 110 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-o-war and yes, sharks, the big ones, the 15 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. Set in the base of the light was a watertight bronze door. And in you went. And up. Yes, up and up and round and round. Past the tanks of oil and the coils of rope, casks of wicks, racks of lanterns, sacks of spuds and cartons and cans and up. And up and up, round and round. Over the light store room was the food store room. And over the food store room was the bunk room where the three of us slept. And over the bunk room was the living and cooking room. And over the living and cooking room was the light. She was a beauty. Big steel and bronze baby with the sun gleaming through the glass walls all about bouncing blinding little beams off the big shining reflectors, glittering and refracting through her lenses. The whole gigantic bulk of her balanced like a ballerina on the glistening steel axle of her rotary mechanism. She was a sweetheart of a light. And at night she'd lie there on the stone deck of the gallery with her evolving smoothly and quietly over your head, easing her bright white eye 360 degrees around the horizon. You'd lie there watching to see that the feeders kept working, that everything ran right. And it wouldn't be bad, the other two fellows snoring in their sacks two levels down. You'd smoke your pipe to kill the stink of the wind and it wouldn't be bad. About those other two, Louis and August. 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... 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 are getting to be as bad as August. I thought maybe for once they send me somebody who... That was Louis. When he accused me of becoming like August, I quieted down because August 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. Yes indeed, played in over 200 different productions dear boy at the Grand Guignol. Oh but it was monstrous, horrible. The way we used to scare the audiences. 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 theater. My nerves you understand. Yes gave it up completely. I really did. Couldn't stand it any longer. It all started one morning at 2.30. I was on watch, lying on the cool stone deck, pulling on my pipe, staring out at the blackness, the phosphorescent comers and the big yellow stars. When out of the corner of my eye I noticed something show up for a second. Something the light had touched far off. I waited for her to come around again and when she did, there it was. A three master, a big one, about a half mile off and coming down out of the north northwest, coming straight for us. You must understand our light was where it was for a very good reason. Dangerous submerged reefs surrounded us and ships kept clear. But this one, this sailing vessel was coming straight on. I went over to the gallery door and yelled, Louis, Louis. Couldn't understand it. I waited for the light to come around again. What is that? Ship headed for the reefs. Carry it right up. I had the glasses out now. I couldn't read her name, but I could see her quite plainly. All sails set, the foam creaming away under her bow, her beautiful lines. A Dutch ship, I guessed it. But why didn't she turn? Every time it passed, our light hit her with the glare of day. Ship? Where? North, northwest. The light will touch her in a moment. Can't they see? Look at her. She just keeps coming on. Yeah, the square head. What is it? What is it? Watch north, northwest. I know. I know what it is. Huh? What? The Dutchman, the flying Dutchman. We did a play about her once. Oh, what a performance. You ghastly galleon, haggard and curse driven muster. Shut up, will you? She's laughing. Yes. What a sloppy way to come about. She's derelict, that's it. Derelict? Abandoned. The crew left her for some reason or other. But instead of sinking, she's gone on, running before every wind. She'll not run long, not with these reefs to break her up. Beautiful ship. Now, why would man leave a beautiful ship like that? She didn't ram us, although we all expected it. But as we waited for the crash, she left again, caught some odd gust and went about. We watched her the rest of those black hours, healing and rocking, pushed and pulled by every stray wind, every freak current. Watched her until the dawn came, till the sea turned from black to a pearly gray. And on she came again, heading for us. We all had our glasses trained on her now. August, you can kill the light. Right, Chief. She doesn't look so good by daylight. Think she'll ground this time? What? I say, do you think she'll ground this time? This is impossible. Absolutely impossible. What? Here. Take my glasses, they're better than yours. All right. What is it you're... 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 mass and yards, the guys and all were hundreds, no thousands, no... I don't know, an endless number of enormous rats. See them? Yes, I see them. Now we know why she's derelict. Yes, now we know. What are you two doing? Here, give me a look. Yes, give him the glasses. Take a good look, chatterbox. Give you something to talk about. She's still heading for us. Yes. She's going to turn. She better turn soon. Suppose she doesn't. You mean suppose she piles up on the key. It's low tide. Yes. Yes, it is. There's all the conversation, August. Here, want the glasses again? Want another look? No, no. She's still coming on. Go away! Go away! Turn! Will you turn, I say? I pray you turn! She's cracking up. The rats. Look on the water, like a carpet. They're swimming. Sure, they're swimming. Those are ship's rats. But they're swimming for the rocks. The door below. It's open. Come on. Down we went, racing down the stone stairs, taking them three and four at a time. Scared? You bet we were scared. August, you get the windows. Maybe they can climb. We don't know. Right, Chief. But hurry, hurry! Look. See them? No. Oh, yes, I do. Up at the other end of the rock. Look at them aliens. They smell us. Here they come. Close the door. And can it stop? Here, let me. Oh, move. He made it. Holy. That was close. One guy in. Look, there. Get him! Watch him. He's kicking. He was as big as a term, that bigger. And his eyes were wild and red. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. He was a big guy. And now he was the biggest guy in the world. And his eyes were wild and red, his teeth long and sharp and yellow. He went for a scab 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. Got him. We better get aloft. As we ran up the winding staircase, we passed the tiny windows of the various levels. And at every one was a thick, wriggling, screaming curtain of brown fur. I was ahead of Louie and I dreaded each successive level. Suppose they had found a way in. Look at them! Will you look at them? It's a nightmare! Will you look at them? 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. I could not see the sky, nothing, nothing but them. Their red eyes, their claws, their wriggling, hairy snouts, their teeth, their 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 classroom under our beautiful light. And we waited. What can we do? What can we do? Take it easy, old man. Take it easy. I can't, I just can't. It won't do any good to stand here in shape. That's right. Anybody want a cigarette? Yes, yes I have one, thank you. Good boy. We've got to keep calm about this thing. Here's a light. There they go, light the fire, do they? Guess not. Give me another match. You don't like that much, do you? Don't rile them, August. Give me some more matches. I'll strike them and strike them and strike them until they get scared and go away. They won't go away. Not until... Finish it, Jake. Not until what? Not until they've been fed. You can take just so much horror and then you get used to it. And they were interesting to watch, you know. They couldn't understand the glass. They could see us and they could rush at us, but that thin invisible barrier held them off, stopped them. From time to time we caught a glimpse of the rocks below. More rats down there swarming brown velvet in the bright tropical sunlight. And then the tide began to rise. If only it had drowned some of them. Ships rats don't drown. No sir, you cannot drown one of them. They're all climbing up the tower. This bunch around us is getting thicker. Say, what's the time? Quarter of six. You've got first watch, John. Right. Wake me at ten. I will. Come along, August. It was getting dark. One side of the room was lit a soft filtered red. Sunset through the rats. Oh, very pretty. I set the wicks, checked my fuel and then lit the lamps. It caught them. Lit them in their gigantic wriggling web of pale hairless bellies twitching red tails bright eyes. Then I started the rotary motor. Light drove them mad as she swung slowly and smoothly about. She blinded them in the fierce stabbing bar of light. Moving continually about ever turning, ever touching, ever moving around and around. And they twitching and shuddering, eyes flaming when they were struck by the light. Bright light moving and behind on the dark side of the room. So close, so close I could not turn my back, but you cannot help turning your back when you're in a room made of glass. On the dark side of the room you could not see them, but only their eyes. Thousands of points of blank red light blinking and twinkling like the stars of hell. Louis relieved me at ten, but I didn't get much sleep that night. And when I came up into the gallery early next morning, there stood August, his back to me. And I was bowing to the rats, waving his arms and making a speech. I am going to play once again that magnificent role which made me the toast of the Paris Theatre. Prelude, the evil genius of the medieval underworld. I am he who did guide the dark soul of the marishal into the nether parts. Do not be frightened little children. I will not hurt you. I stood staring at him, horror struck, but he didn't notice me. The man had gone mad. He kept purring, telling his stories to all the rats, leaving no one out. August, August! Ah, another one, a late comer. Take a seat on the aisle, dear patron. August, stop it, stop it! Let the gentleman be seated. But he didn't stop. He went on bowing and scraping to the rats, his big blue eyes rolling and winking, his wild red hair waving about him. I grabbed him by the arms and slapped his face. He looked at me like a child. And then his face screwed up. He looked as though he were about to cry. Go below, go on. Oh, very well then. Later, my dear audience, later. Met you nay today. Sure, he was crazy. But I guess we all were. A few hours later, he came back up and caught Louie and me teasing the rats. Yes, sounds horrible. It was fun. We could get right up against the glass and make faces at them. It drove them crazy. They would scratch away, trying to get at our eyes. Louie was even cuter about it. He'd pull a piece of bread out of his pocket and press it against the glass. The rats would scramble into a solid ball, biting each other, clustering like grapes. From time to time, a whole knot of them would slip and fall 110 feet to the surf below. Look! Look at the sharks! They're eating them. The sharks are our friends. Here, here, I'll get another bunch together. Here, my beauties. That's it. Pile of... kill each other. There they go! Oh, Goose joined in too. Oh, very ingenious, oh, Goose. He learned that if he spread-eagled himself against the glass, they'd bunch and bundle against his figure. Then he'd leap back. Look! My portrait in rats! It went on all day. And then I was lying in bed. It was about midnight. I was very tired and I was just beginning to fall off to sleep when I became conscious of a new sound. Couldn't figure it at first. I got up, lit the lamp, and went to the window. Even as I looked at it, I saw one of the panes begin to sag in. They had eaten the wood away. Louie! Louie, come quick! What? What is it? They found a way in. I held the glass with my hand. Now they were all going crazy and assured of the success of this maneuver, were all nibbling away at the wood. Louie ran below and then returned with a large sheet of tin. We spread it against the window and hammered it into place. Even as we did so, we felt the heavy body studding against the other side as the window gave way. That ought to hold. If it doesn't, we're done for. Rats can't eat tin. No, they can't. What was that? I don't know. It came from below. The star room window. They're in! They're swarming up the stairs! Drop the trap! Right! Two of them got in. Let's go after them. We didn't have to go after them. They came at us. I leaped to one side and grabbed a marlin spike, swung and smashed one in midair. No! I whirled to see Louie with the other. It had ripped his hand open and the blood was pouring all over the place. He held his hand aloft and kicked at the snarling rat. I stepped and swung and got him. My hand! He got my hand! That's both of them, Louie. I'll get you something to tie that up. My blood! Look at it! My blood! I'm bleeding! Now don't worry about it, Louie. Here, look. I'll wind this kerchief around it. You'll be okay. Blood! There now. It's not bad, just the flesh. Then I became conscious of another new sound. They were gnawing their way through the wooden trap door. I watched the wood, fascinated. Even as I did it began to give way and a bristling, whiskery nose showed through. Louie! Louie, we've got to go up! Next level was the little courtesan kitchen. I slammed the trap door there too. But it too was wood. My blood! What are we going to do? Hell no. We'll be through this one in a moment. The gallery. The trap door and the gallery is metal. Good. Come on. We made it. We lay across the trap door exhausted. While below us the rats took over the entire tower. I could hear them howling and fighting over our food supply, our water, our leather. And all about us the others screamed and glared in at us. Swayed in a tangled mass hypnotized by the ever-turning light. By morning the air in the little room was horrible. Until now we'd been getting air from the tower below. Now that was sealed off. And so was all our food and water. We lay exhausted, panting, waiting, waiting. The hours crawled on. I was almost dozing from fatigue when I saw a sight that brought me too fast. Would you like to come in, my beauties? Would you? I hold the powers of life and death and I can let you in, you dog. August was standing by the glass and in one hand he held a wrench. He was tapping the glass gently, not quite hard enough to break it. I eased myself to my feet, slowly and very slowly, tiptoed toward him. All I have to do is tap just a little harder. I found a coil of wire in the toolkit and I trust him up. Fastened him to a stanchion in the center of the room. Louis was of no help. He lay on his side looking at his bloody hand, weak and sick as a baby. So there I was, a lunatic and a coward for company and all about watching our little drama, The Rats. The day dragged by. The supply boat wasn't due for another 12 days. I don't know what they could have done if they had come. We had only one way of summoning them and that was to shoot off distress rockets, but the rockets were four floors below. And even if they'd been right there in the gallery, I couldn't have opened a window to fire them. That night I tended the light, but its flame was devouring our oxygen. The following day we lay, thirst tormented, starving, waiting, waiting. The following night I again tended the light, but the small supply of spare wicking we kept in the gallery had become exhausted and quite suddenly about midnight the light went out. There was nothing I could do. Wicks were stored three levels below. Nothing I could do. Nothing. From time to time I'd strike a match to see the clock. When I did it lit up a million red eyes about us. All about us. Watching, waiting. Below it had grown quiet. They'd cleaned us out and now they too were waiting. All waiting. And then the rats quite suddenly were silent. And then I heard it. And then I saw the sky and the stars. The rats were gone. I went to the glass. Out there on the water a small freighter, a banana boat, showing a few lights came softly and innocently at us. The light was out. They didn't know. I wanted to open the windows to call out to them, to warn them somehow, but I was afraid. What if the rats were hiding from me, tricking me? So I waited. She grounded very softly on a reef not two hundred yards from the quay. Grounded so gently that the man playing the cornet, was he a passenger or crew man off watch, didn't even stop playing. They tried washing her back off. I could have told them to save their fuel. The tide was rising. Would have floated her free. And I waited. That's all. That's the story. The sun came up and there wasn't a rat on the whole quay. Every last one of that terrible army had left us, gone back to sea on their new ship. August in St. Asylum, he never recovered. And Louis, they took him into Cayenne where he died of blood poisoning from his bite. Oh yes, well that's the whole of it. And if you'll excuse me now, I must go set my traps. No, no mouse traps. No rats in this lighthouse, I should say not. Life in the lights isn't bad. But sometimes when I see a strange vessel approaching, I get a little nervous, sure. Somewhere on the seas there's a little banana boat without a crew. That is, without a human crew. Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson. Tonight we have presented Three Skeleton Key by George Tudu, adapted for radio by James Pohlin, starring Vincent Price as John. Supporting Mr. Price where Harry Bartel is August and Jeff Corey is Louis. Sound effects on Three Skeleton Key, created by Cliff Thorsness and executed today by Mr. Thorsness, Gus Bays and Jack Sixsmith, have been awarded the best of the year by Radio and Television Life Magazine. Harry Essman was at the control panel and special music was arranged and conducted by Del Castillo. Next week... You are swimming for your life in the dangerous waters off the Florida Gulf Coast, about to be smashed by a launch carrying a vicious criminal who must kill you or die himself. And on shore 500 yards away, the police are waiting to arrest you for murder and there can be no escape. Next week, we escape with an exciting tale of temptation and death on the Gulf Coast of Florida, as John and Gwen Bagney tell it in Danger at Matacumba. Goodbye then until the same time next week when once again we offer you escape. A patch of weeds, a boxer's biography and a mild lukewarm bath, they're all clues that lead the police of Jackson, Michigan to a killer in the gangbuster story on CBS this Saturday night. It's the case of the double push to be heard on most of these same CBS stations this Saturday night. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System. Music
