Chalmundsweigh is the tenth story in The Yellow Butterflies and the final story of Act One. It features the excursion of a zoological research group to a jungle, and the behaviour of the mysterious Dr. Jack Chalmundsweigh.
A PDF of the story's current draft can be found here.
The following sections may contain spoilers. Please proceed at your own risk.
Plot Synopsis[]
The narrator, Dr. Hester Eckhart, converses with the research society's leader, Dr. Woodrow. They discuss their newest member - the enigmatic Dr. Chalmundsweigh - and their approaching expedition. Later, as the group - Eckhart, Woodrow, Morris, Chadwick, Perkinsley, Lefting, Watkins and Rower - waits on the boat, Chalmundsweigh arrives late with his suitcases, apologising. As the group remarks on how rude he is, Woodrow tells them to give him the benefit of the doubt.
As their journey begins, Chalmundsweigh confronts Eckhart briefly, and is extremely awkward. After Eckhart rebuffs Chalmundsweigh, a scream is heard, and the group realises that Doctor Morris has fallen overboard, and he drowns. As the crew mourns the loss, Chalmundsweigh exhibits some odd behaviour, and Perkinsley expresses suspicion. Eventually, Eckhart discovers that Perkinsley is highly suspicious of Chalmundsweigh, fearing that he is 'unnatural'. Chalmundsweigh puts a stop to the conversation, and later, Perkinsley faints, gripped by an unknown illness.
Mysterious ill fate befalls the crew as Lefting begins to suffer from nosebleeds, Chadwick cuts off two of his own fingers by accident, and Eckhart herself is tormented by black larvae that try to crawl into her ears as she sleeps. Perkinsley eventually dies from his illness, and as the crew reaches land, Lefting refuses to leave, barricading himself in due to paranoia. However, during a briefing, he falls violently from the crow's nest, with no indication of how he came to be up there. After a brief moment of agony, he is put out of his misery by Woodrow.
That night, on land, Eckhart exits her tent to see Chalmundsweigh sitting in by the fire. After briefly dismissing her concerns that it'll attract bears, he extinguishes the flames instantly and seemingly vanishes. The next day, Watkins requests that he swaps places with Eckhart, so that he'll work with Chadwick and she'll work with Chalmundsweigh. She reluctantly accepts, and remarks on Chalmundsweigh's odd habits and mysterious behaviour, before returning to camp; Woodrow did not authorise the switch, and was not aware that Eckhart was working with Chalmundsweigh, and Watkins seems just as confused. Watkins is found dead the next morning, having apparently walked off a cliff, and his body is swept away.
Finally breaking, Woodrow calls off the mission, and declares that the group will be heading home immediately, before any more tragedies can take place. However, Chalmundsweigh confronts Eckhart, and after a brief, tensely jovial conversation, abruptly declares that he will now kill her wife, and vanishes into the jungle. Stunned, Eckhart gives chase, suddenly concerned for what's in Chalmundsweigh's suitcase and why her wife was not present at the boat's launch.
Confronting him before a volcanic pit in a clearing, Eckhart finds herself paralysed before Chalmundsweigh, who is effortlessly holding her terrified wife by the neck. He explains his origins - he feared death so much that he could not sleep for months on end. As a result of sleep deprivation, he saw the 'yellow butterflies', which promised him the world if he gave them blood. Now believing himself to be immortal and all-powerful, Chalmundsweigh throws Eckhart's wife into the volcanic pit, and Eckhart, enraged, lunges at him, but before she can endanger herself by attacking him, he is shot by Woodrow, and falls into the fire. Woodrow and a grieving, exhausted Eckhart watch as a cloud of yellow butterflies erupts from the pit into which Chalmundsweigh fell, before departing for the ship.
The surviving members depart for home, and Eckhart, grief-stricken, watches as they pull away, only to notice a figure by the jungle's edge. The figure points, a gesture made by all of Chalmundsweigh's victims before death, before disappearing, and Eckhart's eyes fix upon a column of smoke rising from the trees and into the sky.
Primary Characters[]
- Hester Eckhart - The narrator. A member of the zoological society and one of the only survivors. Fairly stubborn; makes a point of not pronouncing Chalmundsweigh's name correctly even once.
- Woodrow - The leader. Pragmatic and intelligent, but very sympathetic; tortured by the loss of her crew. A hero.
- Jack Chalmundsweigh - The antagonist. A self-described devil worshipping son of evil, the harbinger of the yellow butterflies. Has powers of possession, telelocation, and apparently reality warping, among other things.
Trivia[]
- It's pronounced Harm's Way.