It is 4 October. There are 27 days until Halloween.

One of my all-time favorite pictures is John Carpenter’s The Fog. Sure, it’s a spooky movie, and it’s got POTA (Pittsburgh’s Own, Tom Atkins), but the main reason for my love is Stevie Wayne, as played by Adrienne Barbeau. Why? Because she’s got the perfect job and the perfect workplace, that’s why. Stevie is the sole owner/sole operator of AM radio station KAB (located on your dial at 1340), broadcasting the smoothest of jazz from atop a lighthouse hugging the rocky coast near Antonio Bay, CA.

The fact that she drives a Volkswagen Thing to work everyday and lives in a town where you can get a Stomach Pounder and Coke for lunch is just an added bonus.

While living and/or working in a lighthouse holds a certain amount of romantic appeal, there are numerous dangers. Like Ms. Wayne, you could be attacked by leprous ghost seeking revenge. You could be surrounded by semi-sentient, carnivorous plants that have taken over the world (Day of the Triffids). You and a friend could lose your minds, drink the fuel meant for the light, and kill each other (The Lighthouse). Or, as is the case in today’s featured radio drama, your little island could be overrun by rats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of rats.

What a choice!

It’s a bit ironic when a radio program asks its listeners if they “want to get away from it all,” then proceeds to tell a story filled with such paranoid, insular, cramped, asphyxiating horror as “Three Skeleton Key.” This radio play takes place in a single setting, a lighthouse, but as the action progresses, the setting shrinks until you are trapped along with the men in a single room.

The programs of the Golden Age of Radio had at their disposal a frightening array of actors. Men and women like Boris Karloff, William Conrad, Mercedes McCambridge, and Agnes Moorehead lent their vocal skills to scores of radio drama. “Three Skeleton Key” was performed many times on the air with many great actors (including the aforementioned William Conrad). The version I’ve chosen, stars the one and only Vincent Price. A man more well known to radio audiences for playing the suave Robin Hood-type criminal, Simon Templar, otherwise known as The Saint, Price uses his mellifluous voice to play the rough-and-ready, Jean. As the stakes get higher and the rats get closer and closer, Price matches the terror and horror of the situation. Through him, the listener can feel the vermin that came ashore aboard the unmanned ship nip at their heels.

The tale was based on a short story written by French author Georges-Gustave Toudouze. It was published in 1937 in Esquire, the same magazine that, a year later, would publish another “man vs nature” classic, Carl Stephenson’s "Leiningen Versus the Ants." (Stay tuned to this blog for more on that story!) If you want to read the story yourself, click here for a copy. Click here to listen to the 1950 version as aired on Escape. You can follow along with the script by clicking here. As usual, HorrorBabble offers a wonderful reading of Toudouze’s short story. There is also a short film made from the story over on Vimeo.

This play may not be the usual Halloween fare. There are no ghosts or vampires or anything supernatural, but I’ve always found it to be chilling and terrifying. The sound of the rats gnawing their way into lighthouse will stay with you for good long time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to jump into my VW Thing and run out to get a Stomach Pounder and a Coke…