Attack of the Crab Monsters

Opening crawl:
You are about to land in a lonely zone of terror... on an uncharted atoll in the Pacific! You are part of The Second Scientific Expedition dispatched to this mysterious bit of Coral reef and volcanic rock. The first group has disappeared without a trace! Your job is to find out why! There have been rumors about this strange atoll... frightening rumors about happenings way out beyond the laws of nature...

Jules Deveroux:
Strange. We can see only a small part of the island from this spot, but yet you can feel lack of welcome - lack of abiding life, huh?

Ensign Quinlan:
Yeah, I felt the same when I came here before to rescue your first group. I not only knew that they were gone but that they were lost, completely and forever, body and soul.

Jules Deveroux:
I'm not so sure you are right, Monseuir Quinlan. Maybe their bodies are gone, but who can tell of their souls, eh? Maybe if I call to them, they will answer - their ghosts will answer. McLane! Hello, hello! McLane!

Dr. Karl Weigand:
Lieutenant, I don't want to annoy you again, but nothing was left? Not a hair nor a fingernail clipping? Only McLane's journal?

Ensign Quinlan:
Well, that's all, Doctor.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
That they are dead I can believe possible, but to vanish from the face of the earth - No!

Ensign Quinlan:
The Navy thinks they were all at sea in their small boat when the typhoon hit. "Lost with all hands" is an old story.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
Yes, but...

Hank Chapman:
Well, you remember that first big H-bomb test - the one that blew Elugelab Island right out of the ocean?

Seaman Ron Fellows:
Well, who forgets that?

Hank Chapman:
A tremendous amount of the radioactive fallout came this way. A great seething, burning cloud of it sank into this area, blanketing the island with hot ashes and radioactive seawater. Dr. Weigand's group is here to study fallout effects at their worst. Dr. James Carson is a geologist. He'll try to learn what's happening to the soil. The botanist, Jules Deveroux, will examine all the plant life for radiation poisoning. Martha Hunter and Dale Brewer are biologists. He works on land animalism while she takes care of the seafood. Dr. Karl Weigand is a nuclear physicist. He'll collect their findings and relate them to the present theories on the effects of too much radiation.

Seaman Jack Sommers:
But this is the second bunch of brains to come out here. What happened to the first?

Hank Chapman:
They were here, then a storm hit... and they were gone. That's all anybody knows.

Seaman Jack Sommers:
Doesn't anybody wonder?

Hank Chapman:
Everybody wonders! They just don't like to talk about it.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
[reading McLane's journal aloud] "Friday, March 12: This afternoon Professor Carter found a large piece of flesh having the same composition as that of the common earthworm, but measured twenty-four inches by eight. With this section as a measure, the worm-like creature would be more than five feet in length. Most intriguing is the tissue's consistency: it proved impossible to cut - knives passing through the flesh leaving no mark. Fire was applied to the tissue and the corollary result..." The journal ends there.

Dale Drewer:
Well, it's getting very late. Why don't we work out tomorrow's schedule and then get some sleep?

Hank Chapman:
But what about that five-foot nightcrawler? Well, excuse me for being so stupid... me and that book you're reading.

Dale Drewer:
We weren't laughing at you, Hank. It's just that McLane didn't really mean to imply that the flesh was from a big worm. He said, "From a worm-like creature."

Martha Hunter:
You know it might have been a sea worm. They've been know to grow much longer than five feet.

Hank Chapman:
Well, excuse me for shooting my mouth off, but the journal didn't say anything about the sea - just talked about worms.

Martha Hunter:
Jim! But, wh...

Dr. James Carson:
So you heard it, too.

Martha Hunter:
Yes, it was Oliver McLane's voice.

Dr. James Carson:
He called me as plain as day.

Martha Hunter:
Strange... because I only heard him call my name.

Dr. James Carson:
How could the Navy search this whole island and miss a survivor?

Martha Hunter:
If he is a survivor.

Dr. James Carson:
What does that mean? You heard him as well as I.

Martha Hunter:
Someone could have been imitating his voice.

Dr. James Carson:
But who would do that?

Martha Hunter:
I don't know, but I do know that McLane's dead!

Martha Hunter:
Jim, you don't know what's down there!

Dr. James Carson:
What could be other than earth, water and few land crabs?

Dr. Karl Weigand:
We must go faster! There is very little time!

Seaman Jack Sommers:
Little time for what?

Jules Deveroux:
That is Dr. Weigand's small secret. Let us catch him and find out.

Martha Hunter:
I suppose you can tell us what tore up this room last night.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
No, I can not tell you that... but I can tell you this. Everything that has happened from the death of the first sailor to the destruction of our radio must be somehow related. They are too far from the normal scheme of things to be separate accidents.

Dale Drewer:
If there is a single cause, then that cause is outside of nature as we know it.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
We are unquestionably on the brink of a great discovery. It is not likely that that discovery will be of a pleasant nature. That is the sum of my knowledge. If you need more, I suggest you ask Dr. McLane when next his voice calls in the night.

[the sailors are playing poker using dynamite for chips]

Seaman Jack Sommers:
Bet you ten.

Seaman Ron Fellows:
Okay, I'll bet your ten and I'll raise you ten.

[Fellows lays his cigarette on the pile of dynamite]

Seaman Jack Sommers:
If you're not careful, you'll raise us both ten feet!

Seaman Ron Fellows:
Okay, whadda ya got?

Seaman Jack Sommers:
Three queens!

Seaman Ron Fellows:
Well, big deal. So you finally won a hand. I'm still 100 sticks of dynamite and one wild explosion ahead of you.

Hank Chapman:
What does it mean, Doctor?

Dr. Karl Weigand:
He is dead.

Dale Drewer:
But he spoke, Carl.

Hank Chapman:
Is this supposed to be a ghost story?

Dr. Karl Weigand:
No. No, I do not believe in ghosts. We are dealing with a man who is dead, but whose voice and memory live. How this can be I do not know, but its implications are far more terrible than any ghost could ever be.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
What do you want?

Jules Deveroux:
First, I want to reassure you that I am of sound mind, if not of body.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
Any matter, therefore, that the crab eats will be assimilated in its body as solid energy, becoming part of the crab.

Martha Hunter:
Like the bodies of the dead men?

Dr. Karl Weigand:
Yes - and their brain tissue, which, after all, is nothing more than a storage house for electrical impulses.

Dale Drewer:
That means that the crab can eat his victim's brain, absorbing his mind intact and working.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
It's as good a theory as any other to explain what's happened.

Martha Hunter:
But, Doctor, that theory doesn't explain why Jules' and Carson's minds have turned against us.

Dale Drewer:
Preservation of the species. Once they were men; now they are land crabs.

Martha Hunter:
Looks like we're on the verge of a blessed event.

Dr. Karl Weigand:
What's that? What's that?

Martha Hunter:
Or is this the one you killed?

Dr. Karl Weigand:
No, it is still alive! We did not kill it.

Martha Hunter:
Notice the belt of yellow fat around the base of the shell. It would indicate that she's in a very delicate condition. Pretty close, too. I for one should not like to be around to hear the patter of so many tiny feet.

Martha Hunter:
Doctor, you're not going to suggest that we save it for science? That would be suicide!

Dr. Karl Weigand:
No, thank you, Martha. I have no ambition toward becoming a mad scientist, but I do think we ought to try and capture the thing. Would you not like to examine a live specimen?

Martha Hunter:
Certainly I would, but I had a chance to see how the "specimen" examined the lab wall last night.

[Hank tries to contact the U.S. Navy using a jury-rigged wireless telegraph set]

Dale Drewer:
You getting through, Hank?

Hank Chapman:
How should I know? I'm not on the other end of this thing!

Martha Hunter:
Oh, Hank, you must get through.

Hank Chapman:
I know it. It's gone dead

The Crab:
[laughing, with Karl's voice] I'm afraid that won't help you, Hank. By the time ships and planes can arrive, this island will have vanished beneath the waves of the sea.

The Crab:
[with Jules' voice] But you will not drown. You will be a part of me.

The Crab:
[with Karl's voice again] And as with McLane, there will be no evidence of how you vanished, or of my existence. We will rest in the caves and plan our assault upon the world of men!

[last lines]

Dale Drewer:
Hank!... He gave his life...

Martha Hunter:
I know...

Seaman Ron Fellows:
[Hears the sound of crabs approaching] What's that?

Seaman Jack Sommers:
Sounds like a kid dragging a stick across a picket fence.

Seaman Ron Fellows:
We ain't got no picket fence out here!

Martha Hunter:
You know, Dale, it's funny, but I was using a big black rock as a landmark, but when I swam back the rock was gone.

Dale Drewer:
Well, I did see something move near you.

Martha Hunter:
You did? I wonder what it could've been.

Martha Hunter:
Once upon a time, there was a mountain.

Dale Drewer:
Hm?

Martha Hunter:
Yesterday, when we came to this island, there was a mountain out there. Today there's no mountain.