I liked my mom, and sometimes we'd watch "Masterpiece Theater," which always drove Dad crazy, but I made sure that she never knew when I was reading her books again. I'd read only after school and write the page I was on in a tiny notepad so there wouldn't even be a bookmark. She'd asked hopefully a few times if I was ready to work on another novel together, but I'd told her that school was keeping me too busy. I didn't like lying to her, but it was kinder than telling her she ruined the experience for me.
I missed her, and my dad as well, but I really didn't mind being dead. It wasn't what I'd expected from church. You try to imagine what Heaven will be like, and you try not to think about Hell because surely you're not bad enough to go there. Sure, there are ghosts in books and movies. Restless souls who seek vengeance, or gloppy slimers--it's just for entertainment, not to prepare you for the hereafter.
Yet here I stand, as I have for nearly three decades, on a stretch of Shore Road that overlooks the harbor. I wished at first that I'd died closer to Saddle Rock. I'd always been drawn to the Atlantic. Mom had told me once that the lengthy descriptions in Gothic literature were meant to evoke the sublime, a feeling of awe inspired by the scale or grandeur of the natural wonder. She said that's what she felt at the seaside. I'd felt that she was overthinking it. What I'd loved had been the sense of hidden secrets. The ocean was so vast and constantly moving. There just had to be things we didn't know about lurking in it. My cousin Janet always talked about the wonders awaiting us in space, but there's still so much we haven't learned about our own deep waters.
It wasn't the best view, but at least I could see the ocean and the people in their boats. I had fresh salt air and cool breezes that sometimes became winds that made me pull my baggy white jean jacket tight. My beach bag still held my Walkman (with my summer mix tape and seemingly immortal double As) and my favorite novel, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. For a few weeks after my death, people from Jeffrey's Creek left flowers and crosses and teddy bears, which was nice even if I couldn't reach them.
The heavy traffic through the area taught me quickly that people and their things passed right through me. It took longer for me to learn that cars also had no effect. At first it was unnerving to have vehicles move through my body, but eventually I grew so used to it that I'd lie in the road and read as they roared about their business. Even wind and rain swept on without me. Aside from the ground and the temperature, I was seemingly untouchable.
It was a pothole that brought me full understanding of how I now interacted with the world. Shortly after the pavement wore away, I noticed that I felt no dip as I walked over the spot. Curious, I bent down and poked at it. My fingers stopped where the road surface had been. I even felt the rough grain of the pavement as though it was still there. As the weeks passed, I continued to test the hole, and I found that eventually my body's sense of the road matched what I saw. The opposite process occurred when the road was repaired, with my body passing through the new surface for weeks before being stopped by it.
I began to wish the village would move the benches closer to the road so I could sit and watch the sea.
#
For nearly ten years, I had company. His name was Johnny Nils, and while he wasn't exactly my friend, we got along okay. He'd died about twenty feet away, back in the 1930s. Another road casualty, he'd been hit by an ice truck. He was only a little kid, a 9 year old from Gloucester who had watched the world age around him for decades. Johnny asked me about my Walkman once, and when I'd explained home recording to him, the doubt on his face told me I'd better not mention the Mario brothers.
Whenever we saw each other, we'd talk about the people who went past or just watch the waves crash on the beach. A short stone wall rose to the side of Shore Road, only a few inches high from our side but much taller along the beach. We could see all of the western part of the harbor, which was the nicer side anyway. Most of the seaweed grew to the east, where we stood. There was a small boy over there that I saw so often--and always in the same swimsuit--that I assumed he was like us. We couldn't move more than eight feet from where we'd died, so I couldn't reach him to find out. I passed some time theorizing how we could extend our range to the beach, but Johnny didn't want to talk about that. I dropped the matter and asked him about his favorite candies. We only saw each other a few times a year, so I didn't want to spend the time with him being sullen.
I've never been certain what rules govern our appearance. Mornings and evenings seem to be the most frequent times of day for me, although cloudy afternoons aren't uncommon. Autumn and spring are my seasons, but I've had cold days in summer and warm ones in winter as well. Johnny tended to be around on sunny afternoons, no matter the season. Neither of us came out at night or stayed long after dark.
I asked him about that, suggesting that darkness seemed more natural for us. He looked stricken and, after he'd recovered, he stated that we should be thankful for our good fortune. Reasoning that he was scared of the dark, I indulged him in his favorite distraction.
"I spy, with my little eye, something ... orange!"
He was right to be scared of the night, as it happened. The last time I ever saw Johnny Nils he was being dragged over the wall under the cover of a new moon.
#
We had just seen each other recently, perhaps a month before that horrible night. It had been a rare afternoon for me, sunny but with a salty breeze. From the general quiet and lack of children, I supposed it was a weekday in late September or early October. Johnny had been more anxious than I'd seen him before, turning always to the sea and watching the waves. I rarely saw him in this weather, so I supposed that autumn unnerved him. He certainly preferred having plenty of people in sight.
In the aftermath of what came next, I understood his disquiet. Even with what assistance he'd given me, it had been a miracle that I'd survived; now that I'm alone, I have little hope of escaping his fate. Surely his grim mood came from similar calculations as the signs foretold their coming. Don't ask what they are. I only encountered them once, and they were like nothing I'd seen before. Nor do I know their purpose. They have a language of sorts, I think. At least they produce sounds to which others respond, despite having no visible ears. In this way, they coordinate their attacks. The one thing I know for certain is that they prey on the dead.
That night, I saw them crawl out of the sea. All of us were out, every soul I'd ever seen and a few that I was seeing for the first time. Some stood pensively along the shore. One sat on the lawn of a beachfront home. There were some farther down the road. One watched through a haunted window. There were less than a dozen of us, all told. Before the dawn arrived, we would number only two.
Uneasily, I asked Johnny what was happening. Why had all of us appeared at such a time? He said nothing but peered intently at the surf. Those on the beach began to make the best of it, playing in the sand. They couldn't dig or build castles--none of us could actually move physical matter--but that never discouraged the children from having fun.
Johnny tensed beside me as his searching gaze found its target. I looked where he was facing and tried to see what he'd picked out. Dark waves crept up the shore and withdrew coyly. Sticks and other debris lay along this contested ground, and the water pawed at them like an idle cat. With a start, I realized that one object moved on its own after the water had abandoned it.
It twisted and skated across the wet sand, racing toward the boy who poked ineffectually at a nearby clump of seaweed. I told myself that the creature could not interact with the child. After all, it had been nearly a decade since a living being touched, let alone noticed, me. Yet the thing slid directly toward him, knowing the boy was there. And then it emitted a shrill, trilling cry. He turned now, alerted at last to his attacker.
More of the creatures emerged from the dark waves, slithering toward the baffled youth. Instinct took over as the first one drew near, and the boy scrambled to his feet and backed away from the glissading mob. Against these adversaries though, the
re was no escape. While he was limited to movement within a few feet of his place of passing, the shrieking eels were seemingly free in their range. And they were so very many.
By the time they had cornered their incredulous victim, they formed a single writhing mass. With no route to escape, he stood helplessly as they began to wrap him in their ebon coils. At last he bent to pry them loose, but that only brought his arms within range for their assault. The unearthly cries changed now, becoming a gurgling drone. As part of the crowd dragged the struggling boy back to the sea, the remaining cluster broke into fragments to seek further prey.
And still more crawled onto the shore under the blotted moon! An adult on the beach tried to push the creatures back, pulling them from his body and smashing them together. I recognized him as Jesse Heindl, a visitor from Arkham who'd drowned the year before I'd been struck by a car. The local news had talked about him for a full week. Soon it was impossible to determine what parts of Jesse were covered by the throng and which by their inky blood. All along the sand, the shrieks of discovery drowned those of the found, and body upon body was towed into the sea.
I stared in appalled fascination, wanting to help, to run--knowing that neither was possible. Beside me, Johnny Nils heaved futilely, his stomach offering nothing on which to blame his nausea. He had been my mentor for a decade, and now he was just a scared child. I wanted to find out what was happening, what he knew about it. I wanted reassurance from him and also for him, but I did not know what form it might take.
"How?" I stammered. "They're going out of bounds."
It was a stupid observation, but true. Under the escort of the serpentine creatures, our fellows along the shore were passing beyond their normal limits. For years we'd seen them move only within their bounds, confined as were we within the vicinity of death. These barricades did nothing to prevent them from being taken to the sea. One by one, the souls of the sands disappeared beneath the waves, and still more of the things emerged from the water.
Johnny clutched at the air near my left hand. At our closest, we could get no nearer than a couple of feet away from each other. I crouched and pressed my hands against the edge of my confinement. The air pushed back, more strongly the farther I reached. He called my name, and I cried that I was there. In bursts he told me all he knew about the sea slangers. "That's what Hugo called them," he told me. Hugo had been the eldest spirit along this stretch of road when Johnny had died back in the 1930s. He'd been around since the railway came through and had been the unofficial leader of the battles against the creatures until the slangers finally dragged him to the sea in the 1970s.
What Johnny Nils told me was all the more chilling for its brevity. Every generation, the slangers came under the absent moon, and they reaped the spirits of Jeffrey's Creek. None knew what came to pass beneath the waves, but those taken were never seen again. Nor could anyone explain why we all appeared on the night of their coming.
The creatures themselves were hideous. Their dominant form was of a water snake or eel, as I could see for myself from our vantage. They were three feet long on average and bore two arm-like appendages, small but able to scratch and grasp. And their heads ...
Our number had decreased in recent years, due to enhanced safety and swift paramedic response. It used to be possible to aid each other in avoiding capture, prying the slangers off of bodies and crushing them against the road. They were not sturdy, merely numerous. I wondered if the things would go so far inland as the hospitals, and what resistance they must face there if they did. But we had died here by the harbor, and it was here that we would face the slangers.
The beach had been emptied of spirits, and from everywhere came the sound of the hunt. The slangers emitted a querulous noise, a bouncing gulp that might be amusing in a cartoon but that honed my fear as I heard it draw nearer. They were on the other side of our wall. I whispered urgently to Johnny. "What can we do? How can we fight them?"
He shook his head, already settled in defeat. "Stay upright as long as you can. Keep stomping. Don't use your hands unless you're killing them." He rattled off the advice as a memorized list, with no interest in what he was saying. Perhaps Hugo had drilled the instructions into him.
I rose as the first sea slanger came over the edge, its hands hoisting it up. "Come on, Johnny! Get up!" I turned to face the slithering things, and now I could see them clearly as they clambered over the wall. They came with their heads slanted downward, with bulbous onyx eyes that almost met at their tops. Their jaws hung open--not slack, but flexing as though anticipating the opportunity to bite. From between their fangs darted pale yellow tongues. These were not forked as a snake's but fleshy and wide. I would soon discover that these appendages were rasps, capable of shredding skin or locking onto scales.
Yet of it all, the hands were the worst. They looked too large for their sinewy limbs. Their arms were no longer than half a foot and thinner than a human finger at their widest. From the end of these delicate stalks sprouted palms the size of a 50-cent piece. Three slender fingers curved upward into savage claws, and gnarled thumbs flanked either side of the wrist. These savage digits allowed the slangers to attach themselves firmly to their victim, piercing through layers of muscle and flesh from multiple directions.
I started to stomp on them as soon as they crossed into my area. The road became slick with their crushed bodies. Singly they were painful nuisances, small monstrosities that were easily slain. Yet in the time one could be killed, at least two more had taken its place. Their "target located" screeches, unnerving at a distance, were deafening up close. I reeled, my sense of balance shaken by the din. My steps killed two, three at a time now, and still they came. Slangers hung from my bare legs, and I kicked at them as best I could. I used my left foot to scrape one off of my right shin. One of its arms separated from its body and dangled from me by a clenched fist.
Johnny Nils struggled a little at first, reflexively. He cried, but if there were words I couldn't make them out over the noise of the slangers. They quickly overcame him and wrapped him within their bodies. Their claws dug into each other when his flesh was unavailable, and their tongues secured them to their living shroud. Unable to assist him, barely able to help myself, I could only gape as they took his face from view. It was an impersonal black mass that writhed back over the wall, taking my friend away toward the sea. One knot of slangers parted from the bulk as though to grab onto the edge, and then they were gone. Johnny Nils had left for the shore.
By that time, I had slangers hanging from my shorts, and they'd covered me from the knees down. It had grown difficult to move my feet. They tightly encircled me, binding torn muscles so they could not flex. Once the slangers had accomplished that, they'd begun lashing my legs together. I'd rapidly been reduced to hopping, a dangerous way to move on the slick and wriggling footing. If I fell, they'd finish wrapping me in moments. I needed to keep moving or I'd be overwhelmed anyway.
I held my hands outstretched, against my every instinct to pull at the creatures attached to my body. Not that I could keep the slangers from taking me for much longer; they'd already begun pulling at my encased legs to topple me. I took measured hops, balancing myself by flailing, crushing a few of my attackers as I went. As they began to reach my stomach and bite through the top of my swimsuit, I subjected them to darting jabs, hoping to pull my fists away before they could be ensnared.
It merely delayed the inevitable. At length they caught my left hand, after which they surged up that side of me. No longer able to keep my balance, the slangers brought me down on top of themselves. My satisfaction at how many my fall had killed was swept away as their fellows rushed forward to envelop me. Now completely engulfed, I felt lurching motion as my body was dragged toward the wall. Their cries, still thundering despite being muffled, now switched to the announcement of victory.
Still I struggled against my fate. I pulled and I twisted, but the slangers held firm. Even in death, their claws and tongues kept their bodies in place. Th
ey clung tightly to me and to each other, and I could not dislodge them. I could only barely move, and every time I did another restraint was added. My efforts only served to restrict me further.
I'd lost track of time in the struggle, and the tugging and rolling stretched out considerably, yet it was all too soon that I bumped into something. I froze at first, thinking that I'd reached the wall. One good pull would drop me on the beach, and then I'd be as lost as Johnny Nils. Then I realized that what had hit the small of my back was a pole. It had to be a support for the bench. As the slangers began to pull me around the obstruction, my mind seized on a desperate plan.
I rocked and thrashed until I could twist my body to face the metal pole. My right arm had not been completely bound to my body, although it was wrapped in eely coils. I could move it almost all the way up to the elbow. And I did so now, grasping at the pole. With my hand being encased, it took some flailing about to connect, but at last I felt my wrist bang against the metal. The slangers weren't idle through this. They'd been reaching for my loose hand, and now they finally had it. They lashed my fingers to my forearm, accidentally securing me to the bar. Their grip tightened, and my fingers snapped under the pressure. I screamed into the bodies that covered my mouth.
Having quelled my struggles, the slangers began to pull me toward the wall again. Very quickly my feet started moving further, and my hand spun painfully on the bar. My feet were dragged over the wall and then drawn downward.
They pulled, and my wrist strained against the metal. Ligaments tore, and I feared that my hand would break off. The slangers held it on, keeping me in one piece even as their fellows tried to pull me apart. It was good that they held on for me, as I'd have let go from the agony. Mercifully, I soon lost feeling in the limb. All that remained was the constant pull toward the sea.
That Ain't Right: Historical Accounts of the Miskatonic Valley (Mad Scientist Journal Presents Book 1) Page 23
