by Gary Fry
And if that was true of the cones, who might this be? Jack shook his head, trying to reframe the question more rationally, as if the notion that anything other than the storm last night had fashioned these symmetrical objects was foolish even to consider. He was simply relived that he wasn’t alone, that his grandson was standing beside him, rendered equally silent by the sight. In the absence of Paul, Jack wondered, might he worry he’d lost another critical faculty overnight?
“What…are they, Granddad,” the boy wanted to know, his voice an even mixture of awe and unease. “Where did they come from? And…who made them?”
“I don’t know, Paul,” Jack replied, turning to examine the other cones—there were six more, he noticed, counting them quickly with his sharpened mind. In truth, he felt as reticent and shaken as the boy, but realized he must stay strong. Fear was communicated in many involuntary ways, especially to children relying on an adult to make sure all was safe. “Maybe the…wind last night caused them. It was whirling and howling all evening. Do you remember? It sounded like a typhoon before we went to bed.”
As Jack and Paul stood looking at the seven spirelike sand sculptures, divided evenly across fifty square yards of beach, a seagull swooped their way and started attacking the first cone they’d observed.
Jack had begun to sense that familiar taut atmosphere in the air, and had originally ascribed this to the creepiness of the shapes ahead. But might it belong to the actual world, after all? Indeed, was this what had prompted the mad gull to take wing and attack the top of the nearest sculpture?
Absurdly, Jack was put in mind of the way these scavenging birds sometimes bothered tourists in the nearby town of Whitby. Many visitors bought ice cream in the portside, and Jack had often witnessed one or another airborne radical swoop at this cold target. He’d always laughed whenever this had happened, and so had Christine when she’d still been living…but this latest, similar assault evoked anything but mirth.
In a frantic tangle of wing and claw, the bird demolished the head of the thing, leaving its point in sandy tatters streaming down one side. Once the gull had flown on, squawking and clapping with valedictory relief, Jack readdressed the damaged cone, and noticed it now looked inadequate, as if its powers had been diminished… But what powers? That was the main thing Jack wanted to understand. What were these objects?
Whatever their secret was, he knew the tide would return in a matter of hours, sweeping away the evidence of this unnatural elemental activity. He should record the presence, but how might he do so? Observing his silent grandson, however, Jack processed what he believed to be an inspired idea.
“Paul, when you packed your things back in Bradford, I don’t suppose you brought the camera you once showed me—the digital one you can hook up to your computer?”
The boy appeared to emerge from a trance, snapping his gaze away from the nearest cone with a willful effort registered on his face. Maybe he felt the same weirdness in the air, but Jack was reluctant to pursue that possibility. His grandson’s reading difficulties were nothing to do with damage—well, not in any organic sense. They were a psychological problem acknowledged by experts. In short, it was foolish to connect them to here, this place, somewhere from which Jack hadn’t strayed in months, ever since identifying his difficulty with words…
But he was speculating recklessly and should remain focused on the task at hand: making a record of this bizarre phenomenon, so experts would believe them when he—as he surely must, being a responsible citizen—contacted authorities with evidence of such unnatural activity.
That was when Paul regained his enthusiasm, and said with a yell, “Yes, Granddad! I’ve got it in my case. Shall I go get it?”
“I think that would be a good idea, but…go slowly. You’ll fall if you run too fast.”
As was a young boy’s wont—such an enviable ability—the boy was halfway back across the beach toward the stone steps and the bungalow above before Jack finished replying. He watched him race across the sand and then up onto the concrete plateau, wondering how such sprightly energy could become painful sluggishness in only half a century… Was this just the cosmos playing a joke on humanity?
That thought turned Jack’s attention back to the seven cones on the beach. He reexamined them at a wary distance, his hands clenching involuntarily. He could see more seagulls, prowling close by, as if fundamentally hostile to these tapered presences. The objects themselves resembled the horns of some frightful creature, pushed through the surface of a pliable substance. Their intricate sides had been crafted by something undoubtedly fine, all wriggles and lines that resembled a language unknown to humankind. The birds lurking in the area chattered and screeched, disapproving of this invasion of their habitat…but what were they reacting to? And why had one maverick among them tried to destroy the nearest structure, snatching off the top until it no longer hinted at the great unknown?
Jack looked at the sky, where moody, rainless clouds moved in curious patterns, like gravy coming to boil in a pan, restless with hissing heat. Then he snatched his gaze away, glancing back at his humdrum bungalow. There were more practical matters to deal with, caring for his grandson and making a fine lunch chief among them. He noticed Paul coming back out of the property, holding aloft a small black object, which could only be his camera. The boy looked so happy to help that he didn’t watch where he stepped, simply lurched back down the stone steps and then tripped and crashed onto unyielding sand with a sickening thump.
All thoughts of the weird cones were immediately removed for Jack. He pushed every other consideration—including his own health-related concerns—to the back of his mind and then ran across the beach to reach his grandson, his aging limbs protesting at the vehemence of the motion.
“Good God, lad,” he said, stooping Paul’s way, “I told you to be more careful!”
“S-Sorry, Granddad.”
After getting the boy off the ground—he was okay, just a little shaken; he’d torn his pants on the right knee, but the limb inside appeared unharmed—Jack tried persuading him to retreat for the bungalow, where it was warm and safe, and had nothing inside the equal of the bizarre sculptures out here.
Paul acquiesced, but not before relifting his undamaged camera (he’d kept hold of it during the tumble the way youngsters tended to, as if they’d rather break a limb than compromise a recent investment) and snapped off a series of shots, some of the nearest cones and the rest capturing all in their curiously symmetrical arrangement.
Then, following an uneasy exchanged glance, they both returned to Jack’s home, hoping the world—or at least this small part of it—would make more sense after a period of quiet reflection.
Before closing the door, the seagulls on the beach started screeching, a bone-rattling protest that filled the air with irrational panic, like the cries of children in a public place.
5
While Paul downloaded the photographs onto the PC, Jack made lunch. An hour later, during which time the boy had scoured the Internet for similar sightings in the area or indeed the rest of the world, they sat at the dining table and demolished the small chicken Jack had roasted that morning, along with potatoes, vegetables and gravy.
“Better than junk food, eh, lad?” Jack asked, once they’d torn more chunks of breast from the bird’s carcass.
“That’s what Mummy always says,” his grandson replied, after swallowing a wedge of chicken skin, oozing with fat. “But I still like burgers.”
It was reassuring to talk about something normal, but then, like the moon’s gravitational pull on the restless seas, the conversation returned to their combined experience that morning: the weird cones on the beach.
Once Jack had tidied up from the meal—leaving the half-eaten chicken on the table to be nibbled at during the rest of the day—he joined Paul at the kitchen window to watch the tide steadily encroach upon the beach, subsuming each sand sculpture one by one. He’d considered calling the authorities, but had been unable to deci
de who would be most appropriate. It was hardly a police matter, and the lifeboat service would presumably have more pressing matters to deal with. The local newspaper had been a further possibility, but the truth was that Jack had been uncertain about what to say. He imagined some jaded, overworked journalist responding to his description in a dismissive way: “You sure they’re not sandcastles, Granddad?” And that thought dismayed Jack. Did he sound old on the phone? In fact, was he old?
As the tide chipped away at the nearest cone—the one he and Paul had examined in detail, with its intricate, nonsensical carvings—Jack decided to accept the phenomenon was just some random natural occurrence, easily accounted for by simple science.
Looking at his grandson, he said, “Did you manage to discover anything relevant on the Internet, Paul? Is the world full of such ice cream cones?”
The boy giggled, as Jack had hoped he would; the episode was spooky enough without him communicating unease. Indeed, maybe Paul, a sophisticated modern child in the company of an aging has-been, had chanced upon something that would put his mind at rest.
But then his grandson replied, “I found some things that looked the same, but all had been made, Granddad. I mean, people had built them out of sand. So I think the things we saw outside must have been made by someone nearby. Visitors like me, maybe.”
Jack couldn’t recall seeing footprints in the sand while examining the shapes, and rebuked himself for not being more observant at the time. It was too late now, of course; the cones were nearly gone, and all that remained was a selection of grainy photos on his PC.
He and his grandson spent some time scrutinizing these shots, but none revealed anything they hadn’t noticed earlier. Then, in the late afternoon, the boy got changed into his pajamas and handed Jack his torn pants. As Paul put on the lounge television to catch some favorite cartoons, Jack sat in his favorite armchair to draw upon a few old skills. With a needle threaded with cotton, he began stitching up the ripped denim.
At least there was something he could still do. If youngsters these days easily operated computers and televisions and other equipment, Jack was able to console himself that cooking a solid lunch and sewing clothing remained valuable abilities. These were essential skills in the business of living—a “vocabulary of survival,” he thought it might be termed. Was repairing split garments any less useful than surfing the Net? Jack watched his needle move through the material, just like the beach cones appeared to have been pushed through the Earth’s crust…and what did this impression mean? He imagined sticklike entities, shining with strange metals, probing the sand and then fashioning sculptures…but he was being ridiculous. Once he’d double-knotted the end of the healed wound in the fabric, he bit off the cotton and then attended to what his grandson was watching on the noisy television.
Stringlike creatures occupying a town called Alphabet cavorted onscreen, causing much, ostensibly amusing trouble. Jack wasn’t sure he could see the joke himself—in truth, the many figures’ activities resembled anarchic mayhem, with minimum use of dialogue—but he believed the show’s intention was to make learning about language fun for children. Each letter had a different personality—plain-speaking A, eccentric Q, exotic Z—and moved around by utilizing different parts of its flexible frame: the O bounced on its lower bulge; the S slivered like a snake; the X walked in bipedal fashion… This was all very inventive, Jack was willing to admit, but something about the letters’ manic behavior troubled him in a way he was unable to marshal. Moments later, mounting disquiet summoned his words, he spoke with feigned casualness.
“What’s that you’re watching, Paul? It…well, it all seems a bit chaotic.”
“It’s called The Squigglies, Granddad,” the boy replied, his beaming eyes refusing to leave the TV. Then he laughed again—about the tenth time in the last minute alone—and added, “It’s the funniest thing ever.”
Jack recalled TV shows from his own youth, and how his parents had rebelled against them, claiming the next generation was doomed and other sanctimonious twaddle. And so he refused to grow pious about this so-called educational show. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help thinking there were surely more coherent ways of communicating information about the most fundamental aspect of human intelligence: the alphabet. Its twenty-six letters (a number variable in other cultures, of course) were the building blocks of the social world, the way meanings were shared and common purposes agreed upon. To wilfully reduce this to disorderly slapstick struck Jack as dismaying, little better than an illness that disintegrated appreciation of language, rendering its acquisition and comprehension problematic.
But again he refused to entertain such morbid thoughts. He’d attempted to read nothing today, and so was unable to determine whether his recent experiences were only stress-induced delirium or something more serious. The truth was that he was frightened to do so, and as the TV show rioted on, he simply found himself watching and smiling at the manic ingenuity displayed by whichever madcap creator had invented The Squigglies.
For their evening meal, he and Paul finished the chicken with buttered bread, and by the time all the meat had been picked from the bones, the carcass resembled something vicious creatures had been attacking. Outside, the sea had retreated again, the beach scrubbed clean of its former violations. Seagulls had returned, prowling the sand in search of sustenance, noticeably unafraid of any alien presence. The heavy pressure in the air must have diminished; that was the only way Jack could make sense of this revived avian activity. He even felt his head feeling clearer, as if whatever had occupied the region earlier had moved on, taking its negative influence with it.
At seven o’clock, Paul called his mother in West Yorkshire and said he was having a great time with his granddad. He didn’t mention the strange cones on the beach, but whether that was because—with the enviable ease of a child—he’d forgotten about them or he hadn’t wanted to worry his mum, Jack was unable to decide. Before the boy hung up, Jack also spoke to Ruth, repeating that all was well and that she should focus on work without worrying about her son’s well-being. When Jack hung up, he felt duplicitous, but knew admitting it would mean accepting something was deeply wrong here, and he didn’t wish to pursue that thought at all. When it was time for bed later, once he’d stroked the disheveled bones of the chicken into his dustbin, all he could picture in his drifting mind was a needle poking through denim, like the intrusive proboscis of some alien being.
Another wind was developing outside, its ambitious howls and invasive whistles filling the bay. After tucking Paul beneath his sheets and wishing him a compassionate good night (there’d be no story tonight; the boy had surely suffered enough from language for one day), Jack retreated to his own room and experienced the double bed’s too-large space more intensely than he had in months, ever since his beloved wife had died. Something rattled irascibly at the insulated window, as if fondling the glass with insistent hands. Jack turned away, trying to keep his mind as blank as possible, and only gradually lapsed into a fretful sleep.
6
His dream when it came was a symphony of surreal imagery. At first he imagined himself on a beach, a predictable scene for someone living in such a geographical location. In this scenario, however, the sand wasn’t what it should be; it was composed of a million small black objects with curves, edges and junctions. When Jack looked down, he found himself observing letters of the alphabet, but not just Latin figures belonging to modern, Western languages. Here were other systems, too: Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Georgian, Thai, and many more. The innumerable inch-high letters pricked his bare feet like needles, but then he spotted something up ahead that presented an even greater physical threat.
In front of a volatile blood-red sea, several lengthy blackish strands had emerged from the ground. They ducked and swayed in a crisscrossing wind, and if this movement was sentient, it was difficult to determine its source: an alien intelligence inhabiting their ropey forms, or a brain located elsewhere, casting fo
rth these limbs to do their bidding, to fashion the materials of another world into weird, suggestive shapes.
The dark, narrow strands, of which there were ten or fifteen, began manipulating the letters lying on the ground. They tossed many in the air, snapping at them as if they possessed bird beaks, clicking one against another until all were connected, building them up to become a monolith of sorts. Once they’d fashioned these multiple alphabets into a coherent form, Jack found himself looking at another cone, halfway to its full height, its component parts meshed together, like blocks constituting the base of a building.
And was this how the things communicated? Or was it attempting to convey some message, manufacturing a facsimile version of its natural habitat? The blackish, waving, finger-thin strands continued to construct several cones at various points on the beach, while the wind howled louder, forcing Jack’s chill flesh to his attention. He looked down at once and noticed he was naked. He was an old man, vulnerable to far more than he’d been in the past. Was this a physical representation of his mental fragility, the problem besetting his aging psyche?
Whatever the truth, he had to remember it was only a dream. He glanced up at a moonlit sky and saw kaleidoscopic colors scrawled across the heavens, the heavy-handed art of a deranged child. At a distance, on the cliff side outside the nearby town of Whitby, buildings stood surrounded by trees, manmade objects lampooned by or even lampooning nature. These carpentered forms of property vied silently with crooked examples of arboreal life…but then Jack looked away, back toward the disrupted beach.
