away from me, as if to flee; I held her tighter for a moment.
'It's okay. It’ll be okay...' I said trying to check how near the dead were without letting Lily notice. '...Here, let me read with you...I'll repeat what you say.'
I bent my head down to hear Lily better over the growing storm. She was shouting out the strange sounds I had mistaken for something other than human. My mouth and tongue struggled to mimic the unnatural raspy whispers and low guttural rumbles of her voice. As I spoke the words there was a shift in the air, I felt a hot pressure and the scent of strong ozone. I gasped as the wind whipped up with fiercer force and the sound of the waves crashing against the beach became a booming roar.
A swirling current tugged us apart; Lily did not falter, her voice steady. I stumbled as sand shifted under my feet, but she held tight to me. A gust of wind sent the lantern blowing sideways, nearly guttering the flame which faded to a point of light.
At last the spell was finished. Lily clung to the mast, eyes tight closed as her face pressed hard against the damp sea-smoothed wood, her arms hugging it. I wrapped myself around her, gripping us tight against the mast as the tide rolled in threatening to tear us away and drag us under.
Stinging sand and water lashed against my face, I forced my eyes open to watch as the cadavers were now engulfed in the surf. A wave taller than a hundred men rolled over them and onto the shore. The ground fell away from us as the mast rose up against the swollen sea. As she opened her eyes, Lily let out a scream; we were now high above the swirling of churning sea. Below, the walking dead were pulled under the surge of water as the huge wave retreated. I held Lily as the mast slowly sank back into the sand; But instead of stopping at its original level, it carried on sinking.
'Let go! Lily, let go!' I screamed. I grabbed Lily around her waist to pull her away, but she held on tight.
The horizon was a dark strip where the sky should have been; the sea had filled the whole sky. Another wave rolled in, even higher than the last. As it crashed onto the shore we clung to the mast, which carried on sinking into the soft muddy sand. I looked towards the land; all around was nothing but black churning sea. My arms were heavy and numb, as the icy water rose about us. I gritted my teeth as I held Lily up on the mast.
'The water's nearly at the top of the mast.' I shouted, sputtering as sea water splashed into my mouth.
'But where can we go?' Lily said, her voice cracking as she looked at me, her wide eyes and shining with tears.
'Swim for the shore.' I said as I coughed out another mouthful of water.
'But I can't swim,’ she said, her voice small.
'Me neither, Lily,' I said, but Lily couldn't hear me as she'd buried her face in the crook of my neck. Her small body trembled against me as she cried. I swallowed hard, pushing down the lump that had risen in my throat.
A smaller wave rolled over us; I took a gulp of air before it washed over my face. I felt Lily's fingernails dig into my arm, then let go. I pulled myself up on the mast so my mouth was out of the water, gasping for breath. I squinted, my eyes stinging with the salt water. I looked about, but could not see Lily. Another wave, higher, rolled over hitting my head. Stunned from the impact I let go of the mast and was flung under the churning water. I held my breath, my chest burned with searing pain. I could not see where was up and where was down, but needed to breathe. I gasped for air, but got only salt water which coursed fire down my throat, filling my chest with a tearing biting pressure. I gulped water as I spun this way and that in the gloomy water, unable to see any light of the sky. All turned pitch black. The pain was gone. I let my body go limp, buffeted by the current, wrapped in a cold that sank deep into my bones and such a quiet that I had never heard. I couldn't breathe, but didn't need to, not any more.
A Isaac is a person of indeterminate age, who lives somewhere on the Northwest coast. Their story was inspired by local history: a Spanish ship that came ashore near Rossall beach in 1643; and the 1532 inundation by the sea which washed away the village of Waddam Thorp. The black mast buried in the sand is a nod to one of their favourite stories from childhood; ‘The House on the Brink;’ by John Gordon, which reminds them of their time living in the Fenlands.
A Isaac is a fan of zombies and all frights that lurk in the dark (except spiders).
Zombietown
by Deb Jacobs
It was raining. Again. Blackpool in the winter was always cold and damp and Sunday afternoon was no different.
‘Come on Lily, let's go for a walk along the front. Maybe it'll have stopped raining by the time we get there’
‘Oh Ed, do we have to? Since we moved here it has never stopped raining. I wish we'd never come’
‘You liked it when we came to visit in the summer!’
‘Yes, it was lovely to see Yvonne and Mark. But think what it was like then! The sea was glittering where the sun was shining on it, there were kids having donkey rides, building sandcastles, screaming as they got caught by a wave...’
‘I know - then screaming from the Pleasure Beach!’ Ed laughed and the mood lightened.
‘Come on then, Lils, let's go and recapture the fun we had back then. Maybe we'll bump into Mark and Yvonne - weird how we haven't seen them since October.’ He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her, resisting from the chair.
‘But Ed, I'm doing the crossword. Aww, don't make me...’
‘Your brains don't need improving any more. Come on, let's blow the cobwebs away’
They parked the car in the Houndshill car park and wandered down to the promenade. There was the occasional shop open, selling cheap and nasty stuff for a pound, but all the seasonal shops, catering for the day-trippers, hen and stag parties and those hardy sorts who could hack a week in Blackpool were closed. Litter twisted around their feet and, as they rounded a corner, the full force of the wind blew straight off the sea, bringing the sharp sting of sand to their faces.
‘Bloody hell, it's quiet! Where is everyone?’ Ed's voice was ripped away by the wind as they turned to walk up the promenade.
‘What? What did you say?’ Lily shouted back, ‘I can't hear you, it's so windy’
Ed turned his back to the wind and leaned in close to Lily's head, so she could hear him.
‘I said, it's weird there's nobody around - well I can see a couple of people over there, but they look like they're staggering a bit. Must be the wind, or maybe a lunchtime pint or several!’
‘It's probably because Blackpool's dead in the winter’
‘Aww, come on Lily, it's not that bad. It's quieter, that's all’
‘No, Blackpool is dead in the winter, but even in the summer it sucks your brains. You just have to look around at all the mindless people, staggering around, moaning and groaning or screaming because some other brain sucker is biting chunks out of them’
Ed laughed. ‘Blimey Lily, you make them sound like zombies!’
‘That's it! That's exactly what they are! They're like the living dead, stumbling from pub to bar to club, trying to hang on to life, to have one more chance at living. But they've failed, they've all failed. Blackpool is the wrong place for that. It's garish lights over a rotting interior, raucous music hiding screams of panic. If we don't get out now, we'll get infected too and all our humanity will be drained from us, like blood from a corpse!’
‘Lily, I think you're over-exaggerating. Sure, Blackpool's seen better days - people can afford to go abroad now, but people still love the great British seaside: kiss-me-quick hats, stick of rock, all the fun of the fair!’
‘I still think you're misguided here - there's something seriously wrong with Blackpool and you just can't see it. Maybe you've already become infected and you can't see that it's a festering sore, rotten right through. I've had enough - let's go home’
Ed seemed subdued by her outburst. Sure, he knew that seaside towns always had a desperate air of clinging on to life till the tourists came back with the better weather, but Lily seemed absolutely dead set against staying here. H
e turned reluctantly and followed her back towards the car.
The couple they'd seen staggering against the wind were walking at an angle towards him. Lily was almost out of sight now and it might be nice to talk to someone without any sort of argument. Northerners were so friendly, he thought as the man approached him, one arm out in a welcoming greeting. He was a bit pale, Ed thought as he raised his own hand to wave back. Without warning, the man lunged and wrapped his hands around Ed's throat, pressing his thumbs so deeply in that soon blood was trickling down his fingers. Ed gargled his last words, calling for Lily, but she was gone.
The man's companion, a slight figure in joggers and a hoody, bent over Ed's still warm body and began to suck at the blood. He dug his fingers into Ed's sockets and pulled out his eyeballs, all the while laughing and making appreciative sounds, as if it were his favourite part of the meal.
Lily sat in the car and fumed. Why couldn't Ed see what an awful place this was, inhabited by lowlifes: the dregs of society? What was keeping him, anyway? She drove out of the carpark, intending to drive up the prom and pick him up. As she turned right, she could see a small crowd of people standing over something heaped on the floor. Where had they come from? There was nobody around before. Something made her stop the car and walk over. An old lady with an even older dog turned to her and said,
‘Oh you don't want to look, love.