Tim was driving. The compact little town car drove like a go cart. There had been a panic back in the airport car park when it seemed as though their luggage wouldn’t fit in the boot. A number of ungenerous thoughts were voiced. They included: 

• The fact that Tim had booked the rental car and while doing so had complained loudly about the prices, and had therefore clearly skimped on the size of the vehicle, hence their predicament.

• The fact that Becky had as usual overpacked, and that a suitcase plus a weekend bag plus a large overstuffed handbag was excessive in a way that suggested deeply entrenched flaws in her character, possibly even unresolved trauma of some kind. 

• The fact that the ratio of luggage capacity to passenger seats was glaringly out of sync, bordering on irresponsible, and that the car’s designers should be taken to task by some kind of independent board. Followed by the observation that this was a ridiculous and unhelpful comment.

This was exactly the kind of business they were hoping to leave behind, and the exhausting feeling that they could never escape themselves or one another befell both of them simultaneously. However in the nick of time Tim put his shoulder into it and managed to press the boot locked with a soft clunk. All lines of argument were then abandoned.

As they left the car park Becky’s phone switched to a local carrier, and immediately let out a chorus of alert noises. Neither of them spoke for the first twenty minutes of the trip, so as to purify the atmosphere. Tom instead listened to the studious tac-tac-tac-tac-tac of Becky’s long work emails being written. After a few minutes the missives became shorter, and where followed by the whoop of sent messages. Not long after that Becky stopped even pretending to be dealing with work issues. She was now slumped back in her seat, her thumb smoothly unspooling an unending thread of social media content. 

Although this was the exact kind of behaviour he’d sworn to pull her up on, he chose not to mention it. His mood was lifting and he didn’t want to impede its ascent. Tim felt a sense of something melting away in the dry heat that bounced off the interior plastic. The vehicles around him were sparse, and drove in an unhurried fashion. Beyond the smooth grey ribbon of highway an endless wave of tall neat pine trees receded to the horizon. Even here, on a major road less than an hour out from stepping off the plane, things felt different. They felt foreign.

With a sense of finality Becky closed her phone screen and pressed it face down against her thigh. She looked at Tim then looked out the window. Tim felt a pressure to say something, anything to stimulate Becky’s mind in a way that would reward her choice to engage with him. But nothing came. 

“Work stuff done?” He said eventually, then immediately regretted it.

“Yep.” Becky said.

Then in to the silence he said “So many trees.”

Becky unthinkingly flipped her phone over and awakened the screen. 

The turnoff was barely signposted. Just a wobbly hand-drawn number printed on a cross of wood. A cleft in the trees created a cool green-walled valley, through which ran a gravel path that shucked and jostled them pleasantly. After perhaps a kilometre the aperture widened and a wooden cabin appeared in the clearing. 

The cabin was so perfect it felt almost false. Low, wide, storybook red. Single storey, with a pitched log roof. It squatted on a rise in a clearing that framed it among the pines, but would no doubt offer views of the ocean from the wraparound deck. Tim and Becky laughed at the sheer rightness of it all.

They stepped out the car and marvelled. Tim enrobed himself in a sensation even warmer and more welcome than the early afternoon sun: the feeling of having made a smart choice. No matter what went down from here on out, he had already delivered on the promise of this trip. The flimsy too-small car, and before that the oppressive budget flight, were not portents of disaster after all. They were a false start, a natural and inevitable stressor of travel. Now he and Becky had arrived at the dream he’d been selling her on for months.

Tim raised his hand for Becky to listen, and they shared a moment hearing nothing but the sounds of nature. Their grins fell stupidly open on their faces. This is it. A few days of perfect emptiness that would rechart the course of their relationship. 

After some time admiring Tim’s wonderfully astute judge of holiday rental, Tim heaved the luggage from the car - it bobbed and twerked as he did so - while Becky approached the door and pulled up access instructions on her phone. 

Before she could find the keybox a voice cut through the clearing from the woods. 

“Hallo.” A man in his late middle-age emerged and strode up the incline towards them. He was lean and looked both weathered and healthy in an outdoorsy way. He wore a light shirt open almost to the navel, cargo shorts, heavy duty sandals, and a wide brimmed hat, and carried an old and well-used branch trimmer over his shoulder like a knapsack.   

He arrived at the porch, smiling easily and letting his ice-blue eyes pass from Tim to Becky and back to Tim. He nodded, then shook Becky’s hand. Then he shook Tim’s. 

“Hallo. Dirk.”

“Hi. I’m Tim. I— we’ve been emailing.”

“Yes.”

“And this is Becky.”

“Yes.” 

He stood for another moment. Breathing. Smiling. Looking at them. Saying nothing. Tim felt sweat creep along his hairline like a slug. He swallowed. Then, finally, Dirk swept his hand vaguely behind him towards the forest. 

“Clearing branches.”

“Yeah. Great.” 

Dirk said nothing again. Entire seconds passed. Tim had no idea what was happening. Becky was surreptitiously browsing her phone. Eventually he tried something, anything. 

“It needs doing, does it? Cutting back?”

“Yes.” Dirk had not answered Tim’s question. He had simply said the word yes.

Finally Dirk nodded at the small keybox by the door. “You have the code, yes?”

“Oh, yeah. Babe—”

Becky whipped her phone away. “Yeah.”

Together the three of them negotiated the keybox and the door lock, and were then inside. 

Over the next twenty minutes Dirk took Tim round the house and grounds, showing him the essentials. Tim took very few of the key details in, compelled as he was to first fill the long silences, then to conspicuously not fill them, then finally to fill them again. Dirk told them he would be staying in another house half a kilometre away. If they needed anything, they could find him. Then he stood there for a few more moments, smiling. Then he left. 

On the second day the couple started to unclench. The previous evening Becky had insisted on unpacking her entire suitcase into the large bedroom wardrobe and Tim drove to a nearby supermarket to pick up something for dinner so as to not voice an opinion on that. 

But as dusk fell late they drank wine and watched the horizon before going to bed. The night was hot and they shed clothes until by morning they lay naked and entwined and awoke breathing each other’s breath. 

Becky slid around the polished honey-coloured hardwood floors in her socks while Tim fried some eggs and brewed coffee. 

“I can’t believe this place.” She said. 

“I know”, said Tim. Still enjoying the inference that he’d made such a wise, excellent choice in booking it. 

Tim served breakfast, by which time Becky had put the TV on. Tim could feel a thread of irritation pulling taught inside him as he watched her flick through the channels, seeking distraction. But they landed on a Finnish magazine show that was hilarious in its foreignness, and they talked about it together, and laughed, and ultimately ignored it. 

The day lay before them thrillingly empty. They spent the morning at the beach. Becky took forty minutes to gather her things and Tim allowed it to happen, growing perversely more serene with every passing moment. Finally they walked down the short steep path to the ocean, joking about how they’d be out in direct sunlight during the inadvisable hours of 11-3, and pointing out a fox and then a rabbit and then a large strange bird looping overhead. 

The beach was a small, private crescent that lost its shade as the sun crept over the water. Speedboats hummed past, and each time the jetty would respond by clunking and shrugging a moment later.

Tim announced he was going in. He walked to the end of the jetty and bombed off the edge without hesitation. He emerged, and whooped at the slap of chilly water. Then shook his hair like a dog and swam back to the beach. Becky refused to get in, too cold. And there might be jellyfish and seaweed and stuff. Tim drifted around in the shallows while Becky lay on the sand. This was majestic, this feeling. Him bracing the elements. Her too squeamish and domesticated. If he could just bottle this dynamic. Spritz it around the room at home whenever he felt low and pathetic. 

In the early afternoon, when it was too hot to stay on the beach, they went for a walk in the nearby woods. Foliage crackled underfoot as they passed through pockets of light and shade. Becky held Tim’s hand, at first for balance, but she didn’t let go when they found an even path. Their shoulders bumped together and their conversation freewheeled from one topic to the next. Becky mentioned one of their early dates. The one where they tried to have sex in Epping Forest but had to gigglingly abort due to onlookers. She wouldn’t have minded, were it not for the fact she had family in the area and word could’ve spread. 

“I heard it’s a dogging hotspot. They were probably just wondering who was up against their favourite tree that week.”

Becky laughed. She reached over and grabbed his crotch playfully. 

“No family here.” Tim said. And they turned to face each other. Then they were kissing and Tim was guiding her backward towards a pine trunk. He thumbed her bikini bottoms to one side and as she cocked one leg up over his hip he entered her. 

This was unbelievable. It was a life moment. This thing that was so beyond their physical language, and had been since just a month or so after the Epping Forest incident. Now it was happening, as if they were living a scene out of some erotic thriller. Up against a tree in a foreign country. Among the wildlife and the breeze and the sounds of nothingness. 

And Becky was enjoying it. She was vocally enjoying it. Her usual manner of quiet focus, mentally reaching for an orgasm as if it were a string of numbers she needed to recall, was abandoned. Now she threw her head back. Her eyes wide open, then squeezed closed. Her hands gripping his hips and bumping them up against her. Pressing her lips to his, then casting her face away to send another primal moan echoing about the forest. 

Tim was observing every detail as if just a spectator of this magnificent event. And—

Two ice blue eyes in the trees. Watching him. Dirk stood stock still and expressionless, maybe fifty feet away. Tim spasmed, lost his rhythm completely. Becky came down somewhat from her delirium and looked at him, confusion in her eyes. He couldn’t let the moment end this way. This could break open a whole new vault in their relationship. Her climaxing like this, in this position, outdoors, spontaneously…imagine what that would do for them. Imagine the dizzy new heights of intimacy they could reach from here. 

He refocused, thrusting with pneumatic evenness. He pictured a train piston working. Becky’s voice hit a new pitch. He knew by now, he had learnt, not to change a thing from here. This was not a time to get excited and sprint for the ending. He maintained his metronomic rhythm - only once allowing himself to cut a glance off to Dirk, still watching. 

Finally as his thighs started to burn Tim’s straining consistency paid off. Becky stiffened and entered some kind of fugue state. Her mouth opened and made a long low sound. Colour rose up her neck into her face. And then she was breathing heavily, eyes blinking open into the daylight.

She draped her arms over Tim’s shoulders and he pumped five, six, seven more times before the dizzying weakness flooded through his body and out of him. And it was all over. He slid from her, still twitching, as she righted herself and started rummaging in the beach bag for tissues. Tim allowed himself a look over in Dirk’s direction, but the man was gone. 

Back at the cabin they ate a salad of tomatoes, cucumber, local cheese and smoked sausage with a beer each, then napped. There was more beer that evening, lubricating several increasingly heated rounds of Uno. And although they didn’t make love again like Tim had hoped they might, their glowing bodies came together in the warm evening air in a way that Tim hadn’t known for months, if not years.

The following day they headed down to the beach again, and after twenty minutes Becky propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Tim, her eyes wide with possibility. 

“Let’s make cocktails.” She said. 

Tim then remembered something he had allowed himself to forget. There was a point whenever Becky got too relaxed at which some kind of killswitch would flip, and her idling brain would find a project, any project, to occupy her. The more frivolous and labour intensive the better. Shrewdly, it would be framed as some sort of fun, appropriate activity even though its sole purpose was to fill Becky’s time with anything but quiet and solitude. 

Tim’s first instinct was to give voice to this observation. But that instinct was exactly what had gotten them into this mess in the first place. Whatever he thought he might have achieved by sharing this insight with her, he would not achieve. In fact he would only succeed in stumbling backwards into an argument he did not want to have and stood no chance of winning. The long history of conceded defeats was one of the many things that compounded his low self-worth. 

So instead he pretended to consider it for a moment, then grinned. “Sure.”

They arrived back at the cabin less than an hour after they’d left, and Becky immediately rifled through the kitchen cupboards and living room drawers looking for alcohol. She found Brandy, Kirsch, Rum, Ouzo, and Gin. This she decided was the perfect cocktail collection. Tim dug around for yet more serenity and found some in the knowledge that getting drunk was a very good idea for the two of them. The chances of loose, intimate chatter and fumbling giggly sex increased immensely with the addition of hard alcohol. 

“Didn’t it say there was a freezer in the outhouse? Shall we see if there’s ice?”

“Sure.” And Tim slid on his flip flops to take the short walk across the clearing to the outhouse at the edge of the trees. 

The door rolled back sending a bloom of dust whirling into the sun. The floor was compacted dirt and the only windows were high and begrimed. The motley collection of objects seemed somehow unfairly exposed by the rush of bright light into their shadowy little sanctuary. 

They included a petrol lawnmower, a stepladder, two rusted up pairs of secateurs, and several large tarpaulin-covered objects. More tools hung grey-brown on hooks from a shelf that looked ready to collapse under the weight of dried up paint pots and plastic boxes of god knows what. Tim stepped through a cobweb and pawed it away from his face. He found a dented old chest freezer and decided that was his best bet for ice. 

There was a latch on the lid, furred over and orange with rust, that looked like it once held a padlock. Tim flipped it open and lifted the lid. He made an involuntary noise, part-retch, part-whimper, and let the lid drop. He took a step back and then another. He looked at the open doorway, then back at the freezer. He rubbed his mouth vigorously.

“Jesus fucking shit.” He said quietly to himself, before deciding that he needed to confirm what he thought he had seen. He swallowed and took a step closer to the freezer. Then gingerly reached over and worked two fingertips under the lid. He lifted, trembling at the effort. Six inches was enough to see the lower leg, neatly jointed and iced over with frost. Its toes pointed coquettishly upwards as if inviting a high-heel. Beneath the leg were more abstract pink-grey folds and furrows. He dropped the lid and moved out through the door, hands on hips, breathing erratically, wanting to cry. 

He looked back into the outhouse. Those still silent objects now seemed somehow malevolently complicit. He knew his heart rate had spiked. He risked collapsing if he tried any sudden exertion. 

He managed to roll the door shut and make his way back to the clearing, where alarmingly Becky was coming right for him. She was holding out a net bag filled with wooden blocks. Some kind of garden game. Whatever she was planning to say abandoned her as her face registered deep concern.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. Er, no ice. There’s none.”

“Really?” She sounded almost let down.

For a horrifying second it appeared that Becky was going to check the freezer herself. Tim barked a response. 

“I’ll run out and pick some up.” 

Beck’s face twisted up, performatively disappointed. She didn’t want to make him go all the way to the supermarket just for ice, but she also did. Tim knew this, and he found himself suddenly craving the series of simple physical actions a trip like that would entail. 

“Honestly it’s no bother. I’ll go now. I’ll grab the car keys.”

As he’d hoped, the trip to buy ice proved oddly soothing. The rote actions of driving that ridiculous little car at forty down a nearly empty highway, pulling in, browsing anonymously for ice, peeling off a ten euro note and smiling at the cashier, all served to steady his hands and his heart. Here and there his mind was snagged by the unpleasant image of Becky checking the outhouse herself. But why would she do that? Only when he got back into the car did the idea occur to him that Dirk might well know Becky was alone in the house. Perhaps he was spying on them. In fact he almost certainly was. Perhaps he even watched Tim opening the freezer. Were they going to die? Were they going to be butchered like that poor woman? 

He drove back to the cabin in a state of quiet panic, for the first time cursing the low speed limit and sailing way past it. But as he shouldered open the front door he found Becky reclined on the couch drinking a cold beer and flicking through a magazine.

Tim jogged the bag of ice at her and headed straight to the kitchen, where he whipped up some homespun version of a frozen Margherita. They had three each as the sun sank behind the trees. Becky was drunk. She became a little drowsy and a little floppy at this three-drinks-in stage. Tim liked her that way. She would grow expansive and slightly goofy. They could have some of their best talks when she was like this. 

She talked about that prick Jamie, and how a lot of the pressure she put on herself at work was driven by him, which she hated because it meant she was letting him control her in some way, which was exactly what he wanted. Tim told her that there are Jamies everywhere, narcissists, and they’re driven by their own sense of insecurity and resentment. He was going to thrust his way upwards and out of her life in no time. She should just ignore him as much as possible and focus on doing good work, which she was doing. Becky laughed, and actually seemed to take the point on board. Tim felt light-headed. 

She told him that she was proud of him. That she didn’t mind covering the bills because he had a talent and the right people would recognise that soon enough. And that she was glad he made them both come away on this trip. It’s what they both needed. And she was sorry she had made it all such hard work. She should have trusted him more. He humbly agreed.

They had sex that night in the sultry blue light of the open bedroom window, alive to the sound of owls and rustling trees and the distant tide. Building on the high of that magnificent few minutes in the woods the previous day, they climaxed in easy, singing unison. 

On the edge of sleep, Tim roused himself to lock all the windows and doors. In the smaller second bathroom, the one they had never used, something glinted unpleasantly at him from the wall. It was a small mirror. The glass was shattered and there seemed to be something, some kind of spider or bug, right at the nexus of the breakage. 

Tim moved closer. His face refracted eerily in the broken glass. The thing in the middle wasn’t a bug, or a spider. It was a little knot of matted hair. From this close Tim could see a line of dried blood running along a crack and pooling in the base of the pink plastic frame. 

He lifted the mirror from its hook and held it delicately by its edges. He needed to find a place to put it. It was a lucky coincidence Becky hadn’t been in that bathroom yet. Where could he be sure she wouldn’t find it? She had a casually curious mind and an upper-middle class sense of entitlement. She thought nothing of opening chests and dressers or finding keys to locked doors if her mind took her there. The way she’d gathered up the alcohol, and drank it, was testament to that. 

Under the bed in the spare room wasn’t safe. Blankets and towels were under there, they could be marshalled into use at any time. The obvious answer was in the outhouse, perhaps even in the freezer. But Tim couldn’t face going out there. Not alone, not at night. After several long minutes of holding the mirror by its edges in the twilight of the hallway, he settled on the patch of undergrowth beneath the porch. 

He unlocked the front door, double-checking it was on the latch, then stepped out onto the porch. The clearing and the trees beyond were awash with deep shadow. The gravel path was a lightless void. Tim felt uneasy about just stepping off the porch. But in three quick steps the whole thing could be over. 

Coming down off the porch he crouched and tossed the broken mirror into the space beneath the slats. It landed silently in the overgrown grass. Tim had no idea whether it would be visible to a casual onlooker. He’d have to find a way of checking in the morning. 

But Tim didn’t sleep that night and the next morning he felt heavy and slow and prone to silence. He drank an extra coffee and was glad to find that Becky was also and sluggish and distracted. They played the garden game with the wooden blocks, and over time stopped counting scores. They set up a game of croquet but never got round to playing it. They look a long nap and woke up at a disorientating hour. And when Tim found a woman’s charred sock under a tree he picked it up with his thumb and forefinger and tossed it into a bush. And when he noticed hammer dents in the living room floor he shunted an armoire a little over to the left to cover them.

They had a light dinner of leftovers and worked their way through the last of the beers. Becky said that their talk the previous night had made her think again about the whole baby situation. Maybe actually there was a way they could make it work. Tim sat next to her and leaned forward. Yes, he said, yes absolutely. 

Becky said she didn’t want to be a Jamie. She wanted to do things with purpose. Things she cared about. She didn’t want to look back on life and wonder what the hell the point was. And Tim said no, totally, and having kids…you don’t get more purposeful than that.

Becky told Tim he’d make an amazing dad. Tim told Becky she’d make an amazing, incredible mum. And out flooded a torrent of praise and apologies and promises and a new vision of their future together. And Tim had to bite his cheek to hold back tears because he knew early in their relationship Becky had described him to a friend as ‘too feminine’ and he didn’t want anything to pollute this outpouring of love and affection. 

That night he didn’t sleep again, but he didn’t mind. He spent the hours thinking of all the ways he could bottle this magical feeling. How he would preserve this fragile new butterfly that had emerged from the rotting cocoon of their relationship. He’d set up a profile on one of those freelancing websites, and take those awful little badly paid jobs drawing logos for businesses that would never get started. He’d join the gym again and lose that cherubic wobble under his belly button. He’d make more effort with Becky’s sister Emma and her twat of a boyfriend Fergus. He’d stop being so sensitive and defensive all the time, and stop calling her out on the smallest things just to claw back any moral high ground he could. He’d touch her more. Head massages and foot massages, unprompted. He could finally have that friendly chat with their neighbour upstairs about playing dancehall after 10pm. He could ask about her working day and genuinely care, rather than looking for little details to use as leverage that she’s not in the right career. He’d stop making himself believe that she was in the wrong career and instead accept that her high professional status and demanding workload made him feel emasculated. And he would try really hard to get over that. All this he could do as easily as clicking his fingers. He saw it now, as clear and beautiful as the ocean catching the first winking golden light of dawn. 

He felt a little rough when it had past the point he might actually have gotten an hour or two of sleep. The day ahead seemed particularly unforgiving, and the prospect of travelling was so daunting as to leave him faintly nauseous. His faculties were calculably diminished and he was concerned for that sharp edge he felt on his general mood. 

Becky had to return all her clothes to her suitcase, including all the stuff she never wore. By the time she finished two cleaners were wordlessly moving among them. Tim had stacked all their luggage by the door, bar the suitcase Becky was now desperately trying to close by pressing all her weight onto it. He tried to look occupied, so that Becky wouldn’t accuse him of rushing her, and he wouldn’t respond with either a question of exactly how one might stand around waiting without seeming to rush her, or with an indignant remark that, well, they were running late so maybe some rushing was necessary. No, that was the old Tim and Becky. That’s exactly the toxic runoff that this trip had so successfully burned away. 

But Tim really, really did want to get on the road before Dirk made an appearance. No such luck. He was trying to wedge all those bags into that fucking little boot when Dirk emerged, spectral, from the woods. He was smiling his unreadable smile. Tim jerked when he first saw him, as if finding an insect in his hair, and did what he could to avoid the man’s gaze. Looking away didn’t calm his nerves. That thing catching his eye was the broken mirror suspended in a tuft of grass under the porch.

Becky made some casual comments about the house and their trip. Dirk nodded and said yes, and made no effort to fill the silences. Instead he stood and watched them prepare to leave. Tim finally pressing the boot closed. Becky sliding into the passenger seat. Tim getting behind the wheel and fiddling with the GPS. Seatbelts on. Then they were away. All the time Dirk watching them, unmoving and silent. 

The gravel path now felt like an assault and Tim craved the smoothness of the highway. Becky took out her phone. 

“Gonna leave a review.” She said. 

“Now?”

“Otherwise you just forget.”

She started tapping out her review for Dirk’s house. Occasionally articulating the words she was writing. Amazing…views…

Another car was rolling up towards them. Another boxy little hire car. Tim cursed his luck and, with difficulty, pulled into a natural lay-by to let them pass. 

House…was…beautiful…

The driver waved to Tim to say thank you. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, accentuating her cheekbones and her flawless young skin. Her hazel eyes and neat white teeth flashed warmly as she smiled. She rolled by him, her lovely face just a couple of feet from his, as she made her way, alone, to the house. 

Perfect…host…

Tim sat for a moment, looking out the windscreen. Out towards the highway, towards his future. Becky stopped typing. 

“What’s up?”

He put the car in gear and drove on. 

And we were sinking. 

I was lashed to the gunwale, bracing for the next vicious wall of ocean to crash over us. 

The storm had raged since dusk. I was an hour into a four-bell watch, directing the men to thrum the sails. 

Four score desperate souls working every muscle to save ourselves and the cargo alike. Soaked to the bone. Blinded by rain. The cold like needles on our skin.

Four score experienced seamen…and the rest. 

Twenty-three refugees. Fleeing their failed revolution and destined - they hoped, they prayed - for Griffin’s Wharf. 

Another black wave smashed against us and broke on the deck. Panes of foaming seawater swept furiously about our shins. Anything not tied down was carried off. 

A hatch slammed open. Two men whipped up a cask barrel, grimacing with the weight. One stepped up and could not stand without gripping the lee rail. “Master Brakes has commanded we jettison weight.” 

I read the words branded into the wood: salt meat. “How many barrels?”

“Six.”

That would be all of it, leaving us naught but hard tack. Men can’t live on hard tack alone without sliding into some kind of madness. But that was a second order problem.

I nodded. “Send them up.” 

Over long minutes we hefted and manhandled the barrels across the deck and over the rail. Each one fighting us at every turn. One of them dropped could crush an ankle. But each went over and landed without a sound amidst the thrashing waters, and each swung and rolled on the churning crests and valleys, off and away into the blackness of the night. 

*

Prentiss emerged from the quarterdeck blinking into the sideways rain. He waded bowlegged towards me. “Two more planks sprung. We’re three feet in the well and counting.”

We knew we were taking on water. We could feel it. A change in the yaw under our feet. The listing and labouring. But three feet was worse than I thought. Much worse. I barked back, “plug it!”

Prentiss’ expression clouded. “Trying sir, but…” 

I was chief mate. All on board answered to me. All but one. 

Prentiss continued. “He wants us lighter. A lot lighter.”

The implication was clear. Anything not needed for absolute survival was set to go. I knew they’d drown if we didn’t get them out of the hull. And I knew Master Brakes was counting on it. 

He was a formidable skipper and had the respect of every man. But a darker and more acrid soul I had never known. Pitiless and without a shred of empathy. If my instincts were correct, I had a fight on my hands.

*

It has been a job convincing him to take them. But his eyes had glittered gold when he saw their purses. He’d demanded full payment up front. They had sold their heirlooms, their jewellery, clothes and furniture, everything they owned. They were running from death. They had no choice. 

No sooner had we left the docks when Brakes’ attitude to them changed. Kept them cramped in the pitch-black hold 23 hours of the day. Fed them bare rations of maggot-infested meal. Twelve were young children. I snuck them fruit and butter and salt meat when I could. Paper and chalk to draw with. 

I taught them games. Told jokes. Listened to their stories from back home. Their little faces like moons, beaming with delight. Finding tiny pockets of joy where most would wallow in despair. They were too young to fully comprehend the horrors they were fleeing - or facing. 

Twenty-three people with hopes and dreams and fears - so many fears. But they weren’t on the manifest. No-one knew they came on. No-one would ever know if they were lost to the depths.

I left my post and took the swollen wooden steps down into the bowels of the ship. 

I paused a moment on the waist to soothe Barbara, our heifer. She gave us priceless milk, but I’d also grown very fond of her. She had a soulfulness in her eyes lacking in most men. I’d try and protect her too.

Brakes was on the main deck. Built like a bulldog, low and squat. Well-muscled. His bald pate was shining with sweat as he hefted heavy folds of canvas. The snivelling bosun Sollier worked alongside him, a pistol latched to his belt. 

“You’re cutting weight.” I volunteered.

“Of course. Heifer’s next.”

My jaw clenched. I nodded in concession. I would need to give him that to get him on-side. There was no time for protracted negotiations.

“The stowaways. We have to get them out the hold. They’ll drown.” 

Brakes shrugged. “Dangerous, Atlantic passage is.”

I wouldn’t allow him to be glib about this. “We’re cutting weight. Not human lives.”

“So we all go down for the sake of a few peasants?”

“We’re not going down and you know it.” We’d both survived worse than this. “They trusted us to deliver them from persecution. They trusted us with their futures, Brakes. We can jettison a tierce of pig iron.”

“Not the cargo.” He hissed in a manner that brooked no argument. He’d never sully his reputation by losing his paymaster’s inventory.

I tried a new approach. “Put them on the quarterboat with two crew. Pick them up when this is calmed.” 

Brakes spat. “Suicide.”

“I will not let you bring them to harm. I will take record of their presence on this ship.”

“And end both our livelihoods with the stroke of a pen.”

“Twelve of them are children.” I shouted. Brakes dumped a fold of canvas, stood upright. I stepped to him, eye-to-eye. I had to believe he wasn’t a being of pure evil. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’d sacrifice children.”

“Children?” He laughed darkly, cutting a look to his smirking bosun.

Something caught my eye. A ragged, shoulder-high pile of salt meat heaped in a corner. 

“Children…” he said again with a cracked grin. “What do you think was in the barrels?”

Jared took a ladleful of chilli. “Smells delicious Teddy.”

I tried to smile back. 

Lisa was focused on sprinkling cheese into her bowl. They could feel something was off. I hated to create an atmosphere, but things had gone too far.

Jared broke under the tension. “Teddy? Is everything okay?”

“Actually, Jared…not really.”

*

I knew living with a couple would create a certain dynamic, but I was surprised by how naturally we fell into a groove. Jared and Lisa were so easygoing. They were just a good hang. I’d never met anyone like them before. It was kind of an awakening for me.

But over time, things started to change.

I’m a people-pleaser. That’s how I’m built. It feels good to help others. I guess I wanted to impress them a little bit too. I was the newcomer moving into their spare room, and I wanted them to feel like they’d made the right choice. 

So I cooked lasagne on that first night. They loved it. And I did the dishes afterwards. The next night I used the leftover beef for tacos. And I cleaned the dishes again while they drank red wine on the couch. 

The next morning I vacuumed and dusted a little. I collected all the books lying around the place and put them back on the bookshelves. The kind of thing I’d do in my own home. Because this was now my home. Jared and Lisa were thrilled when they came back from work. And that felt great. 

For six months, that’s how it was. We hung out, watched movies, played games. I met their friends. I did most of the cooking and cleaning because I like to stay busy. I’m just wired that way. It was nice. 

Gradually at first, then all of a sudden, it became more than cooking and cleaning. It was anything that needed doing. And there was never any question of Jared or Lisa tackling any of those jobs. It was always me. 

I’ll never forget making Lisa coffee one morning when she said, “Ted, can you see to the basket of laundry in the hallway? It’s been sitting there all day.”

I’d done her laundry once or twice before. But that had been my choice, to help clear the clutter. I’d never been asked to do it. And her tone was…weirdly demanding. I didn’t know how to react, so just said… “sure?”

And from there on out, I did everyone’s laundry. 

Soon I was making breakfast too. Jared casually asked if I could load up the toaster with two slices of sourdough. I was right there in the kitchen so it would’ve been rude to refuse. By the end of that week I was preparing avocado omelettes and three-seed oatmeal while they were still in their pyjamas. 

And it got worse. 

Lisa’s friend Michelle went through a bad break-up. She needed a place to crash. After what I thought was a nice evening together, they dropped the bombshell. I’d need to vacate my room for a month. I’d be staying in the “box room” at the back. They didn’t have the nerve to call it what it was: a large storage closet. No windows. Not even enough room for a bed. 

Michelle expected the same treatment as Lisa and Jared. If anything she was worse. Outright rude at times. At one point she asked if I could paint her toenails.

It’s reached a point where Jared and Lisa don’t even ask any more. They just grumble when things don’t get done. I appreciate it’s their apartment, but boy do they know it. They’ll watch TV loud till late into the night. Host dinner parties and not even think to tell me. If I try and sit down to relax, even for a couple of minutes, they look at me like I’ve grown another head. Sometimes they don’t even acknowledge me at dinner, eating the meal that I cooked. 

We used to laugh and joke and celebrate and commiserate together. I’d give them advice, listen to their anecdotes, sympathise when they complained endlessly about their colleagues. We were best friends. Now they treat me like I’m a piece of furniture. 

So I made them one last chilli. Then I sat at the table with them. 

And it’s awkward.

“Teddy? Is everything okay?”

“Actually, Jared…not really. These last few months…things have changed. I don’t feel like a housemate anymore.”

Jared and Lisa shared a look. Like they knew this was coming. Like they’d been dreading it. Lisa mumbled something about making a phone call and left the room.

“This is what I’m talking about. That was rude, Jared.”

Jared ran his hand over his face. “Yeah, things have gotten out of hand.”

It was encouraging to hear him admit it. “So what can we do to fix it?”

Lisa’s voice thumped through from the hallway: really? There’s no other way? 

Jared looked downbeat. “Yeah…I don’t know. I mean…we’re trying to figure that out.”

This felt like progress. “Well— let’s do it together. We can start by sharing the household chores more evenly.”

Jared sighed deeply.

I went to speak again, but Lisa came back into the room. Jared looked to her, his eyes questioning. 

“They said full factory reset.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s our only option.”

I frowned. “I’m sorry?” But were ignoring me, as usual. 

Jared stuttered. “We’ll lose everything. His whole personality. All the memories we made.”

“Yep. We screwed up.”

“He’s our friend.”

“Which is exactly what the user guide warned against.”

Jared looked at me balefully. I was so confused I couldn’t even form a question. Lisa’s voice was like a knife in the silence. “Jared we could void our warranty.”

Jared came and sat next to me. He opened his arms to hug me. I hugged him back.

I felt two fingers press against the base of my skull, just behind my ear. Darkness crept in. 

“I’m sorry buddy. I’ll miss you.”

“Could you walk us through your exact movements last night, Mr Grabe?”

I put on my best let me think face. 

“My last class finished at 5PM. Couple of students stayed behind to discuss their coursework. After that I marked some papers. Closed up and left at about 6.30pm. Came home, changed. Went out for dinner—”

“Where?” One of the officers leaned forward slightly, frowning. His bulky vest creaked. 

“Randy’s. Just on the high street.”

“Who with?” He had a small tattoo under his ear. Some kind of Celtic cross. 

“By myself. I ate alone.”

The two cops cut each other a glance, but said nothing. I continued.

“I left at maybe 9.30. Then I came home, called a friend. We spoke for about an hour. I watched some TV and went to bed.”

I knew exactly how much detail I needed to give. Not so much it felt rehearsed, not so little that I seemed evasive. This all came with practice. Every close call had been a valuable lesson. 

“You had dinner by yourself. In a restaurant. Is that typical?”

I shrugged. “Once or twice a month. I like to get out. Otherwise I’m just cooped up in the house.” 

The officer with the tattoo took notes. As he did he asked. “You live alone?”

“Yep.”

“Rental?”

“Uhuh.”

His eyes scanned the room, the doorway beyond. “All this for one person?”

“It’s what was available at the time. I wanted a garden”

He went back to taking notes. This was my opportunity to ask the question they’d expect of me. 

“Sorry, can you tell me what this is about? You said something about a— an incident?”

The other officer, the one with the wispy thinning hair and kind eyes in a round face, produced a photograph and handed it to me. It was a picture of a young woman smiling, maybe at a barbecue. Recognition flared.

“Do you know this woman?”

I made a vague, noncommittal noise. 

“She was murdered last night, not far from here.”

“Good lord. That’s awful.”

“You’re aware she’s an English student at your college?”

I blinked. “Oh— right, I thought she looked familiar. She must be in Mr Marchant’s class. That’s terrible.”

Kind eyes plucked the photo out of my hand and tucked it into a pocket on his vest. “You don’t know her personally?”

“I don’t think I ever spoke to her. I must’ve seen her around.”

Tattoo spoke up. There was an impatient edge to his voice. “A man matching your description was seen by multiple eye witnesses fleeing the scene. Covered in blood.”

“My description?” I swept my hair out my eyes. Bright blond and arrow-straight. No mistaking it, even from a distance. I hated it at this length. I could never stop fussing with it. Made me look more nervous than I was.

“Do you have any proof you were at Randy’s at the time of the attack?”

That let me think face again. “Proof…The waitress would remember me. I’m sure of that. And— hold on…” I stood up and moved over to my jacket hanging in the hallway. Careful to make my actions seem spontaneous. 

I rifled through my wallet and handed over the neatly folded receipt. That alone should lift me out of the investigation. The CCTV footage and a quick cross-check with the waitress would tie up any lingering doubt. As usual, I’d concocted a unique and memorable order. No one’s ever asked for that. She’d said with a giggle. Exactly what I’d needed to hear. 

Kind eyes examined the receipt, then passed it to his colleague. Tattoo read it, almost scowling.

“And after dinner you called a friend?”

I instinctively dug my phone out of my pocket. “Here, it’ll be on my—“

But they were already standing up with a vague air of dismay and frustration, which I ignored. They’d be out the house within thirty seconds. 

“We may have a few more questions…” said tattoo.

“Of course, whatever you need.”

They drifted into the hallway. Tattoo took a moment to step towards the kitchen and poke his head through the door. A dart of ice stabbed my gut. From the back window he could see into the garden. All he’d have to do was ask to take a look around. Any resistance would be noted. For a half-second the Randy’s receipt felt thin and flimsy in my hand. 

But he swung back round, unsatisfied, and the two of them made for the door. I opened it quickly, pre-emptively. 

“We’ll be in touch.” 

“Absolutely.” I said with a tight smile. Then I asked, because I knew it was the type of question people asked out of morbid curiosity, “was it…bad?”

Those kind eyes dimmed, clouded over. “Really bad. Brutal.”

Tattoo was waiting for him by the patrol car, pursing his lips in disapproval. 

*

I gave it a few minutes before heading down the garden path, through the wall of foliage to the low half-hidden bunker. The morning rain had made the locks stiff. 

The door swung open to darkness. I pulled a cord and an ugly yellow glow filled the room. 

He was sitting cross-legged in the corner, looking a little sheepish. It was like staring into a warped mirror. 

“I told you to stay away from campus.”

He chuckled guiltily. The blood had dried brown on his hands, forearms, around his mouth.

“It’s not funny. I don’t want to have to move again.” We’d skipped town half a dozen times since I’d found him gnawing on father’s shin bone. That case was still open, as was mother’s. 

I sighed. “You got too hungry, that’s my fault. But please, from now on, find them at random. At least a mile from where I’m eating.”

As usual, I felt nauseous at the thought. But it was my duty to protect him. He was my brother, and I was all he had in the world. 

“Take your clothes off, I’ll hose you down. Then we’re getting a haircut.”

(This is my first short story let me know what you think)

I never believed in the whole cryptids bullshit none of it made sense to me, monsters walking around us while only the crazy folk saw them, but no one else what type of shit is that… but you know I think I have to agree with them I know it sounds really crazy saying this but let me tell you my story… warning even, just don't ever look into the sky at night.
My roommate couldn't keep paying for both of our rent, so she gave me one more month to get a job, and if I couldn't, she would kick me out. We'd been friends for years. I was there for her when she needed someone the most, but now she could barely help me after what happened at my last job. I couldn't hold down a job after that. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here. I couldn't buy food to even eat; I was just an empty shell after everything.
I used to be a part of this cleanup crew. No one knew who we were, no one wanted to know who we were; we were just the government's clean-up crew, any crime scene that was deemed "too gruesome" for the normal folk, we had to be there to clean it up. But after that one event, I couldn't stay in that job anymore, not after what I saw. No one should've gone in there. I still don't know why they sent us first.
The "Carnage," as they called it, was the worst report they had seen; no one made it out alive... I mean... that's what the report said. Kids, teachers, and the local police were all killed in that school; every last one of them was ripped apart. No human could have done that… It was like hell in there, it was red everywhere you went, from the blood soaked into the walls, limbs shoved into the wall with bite marks all over, with no two marks being the same. The thing shouldn't exist. Whatever it was killed hundreds of people in a single day. I… I saw a kid still breathing. He… HE WASN'T HUMAN… not after what had happened to him. HE SHOULDN'T OF BEEN ALIVE HE SHOULD HAVE JUST LET DEATH EMBRACE HIM he should have died...The only thing that was a part of his body was his head… he should have been dead, but he wasn't. I know it sounds wrong, but he should have given up. And after that, I couldn't take it, I had to get out of there, that place, the work, just everything reminded me of what I saw that day.
After that, everything felt off. I couldn't explain it to anyone; the worst part was that I couldn't even stare at the stars anymore, as it always brought me back to the school. The flashbacks I would get every single time I looked into space… it was eating me alive, the ONE thing I loved the most in this world, this god-forsaken world, was ripped away from me.
Even though I lost the one thing I loved the most, I couldn't help myself but be outside at night, always walking across the same bridge every night like it was calling to me, it wanted me, it needed me. As I was walking along the bridge this night, I ran into someone they were trying to hire people to be a nighttime ranger for the state park. The guy looked off, but I couldn't quit tell due to how dark it is, but I still took the form. I only have 3 more weeks until I'm kicked out anyway.
For whatever reason, I end up filling out the form as I read it, it dragged me into this deep feeling of warmth that wouldn't let me free; it was trapping me, and I couldn't do a thing about it other than sign the form. I go to hand the form back to the guy handing them out, and he looks stranger than he previously did. He knew I saw something wrong with him, so he took the paper out of my hand and ran away into the moon's shadow.
A few days ago, and every night, I went to the bridge… the pull it felt strong like a starving kitten craving for food, but the only thing that kept me from fully going over the bridge was the state ranger job I was offered. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want them to call me, but at the same time… what if it was for the better, what if I could fix me.
The next morning, my phone rings, it's the state park saying I got the job as I "was the only one who applied." It doesn't feel real. Thinking about it, the guy handing the forms out, he only had one, he wanted me to get the job "they" wanted me to get it, the thing that slaughtered the whole school, and the guy on the bridge, it all has to be them, it can't be anyone else.

My roommate overhears the call and starts to congratulate me for this "big opportunity," saying I shouldn't fuck this up because if I do, I'm "on the streets". She even offered me a ride for my first day as a celebration gift. But I don't want to go. Why is everything taking me there? Why can't I decide what I want? What is wrong with me?
I get to the state park, it's 58 minutes out from where I am. My roommate is over the moon because that means she doesn't have to pay for rent by herself anymore. I get through the front gates when I see the head chief sitting at a picnic table waiting for me. I get there and nothing, he doesn't talk, he doesn't move, he's DEAD! I turn around to see if my roommate is still here, but she's gone. I panic, I don't know what to do.
"AHHHHHHHH". I scream out in pain, the flashbacks I can't, my head it hurts too much. I can't stand it. I start to slam my head against the picnic table. I can't stop, it's got a hold of me. I feel the blood flowing down my face, but there's nothing I can do. Just when I think all is lost, I start to black out from the blood loss.
I wake up, it's the middle of the night, my face is full of blood, and I have this pounding headache. I reach for my head, and I feel bone through a giant hole in my head. I shouldn't be alive… "WHY GOD… why have you done this? Just let me be FREE". I look up to the sky, the stars no longer bringing me pain, only the warmth of guidance. My body is moving on its own, it's taking me out of the park to the road. "WHY CAN'T I MOVE?"! My legs moving in a trance, I start to walk the way back home. I'm afraid of where they're taking me.
The stars are my friends; you should have seen them dance, it was beautiful. I couldn't stop crying at the performance. I wish everyone could've seen my friends perform. They were always there for me. I couldn't have asked for better friends. The one thing I don't like about them is that they brought me to the bridge. Even though I trust them, I've known them my whole life, they want me to jump, can you believe that my friends want me to jump… I… would do… anything for them.

Part One

The rescue operation that followed was thorough but futile. Police boats, diving teams, helicopters with searchlights. All combing the lake for any trace of the missing teens. Resources and manpower above and beyond what her mother got.
But Chloe knew they'd find nothing. Whatever lived in the depths now had claimed them completely.

The aftermath was chaos. Media attention, police investigations, theories ranging from equipment failure to kidnapping to simple drowning. Luke's family hired private
investigators. Amelia's parents offered a reward for information. But the lake kept its
secrets.

Hannah and her friends celebrated privately, speaking in hushed tones, quietly delirious about how their plan was working. Stoking their own resentments over how much more press attention two little lost rich kids were getting compared to thousands of dead fish.

But Chloe felt only horror at what they'd unleashed.

“You're in shock,” Hannah said she sensed Chloe’s mood. “It's natural. But this is what we wanted, isn't it? To get our lake back?”

“Not like this,” Chloe whispered. “We didn’t want anyone to die, did we?”

The argument that followed split the group along lines that hadn't existed before. Some, like Sophie and Danny, shared Chloe's unease about the violence. The others saw it as justified retribution for years of exploitation.

Hannah led the rhetoric. She spoke of rebellions and revolutions. There were always
casualties. It was the great wheel of fortune turning. By rights some got crushed
underneath, while others were lifted. Now it was their turn to be lifted; their turn to crush.

But Chloe knew this was more than that. They weren’t in control of this thing. They never directed it towards Luke’s boat. It had acted on its own impulses.

Impulses she was feeling within her. Hunger tingling in her jaw. Senses sharpening.

Her body was changing too. Her nails had grown harder, stronger. Thick scar-like skin was forming on her hands. There were moments when her own reflection snagged her eye. It looked wrong somehow. Leaner and more angular.

*

Ben was hollow-eyed with grief and guilt. When Chloe tried to comfort him, he could
barely look at her. She’d brought some of Dot’s homemade jam donuts - it’s all she could think to do. But as they sat on the terrace of his mother’s hotel, he hardly said a word. And he didn’t touch the donuts.

Eventually he mumbled something. So quiet Chloe asked him to repeat himself.

“I should have stopped them,” he said, staring out at the water where Luke and Amelia had vanished. “I knew it was a bad idea.”

“He wouldn’t have let you stop him," Chloe said, but the words felt inadequate.

“Amelia was... she was scared, I could see it. And I just let him pressure her onto that boat because it was easier than confronting him.”

Chloe wanted to tell him the truth. About the ritual, the summoning, the ancient thing
they'd awakened in the depths. But how could she explain something that sounded so absurd even to her?

It was hard enough denying the low, creeping satisfaction she’d felt knowing the ritual had worked.

Ben stared at the floor, jaw clenched. She could feel the distance growing between them. Yes, they had chemistry. But maybe this ill-conceived, improbable flirtation was over before it had really begun.

Chloe suddenly felt completely out of place. She’d cleaned these tables dozens of times. Now she was pretending that she was a peer, even a lover, to someone like Ben, who literally owned the place.

Maybe she’d just been a toy. A novelty when the days were long and easy and boring. Now he was in another place, and she held no interest for him.

*

The memorial service for Luke came a couple of days later, held at the water's edge
where his family had scattered flowers and played recordings of his favourite music.

The gathering was smaller than it might have been. Fear was keeping people away from the lake, exactly as Hannah had hoped.

Chloe had been surprised when Ben invited her. She truly thought that whatever they’d had was already snuffed out. She knew she had to go if she was ever to see him again.

So she attended despite her concerns, and was guiltily relieved to find the gathered
crowd too consumed by their own grief to care that she was among them.

Luke’s father gave a wobbly speech as his mother seemed to fold herself around a tissue, her whole body racking as she wept. Black-clothed tables held champagne and exquisitely neat canapés.

She found Ben alone on the terrace. He looked exhausted and rung out. He was pale, and his eyes were pink-rimmed. They’d barely exchanged a word when he abruptly leant into her and kissed her.

Chloe’s insides bloomed. Her heart thumped. Her hips pressed against his.
Their mouths opened, and she found his lips in between her teeth. Before she knew what she was doing, she bit down. It felt good for half a second, like scratching an itch. He gasped and pulled away. Touched his bottom lip and found blood. Shock and betrayal flashed in his eyes.

She could still taste his blood on her tongue when the second attack came.

This time there was no mistaking what happened.

Maisy, a willowy redhead Chloe had been briefly introduced to at Luke’s party, was
sucking on a vape near the water's edge when the creature struck.

The thing rose like a fever dream made flesh. Part woman, part amphibian, her long hair writhing like eels. Her skin was pale as bone, tinged lurid green where the light hit her, marked with patterns that might have been scales or scars.

When she opened her mouth, dense rows of pin-sharp translucent teeth gleamed in the afternoon light.

Like a crocodile taking prey, too fast for witnesses to fully comprehend, it whipped the girl back and forth in those terrible jaws before dragging her smoothly beneath the surface.

Panic erupted among the mourners, but the creature wasn't finished. She emerged again, driving up out of the water to seize another girl who'd was too paralysed by shock to hurry inside with the rest. Her shrill screams were clipped off in an instant. The attack was inhumanly swift and brutal, leaving nothing but ripples and the metallic scent of blood on the air.

By the time the police arrived, the survivors were in various states of shock and hysteria.

Their stories made no sense. Some described some kind of monstrous figure, others an animal attack, still others claimed to have seen nothing at all.

The human mind, it seemed, had trouble processing something so fundamentally wrong. The champagne, the grief, the hard white sunlight bouncing off the lake. None of it helped.
But Chloe had seen everything. Actually, she felt everything. And when the monster’s eyes found hers across the water for a heartbeat, she saw recognition there.

The media frenzy that followed flared brightly but briefly. With no photographic evidence, no remains, and no consensus as to what happened, tabloid hacks were left with little to write about after the initial flurry of headlines.

The police did their best to calm the hysteria. But the tourists weren't buying it.
Something was happening. Four gone in a week. These weren’t unfortunate accidents. This was some kind of campaign.

Hotels emptied, restaurants closed early, boat rental companies shuttered for the season. Fear had accomplished what years of campaigning couldn’t.

*

They were sitting in the boathouse kitchen, surrounded by the tools and nets of Dot's
trade. The familiar setting made the conversation feel surreal, as if they were discussing the weather rather than an ancient monster.

“Jenny Greenteeth.” Dot said with gravel in her throat. “You could’ve summoned any
number of entities or spirits. I didn’t quite clock how angry you all were though. 

Because you’ve brought Jenny Greenteeth to our doorstep. And she’s hungry.”

“How?”

“She’s an energy. She’s a force. And you had the strength to make her manifest.”

“I can feel it. I can feel everything.”

“What did you ask for?” Chloe couldn’t answer.

“I know that the others asked for. It’s plain as day. She’s clearing this town out and she’s doing it with violence. They’re getting their wish. What was your wish?” But Dot already knew that too. She could see it in Chloe’s face. “You asked for her to come back to you, didn’t you? You asked for your mam back.”

Chloe swallowed. Her voice quivered. “How do we end this?”

“Like anything from the water, she fears her opposite, fire. Rowan wood is best. The
question is,” She looked Chloe dead in the eye. “Will you let yourself do it?”

Her nails were thick and sharp now, more like claws. Her hair moved in still air as if
underwater. She had to bat it away when she felt it tickling her cheek. Sometimes she caught herself breathing in rhythm with the lake's undulations.

"What am I becoming?" She whispered.

“You’re bonded to it. And soon it’ll be too late. There’ll be no turning back.” Dot replied.

When Chloe stepped into the muggy night, the rest of the crew were in high spirits. A full- throated, double-fisted party was underway.

“We did it,” Hannah said, raising a bottle of stolen wine as they gathered around the fire pit. “We actually fucking did it.”

They folded Chloe into the celebration. Though their attitudes toward her were starting to grow complex. They knew she’d been seeing Ben. Knew she was witnessing the trauma and grief first-hand. The tension was real.

But she was still one of them. Still local, still displaced by the same forces they'd been fighting. She was still the one who had brought them this great gift.

*

Chloe slipped away and found Ben at the hotel. He was sitting alone in the Lake View's empty dining room surrounded by boxes and packing crates. The once-grand space felt hollow now, stripped of its lush comforts. Dust motes danced in the afternoon light streaming through unwashed windows.

He looked up when she entered, and she was shocked by the change in him. The easy charisma was gone, replaced by something brittle and exhausted. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his hair hung limp and unwashed.

“Putting it up for auction,” he said without preamble. “We’ll take what we can get now. Insurance premiums alone will finish us off.”

“Ben, I'm so sorry—”

“Alright. No worries. Nice knowing you.”

The studied casualness in his voice hurt. But she knew he was the one who was really hurting. Chloe desperately wanted to explain, to tell him about the ritual and the creature and her growing certainty that they'd unleashed something beyond their control.
Perhaps that would galvanise him. Put the spark back in his eyes. They could try and stop it together. But the words died in her throat as he turned away to pack another box. “I'll go then,” she said, backing toward the door.

“Yeah,” Ben agreed flatly, not looking at her. “You go then.”

“I really am sorry, Ben.”

He turned on her, suddenly grimacing with hurt.

“You’re gonna be fine though, aren't you? You’ve got your little fishing crew. And all my mates, they’ll be fine. Because their parents own franchises. Or they’ll just sell at a loss and go set up down in Cornwall or somewhere. But me…and my mum…” His voice almost broke. “We’re on our own. Again. As usual no-one’s coming to help us. And we’re done this time. We’re done. We have no idea what we’re gonna do.”

As she walked back toward the village, Chloe wore the weight of everything that had been destroyed on her shoulders like a cloak.

*

She was digging. It had taken all day for Chloe to find a time when the site was deserted, and she didn’t know how long she had.

On the night of the ritual they’d buried the alter three feet deep, as Dot had instructed.

Now she was unearthing it.

She was clammy with sweat as the drove the shovel in and hefted up another mound of earth. As she thrust it in again, the shovel tip hit something hard.

She dropped to her knees and clawed at the dirt with her hands. Her nails like talons
scoring the damp stony earth. Her fingers touched the tin when she heard Hannah’s
agitated shout behind her.

“Oi! What you doing?”

She wasn’t alone. The others were hurrying up behind her.

Hannah wrapped her arms round Chloe and threw her off onto the ground.

“I have to end it.” Chloe shouted.

“No you fucking don’t. It’s not over.”

“It is over. It has to be.”

“They’ll keep coming back. It’s not over till they’re gone. Every one of them.”

“How many more people have to die for that?"

“All of them, for all I fucking care.”

Chloe felt sick at what she was hearing. Hannah’s true position laid bare. Hannah kept her down while Mark kicked the dirt back over the box.

Chloe’s breathing grew tight as a familiar dread swelled in her chest. The same sensation she'd experienced before the memorial attack. A lurching within her as if she was about to vomit. But also a seething anticipation.

Something was coming.

Something stirring in the night beyond, drawn by the noise and the scent of young blood. Her senses picked up movement in the water. Not natural currents, but something large and purposeful heading toward shore.

“It’s coming,” she said. Not loud enough. She tried again. “We need to go. Please.”
Hannah kept her pinned. Even when she started shouting. Even when she screamed. Even when something cleaved the surface of the water, driving uncannily fast towards them.

The creature moved like a nightmare given form. Swift and atrocious, her pale body
cutting through the air as if gravity had no hold on her. Her long hair whipped around her like seeking tentacles, and her claws caught the firelight as she landed among them with predatory grace.

The teens scattered, but Danny was closest to the water and slowest to react. His asthma had always made him vulnerable, and now that weakness spelled his end. The creature's hair lashed out like living rope, wrapping around his throat.

Chloe watched in horror as Danny was dragged backward, his feet leaving furrows in the muddy shore as he clawed frantically at the constricting coils around his neck. His inhaler tumbled forgotten into the mud as he was pulled into the darkness between the trees, his choking sounds growing more agitated until they cut off entirely.

For a moment, there was only racked breathing catching rags of terrified voice. The fire crackled and somewhere in the distance a night bird called. It felt impossible that such violence could happen so quickly, so quietly.

The gathered friends could barely register that it had happened at all. They couldn’t
move. Should they flee? Where to? What could they do but wait for this abomination to run them down.

Then she slunk out from the shadows.
She moved differently now. More cautious, more calculating. Her ancient eyes swept the remaining teens like a predator selecting the weakest prey.

Wesley and Sophie huddled together near the fire, Mark had stumbled back towards the boathouse, while Hannah lay frozen, having clambered away from Chloe.

The creature's gaze found Chloe and stopped. For a long moment, they stared at each other across the dancing light. Predator and offspring, monster and reflection. Chloe felt the connection between them like a physical force, alien thoughts pressing against her consciousness.

Recognition. Kinship. Something that might have been affection in a mind too primordial to understand human feeling.

Jenny Greenteeth took a step toward her, then another. She moved with fluid elegance despite her form. When she reached Chloe, she stopped completely. Eerily still and statuesque, as if waiting for some kind of signal… or permission.

“Greenteeth.” Dot whispered from behind them.

The old woman had emerged from the boathouse, drawn by the sounds of violence. She swept up a burning branch of rowan wood from the fire. Her face was set with grim determination as she waved it menacingly at the creature.

She thrust the burning stake into the thing’s stomach. The shriek split the night air, a
sound like tearing metal and drowning children. She pulled back violently, and Chloe
could see steam rising from the wound where the sacred wood had burned her pale flesh. “Back to the depths where you belong!” Dot cried.

For a moment, it seemed like it might work. Jenny Greenteeth recoiled, her wound still smoking. But a clarity formed in the reptilian flicker of her eyes.

Her movements were an incoherent blur against the dark night.

One moment Dot was standing braced with her makeshift weapon, the next she was on the ground with her face opened in striations of red. The creature's claws had raked across her features, removing skin and muscle and leaving bone gleaming white.

The wounded creature slipped back into the water with barely a disturbance, and the
ripples bobbed with eerie gentleness against the bank.

The survivors were too shocked to move or speak. Or to notice that the burning branch had come to rest under the boathouse’s porch, and the blackening wood was starting to catch.

*

The boathouse was a pyre, sending orange flames and black flakes curling up into the purple air.

The group was stilled with the horrors of what a handful of seconds had wrought upon them. But Hannah came round first. As sirens wailed ever closer, she turned on 

Chloe with wild eyes and unconcealed fury.

“You brought it here by fucking around with the alter” she snarled.

“I was trying to end it,” she whispered.

“You’re sabotaging us.”

“I just want the killing to stop.”

“Well now Danny’s dead. Dot’s dead. Because of you!”

“No!”

Mark stepped forward. “She’s gonna tell someone. She’s gonna ruin it.”

“If you think you’re bigger than this, you ain’t.” Hannah produced a well-maintained
fishing knife and held it my her side. “I’m not gonna let you take this away from us.”

Hannah didn’t move. But her feral stare was demanding blood. She would only hesitate so long.

Chloe ran. Swifter than she or anyone else had run before. She ran like a predator, even though she felt like prey.

*

The Lake View Hotel was dark when Chloe reached it. The rear door was propped open and furniture stood forlorn and incongruous on the patio. She found Ben in his old room, methodically packing clothes into a suitcase.

“We’re killing people.” Chloe said without preamble.

Ben looked up from his packing, taking in her disheveled appearance and the wild look in her eyes. “What?”

The story came tumbling out. The summoning, the attacks, Dot's death and Hannah's accusations. As she spoke, Ben's expression grew increasingly horrified.

“The creature, it's still out there. Still hunting. And they think I'm controlling it somehow."

Chloe’s movements were agitated and strange. “Maybe they're right. Maybe I am…”

“Maybe you’re what?”

“Look at me,” Chloe demanded, stepping into the light from his bedside lamp.

For the first time, he saw the full extent of her transformation. Her skin had taken on a pearlescent quality that seemed to glow faintly from within. Her hair curled up around her face like rodent tails. Most disturbing of all were her eyes, like iridescent marbles.

Ben recoiled instinctively, pressing himself back against his bed. “Oh my god…”

She moved closer, desperation making her bold. "You have to help me. Please. I don't know what to do.”

But Ben was already shaking his head, racked with disgust and fear. Whatever feelings he'd had for the girl she used to be, they couldn't survive the reality of what she was becoming.

“You need to go. I need you to leave. Now.”

“Please—”

“Get out.” Ben said, louder now. He shoved her back, fighting his repulsion.

The door slammed in her face with finality that echoed through the empty hotel. 

Chloe stood in the corridor for a moment, listening to the sound of furniture being pushed against the door from the other side.

*

The gridlocked taillights carved streaks of red across the fells from New Road all the way up to the A591.

The town meanwhile was desolate. Only the odd hushed and urgent voices packing their cars down side streets. Late leavers hoping to miss the exodus traffic. A hard easterly breeze brought an unwelcome wintery chill to the air. It cut through

Chloe’s clothes as she waited by the bus stop. The lady at the desk had said “It might be delayed” when Chloe pushed the last of her pocket change through the gap in the perspex.

Now unease gnawed at her. She just wanted to get as far away from here as possible. Far from water. Far from death. Far from all the people she’d hurt.

But as she sat waiting for a creaking and belching old bus to deliver her to some
uncertain future, something else gnawed at her. Or rather, someone.

Hannah wouldn’t leave. She was too stubborn. Too scared. To full of anger and grief.
She’d only wanted her little place in the world back, and yet she had lost everything.
She would die on the banks of Lake Windermere, Chloe knew. And she couldn’t handle another death on her conscience.

When the bus finally pulled up twenty minutes later, Chloe wasn’t there to get on it.

*

Hannah was exactly where Chloe thought she’d be. But she wasn’t alone. Mark was
there, and Wesley and Sophie. They seemed agitated, drunk.

They snapped to her as they felt her presence. Hannah marched towards her, face
contorted.

“You have to leave.” Chloe said, hoping to get ahead of her accusations. No such luck.

Hannah grabbed her by the collar.

“You did all this. You killed her. You burnt it all down.”

“I tried to stop it.”

“It follows you! It followed you here! You should’ve stayed with the rich twats. That’s who you really want to be—”

“No.”

“You should’ve stayed with them and killed them all off. That was the plan. Instead you brought it here.”

“Maybe she needs to die.” Mark offered.

Hannah twitched at this. She dragged Chloe off her feet and before she knew it Mark had her legs up and they were marching her to the water.

She could’ve fought. Her nails could carve their flesh from their bones. Her slick matted hair could wrap around their throats. Her simian strength could buck and twist and send them flying.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t find it within herself. Maybe this is what needed to happen. They plunged her head-first into the shallows. A calloused palm on the back of her head.

Burning lungs. Pulsing behind her eyes. Colours swirling, throbbing. Lucid thoughts
draining away. Blackness beckoning.

Chloe heard the distant muted roar of an engine. Then a familiar voice. Loud and shrill, calling her name.

Ben fighting with Wesley. His voice closer now.

Leave. She thought. Get out of here Ben. Please.

The lake began to roil.

She heard the gathering thunder.

Then the screams.

Restraining hands whipped away and she was free to roll on her back. The creature was magnificent and terrible in the infernal light of the fire pit.
Mark tried to flee but was too slow. The creature's claws found his throat, opening it in a spray of arterial blood. Sophie screamed and ran for the charred skeleton of the
boathouse, but Jenny Greenteeth was faster, dragging her down with whipping hair.

In a matter of moments only Hannah remained, backing away with a flaming branch held before her like a sword. Human and monster faced each other across the torch.

Then Jenny Greenteeth seemed to move outside of time, and Hannah's defiance ended in a gurgle of blood and water.

Through it all, Chloe’s strength slowly returned. Her transformation was accelerating,
triggered by the violence unfolding around her.

She climbed to her feet and saw Ben caught in paralysing fear and indecision. His eyes shone with terror. Jenny Greenteeth turned to him and stalked closer.

“Not him! Not him.”

Jenny Greenteeth whipped round across the clearing, and for a moment they simply
looked at each other. The pulverising recognition almost sent Chloe back to her knees.

It was her. Beneath the monster. Within the monster. Part of it, entwined in it…Chloe’s mother. Her essence so profound that Chloe was powerless to act.

Ben had stumbled back to his car. His key jangled and fell to the ground. She heard him whimper as he scratched around frantically in the dirt.

Jenny Greenteeth’s eyes flicked back over to him.

Chloe could only whisper through her tears. “No. Please mum no.”

She knew it was futile. Her mother was in there. Hideously conjured by her own abject ritual. Enrobed in a demonic shell dredged from some hellish place and wrought from rage and malignancy.

But it wasn’t her. Her mother was lost forever. And Chloe hadn’t brought her back. 

She had only corrupted her own memory.

She sprinted, and attacked.

The battle was brief and vicious. Jenny Greenteeth was stronger, older by eons, more naturalised to violence. But Chloe had advantages the ancient creature couldn't match. A powerful compulsion to end the horrors. To protect the one person in this world she had left.

They fought in the shallows. Their struggle sent waves across the churning lake. Chloe's hair wrapped around the creature's throat while her claws sought vulnerable spots in that pale, scarred hide. The wound Dot had made with the fiery stake. Her fingers opened it again.

Jenny Greenteeth fought back with primal fury, her own claws ripping across Chloe's face in patterns that echoed the monster’s own raked skin.

They sank beneath the surface together, their battle continuing in the dark water where both felt most at home.

Surrounded by the lake's ancient tomblike silence, Chloe felt a moment of perfect peace.

This was where she belonged. Not in the complicated world above, but here in the gloom.

For an instant, she understood why her mother had chosen the water, why the lake called to those who no longer fit in the daylight world.

But she was still human enough to remember love, to recall the faces of those who'd
been lost to feed this creature's hunger. With desperate strength, she drove her claws into Jenny Greenteeth's wound, driving upwards, pressing and grasping, seeking the heart that beat with unnatural life.

The creature convulsed as Chloe's hand closed around that gnarled organ. For a moment, their eyes met in the murky water. Then Chloe squeezed, and Jenny Greenteeth dissolved into her component parts: lake weeds and grit and the accumulated malice of centuries.

And a soul, like a gasp, ephemeral, drifting away into the abyss.

Alone in the depths, Chloe’s change was complete. She was of the water now, belonging to forces older than memory. Let them think her dead. It was close enough to the truth.

She made herself a promise. She would guard these depths, protect them from those who would exploit their power. And if another summoning came, if desperate people reached into the dark for salvation, she would be there to answer.

*

The following summer brought cautious renewal to the town. Tourists returned in smaller numbers, drawn by stories of the mysterious events but reassured by the peaceful months that followed. The Lake View Hotel remained closed. Boarded up and fenced off.

But a sign outside promised: Re-opening soon.

Ben now ran a small fish stand near the harbour, buying his daily stock from the few
remaining local fishermen. Hannah's boat was gone. Lost in the fire that had consumed the boathouse. But locals still needed fish from the lake. And Ben felt an urge to stay close to the water.

Sometimes he stood on the bank after a day’s work, looking out over the lake that had taken so much from all of them. He'd learned not to speak of what he'd seen that night, of the transformation he'd witnessed in Chloe's final moments.

The official story was simpler: she'd died trying to save her friends from some sea
predator who’d drifted in through an inlet on unseasonably warm currents and gotten
stuck there. It was plausible enough that people accepted it and let themselves move on.

There was a blue ribbon tied to a new rowan tree where the old grove had been, fluttering in the evening breeze. Visitors assumed it was for all the young people the lake had claimed. Locals knew better. It was specifically for Chloe, the swimmer who’d gone to find her mother.

Unbeknownst to Ben, she was there when he came to pay his respects. Hidden in the shallows among the reeds, watching with eyes that reflected the starlit night like a cat's.

She wanted to surface, to speak, to explain what she'd become and why it was
necessary. But the distance between their worlds had grown too great.

She was the lake's guardian now, its protector. Custodian of the arcane forces that could be wrenched from it by those desperate enough to try.

When developers came with their plans and surveyors, they found their equipment
mysteriously sabotaged, their diving teams reporting strange currents that made
underwater work impossible. When tourists showed the water disrespect - dumping litter, harassing wildlife, treating it like their personal playground - they discovered that accidents could happen to anyone.

But for those who belonged, who understood the water's moods and respected its
ancient power, the lake remained a sanctuary. Children could swim safely in the shallows, fishermen could make their living from its bounty, and lovers could walk its shores on balmy evenings.

The lake kept its secrets, as it always had.

In the deep grey-blue of perfect night, Chloe heard shifting. 

Her mother had risen from the bed. 

She’d been agitated lately.

Tendrils of exhaustion were drawing Chloe’s mind back to sleep. Thumps and bumps and murmurings washed in and out of her consciousness. Moments passed before she managed to rouse herself. After she thought she’d heard the front door clunk closed.

Still only half-awake, Chloe pulled on her joggers and her beaten up Reebok Classics. She moved tripping through the small living room and out the door.

Only later, returning home in hard daylight, would she see the jar of silty grey water on the kitchen table. The soggy pungent moss. The words carved into the woodchip. 

The blood. 

Stepping onto the street now, past midnight, she could see her mother. A shifting blotch in the darkness moving off the down an alley that led out of the estate. 

Chloe followed, calling after her.

But at the other end of the alley where it gave way to a wide scrubby field, Chloe’s mother was lost in the shroud of darkness. And yet somehow she knew where to find her.

The stand of trees were like cathedral pillars. Their hard shadows raked over her. The cries of the woodland looms warped unnaturally as she ran. But she kept running towards the ravenous black plain of Lake Windermere.

She stopped at the bank and watched her mother in the lake. Just a head and shoulders bobbing. Then seamlessly melting into the flatness.

Chloe ran into the shallows. Her legs hacking through the water, until the depth slowed her, and she had to wade. Swinging her arms to drive her pace.

An ice cold fist punched the air from her chest as the water licked at her throat. Her feet were losing purchase on the grainy bed, and so she ducked under.

The punishing cold seized her muscles and drained her strength. Her clothes were
suddenly leaden, her legs throbbed with fatigue. Her lungs ached and the expanse of
gloom stole her sense of direction and perspective.

And she went under, like her mother did.

It felt like not a grave but a cocoon. She opened her mouth. Allowed herself to relax. Let the water in—

Strong lean arms wrapped around her. Like a riptide they dragged her off, heedless to her will. Still she wanted to pull away. Her mother was still out there. But her body betrayed her.

The stars came into focus as she lay on hard ground again, hacking and vomiting up lake water. When she sat up, scraping breath and spitting mucus, her rescuer was gone.

She remembered little of the grimly brightening hours that followed. Magenta and cyan lights whirling lazily against the trees like a sombre carnival. People gathered at the fluttering tape perimeter.

A blanket. A hot drink in a plastic cup. Paramedics narrating their physical checks on her. Contraptions beeping green. No need for the ambulance.

The boxy concrete interrogation room. Endless questions to which she had no answers, only implorations for them to get out there and find her mum. Another hot drink. Scalding and tasteless.

The lies she told them to be left alone. And then the being alone.

The body was never found. A year passed.

*

Chloe floated on her back in the water, watching mist rise around her. Spirits escaping the depths. The lake at dawn was silent and ice cold. Its surface caught the first blush of light like shattered glass, while the fells behind it were painted red and gold.

She rolled forward and slipped under. Moving with practiced ease, cutting through water dark as peat. The quiet beneath was complete. A womblike peace that made her ache with want.

This was her sanctuary. Had been for months now, ever since the dreams started. Dreams of her mother, beckoning her down to a place where the light couldn't reach. Down where nothing could hurt anymore.

When she surfaced, a boy was watching her from the jetty.

Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Messy dark hair that caught the light, and eyes that held mischief rather than malice. A joint dangling from his lips. He took a slow drag, exhaled through one side of his mouth. 

“This is private land. Hotel property.”

The Lake View Hotel loomed behind him, its Victorian bulk a grey shadow against the creeping sun.

Chloe’s cheeks stung in the cool air. “I didn’t know. I'll go—”

"Joking." He winked. “Actually I’m not. But…your secret's safe. To be fair the old cow
who owns this place is actually quite nice when you get to know her.”

Recognition sparked. “She’s your mum.” 

She'd seen him around the hotel during her cleaning shifts. Always at a distance, part of a different world entirely. The world of people who owned things instead of scraping by.

“You work here, right?” His smile was warm, genuine, and it did something strange to her.

“Yeah.”

He nodded to the water between them. “Only fair get staff perks then. Enjoy your swim. I’m Ben, by the way.”

“Chloe.”

“I’d shake your hand, but…” He shrugged and stood up, giving her a casual nod as he turned away.

She watched him amble back toward the hotel, completely at ease in his skin as he
tapped the joint out on the sole of his shoe.

Chloe floated for another few minutes, but the solace was gone. The morning felt broken, tainted with embarrassment and some other feeling she couldn’t name.

She swam to shore, pulled on her clothes over her wet bathing suit, and headed home to get ready for her shift.
*

Later, when her shift was over, she went down to the lost and found in the basement. All the staff knew that “lost and found” was code for “abandoned”, and they saw no harm in helping themselves to the clothes and trinkets and souvenirs that the tourists decided were too heavy or cumbersome to take home.

This time she hit paydirt. A heavy hold-all containing a box of expensive fishing lures and a boxy contraption with a little digital screen that she recognised as a depth sounder. The kind of thing tourists bought, deciding they were going to take up fishing. Then realising that actually, once was enough.

She knew exactly what she was going to do with it.

She slipped the lures and the sounder into her bag, clocked out, and hurried out into the warm afternoon.

*

The walk home took Chloe through the town centre as restaurants were preparing for their first wave of covers - usually coach trip parties descending en-masse for their pre-booked early bird specials.

Even as she felt invisible, Chloe’s spirits always lifted with the return of the brilliant blue skies in June - and all the traffic and chaos they brought with them.

It was an odd kind of luxury living in a place people went out of their way to visit. She
found the energy intoxicating. Smoke drifting in from disposable barbecues on the pebble beach, mingling with the brine in the air and the tang of well-vinegared fish and chips.

Dance pop from the beach bar loudspeakers giving way to live acoustic easy listening classics and the constant burble of voices from pub gardens. The jangle of foreign languages. The pleasure boats and wild swimmers. Banners and garlands going up for one weekend festival or another. Market stalls with platters of free samples.

The tanned kids wearing clean new streetwear, glued to their Nintendo Switches in
harbourside bistros as their parents bought them pizza. It was hard to resent them.
Chloe could go days without saying a word to anyone. But the bodies and the noise
made her feel less alone. Like she was part of something, even as she was shut out of it all in every meaningful way. 

She preferred the clogged streets and busy hotel shifts to the desolate winter months.And the tourists never made it to the fields of wild garlic and bluebells on Brant Fell. Or the ancient sessile oaks and silver birches crowding up against the waterline at the edge of town. They’d never think to listen out for bats and owls sweeping through the hazel coppices at dusk, where old magic still crackled among the branches. That was all still hers.

But she knew it was bad. Or unsustainable, as they said. She knew why locals got irate at another row of cottages being turned into luxury holiday lets. Or another celebrity chef’s glass-fronted dining experience appearing where a grocer’s had been. 

And increasingly she felt like a smudge on the postcard. In her faded hoodie and jeans, scraped back hair. Scrawny, no make up, smelling of floor cleaner. She was the kind of detail the visitors let their eyes slide over, filter out. It was easy to see why so many people felt unwelcome in their own town.

As she mooched north she saw the old post office had closed. The family who'd run it for fifty years had finally given up. In its place, a boutique wine bar that was keeping the charmingly ironic old signage.

Home was a cramped cluttered council house with damp in the corners and a small
paved garden choked with weeds. The living room smelled faintly of generational smoke and her mother's perfume, though she’d been gone a year.

Unopened bills covered the kitchen table. She'd been managing, barely, on her cleaning wages and the lost and found stuff she sold. Enough to eat at least. She’d learned to ignore the increasingly extreme language in the demands for payment. 

She’d had men knocking on her door a couple of times, but she just told them her mum or dad wasn’t in. Technically true.

She’d seen the familiar Audi at the top of her drive. She recognised the obnoxious red logo on the driver’s door. And so she was expecting the shrill, incessant doorbell just a few minutes after she’d arrived home.

She barely had time to get changed. The man had given up on the doorbell and was now hammering on the flimsy wood. She could hear the creak of the letterbox as he peered through.

Then she heard the key rattling in the lock. This was a council house. And while she
hadn’t paid council tax, rent, or bills for a few months, she thought it would take a few
more months for them to bother doing anything about it.

Evidently not. As from tonight, she could no longer call this place home.

She scooped up whatever clothes she could into her bag and slipped out the rear door in the kitchen, out to the cracked square of paving. Over the low fence, along the alley and onto the field that ran down to the bank.

They could have whatever was left in the house. She wasn’t going to stick around to get processed and put into the system. It would be safer on the streets.

*

She found them drifting back from the local Aldi with a shopping bag full of cheap beer. Their voices were the few she’d heard that day with the local flat Cumbrian twang, and it conjured heart-tugging memories of her nan, her uncles…her mum.

She followed them at a distance, trying to catch scraps of their conversation. She’d
wanted to speak to them for so long, but had never found the courage, or the right
moment.

They were older than her, and close. Tight-knit. Obviously wary. Locals tended to turn inwards against the flood of strangers. It would’ve been weird to just walk up and say hello. It’s not what people did here.

Now she finally had a reason. Right there in her bag.

As they stopped by a bench for one of them to tie their shoelace, Chloe let herself get noticed.

The one she knew was called Hannah Walsh saw her first. At eighteen Hannah was stocky and had easy authority of someone in a trade. Her hair was a short tangle of dark ringlets. Work clothes still glittering with fish scales from the morning's catch. 

She looked at Chloe, intrigued but not threatened. “Ay up.”

Chloe held out the bag.

Another spoke, tall and lanky with thick glasses. “What’s in there then? Hard drugs?”

Chloe dug into the bag and held out her booted goods.“It’s, er, a depth measuring thing.”.

Hannah immediately stepped over and took it from her, examined it.

“Thought it might be, like, I dunno, useful or something.”

“Where’d you get it?” She asked.

“I work at one of the hotels. People leave stuff all the time.”

“Oh aye, five finger bonus is it?” The one who said that had a round, smiling face and a retired rugby player’s build. It got a laugh. Chloe just shrugged. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

“You wouldn’t believe what they leave behind.”

“I bloody would. I’ve seen the beach after a bank holiday.” That hit too close to home to get more than a snicker.

“What do you want for it?” Hannah asked.

“Dunno.” Chloe hadn’t thought that far ahead. Enough for a night at the Travelodge four miles away? Two nights? Something else came out her mouth, faster than she could think it. “A beer?”

Hannah looked at her, frowning. “Worth about six hundred quid, that.”

“Didn’t cost me nowt.” Chloe replied.
 
The teenagers looked at each other, conferring silently.

*

The walk to Hannah’s boathouse took them along the shoreline, past the Harbourside with its neat rows of rental kayaks and the more secluded spots where locals still launched their own small boats.

The early evening light turned the water molten gold, and Chloe felt tension leave her shoulders as they walked.

The Walsh family had been fishing Lake Windermere for over a hundred years. Their small operation was one of the last holdouts against the creeping transformation of the shoreline. Chloe knew it’s where they hung out. Their little enclave hidden from the bustle. The boathouse sat at the water's edge like something from another century. Weathered wood silvered by decades of lake spray. Nets hung from the eaves, and the air smelled of fish and engine oil and the particular dampness that came from a life lived close to water.

Hannah's grandmother Dot emerged, wiping her hands. She was tiny but formidable. Her arms were permanently stained with the dirty work of fishing and her eyes were sharp as flint. Her smile hard but welcoming.

She looked Chloe up and down with the assessing gaze of someone who'd spent a
lifetime reading water and weather and people, and said, “the swimmer, come to join us at last.”

Hearing that made Chloe’s insides churn. Knowing she’s been witnessed. Both gratifying and disconcerting in equal measure.

Hannah cracked a beer and handed it to her. “There you go. Payment.”

Dot cocked her head. “For what?”

Hannah tossed Dot the depth sounder. Dot held it, frowning. “We don’t need that.”

“Worth a few quid though.”

“Worth more than a beer.” Said Dot, raising her eyebrows. Then she looked back to
Chloe. “That’s a nice thought, love. Thank you.”

“Nan could go deaf and blind and she’d still sound the lake better than that thing. Been fishing here since she were ten.”

“Not for much longer.” Dot she gestured toward the near horizon, where construction
vehicles rolled into what had once been a local farm. “All these places are importing their fish now. They call it local but that just means it’s processed in a factory round here. Shipped in from god-bloody-knows where. Won’t be much point in us keep going soon.”

Chloe didn’t know what to say. Dot watched her intensely, and didn’t break eye contact when Chloe looked back.

“I’m doing toasted sandwiches.”

*

They gathered around a fire pit in a clearing by the water’s edge. Hannah officially
introduced the group with the casual familiarity of lifelong friendship.

Mark was seventeen, compact and intense, with calloused hands and dirty nails that
spoke of hard work and a restless energy that seemed barely contained.

Sophie was sixteen. She was bird-boned and pale with hair the colour of wet hay, and she spoke in a high mousey register. She came as a package with her boyfriend Wesley, the thickset joker who was quick to laugh, and doted on her.

Danny was the oldest at eighteen, the tall and lean one with dopey eyes behind thick
glasses and an open smile. He was hard not to like due to just how unthreatening he was.

He kept his inhaler close at hand, and puffed on it intermittently.

These were the local kids, the ones who'd grown up on here and watched their world
change around them. They worked at the corner pub, the town Spar, the “famous” fish & chip shop. They attended college, lived with their parents and brothers and sisters in the cramped terraced cottages back from the waterfront.

They sat around fire pit drinking beer until the moon came out in full. There was residual warmth in the air and Chloe was suffused with a pleasant drowsiness.

“Your mum's not forgotten,” Hannah said softly, pointing to a blue ribbon tied around the gnarled branch of an ancient rowan tree. “We do this for everyone the lake takes.”

Chloe’s stared at the ribbon fluttering in the evening breeze, fighting the threatening tears. This is exactly what her mum had wanted for her. Exactly what she herself yearned for.

“You can stay here,” Dot said simply as she emerged to dole out the toasted sandwiches. “It’s a single bed, so don’t get any big ideas. No special visitors.”

Dot winked. For the first time in weeks Chloe laughed. It was an expression of relief. She could’ve easily cried instead. How Dot knew she needed a bed, Chloe never asked.

“Took your time coming here.” Dot said hours later as she handed Chloe fresh bedsheets.

“I’ve been waiting.”

“What did it in the end? The dreams?”

Chloe couldn’t answer.

“You’re here now. That’s what matters”

*

The magic started small, so gradually that Chloe didn't realise at first that's what it was. Dot would send her to specific spots to drop a fishing line, and she'd come back with a full catch while experienced anglers nearby came up empty.

She learned to read weather signs in the behaviour of pike, to find lost objects by sense alone. Intuition sharpening, and blending with something else - something beyond her fathoming.

“It's because you belong here,” Dot said one evening as they sat around the fire pit
outside the boathouse. It was clear to Chloe that Dot had been coaxing something out of her. Deliberate and focused.

“Water's got memory. Remembers everything that's ever happened in it, on it, around it. Most people can't hear what it's saying, but you…” She studied Chloe's face in the early light. “You listen with more than just your ears.”

It was true. When Chloe was in the water, she could feel things that had no names.
Currents of emotion as real as the physical currents that moved beneath the surface. Joy from summer swimmers, fear from those who'd nearly drowned, and something else…an abiding sadness.

“That's the old pain,” Dot said when Chloe tried to describe it. “Every lake holds onto the grief.” Her voice filled with wonder and something that might have been concern. 

“Your mother's part of that, part of the water's memory. You feel it because you're of the water.”

Chloe swallowed, holding down fresh tears at the mention of her mother.

“She tried, Chloe. She really tried.”

“Tried what?” Chloe asked.

“She asked the lake for something. Came close to getting it.”

Chloe looked at her, examined her face for something more than it was giving. “Were you there? Was it you that pulled me out?”

“If I could’ve saved her, I would have. But she was gone. It’s stronger in you than it was in her.”

*

Soon Chloe could summon energies all on her own. Simple charms at first. Words to call fish to their nets, signs to control the movement of water weeds. Later it was mantras in a low register that would cause trout to hop erratically out of the water like marionettes.

The others loved it. Loved watching her do it, loved the fish she caught and the coins and jewellery she dredged.

They tried it themselves. Even let themselves believe they’d cracked it. Only Hannah
didn’t kid herself. She tried, but couldn’t hide her frustration. Or the looks she gave Chloe and Dot when they worked together.

Every morning swim, every lesson, every moment spent by the shore was deepening
Chloe’s connection to something ancient and powerful. 

Sometimes she dreamed of breathing underwater, of moving through the depths as if she were one with it. She woke from those dreams gasping, her hair damp with more than sweat.

*

One night Mark drank quicker than the rest of them, then announced that his family pub was closing. They’d known it was coming, but it was tough to hear. Mark had grown up in that pub. It was part of his identity. And his dad’s.

Wesley asked robustly practical questions, just to try and ride out the sombre silences, the lack of knowing what to truly say.

After another can of beer Daniel suggested they should hold a wake for it.

The next night, after clearing it with Mark’s dad, they went in through the service exit by the little car park. Through the stainless steel kitchen and into the cellar, where they helped themselves to the soggy cardboard box of premium top-shelf liquors.

Chloe found the empty underlit barroom eerie. And the smell of stale beer and skin oils put her off drinking too much. But then Mark put some music on and found packets of salted peanuts, and soon they were reminiscing about the pub, and the town.

“Remember when we used to sneak in, grab bottles of blue WKD?”

“We used to get ‘em straight out the van. I’d distract your dad by asking him about
motorcross and you’d grab a whole crate. Waddle out of there like a bloody sherpa.”

“No wonder it’s gone outta business. Death by a thousand alco-pops.”

Everyone laughed at Wesley’s crack. Then he cleared his throat, frowning. “Soz, Mark…”

Mark forced a smile. “Nah, it’s funny mate.”

But it wasn’t that funny. Eventually Mark’s dad popped his head in and gave them a
good-natured ribbing. They knew that was their cue to leave.

As they finished up and shrugged on their jackets, Chloe took a wrong turn to the toilets. Instead she found herself at a doorway to a little office. Mark and his dad were locked in a tight embrace. Mark’s dad was sobbing into his boy’s shoulder.
Chloe slipped away without being seen.

They stumbled out into the road with the last half-bottle of scotch. Their voices were
loose and loud, and even louder when they started to sing.

After another twenty minutes they heard the short, sharp whoop of a police car, and two uniformed officers approached them. Told them to move along. Mark asked why.
“Noise complaint.”

Mark didn’t like that. He was drunk, and Chloe could see in his eyes that he wanted a reason to be angry. He started ranting about tourists. What right do they have to call the police on him.

The officers refused to acknowledge that it was a tourist who called in it. But Mark
wouldn’t be stopped. “Has to be. There’s no one else left.”

One officer tried to shoo him along. Mark shrugged him off violently. His elbow thumped against the officer’s shoulder, and Chloe couldn’t remember what happened after that.

It was a terrible ruckus. And it ended with the boys face down on the floor in cuffs. Daniel crying out for his inhaler.

*

Chloe’s hotel shift the next day was like another world. Images of the previous night
lurched into her mind unbidden, and made her queasy.

Room 387 was a family suite with spectacular views over the lake and hills. The mess within was just as spectacular. Towels strewn across the floor, wet swimsuits draped over antique furniture, minibar raided and left open. Spilt nail polish going tacky on the vanity.

These people had paid staff at home, Chloe could tell by the state of the place. The entire complimentary suite of hotel toiletries was scattered across the bathroom floor.
Each had been opened but were mostly unused. The glossy purple bottles were small but premium. She couldn’t sell them because their seals were broken. But she could feel human again for a few more days. Since moving to the boathouse she could smell the mildew in her hair.

She slipped the bottles into her apron pouch.

“Cheeky.”

She turned, heart thumping, to see Ben. He was grinning.

“Why do I always catch you breaking the rules?” He laughed.

“I— they were used— I was gonna—“

“You’re suspended for the afternoon. Full pay.” He nodded to the doorway. “Come on. I’m getting you out of here before you rob us blind.”

Ten minutes later they were cutting through the crowds of pink-faced tourists to a fish & chip shop. Ben called out to the manager behind the glass counter. The mans’ face brightened when he saw Ben. They seemed to be old friends. And despite the crowd of waiting customers, their food arrived fast. He didn’t even have to pay.

They found a bench overlooking the marina and worked through their grease-stained
paper packages.

“You don’t like it there, do you?”

Chloe shrugged. “Good to have a job.”

“You should quit. Seriously. I’m not offended. I wouldn’t like it either. Anyway, it’d be weird if I started dating an employee.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying.”

“We’re not dating.”

“It would be weird if I asked an employee out then.” He grinned. “I invite you round for dinner and then mum makes you clean down after. That’d be weird.”

“Well…you’re weird. So it’d probably be quite normal by your standards.”

Ben cocked his head back and let out a full throated laugh. He loved that. “I am weird! Weird’s good!”

Before she could agree they were interrupted.

"Benny! There you are." Ben's friends Luke and Amelia. They approached with the casual insouciance of people who'd never doubted their right to be anywhere they wanted.

Luke's voice carried the particular confidence that came from private schools and no
parental boundaries. He was handsome in a cheesy regal way, with a permanent smile, puckered chin, and pale blue eyes. "We've been looking everywhere for you.”
Amelia had the effortless aura of girls who'd grown up washed in attention. She was
skinny like Chloe, yet while Chloe felt gangly and awkward, Amelia’s summer dress hung from her like it would a catwalk model.

"This is Chloe," Ben said, and Chloe caught something protective in his tone.

“Oh, the swimmer!” Amelia's smile was bright and empty. “Ben mentioned you. I really wanted to try wild swimming. But actually, I could never be bothered. I think I prefer…”

“Wild sleeping.” Luke finished.

Amelia pulled a practiced photogenic scowl.

Luke looked to Ben. “Dad's opening the boat tonight. We're going to take her out for a proper run, maybe hit that new bar in Ambleside.”

“Sweet.” Offered Ben flatly.

"You should come too," Amelia added to Chloe with the kind of hollow insincerity that
made it clear the invitation was merely a polite gesture.

Chloe felt a familiar heat of embarrassment. These people did not want her around. And nor did she want to be around them. But beneath this was something else. A recognition of the power Ben's world offered, the ease and privilege that could lift her out of her current. Maybe she could learn to want to be around them, to be one of them.

“Another time,” Chloe said carefully. If Amelia was disappointed, she did a tremendous job of hiding it.

After they left, sweeping Ben away with them, Chloe sat alone for a while on the bench. The water looked different in the milky late afternoon light, less welcoming and more mysterious.

*

They sat around the kitchen table, clutching their mugs of hot tea, trying to process what had happened.

“They treated us like proper criminals," Mark said, his voice still thick with anger.

“You have power they can never take away,” Dot said. "They can arrest you, move you, price you out. But they don’t know how strong your bond to this place is.”

“Yeah. Nan’s dead on. We literally have power over them.” Hannah said, sitting forward. “We’ve been faffing around with this stuff while they’re literally destroying the town. Why don’t we actually do something proper?”

“Like what?”

Hannah shrugged. “Let’s find out. Let’s find out what’s actually down there.”

The words hung in the air like a promise and a threat. Eyes turned to Dot. She said
nothing. But her silence said everything.

They built the altar together, weaving water plants through rowan wood.
Dot directed them with the authority of someone handing down an oral tradition.

“Every place has its guardians. But they don't come when called by the weak or the
insincere. They respond to blood, to sacrifice, to genuine need.”

She’d told them what they needed to do. “Look inside, find what you want most of all.
Ask the lake for it. Make your sacrifice.” The sacrifice was an object, small, personal, that related to the ask. They’d each chosen in secret and placed their items in a dented metal tackle box.

The blood moon was full overhead, its light turning the lake silver and strange. As they arranged the altar and built the fire, Chloe felt power surging like electricity before a storm. The air itself seemed to thicken, pregnant with possibility.

Chloe pulled a strand of her hair free and placed it among the weeds and branches. The moment it touched the centrepiece, something shifted. She drew the fish knife across the back of her forearm, grimacing at the pain. Then let the blood roll and drip down onto the fire. It hissed and spat. Dot was there waiting with gauze and tape.

The night grew quieter, as if every creature within miles was holding its breath.

They joined hands around the shrine, and Dot began to chant in words that might have been Gaelic or might have been older than any human language.

Something was listening. Something was answering.

Across the lake, beneath the drooping branches of an ancient willow, water weeds
moved. Twisting together, forming patterns that hurt to look at, taking shape in ways that defied natural law.

Then it was gone, pulled down into the depths by currents that had nothing to do with
wind or tide.

Chloe had a flash of pure fear. Before she knew it, she was reaching over to the tackle box and running to the lake. The box had been held over the fire and the hot metal was searing her palm, but she felt nothing as she reeled back and launched the box into the water.

It blipped on the surface, then disappeared to the uproar of the group.

“What the hell?” Hannah was the most furious.

Chloe couldn’t muster an answer.

“You blew it!” Mark shouted, real hurt in his voice.

Chloe looked to Dot. She seemed as disturbed as the others. “You need to be strong
Chloe. You need to feel it all.”

Chloe suddenly had the sickening realisation that she’d made a mistake. She needed to put it right while she still could.

She felt herself being pulled towards the lake. Something outside of her, stronger than her. Like the night her mother disappeared. She waded into the shallows. Then pushed out until she was under.

Gone was the dread and panic of a moment earlier. Replaced with a kind of serenity.
Something moved past her, faster than she could register. The wound on her arm
reopened. A cloud of pink blood pooling out into the bottle green water.

It flew past again with a sound like distant thunder.

As her feet found the silty ground and the purple of the sky materialised above her, Chloe heard their voices. High and shrill and chaotic. She broke the surface and their cries turned to shouts of relief and laughter.

She was holding the box.

“We thought you were a goner.” Danny said.

“Let’s finish this.” Was her only response.

After it was over the air still hummed with residual power, and Chloe felt changed in ways she couldn't name.

They put on music, and drank and sang and laughed. They were alive to what they’d
done this night. Somehow they knew they were making history.

*

Past midnight, Chloe's dreams were more vivid than ever. She stood at the bottom of the lake, breathing water as easily as air, while something unspeakable circled her in the darkness.

When she woke, her hair was soaking wet and there was mud between her toes. Lake mud, dark and rich and mineral.

Dot found her the next morning, sitting by the water's edge in her nightgown, staring at the lake with unfocused eyes.

“I don't understand what's happening to me,” Chloe whispered.

“You're becoming what you were always meant to be.” Dot's voice carried a mixture of pride and fear. “The question is, what will you choose to do with that power?”

*
Ben found her two days later, when she was sitting alone on the harbour wall watching tourist boats churn the evening water into foam. “So you actually quit then.”
She’d handed in her notice the previous day. She was only down to work a couple more shifts and she swapped them easily. No more lost and found swag, no more leftover buffet food. But all that seemed like it belonged to a different life now.

Ben didn’t seem mad at all. He was smiling, as usual. “Honestly, better you jumped than got pushed anyway.”

“Was she going to fire me?”

“No. I mean, kind of. She’s sort of got to fire, like, everyone. Or a lot of people anyway. She doesn’t want to, but…”

Chloe looked at him, confused. He picked up on her implied question.

“Mum inherited the place from my grandad. It’s falling apart around our ears. The roof leaks, the heating system belongs in a museum. Energy bills are…like…brutal. 

We’re one bad season away from going bankrupt.”

He picked up a stone and threw it into the water, watching the ripples spread. “Worst part is no-one’ll buy it off us because it’s listed. So we’re stuck with it. If the weather turns we’ll probably close early this season. Maybe forever.”

There was a vulnerability that made Chloe see him differently. She'd assumed his life was easy, cushioned by family money and social connections. But maybe they had more in common than she'd thought.

“I didn't know.” She said quietly.

*

The first sign that something had gone wrong came the following dawn. Dead fish
washed up along the shore, their silver bodies catching the early light like scattered coins.

The water itself had a teal green tinge that seemed to shift and move independent of any current.

Chloe stood knee-deep in the shallows, watching the lake with a mixture of awe and
growing unease.

“Jesus,” Danny breathed, staring at the dead fish. “What happened”

“That’s a lot of dead money out there. That’s your business.” Mark said.

“This is what fighting back looks like.” Hannah replied. “Nan said it responds to blood and sacrifice.”

“What does?” Wesley asked. The question hung in the charged air. None of them had an answer.

The local news picked up the story by evening. “Mysterious Fish Die-Off Puzzles Lake District Experts.” Scientists were quoted about algae blooms and water temperature, perfectly rational explanations for what they'd witnessed. But Chloe knew better. This was just the beginning.

*

Ben's friends were having a barbecue on Luke's family terrace. Prime real estate with an unobstructed view of the lake.

“You should come,” he said, in a way that couldn’t have been more different than when Amelia had said it. He meant it, and Chloe knew he was putting a lot on the line to bring her in.

Chloe felt the pull of his world again. Clean and uncomplicated, where problems were solved with money rather than ancient magic.

“Not sure it’s my scene," she said honestly.

“Not really mine either. But fuck ‘em. Food’s good. Free booze. It'll be fun. Promise”

Luke's family owned half the hillside overlooking the east bank of the lake, their modernist glass house perched like a monument to obnoxious contemporary wealth.

As she and Ben came in, Luke was pontificating breezily. “It’s probably just agricultural runoff. The amount of shit these farmers are putting in their soil. Outrageous…”

Luke’s family were prime property developers in the area. And the way he spoke of
everything as an asset, cranking up and down in value, to be bought or sold, made
Chloe’s skin crawl.

Or maybe it was something else.

As the evening wore on and the wine flowed freely, people drifted off and Chloe watched Luke's attention turn increasingly to Amelia.

She'd been resisting his advances all summer apparently, but the alcohol and sultry heat were clearly wearing down her defences. When he suggested a nighttime boat ride, just the two of them, Chloe wanted to take her by the arm and lead her stumbling to safety.

But she would never dare.

The lake was choppy, small waves lapping against the shore with unusual force. In the moonlight, the greenish tinge was more pronounced, giving the water an otherworldly glow. Luke asked again, needling. Amelia hesitated, which to Luke meant yes.

The grating sound of the engine starting cut through the night air. Chloe watched them motor out into the darkness, Amelia's nervous laughter carrying across the water.

Something deep in her chest clenched with foreboding.

She was the only one still watching when the screaming started.

The attack was swift and terrible. One moment the boat was idling on the moonlit water, Luke standing at the wheel with a champagne bottle raised in triumph. The next, something erupted from beneath the surface. Something that moved too fast for human eyes to follow.

The boat rocked violently, throwing both passengers into the water. Then came the
screaming. Raw, primal sounds of terror that boomed and repeated across the 
valley.

Other guests began to notice, pointing and shouting, but it was already over.
The silence that followed was somehow worse than the screams. No bodies, no blood.

Just the empty boat turning slowly on the water that had swallowed them whole.
The creature - her creature, the one she'd summoned - had fed for the first time. And part of her, a dark, silent part that grew stronger each day, was glad.

Part Two

I don’t think this is happening because of anything I did or my family did.
I didn’t mess with anything I shouldn’t have, didn’t go looking for answers, didn’t trespass or open the wrong door.
If there’s a reason this started, I don’t know what it is yet.

That is what bothers me the most.

This weekend I visited my parents’ house with my siblings.
We’re all grown up now. I can’t believe I’m going to be 30 this year.
My brother, Ross, is the oldest. My sister, Sam, is the middle child, and I’m the youngest — which means I still get talked to like I’m sixteen when I’m under my parents’ roof.

It was one of those rare weekends where everyone’s schedule lined up.
No big occasion. Just family getting together.

My dad ordered Chinese takeout.
My mom cracked open a bottle of bourbon for Ross and me.
We sat around the living room talking about childhood memories, people we haven’t seen in years — the usual.

At some point, my dad got up and went down the hall, then came back carrying a cardboard box that looked like it had survived a flood at some point.

“Found these last week,” he said.
“Let’s watch some tonight!”

Inside were old home videos.
VHS tapes. MiniDV cassettes. Rubber bands dried out and snapped from age.
Most of them were labeled in my dad’s handwriting. Birthdays. Holidays. School plays.
The stuff you don’t think about until you’re reminded it exists.

Ross and Sam were eager.
I enjoyed some of our home videos, but it was always a family joke that there were no videos of my childhood.
Sure, there were photos. But nothing compared to Ross and Sam’s high school graduation videos.

We moved down to the basement.
My dad put a random video in.

The footage was exactly what you’d expect.
Nostalgic mid-90s tone. Bad lighting. Awkward zooms.
Ross riding his bike while Sam tried to steal the camera’s attention with whatever pointless 5-year-old activity she was doing.
Random cuts to Mom feeding me in my booster chair.
Then Sam opening Christmas presents and trying to look grateful.
Me standing too close to the lens, blabbering, reaching for the tiny flip-out screen.

It was fun. Comfortable.
Cliché, but the kind of thing that makes you forget how fast time moves.

About halfway through one tape of a 4th of July party, Sam laughed and pointed at the screen.

“Oh shit,” she said.
“Is that Mrs. England?”

The video froze for a second as my dad hit pause.
The image jittered.

Way back near the edge of the frame, a woman stood near the fence line.
Tan, curly brown hair. Purple lipstick that looked almost black in the video.
She wasn’t moving.

“Oh my goodness,” Mom said, leaning forward.
“That is Diana.”

I hadn’t noticed her at first.

Once I did, I couldn’t stop looking.

Diana England lived next door to us growing up.
Nothing separated our houses besides her garden and a strip of overgrown grass.
We sometimes played with her kids in the cul-de-sac. Quiet kids. A little off. But nothing alarming.

Her husband was a doctor. Always working.
I mostly remembered his car pulling in and out at odd hours.

“Creeeeeepy…” Ross sang.
“That is creepy,” Mom chuckled, taking a sip of her drink.

Diana England was… strange. Even back then.
Not dangerous. Just slightly off in a way you couldn’t describe as a kid.
Her left eye always drifted outward.
I know it’s mean to say, but it was creepy.

She loved gardening. Always outside. Always smiling and waving.
She used to look healthier, sometimes heavier.
But in the video, she was thinner than I remembered. Her posture stiff.

“She was always out there,” Dad said, shaking his head.
“I swear she knew our schedule better than we did.”

“Why is she standing near the fence by the pool?” Mom asked.
“Her house was on the opposite side.”

“We probably invited her to the party,” Sam offered.
“Hell no,” Dad shouted, laughing.
“Never!”

We all laughed more about how she used to talk your ear off if you got stuck at the mailbox.
If you saw her walking the dog, you’d better turn around and go back inside.

“It’s sad Rebecca and Julie moved out at the same time. You never see them visit anymore,” Ross said.
“She still has the boys,” Dad quickly added.

Eventually the tape ended.
Mom yawned and said she was heading to bed.
Sam followed.
Ross stuck around longer to finish his drink, then went upstairs soon after.

After everyone went to bed, the house got quiet.
You notice sounds you usually ignore — the refrigerator humming, the clock ticking, wind brushing against the siding.

I should’ve gone to bed too, but I was a night owl.
I stayed on the floor, flipping through videos.

Near the bottom of the box, I found one that didn’t have a date.
No holiday.
Just my name, written neatly:

Mitchell.

I realized this could be my high school graduation video.
I remembered the day. The heat. The robe.
My dad had basically filmed the entire day, but I couldn’t picture the footage itself.
That felt… weird.

I popped in the old DVD.
It took longer than it should have.
The picture wavered as the DVD player struggled to read the disc.
The video wasn’t that old, and I was feeling mildly irritated, like I was putting too much effort into something that didn’t matter.

I picked up the remote and pressed play, quickly turning down the volume in preparation for music or a loud ceremony crowd.

The screen went black.
Then it flickered — just for a moment — and I thought I saw a garden.

…

The footage stabilizes after a second.
The colors are distorted.

It’s another birthday.
I recognized it immediately - Sam’s 16th.
Backyard pool party: big tent, folding tables, floaties scattered everywhere.
Dad was filming all the chaos.
Sam and her friends competed in a pool game, then he panned to Ross mid-bite of a hot dog, with Mom in the background asking if anyone needed anything.
It all felt nostalgic.

I’m 11. Maybe 12 in this video.

I’m about to go down the slide, head first, belly facing, letting out some kind of Tarzan-like scream.
Splash.

The camera zooms out, capturing the entire pool.
I’m trying to recognize faces — there’s Rachel, Anthony...
The camera pans from one face to the next, zooming in on each person in the pool: Connor, Aunt Beth, Kaylie.
My heart stopped for a second.

Diana is in the pool.

It happened so quickly.
In the blink of an eye.
But I knew it was her.

Diana, standing near the deep end, facing the camera with direct eye contact… or at least one of her eyes.

I grabbed the remote and tried to rewind.
It wasn’t working — just made it fast forward instead.
I let it play.
I didn’t want to miss anything.

The camera jarred slightly.
My dad must have set it down on one of the tables.
The entire pool and everyone around it remained in frame.

…

I looked closer at the TV.
Amid the chaos — laughter, cannonballs — there she was.
Diana in the pool.

A chill slid down my spine.
Not because she was in the pool.
Not because she was staring at me through the screen.
Not because of that creepy smile.
But because she was wearing the same clothes in the last video.

Do people not see her?

She blended in with the crowd — yet, she stood out so much.
She was wearing casual clothes.

This doesn’t make any sense.

The 4th of July party was dated 1999.
Sam’s 16th birthday party was in 2007.
How could she look exactly the same, eight years later?

I got goosebumps as the camera stayed still.
Diana still staring at me.
I hoped my dad would pick it back up any second.
I tried to look elsewhere, anyone else in the pool… but I couldn’t.
For some reason, she was the only one in focus.
Perfectly clear. No blurs whatsoever.

“Gaaaaaaiiiinnnnnneeer!” 12 year old me screamed out in the distance.
Splash.

I shook my head, cringing a little.
My head bobbed up out of the water, like a tiny fishing bobber far away.
The camera started to zoom in towards me, slowly but unrelenting.
I struggled to stand, toes barely touching the bottom as I made my way toward the shallow end.
Then the camera froze, my small, pale face filling the TV.

Out of nowhere, something hit my face, dunking me under the water.
Water churned around me, my tiny arms and legs thrashing above and below the surface…

What the fuck…

The camera zoomed out just a little.
An arm came into view from the left, holding me down.
Darker than my skin. Skinny.
The camera slowly moved away from my struggling body, following the person’s arm.

All the blood drained from my face.
I don’t remember this ever happening…

Wait.
Is the video glitching?
The camera is moving slowly, but it’s been at least ten seconds by now.
This doesn’t make sense.

What is this?

My chest tightens.
I try to rationalize it, but I can’t.
No matter how the camera moves, there’s always more arm.
The arm just keeps going.

The splashing doesn’t stop.
The sounds of struggle continue, muffled and frantic.

“Somebody do something!” I yell, not even thinking about my family asleep upstairs.

And then—

…

I’m face to face with Diana on the TV.
Still smiling.
Still staring directly into the camera.
At me.

Her left eye drifted outward, staring at my body beneath the water.

I look away.
I don’t know why I don’t turn the TV off.
I don’t know why I don’t move at all.
It feels like any movement might draw her attention away from the screen and into the room.

The splashing stops.
The struggling stops.
I look back at the TV.

Dammit.

Her expression changes.
Her face is still filling the frame, but the smile is gone.
Her mouth slightly opened.
Her eyes are wider now.

The camera begins to zoom out.
Sound bleeds back in.
Wet footsteps slapping against concrete.
Rock music in the distance.
Laughter. Back to normal.

The frame settles.
Wide again.
Exactly where my dad left it.

Wha—where…

My mouth was still open.
My throat felt dry.
I stared at the screen.

There’s no way.

There I was.
Climbing out of the pool. Running toward the grass. Alive.

“Gaaaaaaiiiinnnnnneeer!” I yelled — like nothing had happened.

…

I caught my breath.
Relief washed over me, like a weight lifting off my chest.

But Diana was still staring at the camera.
Back to her original smile.
She hadn’t moved.

Except her arm.
It stretched across the pool to the far side — unnaturally long.
At least twelve feet.
Like one of those floating ropes at a public pool.

Do Not Cross.

And nobody did.

The video ended.

He wakes up and his face feels thick. That’ll be inflammation of some kind, from the alcohol. Dehydration. Very temporary. 

He’s belly-down on the bed, fully dressed. Shoes and everything. The bed still made, sheets almost completely unruffled. His eyes don’t want to open. He must’ve been lying in this position for god knows how long. Most of the night probably. He won’t have moved since he flopped on the bed, whenever that was. Blacked out again. He never used to black out at all, but it’s been happening more and more lately. His immediate thought, after the feeling of his face, is what the hell happened last night. He tries to grab at whatever fragments he can. Alarmingly few. 

He lifts himself slightly. His head feels heavy, too big. And he now notices he has an itchy, unpleasant damp patch on his trousers, stretching down his left leg from the crotch. That’s something else that never used to happen. Not good at all. 

His head really does feel strange. He sits up on the edge of the bed - whose bed is this? - and pats his face. Now he gets it. 

He’s still wearing his costume. This is some relief to him, to realise this. The heavy latex old man mask is still over his head. The gloves are still on too, fat fingers somehow both floppy and stiff, only bending in one place.

What happened last night? The party. It was a fancy dress party. Not here, some other house. He was wearing this grotesque granddad mask that came down right over his head. It went down to the collarbone really. And these long rubbery cumbersome gloves that went halfway up his arms. He didn’t take any of it off all night. He remembers now. 

He made a thing of it in the way he does. A kind of personal joke that only he finds funny. The clumsiness of it all, the hindrance. Making his own evening so much harder purely for the joke. Endurance comedy. It starts funny, then gets unfunny, then eventually gets funny again. That was the idea. 

And everyone else telling him to just take it off, for christ’s sake, and that just making it even funnier. And his announcement that he needed to take a dump and who was going to help him? That did get a laugh, a big one. 

And adding to the joke is that he’s usually so deft and limber. Lean and adept in his movements. His face so expressive. Eyes alive and magnetic, the way they hold a gaze. His whole face communicates without saying a word.

He did take the mask off once, actually. That one time for a short while. 

He tries to pull the gloves off, but they’re not coming off. One set of pliable inept fingers can’t get purchase on the other. He tries the mask, but he can’t find the edge. It’s down by his shoulders. 

He’s wearing a shirt, a fussy formal shirt, part of the costume along with the corduroy trousers and hilarious thick-soled orthopedic-type shoes he bought for £11 from one of those budget shoe emporiums specifically to complete the look. He tugs at the shirt collar. He tries the top button, briefly, knowing it’s useless with these ridiculous gloves on. 

The mouth hole isn’t big enough to grip anything with his teeth, and now he’s feeling a bit clammy and claustrophobic. He pulls again at one hand with the other, but the friction is so strong it doesn’t give an inch. He’s still wearing the damn shoes even. He must’ve just collapsed onto the bed. They left him to it. His head is pounding. He needs a pint of water and maybe a couple of painkillers. He needs to begin the hangover mitigation process, pronto. He can’t do it with this stupid costume on. 

He went with his friends, Vicky and Eileen and Mark. George joined them at the bus stop and they walked together to a tall grey terraced house. Curtains closed, lights within purple and pink and blue. A fancy dress party with no theme, how weird. And him seeing the granddad mask in a shop window earlier that day and finding it so perfectly ghoulish. How lifelike with its cavernous folds and bloodless lips and tiny little eye slits. How much that’ll freak people out. It was genius. 

His phone a smudge on the floor in the darkness. He can pick it up but it’s unresponsive to his fingers’ clumsy overtures. He almost drops it twice trying. It might as well be a roof tile in his hands. 

And the party was a friend they knew not that well, but who was very nice and welcoming. Someone Vicky knew from art college. And her two housemates, also nice and breezy, totally at ease with all these people in their house. And them never even really knowing who he was with his mask on. They’d met him before but they’d never place him just from the name. It was all part of the fun. And Eileen dressed as a nurse. Thick black tights and slip-on loafers. That odd little white hat, where did she get it? Blue uniform neat as a pin. And so snug on her. Just perfect.

He walks stiffly to a mirror on a wall. This is not his house. He’s gone back to someone’s house, fallen asleep, alone, in a spare room. Pissed himself. Now he has to evacuate somehow. Preferably without causing a fuss. He’s in front of the mirror. This garish mask still on his face. Little gap for the mouth. Two deep recesses for two pinprick eyes. He looked like that all night. It was ghoulish alright. Perhaps more ghoulish than funny. The patterned shirt and that wide brown double-windsor tie, a little loose. A little crooked. He pulls at it. At least that comes free. He stuffs it into his pocket then moves onto the landing. Calls out. Hello? His voice is thin and croaky, muffled under the mask. He’s parched. Can’t shake the feeling that the whole house is empty. He nudges a door - those ridiculous rubber fingers bending back at the tips. Another empty room. Down the stairs, almost tripping in these clunky monstrosities on his feet. But by god they are comfy. 

Hello? He doesn’t want to scare anyone. But the house is empty, he knows it now. No creaks, no thumps, burbles, mumbles, nothing. Unearthly silence. Lights are all off too. Where did they go? Out for breakfast? 

Who’s they? Whose place is this? 

The girl. Radient in the crowded kitchen. Sipping a Screwdriver. Glitter on her face, she was Tinkerbell. 

Chemistry was instant. They hogged each other for an hour. Two more Screwdrivers down the hatch. Strong beer for him. That’s when the mask came off. When they kissed. 

Witnesses made whooping noises, teasing. It was a good kiss. Fantastic. She was smiling. The mask went back on. She got the joke. They left together. A few of them, but the others knew really it was all about the two of them together. They must’ve peeled off. Their passage eased by their friends who knew the score. 

But he doesn’t know this for sure. He’s surmising. The curtain of darkness has fallen completely over that last act. There are huge clouds of blankness throughout the night, but these small patches he remembers, drifting towards him from the gloom. 

But leaving the party is the last of it. After that the film reel clatters to blackness in the projector. The end. 

Except it wasn’t of course. The night had more turns in store. Because now he’s here. This doesn’t seem like her house. Not that he would know, but it doesn’t. But then tenants don’t decorate. They move in and position their things and that’s that. Students especially. Was she a student? Yes. Something interesting. Engineering. He asked lots of questions. None of them about the novelty of a woman doing engineering. That would’ve annoyed her. There are probably lots of them doing it. 

You’re a good listener, she said. Well I’m a very bad talker, he said, from underneath the mask. Another laugh. He knew it was funny, though she was laughing because she liked him. He knew that too. 

Downstairs, eerily still and quiet. The others must’ve gone for breakfast. But they didn’t wake him? Or at least try? Maybe they did try. Did they smell the piss? Embarrassed on his behalf. Give him some space, some time, he’ll sort it out on his own and no one need be the wiser. Poor guy. He’s been doing this more lately. Needs to slow down. Not that he’s been speeding up. Maybe the world has. 

He needs to get this fucking mask off. Feels like he’s wearing a diving helmet. It’s chafing his skin. It’s obscuring his view, his range of movement. He can barely see. His head refuses to turn easily. He twists, pivots, little slow-motion pirouettes to take in the space. 

This old sad kitchen. Students really don’t care where they lay their heads. He’s glad to be a working professional so young. Well on the way to owning his own place before they’ll have even graduated. 

Fingers still hopeless against the tight little pearlesque buttons of his shirt. And the mask fixed in place while his shirt is on. And his gloves stuck to the sleeves somehow. He’s going to have to cut this frigging thing off. 

He manages to get a drawer open. Kitchen scissors, chunky things for spatchcocking a chicken. He takes them to the hallway mirror. Best light. This thing feels close against his skin but it must be loose. Must be some phantom sensation from wearing it for so long. How did he keep breathing all night? He’d have been out like a lamp. They left him where he lay. 

He opens the scissors and raises them to the cheek. A hand on each finger hole is the only way to hold them. Now to pierce the thick rubber and not catch the skin. Careful work. He starts low and goes for a scooping, hooking motion. Bladepoint angled upwards and in, hoping for a long gash.

A worm of blood and an unwelcome pinch of pain. He’s got the skin good. Blood running now, down his chin. He drops the scissors, hunts for a cloth, finds a towel. Presses it to his face. 

That is a mean cut. Pain humming. Blood still coming. The towel almost pink right through now. He’ll need a plaster, some gauze maybe. He needs a drink like crazy, should’ve dealt with that first. 

He overturned a chair getting to the towel. Lucky he didn’t go over himself. He’s not trying that again. He should try again. Nip the tip off a finger maybe, get in that way. But he won’t. Doesn’t want to. He’s too shaky for that. Can hardly see what he’s doing. 

Headache pounding, can’t think straight. It would be time to panic but he thinks: they’ll be back soon. They’ve gone for breakfast, or snacks from a corner shop. They can’t be long. They won’t have gone out long without him. Just enough time to clean himself up. Change the sheets. Maybe show himself out. That would be the polite thing to do. Did he get her number? If he leaves will he see her again? Would she want to see him? Old man piss-the-bed? 

He should just leave on his own accord, right now. And go out like this? What a scene. But who cares, no one speaks to each other, no one ever says anything to another person nowadays. Let them think their thoughts. And what would they think? A man in a costume. Probably hungover from last night. Or a prank gone wrong, not so funny in the cold light of day. There goes an unfortunate young man, no doubt one or two more regrets on the docket. He can’t be enjoying this, bless him. Let him get home, get some sleep. 

Did he glue it on? Did someone else? No, they’re not pranksters. Merrymakers, hedonists, halfway to becoming alcoholics, some of them. But not pranksters. Can’t be bothered, too much effort. No time. Too busy having fun. No, this is a mess of his own making.

So let’s go. Let’s get out of here. There’ll be time to rake through events later, when they’re all reunited. His friends filling in the gaps for him. You don’t remember this thing? Or that thing? Wow, you were really out of it.

The front door is locked. Why? He stumbles towards the back door. Locked too. For god’s sake, why? Worried he’d sleep through a burglary? 

There must be keys, keys, keys… Ah, keys right there on the hook. Fiddly work. These ludicrous digits not up to it. He manages to awkwardly thumb them off the hook but they hit the floor with a mocking tinkle. Then he’s down, on one knee. That stretch is something. Jesus, did he sleep funny? Then down on two knees. Two sore knees. He’s aching all over, come to think of it. 

And now a sad little comedy routine of flicking the keys along the floor. It would be hilarious slapstick if it weren’t him, alone and getting desperate. He’s furious now. What a pathetic situation he’s found himself in. One hell of an anecdote, if he ever works up the sense of humour to tell it. Doesn’t feel that way now, but these things take time. Trauma has a half-life. The sense of hardship needs to fade like a bruise before the tale can blossom into its final glorious gleamed and polished form. The worse the predicament, the funnier the anecdote.

The keys skid, those mocking keys, under the fridge and are lost. His urge to be home, to be around people, friends, is threatening to overwhelm him. He is overcome by an absurd wave of loneliness. Aloneness, perhaps is the better word for it. This awful house like a shabby prison.

The living room. Swirling deep blue carpet and burgundy tasselled couch. The wallpaper busy abstract pastels. Fussy faux-brass light fixture mere inches above his head. TV in the corner in which he catches himself, hunched and troll-like, in grey scale. A shadowy inversion skulking across the room. 

A front window opens wide, laterally in the manner of a book. Thank Christ. He can get through it. He tries leg up and over, but the stiffness is too much. These piss-heavy corduroys, the thick-soled shoes. Head first, arms up, diving-style is the only way, undignified as it is. The indignities are piling up. But such is the toll of a night like last night.

Last night. So much darkness. Nothing coming back hardly. What did they talk about? What did she tell him? She wasn’t Tinkerbell, no. She’d come as a bride. A full bridal gown, and the warm glow in the room like sunlight on her face. And Vicky wasn’t there. But she must’ve been, it was her friend holding the party. But he’s sure she wasn’t. Conspicuous by her absence, in fact. Has he blocked her out too? Poor Vicky. 

Face-first on the flagstones. Cold and hard through the mask. Almost toppling over himself like a child’s block tower collapsing. Legs thumping to the ground somewhere to his left. He unkinks and looks up at the sky. Then hefts himself into sitting position, notes that he groused his elbow on the way down. 

Already people are watching him. Passers by frowning unguardedly. One young man, slowing, y’okay? He can barely get a response out, so dry is his mouth. But he waves the guy away, climbing to his feet to show him this is all a misunderstanding. He doesn’t need any help. But that was a real twist he did coming out of that window and he’s picked up a sharp pain down his side. He tweaks it when he moves in certain ways. It twangs like an elastic band. 

What a sorry state he’s in. He should get back into running. He was doing five miles three times a week in the summer. It’s not the partying. He drank as much then. He wasn’t blacking out though. Maybe he’s doing himself an injury in the dark lost hours.

Left or right? Not a clue. No idea really where he is. How far from home. How far from the first familiar landmark. Is there a high street? A park? A bus stop? So much is gone from his head. His memory pulverised by the booze. He chooses left on a hunch. 

Within a few minutes, across the way, a newsagents. He forgot to get a drink before he left the house. Something sharp and fizzy and full of additives will set him right. Maybe some fat and sugar. The guy might have a box cutter to help with the mask. More surgical, another set of eyes. He might even know the way home. 

The bell dings and the overhead lights are too bright, laboratory bright. He fumbles a can, it clonks on the floor and rolls. He bends to fetch it but a girl has got there first, smiling as she replaces it on the shelf in the fridge. He grabs a plastic bottle instead, and at the till pats around his pants - that crotch stain so vivid in this unforgiving light - and finds only flat pockets. No wallet. He didn’t even think. Did he check the bedside table? Just as likely the carpet around the bed. He would’ve tossed it in his stupor, like he did his phone. Well, now he is a prize fool. 

But the man at the till looks at him with nothing but concern. His cheek, it’s still bloody. And the crotch stain. Is it any wonder. 

Are you okay? Your face is bleeding.

It’s not my face, he tries to say. Except it is his blood. I’m fine. He tries to say. How much is intelligible from under the mask, he can’t say. 

Do you want me to call someone? 

He doesn’t even understand the question. He drops the bottle on the counter and vacates. Wrestling with the heavy glass door. Someone running to hold it for him, too late for anything but an ineffective gesture. 

This area is unpromising. A long wide road leading nowhere he recognises. Perhaps right was right. He heads back in the opposite direction. Approaches the house he’s just come from. Ground floor window wide open. Idiot. He should’ve closed it. That is a bad houseguest. Flopped onto our spare bed, pissed his pants, buggered off without so much as a goodbye, left us begging to get raided. He should close it now. He’ll do that now. 

He’s back in the yard, shunting the window shut. He’ll sit on the low wall, get is breath back. Get his bearings. Think think think about what went down last night. How he ended up here.

They kissed and kissed again. Her in her bridal gown. Or a lab coat? Or was she in any kind of fancy dress at all? They went back to hers. Not here though. A big overgrown garden. Tall house, four floors. Handsome, not like this pebbledashed eyesore. They moved on again? At such a late hour? His friends melted away. Vicky gone, off the scene completely. Distant memory. Mark and George laughing on the patio, then gone. Eileen being helped onto the coffee table, doing the twist, then gone. All of them gone. Just him and her.

Then just him.

God he’s tired. He’s exhausted. He mustn’t have slept much after all. Back to hers, then for some reason moving on to here. Clearly a late one. Or an early one, to look at it another way. Perhaps he only caught a few hours. Perhaps this is all the scrambled egg brain effect of sleep deprivation.  

He hears a voice. The voice is familiar. It’s far away, but getting closer. 

What else? What else? What’s he missing? Find your torch, shine a light on the darkness. What’s lurking? What happened? 

The voice. He knows it so well. It is unclenching something within him. He stands from the wall, turns, and sees her approaching. That face. 

They left together. Lay in bed together in the blue midnight hours. 

Such a fresh face. Glowing. She must’ve slept better than him. 

And they woke together. 

And she’s so young. Not young but young-looking. Moreso than he remembers.

She made him breakfast. 

And here she is in the cool morning air. Radiant amidst the grey. Taking his hand. Taking his arm. Moving with him back to that house. The awful little empty dark house. He knows that house.

And they went shopping that day. Then on to the cinema, where they napped off their hangovers. 

She’s looking at him, beaming at him. Holding him close, clutching his arm of all things. She has spare keys. So it is her place after all. 

And they fell in love. That’s right. They fell in love. And she was Tinkerbell that first night. Later she was a bride. She was a bride on that beautiful sunny day. All their friends gathered. And so soon after, almost immediately after, sadness. 

They’re back in the house. The shadowed hall. He feels so weak he could lie on the floor. She’s helping him, guiding him. Perfect her. Eyes deep hazel wishing wells flecked with glinting pennies. Shiny velvety hair like melted chocolate. That face, so immediately familiar but different somehow. His memory of it different.

Vicky dead in a car accident. Gone in a blink, they learned about it the day they got back from their honeymoon. No one wanted to ruin their trip. Poor Vicky.

And Mark and George drifting away. And the two of them not minding, filling their lives with new people, new things. The new house. 

She sits him down at the kitchen table. It feels good to sit. She flicks the kettle on. She knows this place better than he does. 

The new job. Her expensive premium new lab coat, a totemic gift for her burgeoning career, which quickly gathered pace. And him sitting in a chair like this. Not quite like this, cushioned. It swivelled. Seeing his own face in grey scale, a shadowy inversion of his face every morning before turning the computer on. The small square room, one window.

She hands him a tea. Warm in his hands, even through the rubber. The mug in his hands, starting every day with the mug in his hands, on the chair, computer booting up. Secretary knocking, leaning in, good morning. 

A sting on his face. A good sting. Alcohol. Wiped and dabbed tenderly. She’s close to him now. Her eyes, his eyes, parallel. Her smile. Face unlined and perfect.

And then she was huge, waddling around with a big beach ball belly, ready to pop at any moment. And the frantic drive, and the gouging screams, hospital gown tented over the gore like a dignity cloth. And the tiny little red thing, too tiny for this world, hands like mouse claws, whisked away. A tiny pink heart inside a huge glass-domed machine - so unfair we can’t hold him - giving everything his tiny body can to stay here, on this earth with them, but no. 

A miniature casket, proportions all wrong, shining like lozenge in the rain. A marble plaque pressed into the dirt, the two carved dates impossible-seeming. But amidst the eviscerating grief, her belly blooming again. 

Her, with him in the kitchen now, pressing on the plaster. Almost crosseyed as she concentrates. So young. Her skin dewy and plump. Her smile like an angel’s. And then she’s on her feet, walking away, making a phone call. 

And the little thing pudgy and robust and wailing. A curl of slick dark hair. Driving her back home, everything new again. Up at all hours of the night. A beautiful little girl. Just the one, that’s all they managed. 

All the same, her time in the lab is over. Lab coat pushed into the back of a cupboard, then vacuum packed. She’s at a desk now, just like he is. And then she’s not. She’s at home, slow-cooking stews. Pressing shirts and skirts. All that behind her. But his desk gets a bit bigger. And a bigger room to fit it. Two windows now. And the little girl not so little. Suddenly a woman. She looks just like her. Everyone says it. Just like her. 

And there she is, pacing in the hallway. Making a call on his behalf, somehow. For some reason he can’t quite grasp. Will she get the mask off? He’s tried to tell her. Will she get him home?

Their little girl, now a woman, off around the world, returning with a little girl of her own. And her, his Tinkerbell, his bride, getting thin. And getting tired. And stopping on the stairs for breath. And then back to the hospital, all these years later. The same bed, looks like, but no. No rucking pains. No lusty screams. Quiet. Just beeping. Hushed people checking notes, changing tubes. Lots of sleep. Him reading while she drifts. Her waking, confused, reaching for him. Her hand like a clutch of straw in his. 

And yet here she is. Off the phone now. Sat with him, on a chair opposite him, knees pressed together. That smile of hers like an embrace. Shining in this miserable place. He tries to speak. The words aren’t there. The voice isn’t there. 

Then echoing nothingness. No need for all these rooms. The grown woman helps, and her no-longer-little girl helps too. With the paperwork and the phone calls. Men come to pack everything away. These things all around him. They went into the van and ended up here, in this house. He put them into position and that was that. 

She speaks, she says, the nurse is coming. Remember Eileen? She’s on her way. I have to go, granddad. I have to get back to college. But mum will come over tonight. She’ll bring you something to eat. And Eileen will be here any minute. You’ve hurt yourself. Are you okay? Do you feel okay?

But he does not feel okay. He doesn’t want her to leave him. Not again. He wants to go with her, but he can’t. He’s very tired, and sore. And now alone. And the darkness is gathering again, and this mask will not budge.

Hello and Happy New Year!

Things have been a little quiet here on the sub while we focus on other aspects of the DoomReads experience.

But we're back, and things are changing…

As we work on the platform, we want to start building our reading, writing, and sharing community.

So - you can now post your horror fiction right here on the DoomReads sub.

Think of this as the next r/horrorstories or r/nosleep - except there are no limits to the length, style, or form of fiction you post - so long as it can be described as horror.

Before you start sharing you work, please check out the "How to Post" page on our Wiki. You can find it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Doomreads/wiki/posting-on-doomreads/

That’s everything! We're excited to host and read your work, and generally create a place where we can all grow as readers and writers together.

https://horrortree.com/the-shape-of-the-unknown-why-fear-still-rules-us/

I'm always interested in why we read or write horror. Why willingly create something that is designed to stir up pleasant feelings. Why willingly consume something that will stir up unpleasant feelings?

Why do those unpleasant feelings feel so good for some of us?

It's something I'll be wrestling with for my whole writing career.

As a writer I've always found that it's longstanding preoccupations without simple answers that provide the engine for creativity; not clear and achievable goals and objectives

https://the-line-up.com/indie-and-small-press-horror-december-2025

I'm a huge folk horror fan so this one's definitely going to the top of my TBR list.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/28/bog-people-a-working-class-anthology-of-folk-horror-review-dark-tales-with-a-sting

Found this cool guide that might help stoke those creative fires...

https://www.fangoria.com/the-creepiest-creatures-from-each-state/

Does anyone have any recommendations for horror-infused crime // procedural novels?

I'm currently reading London Falling by Paul Cornell - it's solid so far but I haven't reached any of the horror parts yet.

Doesn't seem to be a lot of crime horror out there, and for me nothing has reached the dizzy heights of Red Dragon // Silence of the Lambs.

Keen to hear suggestions...

https://bookriot.com/outstanding-horror-reads-from-2025-you-may-have-missed/

And four from indie presses:

https://the-line-up.com/indie-and-small-press-horror-november-2025

I feel like I've read an article like this every year for the last ten years. Is horror fiction a place where women actually get a fair shake in a make-dominated world?

"How Feminist Horror Novels Are Redefining Fear in 2025"

https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a69264648/feminist-horror-books-trend-2025/

https://bookriot.com/girl-dinner-by-olivie-blake/

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/joyce-carol-oates-most-surprising-horror-writer

Joyce Carol Oates is probably the writer I return to the most. The way she brings literary sophistication to pulpy horror and thriller stories is, in my opinion, unmatched.

A real unsung hero of the genre.

Zombie, The Corn Maiden, The Babysitter, and Daddy Love are just a few that have stayed with me for a long time.

Any JCO fans out there?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/13/king-sorrow-by-joe-hill-review-dragon-fired-horror-epic-is-a-tour-de-force

https://the-line-up.com/indie-publishing?src=recirc

Hey there DoomReaders,

We're growing! It's exciting to see.

As more and more of you find us, I thought it was time to figure out exactly what we all want from this sub.

Originally it was designed as a place for updates on the site build and any resources useful to horror writers. A place to learn, discuss, and find opportunities while the DoomReads platform is under construction.

But given we're building a platform for reading and writing horror fiction...should we just start doing it right here on the sub?

Annoyingly Reddit polls are currently down, so for now I'm going to ask you to reply directly in the comments.

Do you want to share original horror fiction on this sub?

1. Yes! When can I start sharing?

2. No, keep it to resources and updates.

Alternatively you can upvote if you think we should start sharing.

Thanks!