Captain Nathaniel Thorn, a spook in a rented room in the nautically themed The Lighthouse Hotel, flowers in hand. His memories of the past were uncertain and the past that differed little from the past that was not. This place and its people may have forgotten his apologies, wishes, and all the regrets he expressed. Everything he said, they had forgotten, but they would never forget how he made them feel.
He had no list of things to be done save for a simple act. The remainder of the day providential to itself. There was no later.
Nathaniel left his room, down the stairs, past the check-in desk, and out into the open. He ventured out of the hotel and saw the lighthouse that stood on the next island and realised there was no absolute in misery. It could always get worse.
The path twisted down to the rowboat as it bobbed by the jetty. He climbed into the boat and began to row. The ocean had no beginning and no end. It was full and yet it seemed empty.
He found no fight with the tide the currents carried him as pallbearers would a coffin to its final destination. The wind picked up the stray petals of his flowers and cast them into the sea.
He docked the rowboat at the jetty of the island where the lighthouse stood.
The Lighthouse had a vampiric quality to it. Steeped in shadow, darkness echoed and folded inside itself until sunlight was absorbed completely. Dead trees with long spindled branches, veining like capillaries scattered around the grounds of the lighthouse. In places, the bark flaked off in wooden scabs, diseased with a forging moss that stewed for years and had eaten its way into the trees innards. Autumnal leaves danced macabre on light feet across a cracked pavement, scented with moisture and fungus, waiting in vain for a sunlight to dry up its ravaged and rotted being.
Towards the island’s edge stood a memorial shaped like a ship’s wheel, a totem etched with names dating back to twenty years before. Around it nestled daisies, roses, and lilies. Dusty half-full bottles of rum, cuttings of newspapers articles that reported the tragic passenger liner miles off course, crusted Rubik’s Cubes, dolls with thick clotted hair, rusted toy cars, and unopened letters addressed to eyes blinded by death.
Nathaniel reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a silver hip flask filled with alcohol. He unscrewed the lid, brought the flask to his lips, and sipped.
“It wasn’t my fault I survived.”
He lay down the flowers and wiped his eyes as the fragrances drifted into his nostrils.
Beneath the perfumes, burnt hair and flesh. The sea. Alcohol. Charred wood. He took out his flask and swigged from it, his eyes widened as something needled his gums. He spat everything out, tasting the salt washing over his tongue, splinters spewed out onto the dirt. With a hooked finger, he fished out the debris from between his teeth and splinters from his gums.
A foghorn sounded in the distance beneath the poster-clear sky.
Nathaniel turned his head towards the ocean. He could not explain why but he felt the past watch from the edge of the never-ending sea. There lived all things older than time and they hummed of mystery.
If only it knew, he watched it too in dreams: in stolen naps and when his mind contemplated during the thundering storms.
The crew, the passengers, and their families had entrusted Nathaniel with their safety and he failed them because he was an alcoholic and refused to admit it, even to himself.
He was sure he knew what he was doing then.
Now the blood would never wash from his hands.
He should never have come here.
The foghorn sounded once more. He took it as a cue to leave, Nathaniel backed away from the water that seeped towards his feet, up from the ground in the memorial, and the rising waters rapidly formed a puddle that grew wider and deeper, bubbled. Fish rose from the murky waters in a feeble effort to rise in a feeble effort to pull themselves from the muck, as if they wished to grow feet and walk the earth just as man had, they flopped, floundered and drowned in air. Crabs emerged from the ooze and scuttled over their ocean brethren. Nathaniel hoofed one away as it climbed over his shoe.
As he brought his foot down a hand shot up from the puddle and wrapped its cold wet fingers around Nathaniel’s ankle. He screamed and pulled away but within seconds another hand and then another seized him, fingers like dead worms curled around his foot and pulled at his calf. Nathaniel fell onto his backside and screamed as he desperately tried to pry the fingers away from his leg, frantically kicked out at the multitudes of others that joined the fray. Fingers pushed upwards through the fish, crabs, and driftwood, turned the water to sludge. Nathaniel pulled himself free, turned onto his front then scuffled back to his feet. He ran from the puddled memorial and towards the rowboat without as much as a glance over his shoulder.
Nathaniel burst through the hotel doors, disregarded the heads that snapped round to see the commotion. He puffed and pushed his way up the stairs and ignored his blowtorched lungs. His hands slammed against the door to the hotel room and stopped him dead. Nathaniel fumbled for the key in his pocket and unlocked the door to his room.
The outline of his form in the mirror directly across from the entrance to the room made him jump back.
The door shut itself behind him.
“It’s okay,” he told himself. His reflection looked less convinced.
Nathaniel fetched his bag from beneath the bed, whipped it out, and slammed with a bounce onto the mattress. He emptied the drawers into the overnight bag.
The walls groaned and the corners of the ceiling wept, lines of seawater ran along the ceiling to meet in the middle and trickle along the lit glass bulb. It flickered, fizzed, and then zapped out with a pop, casting the room into darkness.
Nathaniel grabbed the side of the sink hard enough to turn his knuckles white, looked down at the plug, and told himself to get a grip. His voice echoed in the bowl.
Nathaniel looked up and met the gaze of a pair of eyes in the mirror other than his own. Many others appeared behind them, dead white eyes blinking into existence, a crowd gathering in the mirror to stare at the man who cost them their lives.
The flesh inside of Nathaniel’s mouth shrivelled and dried.
Nathaniel peeled his clicking tongue from the roof of his jaw.
‘I told you, it not my fault I survived. I’m sorry.’
He was sorry. He had cried for too many yesterdays, had wept over that one fateful day, and lived it on a hellish loop.
The forms from beyond in the mirror watched in judgmental silence. Muddy water seeped from around the mirror, and then from the crevices in the window, breached the surrounding sealant. All that mattered to Nathaniel lived beyond this room, beyond the closed door and far away from here. He pulled at the door as the room filled, cried out as he used both hands and all his body weight to try to force the door open. He slipped onto his backside.
‘I’m sorry!’ Nathaniel bellowed, ‘I said I’m sorry!’
The water frothed with flotsam and salt, seeping from cracks in the windows and mirror Crabs scuttled out, dragging slithers of seaweed with them on pincers and pointed legs. The ocean, no longer content with its place, wanted entrance to Nathaniel’s room.
The waters rose quicker still.
He fought to stand as he pounded his fists against the door, shouted so loud his voice cracked and broke. Hope waned. He seized the door handle and, pulled back with every ounce of force he could muster to yank. First, the handle clicked, and then a nutshell crack of the door gave way to the light on the other side. The water slithered out into the hallway and carried with it everything above and below.
Nathaniel ignored the other patrons as they stared at his soaked form as he entered the foyer, the receptionist called out for him as he fled to his car. He swung his wet backside into the driver’s seat, trying to command his cold shaking hands to turn the key in the ignition before the car roared into life and his foot punched the accelerator. The Lighthouse Hotel faded into the horizon in the rear-view, and with it the past and the memories of the last fateful voyage of Captain Nathaniel Thorn.
The further he drove along the coast, the more the fear receded, yet it still cast a long shadow, and it would be some time before it left him, if it ever did.
Soon the coast faded as well and gave way to a patchwork of October fields that continued deep into the horizon almost it would seem to the edge of the world. Faded shades of paint on barns peeled. The sun dipped into the grey pillows of a sepia sky. The smell of cold smoke carried upon wind, before smokestacks and lines of houses rose from the skyline.
After hours of driving without rest and a noisy radio to drown out his louder thoughts, Nathaniel reached home, safe at the centre of the country far from the coast and his memories of the sea. Nathaniel rested his head against the steering wheel and sighed as he tried to digest what he had experienced. He looked up to the rear-view mirror, wiped his eyes, and attempted to achieve some form of composure. He pulled out his flask, took a deep gulp, and coughed. Rubbed his chest, coughing still, the liquid in his throat was a solid, unshifting ball. Tilting his head upward to ease the passage of the blockage, Nathaniel caught a glimpse of the gathering in the rear-view mirror.
Men, women, and children, dripping and torn.
Waited.
Watched.
Watched as the panic set into Nathaniel’s eyes, eyes that bulged as he pounded the windows and yanked at the door handles to no avail. The car filled with brackish, salty seawater. Floundered and flailed, his last thoughts turned to the judgement of all men and how no matter how much of a distance you put between past and present, the past always waited like a ghost in the darkness.
Nathaniel crossed the ocean of life to the very edges of his past and onwards to his death, where the dead waited for him with cold, dispassionate eyes.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #7 ‘AT THE EDGE OF THE OCEAN IS THE PAST’ by Rob Teun – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
