I woke up, sat and caught my breath. I took a deep breath to steady myself, Salt. I stood up and walked back into my grandad’s house.
My grandad has a beach house in Cape Cod. I used to go there every summer. I say used to because I used to live with my mom, and my mom used to not be a heroin addict. So now I live there. If you’re thinking of a small house by the ocean, with some crumbling old man living in it’s cramped cold walls, you’re wrong. It’s 3 stories surrounded by about 100 yards of open land, with that surrounded by a dense forest that separates his house from the rest of the nearby area, and a designated path to the ocean. So you can tell, he’s fuckin’ rich. Or as he likes to put it, “comfortable”.
Gramp says that every 5 months the woods get real quiet, the ocean gets real still and the animals all scurry off. He says it’s because of some biological timer in animals and some astrological timer for the moon. When I was younger I believed it without question, but now I was more reluctant to believe the moon relied on a “timer”. I decided I’d go check and see what goes on there myself.
I made my way down the stairs to the kitchen, grabbed my hiking bag and went out to the lawn. I stepped to the entrance of the woods.
“Shit. My flashlight.”
I looked through my bag. I felt around, found it, and proceeded to pull it out of the bag. I turned it on and shone it on my surroundings. Where there would normally be some animals prowling the grounds stood nothing. No stray rabbits, squirrels, or even the rare deer. No chittering, hoots, or rustling, silence. I checked the trees, and under rocks. Not even bugs. I walked around for a while gazing at the trees and the sky. Astonished by how starry the night was and how empty the forest was. As if I was the only person in the world. I took a deep breath. Salty air filled my lungs. I started down the path to the ocean.
After a few minutes I stood at the shoreline. The water was still. Then this feeling hit me. My stomach twisted and my nose stung, my head pounded. I closed my eyes. In a few moments it stopped, as sudden as it started. I looked out to the shore and took a deep breath. I no longer smelled salt. No more of that strong notable ocean smell, replaced by the nauseating stench of rotting flesh.
The air grew freezing and the ocean went from a smooth navy blue to a deep black. Strands of seaweed seemed to float up to the top of the water and bob. The ground shook as a dark figure began to rise from the sea. Long patchy strands of what I could only assume was hair covered the giant’s face and shoulders. Sharp ears pointed up towards the sky. It’s eye opened, and then another, and another, and another, indefinitely. The many eyes stared through me. It had no mouth, it spoke with no voice yet I could still hear it’s words. Short whispers crowding behind a bellowing sound.
Your grandfather was a fool to bring you here
It isn’t safe for you
You’ve met with a terrible fate
YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME.
I couldn’t speak.
YOU KNEW BEFORE YOU CAME AND YET YOU DID… IT CAN SENSE YOU ARE AFRAID. DO NOT RUN. IT IS BEYOND SPEED. THE ANIMALS SCURRY FROM IT, AND THE TREES CEASE THEIR ENDLESS SWAYING. THE OCEAN HALTS ITS WAVES AND THE PEOPLE STAY IN THEIR HOMES. IT SHALL TREAD THE LAND UNTIL EVERY BEING IS LULLED…
The creature paused.
Fatum morte peius manet Eos qui monita nemoris attendere nequeunt.
I fell to my knees in pain, the world seemed to slip away and my vision went blurry. I opened my eyes. I was somewhere indescribable, biologically impossible. Scraps of flesh and carrion from animals I’d never seen, animals that could never exist, eyes of various creatures carelessly sewn onto the floor and walls of this place, I looked down. There was no floor, and from the way this place seemed to stretch endlessly, there were no walls. Tendrils of an inky deep black colour stretched from across throughout the area. They felt at my feet and legs, latched to my body. I walked around aimlessly. I looked down at my feet, which met no ground and seemed to float across, guided by the tendrils.
Ash dropped from the air, and mist clouded my vision. I continued to float for what seemed like hours. The eyes stared intently, hungrily. Every part of my brain told me they wished, for but one second to escape their viscous mass, rip into me and feed on my entrails. But they could not, so they continued to stare. It seemed like days had passed, then weeks, until I couldn’t tell anymore. Then it came to me, a bright white light. A rectangular figure in the distance. I went into it. The closer I got the brighter it shone, eventually I was right in front of it. The light was blinding. I closed my eyes. When I opened them I was in front of my house.
I woke up, sat and caught my breath. I took a deep breath to steady myself, Salt. I stood up and walked back into my grandad’s house.