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Post by James on Jun 9, 2010 2:37:21 GMT -5
The Beginning Clive yawned suddenly, the gentle rocking of the sea threatening to send him to sleep. Across from him he saw Phil struggling to avoid the same massaging fingers of slumber. Here they were, drifting in the middle of sea upon a small fishing boat completely and utterly lost. The early morning fog had led them astray from the coast; the almighty storm had done the rest, threatening to capsize the boat entirely.
“Phil,” Clive barked, his voice crisp in the sea air. “Phil, do you want to take turns having a kip? You can go first.”
“Cheers,” Phil mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
Clive couldn’t help but laugh at the way Phil sought to curl himself into a ball on the hard floor of the boat, fidgeting to find any sort of soft spot. Shaking his head to clear the cobweb of sleep from them, Clive settled in for a long night watch when he caught sight of the approaching light.
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Post by James on Jun 9, 2010 2:39:00 GMT -5
Entry One Clive yawned suddenly, the gentle rocking of the sea threatening to send him to sleep. Across from him he saw Phil struggling to avoid the same massaging fingers of slumber. Here they were, drifting in the middle of sea upon a small fishing boat completely and utterly lost. The early morning fog had led them astray from the coast; the almighty storm had done the rest, threatening to capsize the boat entirely.
“Phil,” Clive barked, his voice crisp in the sea air. “Phil, do you want to take turns having a kip? You can go first.”
“Cheers,” Phil mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
Clive couldn’t help but laugh at the way Phil sought to curl himself into a ball on the hard floor of the boat, fidgeting to find any sort of soft spot. Shaking his head to clear the cobweb of sleep from them, Clive settled in for a long night watch when he caught sight of the approaching light.
“Hey, Phil? Phil! Wake up!” Clive rushed to the end of the boat, towards the direction of the light, narrowly avoiding the fishing nets on the way. He was at the stern quickly, waving his torchlight in the air, still shouting blindly at his brother. “Get up you goof! There’s a light out there. If we can flag them down - maybe they can fix the engine!”
Phil jumped at the sudden movement and shouting. He groggily rubbed his eyes before realizing the desperation of the situation. The engine had failed during the storm and radio communication was impossible. The jolt of adrenaline forced Phil up within seconds. He joined Clive at the stern, waving his arms wildly and shouting, trying to garner the attention of the light.
Both struggled, shouted, and waved, their full bodies pushed up against the railings; wishing that their lungs could hold more air, that their voices could be louder, and that their arms could somehow be longer.
The light moved slowly towards their location. It was low in the water, and a gentle blue that created a small circle of light as it drifted closer to the boat. Silence, apart from the men shouting, was heavy in the pitch-black night. No calls came back from the light or anything else out there. It was deathly cold, as the harsh tail wind of the storm whipped over the boat. Phil and Clive moved as it drew closer to the boat to get a look.
The light was beneath the water, shining upwards. It wasn’t the rescue boat they had both been hoping for desperately. Clive’s broad shoulders slunk quickly. He wanted to get back home to his wife, Sally, and one year old boy, Ben. They were probably worried sick from the weather reports. He rubbed his thick and callus-covered hand over his greasy forehead, his gray eyes closed to hide the worry from his younger brother.
Phil didn’t have any of his own family. He lived on his own and visited Clive’s family as regularly as possible. Clive had always pestered him about finding a wife but Phil was never interested, and honestly didn’t want a woman worrying about him during the fishing trips. He was fascinated by the light that swam towards the boat, having never seen anything like it before. He leaned over the edge to get a closer look, gray eyes scanning the bottomless black water, his beard snug against his chest with the strain of looking down.
The light looked like some kind of animal, with arms, a body and legs. It swam with consistent speed past the boat, not noticing the small fishing boat. Phil stood back from the edge and looked to Clive for information. His bushy eyebrows were knit together with confusion. He no longer felt tired. The curiousness of the creature had woken him fully. “What was that?”
“I’ve got no idea,” Clive responded, trying to stifle a large yawn. He turned, with a semi-stretch. It was going to be a long night, and maybe even longer than that. Rescue could be a long way off and the boat had drifted a far from its normal course. He scoured the horizon with tense eyes for any sign of a rescue boat. There was another light, tinted with the same blue, and another. More were coming into view as their boat sat motionless in the water. “There are more of them. Look.” He pointed towards the horizon.
The brothers moved to the other side of the boat and towards the amassing light-creatures that were approaching the boat. They stood at the edge, hands stuffed in pockets as they watched. There were three, then seven, then near twenty. Soon there were so many it was difficult to tell them apart. The light they produced lit up the night sky, giving it an almost daytime feel but with the eerie blue glow. The light-creatures started reaching the small fishing boat, swimming around and under it.
“What are they?” Clive whispered, repeating his brother’s question. Phil didn’t respond.
The boat nudged forward, making the pair stumble a little. Both had their sea-legs but the sudden and unexpected movement caught them both by surprise. The boat shouldn’t be moving. The engine was broken. There was no reason for it to move at all.
Phil rushed to the wheel-house, his heavy rubber boats gaining good friction on the wooden slats of the deck. Everything was as it should be and as they left it. No engine, no power, and still no communication; but the boat drifted in the same direction as the light-creatures, and gradually gathering speed. “Clive? What’s happening?”
Clive had leaned closer to the edge of the boat, “I guess … it’s the creatures? Maybe they bumped into the boat?” He didn’t seem at all afraid or scared of the situation. He stared into the light infused water at the creatures, which moved like a carpet of living things beneath the boat. The closer and longer he looked the more he thought he could see faces, hands, and feet. The creatures looked grotesquely human. He rubbed his temple with a free hand, feeling a tension headache coming on. “Phil?” he paused, unsure how to tell Clive what he was thinking. He didn’t want to sound crazy to his brother, after all. He didn’t want to worry his younger brother either. “They look … they look almost human.”
Phil joined his brother’s side to stare at the creatures. A chill rose out of his spine and travelled all the way to his skull. Now that Clive had mentioned it; there was something oddly human about them. Some looked upwards as they swam. Their faces were crunched with horror; mouths hung open in morbid silent screams. Feeling his stomach turn Phil stepped away from the side.
“What do you think they are?” Clive asked, still looking over the side, his eyes glazed over and mouth with a serene smile. The abnormal and macabre beauty drawing him forwards like a fish to a worm on a hook. Phil didn’t notice Clive leaning closer to the water. Clive stuck his hand into the frigid waters.
All of the creatures near to the boat noticed the hand immediately and rushed towards it. Some reached out and grabbed at the hand. Those that could not reach the hand threw their arms and heads above water. The creatures that were above the water screamed out to Clive in a guttural and pain wrenching, hollow sound. It threatened to break Phil’s eardrums as it flew through the night’s thin air. The sound didn’t register with Clive. It was blotted out by the pain in his hand. The water alone could not cause such immense and cold pain. It felt like thin needles of ice pushed through the thick skin. They froze and wrenched through his soft flesh. The ice pushed so deeply into his hand it scratched against the bones inside.
Clive screamed out, his voice joining the light-creature’s tone and pitch. With huge gulps of air he managed to call out to his brother. “Phil. Phil. Help. Pull. Help. Pull me up. Get me out. Stop. Stop it. Stop the hurt.”
The words were spoken with quickness and heavily evident pain that Phil jumped forwards to pull Clive away. He pulled with such strength to saving his brother that they fell backwards landing with an “oomph” on the deck. Shakily Clive inspected his hand, his face strewn with fresh tears that drove into his beard. The skin was torn open in several places but no blood seeped through the gashes. The entire hand had turned a sickly looking blue and bloated to near twice its normal size. The damaged didn’t hurt; rather it just felt numb and uncomfortably over-sized.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Phil pulled himself up, leaving Clive sitting on the deck. He was furious and not at his brother. He wanted to attack the weird light-creatures, the humans … whatever they were! He wanted to rip them to shreds, like they had done with his brother’s hand, but he knew he could not touch them. They would only cause him the same pain. Fierce anger growled in his chest as he stormed back and forth on the small boat.
Clive couldn’t speak. His voice was caught in his throat as he held his hand like a baby. Shock was etched over his face as he shook with a fear for the light-creatures. The boat, which had been floating in the direction of the light-creatures, ground to a sudden halt. The sound of crunching pebbles and metal grating traveled easily to Clive and Phil at the back of the boat. The motion wobbled the pair; who stood up carefully and looked to the bow of the boat. It was pitch black ahead. The light-creatures pulled themselves out of the water, turning into something indescribable. They lost the blue iridescent color and turned into lanky, hollow, bodies that marched forwards. There were millions of them walking forwards.
Phil, unknowingly, started walking. He walked around the fishing nets and equipment on the boat without looking at them. His eyes started to turn murky white as he walked on the deck, next to the light-creatures swimming. Clive started doing the same, following his brother. Neither thought any more. Neither worried about where they were going or what the light-creatures were. As their feet reached the shore their bodies shrunk and shriveled to look just like the light-creatures. They merged into the crowd, placing one foot after another, brainlessly marching forwards.
***
Philip and Clive Bruckeford were declared dead this morning by the coastal search group and local fishing board. After a long search their ship and bodies were never found. The searches have been called off. Their fishing boat went missing during the June 6th coastal storm, locally nicknamed Bertha. The alert was raised by Clive’s wife, Sally Bruckeford. A bench will be erected in their memory next month. Our commiserations go out to their families.
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Post by James on Jun 9, 2010 2:39:46 GMT -5
Entry Two The Gladiator hath fled! |
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Post by James on Jun 12, 2010 18:27:22 GMT -5
Entry One's Reviews I liked this one. Unique, creepy, really drew me in and had me guessing. I liked the idea of these spirits, or aliens, or whatever basically coming to the these poor guys' aid; but at the same time preserving and atmosphere of danger. I imagined myself, trapped out at sea, watching this army of ghosts marching toward land and thoughts of Judgement Day, and watching helplessly as it occured flowed through my brain. I really enjoyed reading it. I wish it had ended differently though. Having the main character's simply turn up dead didn't seem right to me. It almost felt as though it would have been more proper if they'd arrived on shore, and gone home with one of the wierdest fish-tales ever. It's a shame that your competition didn't show. This was a good piece and I'm sure it would have felt good to see it trounce it's opponent. *** Excellent stuff, very creepy. Even if there was competition, I imagine you'd have won. Well done. *** An okay story. Grammatically, it was pretty spot on. As for the story itself...it was okay. I was particularly entertained, but I guess I can't complain about any of the story elements itself, it was pretty straightforward. That's about it, not much more to say, which I suppose is a good thing. Well done. *** This was definitely a story off the beaten path, and I really liked the strange, spooky turns it took. Technically, it was excellent – punctuation and grammar were near flawless as far as I could see. What I would have liked to have seen, was a bit more variation in the sentences – a little less “This. Then this. Then this. Then this.” – and more variation in length and flow. Also, I have to admit I was a bit thrown, to realize that Clive and Phil were Spoiler:
brothers – but not knowing this until nearly halfway through the story.
I’d also have loved to see far more detail in the “zombie-fication” of the two of them, too. The glowy lights in the water were freaky/spooky, a bit a la Tolkien’s Dead Marshes – but when the time to “turn” them came? I wanted more. The “how” of what happened, why it happened to them, the gritty details – not necessarily the “indescribable.” There had been quite a bit of description – right up to that point. *** |
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Post by Jenny (Reffy) on Jul 8, 2010 12:55:26 GMT -5
~~~Reffy claims Entry 1~~~
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jul 8, 2010 14:56:09 GMT -5
As you well know, I really dug this story and it's a shame you're competition didn't show.
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Post by tamwyn on Jul 10, 2010 7:49:35 GMT -5
Ha! I knew it was you, Reffy!
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