CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "I live in a small town in Northern Maine. Something strange is coming out the ocean" Creepypasta

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by bleepbloop1990: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►kolokas: https://www.deviantart.com/kolokas/ar...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

I don't know if this message will reach anyone, but I can hear them outside already. There are more of them coming every minute and I feel like I can't think straight. It's probably too late for me, but if this makes it out, if these things are spreading, maybe somebody else will be able to use what we learned to stop them. I'll start from the beginning when I first started noticing that something was very wrong in this town. I came back home from my first semester of college a month ago for November break and was informed that soon after that, due to the climbing number of positive cases, we wouldn't be returning until the second semester, if then.

I'd stopped for gas and Macias on the drive home, and had felt the cold November wind claw at me, while my numb fingers held the pump handle. When I got out of the car in my mother's driveway, my mother tensed an anticipation of the cold sting of the air. I instead stepped into the humid grasp of what felt like a warm spring day. I crunched up the gravel driveway, my gym bag swinging awkwardly at my side, already feeling overheated from my layers of winter clothes and the exertion of carrying my bags. My mother had spoken frequently during our conversations over the phone about how unseasonably warm it had been this fall.

Intermixed with the jokes, questions about how I was doing and unsubtle probing to see if I'd found a girlfriend. She'd mentioned a series of odd occurrences that had occurred as the fall turned to winter. people in the town had begun to talk uneasily about a strange shimmering substance spotted occasionally in the ocean an invasive new growth of seaweed that could grow so fast it seemed to almost move she told me there'd been an unusual number of missing pets leaving townsfolk to fear that rabies or some similar disease was on the prowl

the Watson's family dog a sweet old lab had gone missing for several days and returned snarling and foaming at the mouth The Watson's had been forced to put it down After it had bit Miss Watson when she ran to greet him Apparently the episode had really affected the family As they'd left town soon after Without saying goodbye Or even fully winterizing their house

Others had been abruptly leaving without warning As the winter wore on Ever since the mill close for good In my junior year of high school The town had been losing population But the swiftness and abruptness Of these departures was surprising to my mother I had only half listened to these small-town foibles, as relayed by my mother, too busy trying to navigate the confusion of my first semester at college in the middle of a pandemic.

I had been so excited last year at the thought of leaving Malcumis behind me, of trading in my life in the middle of nowhere small-town Maine, for one in Boston, a life where there was more to do than to snowmobile, drink, and talk about snowmobile and drinking. It hadn't been anything like I expected. hold up in a small dorm room alone, interacting primarily with faces on my computer screen. I'd miss my home and my friends. I'd missed hearing the crash of waves on rocks at night and seeing the stars fill the sky. I'd even miss drinking and getting high in cold hunting cabins by flickering candlelight, talking mainly about other times we had drank and got high in cold hunting cabins.

I felt like it didn't fit in at college. I'd made a few friends, but felt distant from them, like any moment they would realize I didn't belong that I didn't know the right codes get the right references if the social life had been less dazzling than I hoped the coursework is worse I'd been used to being treated as the smartest person

in our small school and feeling out of my depth and confused as alienating I mostly kept quiet during Zoom discussions where the other students easily peped their conversations with rye cultural illusions and dropped references to international trips and vacation homes I had been unwilling to admit to myself how happy I was to be home

to be returning to the familiar comfort of my small bedroom but now feeling the warm warmth in the air entirely out of place for Maine in December I felt a creeping her knees crawl at my spine I could smell the ocean but it did not bring the familiar clear tang of salt and spray I was used to

instead it smells sulfuric and tangy like something spoiled despite the off-putting smell, I nevertheless felt, on Biden, a curiously powerful desire to turn, get back in my car, and go to the water. I shrugged it off and continued on the worn pathway to the small trailer where I'd lived for the past 18 years. The seasonable heat should have been good news. It would make it easier to catch up with friends outside, thus avoiding the need to carefully navigate the newly visible fault lines between those who accepted scientific consensus and public health measures

and those who did not. Fault lines which had been starkly revealed this summer and became only more entrenched as time wore on. I was aware that most of my friends who, unlike me, hadn't felt the need to leave Malsumis, population 11113, to see what else there was out there, who hadn't felt a burning desire to experience different ways of living and thinking and seeing the world, were probably on the opposite side of those fault lines, always faintly visible, but now impossible. to ignore. The warm weather should have been good news, but it was not. The air felt thick and smelled fetid, like something long trapped underground was bubbling

out of the deep through unseen vents. My reaction wasn't steeped in reason. It wasn't like this summer when the happiness I'd felt after yet another warm day, perfect for diving off Sibor Point, into the clear green of the Atlantic, was tempered by the realization that this string of barmy days was probably a potential of a future of runaway carbon emissions and cataclysmic climate change. It was instinctual, a creeping feeling along my shoulders, like a small mammal crawling into a hole looking for safety, and hearing the hiss of scales against the earth, realizing it is

not alone. This summer had been full of minor mysteries. The temperature readings of the two closest towns, Mackayas and Jonesport, displayed in the morning news, were consistently five to ten degrees lower than what we experienced in Malasumis. The halls from the local fishermen had returned unusual numbers of fish and lobsters with mutations. Extra limbs, extra eyes.

Lobsters of extreme size. Species of fish never observed in these waters before appeared in nets and traps. The seaweed was curiously bright green and grew at unprecedented speeds within the confines of the harbour, sometimes clogging motors or sinking poise. People murmured about the odd behaviour

of the catches too. Fish that had teeth longer and sharper than the species were supposed to, fish that appeared to not flop aimlessly on the floorboards, but to seek out the hand that haul them from their watery home to die gasping under an alien sky. Creatures that would, if they could, return an eye for an eye,

stripe for a stripe, burn for a burn, a life for a life. At first, the fisherman joked about this, about angry fish and nipped fingers. But, as the summer wore on, the jokes began to die out. I noticed less raucous laughter

coming from the tables at the Jones diner where they gathered after a day at sea and more men sitting alone staring into beer bottles with a distant expression in the rise. After the spirit of the pen-up scot went out to harvest boys in the late July and it and its crew did not return

the joke stopped entirely. As the long warm summer drew to a close, I noticed fewer and fewer fishing boats drawing close to the cove where Mal sumers was nested against the sheer black cliffs as if those from nearby towns had, consciously or unconsciously, decided to steer clear of our waters.

The curious finds and odd behavior of sea creatures near our town had been the subject of a few scattered local newspieces, but, understandable in a year in which the pace of breaking stories felt unrelenting, tales from locals about weird fish had not garnered much interest. I opened the door to my house and my mother rose from the couch to greet me. Momentarily, I forgot my thoughts of poisoned air and mutated crustaceous. hugged my mother and realized I was close to crying. I'd missed home. I'd missed her. When my mother held me at arm's length, though, I let out an involuntary hiss.

Her skin was shallow and her eyes were red and watery. It looked like she'd aged three years, not three months since I left. Mom, I... I began, but she simply laughed her familiar throaty laugh and swatted at me. Well, isn't that a nice way to do you? greet your mother, you look like you're staring at a frog, not your darling mother, who only raised you and cared for you your whole life. Her voice was thick, with a familiar litting jealness of a down-eastern accent.

The words delivered loosely and without any apparent felt obligation to attach ours to words, which customarily had them in different parts of the world. Have they been feeding you properly up there? You look skinnier than a stick. Come here and get some food. Her accent sounded thicker than I remembered. almost a parody of a main accent. I wondered momentarily

what my friends from school would think of how she sounded. What would they think of this little trailer with his kitschy decorations? Across hung prominently on the wall and red hot dogs seeping in boxed macaroni on the stove. I pushed the thought away. It felt like a betrayal to see my mother and her home through their eyes,

to consider the unthinking condensation with which they would view her. The same condensation I engaged in when we would laugh together about fly-of-estates and people who considered the Big Bang Theory of the height of comedy. I grabbed to my mom and hugged her again and we spent the evening watching network TV

and eating red francs with macaroni. She laughed along with a studio audience and so did I. It was a good night, the last good one we had, I think. As November rolled into December, the cold snap I anticipated never came. I had expected I would be relatively busy

being back home for the first time in several months going to Ellsworth or Bangor to see the lights and go Christmas shopping with Mom like we did every year, catching up with high school friends and revisiting old haunts. But things were much different than I expected. The town seemed even more eerily deserted than normal, which, if you're familiar with small coastal main towns in the winter, was a high bar to clear. My mother seemed to feel sick every day and would merely reply with a Wayne smile

and, uh, maybe tomorrow I'm not feeling myself today. when I asked if she wanted to do anything. She looked sick too. Every day she seemed to get paler. She seemed less responsive, a voice slowed and slurred. My friends likewise seemed disinterested in socialising. The few times we did meet up, I was acutely aware of how little we seem to have in common now.

We met in the field behind a rock quarry in mid-December, a place where we'd often have bonfires, shared drinks, and stayed up into the night, talking before we would pass out in our cars or under the stars. We were carefully concocted schemes to tell parents who were staying at different houses, only to frequently watch these, so carefully laid out plans of mice and men, be easily swept aside by a mutual parental encounter in the grocery store, a stray phone call, or the simple fact that our parents had themselves,

once been teenagers, and knew well their ways. This bonfire was stilted and awkward. My friend's faces looked drawn and pale in the warm firelight, warmth which was welcome, but unneeded, as the temperatures didn't dip below 50 degrees at night. They seemed slow and sullen, with newly vapid expressions and newly apparent thick rural accents. Our conversations dragged.

We carefully avoided sensitive political topics, probing gently around them like one chewing a meal carefully, to avoid injuring rotten and sensitive teeth. They all seemed to take up smoking cigarettes or chewing dip, and, as we stood around the fire with little else to talk about but previous times in which we'd had more. fun. I could feel our connection slowly fraying like a rotted rope, trying to tether two ships taken by different currents. I began to realize that if I didn't entirely feel at home in the

elite coasters of my private college, I also no longer was able to feel like I belonged here. It wasn't just them. The whole town seemed wrong, diseased, like a tree being eaten out by invasive worms. I had plans to drive up and down the coast on my break, seeing as much of the familiar jagged, rocky and wild coastline as possible before returning to Boston. After a few days in Musumus, however, I began to feel less and less like leaving. I grew tired, lethargic, and often felt too unmotivated to do anything but lay in the familiar comfort of my childhood bedroom. Being home felt it once too small and constraining, and also comfortable and familiar, a place where only the expected happened and one's long-settled

beliefs were in no danger of being challenged. I spent a lot of time aimlessly driving the town's backroads, noticing what seemed to be an unusual number of missing pet posters plastered on the telephone poles. I'd frequently find that these drives would end with me being at night, standing at the water's edge, grappling with a confusing but powerful desire to slip into the dark ocean water. I felt like there was some half-heard song coming from the depths which was calling me home. Throughout my stay This pull continued to build An incessant, nagging idea

That I should head toward the salt water Like a bird driven by some internal compass To head south I found myself spending a lot of time with the Duplasia brothers David and Aden They were among the few who had Like me, left Malasumas for college Although unlike me

They had only gone so far south as Aronoh To attend the University of Maine The place most every teacher expected us to go when they did speak of going to college, which was not often. We had been good acquaintances, but not particularly close in high school. But I found myself gravitating toward them,

realizing I could have conversations with them like those with my new friends in Boston, conversations that did not avoid sensitive political subjects or abstract academic ones, but could dive deep into them enthusiastically. We talked about how different the town seemed, how strange. It felt good to talk with people

who didn't see wearing a mask as risable as a feminine expression of fear who didn't believe that their ignorance on complex topics was as entitled to a consideration as another's expertise. We bonded quickly in the way that people who grew up in the same place but are no longer able to fully

consider it home often do. On the evening, I realized that something was truly wrong. The brothers and I were driving through town. I was following the dark shape of their car, aimlessly, listening to music over phone. The sun was going down behind the cliffs, burning a thin orange band over the horizon

and illuminating the dark clutching branches of the trees against the sky. The ocean to our right was emblazoned in orange and the white caps riding on its dark swells shown in the fading light. We grew slowly through the downtown, the few storefronts that were not in disrepair with windows broken or covered in cardboard was shuttered for the night, unusually early even for a town like Malsumas. I watched the close mill drift by. The few lights placed around its fence perimeter illuminated its hulking and rusted form.

A sleeping metal giant attested both to the very reason this town existed at all. Its fatuous placement next to a natural harbour and source of water power from the Aristook Falls and its current statement as a vestigial remnants of a different era. A place which no longer had a coherent reason for existing where people did not intentionally choose to be, but merely remained like a piece of driftwood cast on the shore

to be bleached white and desiccated by remorseless and impersonal forces beyond its control or understanding. We pulled into the public access lot, our headlights throwing the dark rocks jutting over the ocean like decaying teeth into sharp relief. I took a final track on the spliff I'd been smoking and we got out of cars with scrapes of shoes and gravel and the loud reverberating slam of car doors echoing

in the sudden silence after engines are turned off. The smell of the ocean hit me in a wave. It did not smell of salt and cold air, but was wet and rancid, like thick mud and salt, and something old and long dead. The waves below us hissed into the many caves and tunnels carved in the rocks below,

sounding like the heavy breathing of some long slumbering monster which might awaken at any minute. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to get back in my car and leave, and nothing left. and to step into the splinter wood staircase to climb down into the dark rocks below. But Aden was already descending the stairs behind his brother. His back framed briefly at the mouth of the stairs,

a six-back of narrow-gant-bier dangling from his hands. I followed. The rocks below was slippery and the sound of the waves loud. We arranged ourselves in a semicircle around a large flat rock pressing against the back of the dark cliff. This was a popular spot for locals to congregate at night and charred remnants of aluminium cans with an ad hoc fire pits surrounded by scroll graffiti stood as a testament to their prior presence. We scraped out the bright aluminium shards and assorted

debris and started a small fire in the blackened circle. The three of us sipped our beer and talked aimlessly for a bit. Aidan rose and wandered outside the small circle of light to go to the bathroom while David brought out a stubby, poorly rolled joint and began smoking it contemplatively. the frayed ember ends scattering in the wind. Guys, come look at this. Aiden's voice cut to the warm wind, his voice high and excited. David and I rose soundlessly

and strode over to stand beside him. Aidan was looking down at a narrow seam in the seapucked rock that had little to distinguish it from the numerous other holes and chasms dotting the area. As we drew close, I understood the reason for his excitement.

Thick hot air was spewing from the crevents. like heat from an open furnace. It hit me like a wet slap, fettered and nauseating, with a smell like rotten eggs, driving me to my knees and causing me to wretch. Dude, what the hell? Why didn't you warn me?

I gasped, still struggling to contain the contents of my stomach. What do you think it is? Aiden's eyes were wet as he was staring at the cavernous opening with sick excitement. I don't know, but it smells disgusting. Let's get back. David flicked the glowing tip of his joint away as he spoke and grabbed Aidan's shoulder, steering him away.

I could see Aden hesitate and see him for an instant ready to protest before allowing himself to be led away. The smell was still invading my nostrils, pounding inside my head, and yet I too felt strangely drawn toward the opening, like some inner magnet was urging me closer. It was like the familiar pull I'd been feeling

toward the coast since arriving, but magnified to almost an... overwhelming degree in close proximity to the fumes being emitted from this crevice. Back at the fire, Aidan began talking quickly. I knew something strange was going on here. It's been so warm. Do you think that's why? Like some geothermic vents around here have opened up or something? I don't know, replied David. It smelled like crap, though. It can't be good. There's definitely something going on, said Aidan. His voice rising as he spoke.

The other day I was driving and just felt like I needed to start. up and get out to the boat launch. I don't know why. When I walked down to the water, I saw like hundreds of crabs and fish and things crawling out of the water. They were all coming out to the water and heading up toward the town.

Even the fish. It was weird, like they were possessed or something, or like there was something of the water they were running from. Why didn't you say anything about this before? asked David. Aidan looked down.

I don't know. I just didn't. It seemed too weird to explain. I thought maybe I imagined it. I found myself understanding what he meant. I had also been seeing strange events since arriving. Excessive amounts of dead fish and crustaceans far up land from where they should be. Thousands of dead fish that seemed to faintly glow at night in the water.

An image glimpse briefly framed against the fading sun as I ran at the corner of Route 1 of several human figures seemingly wading into an open sea, arms outstretched. I hadn't mentioned it either. unsure of what I'd really seen. It hadn't helped that since I'd arrived. My mind had grown increasingly foggy like my thoughts were being protested through thick water. Everything had begun to seem slightly surreal and far away.

So what? You think there's something causing this town to heat up and also driving fish crazy? David asked more than a hint of scorn in his voice. But I thought underneath a bravado there was something darting and fearful in his eyes. Well, Aiden began, but I didn't hear him finish as something glowing and bright caught the corner of my eye

and before I knew what I was doing, my feet were bringing me toward it. I found myself standing beside a circular eddy of black ocean water, slowly rising and falling in rhythm with the waves, entering through a narrow opening between the rocks. I looked down at a glowing, luminousant mass. Oh my God, I whispered in an involuntarily breathy exhale. floating below me, bobbing in the gentle swell of waves,

was the body of James Madison, one of the four crew members of the pride of the pin-up scot that had gone missing earlier this year. He was covered in a fine glowing scum, a seaweed-like substance. It was entwined over his head and matted through his thick beard, which was spread out and floating in the water.

The glowing seaweed stuff seemed to move, twisting slowly over his body. The eyes, sunk deep into the gummy pale face suddenly flew open. They were bright green and cloudy, the same colour as the glowing mass that covered his body. I opened my mouth to scream, but only a faint scratchy sigh escaped. A large, meaty hand, swollen grotesquely around a thin metal wedding band, grabbed the side of the rock with a wet slap.

The hulking figure began pulling itself from the ocean, water slowing off it in rivulet, leaving the green strands, which encased the body swaying. and dripping. I turned to run, but my legs collapsed beneath me, and I fell from the lip, overlooking the dark pool of ocean, weightless for a second before I hit the jagged rocks below.

My teeth clicked together, and I tasted blood. Some distant part of my brain was aware that if I was not pumped full of adrenaline, the fall would have caused intense pain. I stumbled to my feet and began to run, finally able to feel my lungs and yell, doing so in a raw, wordless scream that tore at my throat. I saw David and Aidan turned to look at me, their faces forming mirror images of white oes of surprise.

Seeing the glowing form lumbering after me, they turned and fled. Aidan slipped on the wet rocks and fell in a tumble of arms and legs which I narrowly avoided. White-heart panic gritted me like a vice. I could hear the thing that used to be Mr. Madison behind me, clambering over rocks with a sickly squelching sound. I didn't stop. I looked over my shoulder and saw David helping Aidan up. His face contorted in fear.

Feeling my entire being rebel against the decision, I turned back to help. The glowing form of Mr. Matterson reached out and grabbed Dave's shoulder with a wet hand. He opened his mouth wide and injected a mass of glowing green lichon. It hit David with a wet slap, coating his face and neck. Without thinking, I scooped and picked up a jagged black rock, and, in a single fluid move, struck Mr. Matterson in the face. Globs of green seaweed flew from his chin, spattering the dead. dark rocks as he staggered back, momentarily stunned.

We ran toward the stairs, David frantically wiping his eyes clean. Aidan and David hit the wooden stairs first and began thundering up them, the frame swaying ominously. I followed behind, blind panic seized me as I heard the wet slap of footsteps on the wood below me as I felt and imagined the grasp of swollen hands my pant legs. Climbing the stairs two at a time, I cleared the top of the stairs and saw Aidan and David frantically clambering into their car. The engine started with a roar and I flung myself inside, my legs trailing on the ground as the car started to reverse in a spree of gravel. I poured myself fully onto the backseat and looked up from between the headrests, the top of the stairs momentarily framed in the headlights,

and saw only darkness between the rails before we were on the road and accelerating away. I walked over to the window and looked outside. There are more of them out there. They're just standing there now. I don't know what they're doing. Or how long I have. I don't know where my mother is. I hope she got out.

I hope somebody, anybody did. The next day, Aidan and David picked me up, and we drove to get my car. We didn't talk much on the drive. It was like we didn't want to talk about what we'd seen. Like that would make it more real. I had an ear-splitting headache that was making it difficult to think. The world felt muffled and far off, and felt like I couldn't even be sure last night had really happened.

Like it was a dream. or a distant, half-forgotten memory. David coughed a sick, racking cough for the whole drive. Later that evening, I drove to their house. The parents were upstairs, not feeling well, like my mother, like the whole town. Half the stores were closed as I drove through town. I stopped to get gas and coffee at the Circle K

and had barely recognised the cashier, Stephen Rawlson, although he had been in the grade above me. He had but in wait and his face looked swollen and bovine. His skin, a sickly green pole. His entire body shook when he coughed thickly. I hurried out without speaking to him. Aidan helped David onto the couch. His face was drawn and his breath short, exhausted from the short trip to the kitchen and back to make a drink.

I saw his hands shake as he raised it to his lips. The corners of his lips had a greenish tint, as did the corners of his eyes. I looked at Aiden and barely saw a restrained fear in his eyes. What should we do? I asked. Do we tell someone? David let out a weak laugh. Tell him what?

That we saw zombie Mr. Matterson, that he tried to attack us? The police would laugh, think we were high, or messing with them. Well, we have to do something, Aidan offered quietly. Look, said David,

we don't know what we saw. It was dark. We've been drinking and smoking. It could have been a crazy homeless person on PCP or something. Isn't that the most likely explanation? Well, said Aidan, I took some biology classes this semester

We had a section on parasites They're wild They've been around since the earliest forms of life And we've been in a constant biological arms race with them There's one that can infect the brain over a wasp and control it Direct it where to lay its eggs Or take control of it to spread the parasite to other wasps Other ones can low insects write to them

Using pheromones or something I forget Do you think Here he paused considering his words Do you think something like that could be happening? Haven't you felt like you're wanting to go toward it? Like there's something in there calling to you. We were all silent for a moment.

I didn't know what to say. The air felt heavy and I couldn't think. But Aden was right. There was something. It felt like an omnipresent humming, urging me toward the water, shimmering through the bare trees outside the window. It was growing stronger. Okay, said David finally.

It's getting dark outside. Let's meet tomorrow, early. Go back and see if we can find anything there that will... I don't know. Help us decide what is going on. I feel like hell right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better. David spoke calmly, but his face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

I wondered and saw that he wondered too, how likely it was that tomorrow he would feel better. It seemed like kind of a bad plan. But so did all the options. Aiden simply nodded weakly. I got up and left, looking back over my shoulder and seeing the two brothers framed in the window, sitting on the couch together in silence.

I felt like turning back, like we were missing something or making the wrong choice somehow. But my head was splitting, and it was difficult to think. I just wanted to crawl into a dark bed and sleep. Or slip into cool water. The thought rose unbidden in my head, and I pushed it away in revulsion, like shaking away a many limped insect found unexpectedly in the hand. On the drive home, I watched the thin, silver side of the moon float in the dark water. I thought about parasites. I thought about the name of the town, Malsumis, a Wabanaki term meaning evil spirit.

Like so much of this country, the violent history behind our presence was revealed only in the stolen names we still lived with. the pen-up scot the Androscogging river, Piscataway and Sagada Hogg counties. Our state was a graveyard of words spoken by dead and robbed peoples. I remember researching our town for some middle school project and learning that the Wabanaki peoples had avoided this spot. They called it Malsumis and considered it cursed. I wondered if there was some ancient ancestral memory behind that designation. I long remembered memory of something dark and dangerous

that slithered out of the water and night to eat. like the long dormant sections of our genes where old mutations remained as a testament to ancient battles with invisible viruses and parasites old enemies that we hoped but could not know were not to return I almost drove past my house almost just kept driving

until I met the on ramp for Interstate 95 pointed my car south and drove without stopping but my mother was in the house and she wasn't feeling well I pulled into a driveway and got out of the car The trailer was dark and quiet. Mom, I called, stepping into the darkness and reaching for the light, feeling a sudden irrational fear that an arm would stretch out and grab my hand before it hit the switch.

She was gone. I stood in a room, looking at the depression on her bed where she'd been laying for the past few days, feverish, her eyes grown milky and cloudy. I knew at some level that she'd left a walk down to the water. that I was too late. My phone rang into the silence, making me scream shortly. It was Aiden. He sounded breathless and scared.

Mike, please, come quick, it's David. He's gotten worse. I heard crashing in the background and the line went dead. The hairs in my arms were standing up and I felt a cold line of sweat traced down my back. I spared to the Deplasia's house. I did not encounter a single car on the drive. The windows and the door.

houses I passed were dark. I pretended not to see the dark figures slipping through the trees toward the water or the glowing forms walking away from it. At the house, the doors open and a lamp lay in the floor, casting crazy shadows over the walls. David and Aden were gone,

but I saw a pair of footprints leading out the back door and trailing away in the wet grass that sloped toward the coast. The footprints glowed faintly with a sheen of bioluminescence. Glowing tendrils started to detach from the impressions an inch towards me. I fled out the open door,

silently and involuntarily uttering, no, no, no, no, no. Three faint glowing figures stood beside my car. I recognised Miss Harriet, my third grade teacher, and the mycords who ran the small grocery in town. They smiled together in perfect unison and reached out toward me,

tendrils of glowing seaweed trailing from between their fingers. I had taken several steps toward them before I realized what I was done. doing. The green in the rise called to me with a low, thrumming hum that I felt reverberate through my body. I turned, feeling

like I was physically ungluing myself from their pole, and ran up the concrete steps to the house, slamming the door behind me. They have remained standing beside my car for the last five hours, and others have joined them. I can see them, waiting, glowing

in the darkness. When I peer through my window, my headache has been growing steadily worse, and the constant low hum has been building in pressure I can feel it vibrating in my teeth there is a constant pull to open the door and go outside

I feel like a fish fighting against the cold iron of a hook sunk deep into the gills the pole of the line implacable and relentless I'm typing on the desktop computer in the Duplicius house I dropped my phone when I ran inside

the internet connection has been coming in and out but I hope I can still post this. I feel like there must be something I can do to call for help. Something I could think of if I wasn't so tired. If I didn't feel like I'm trying to think through a thick fog. I believe I see my mother at the window. She's smiling at me.

I think I'll go outside and be with her soon.