---

Far from the frenzy

Of the frantic world above

Two beneath the blue

Could even fall in love

---

Left By The Tide

By Edward E. Schiff

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Were it not for that four-inch scar upon my forehead, I would have thought it a nightmare — some ghastly hallucination, even though it happened in broad daylight. But there is that scar, which mars my features for life, tangible and terrible evidence to prove that I did not dream it.

I had gone down to the beach with the rising sun, but I was the only one there. None of the other guests from the hotel had yet come down to take their early morning plunge. A charity affair that did not break up till 3 o’clock that morning kept them abed. So I was alone upon that sun-drenched stretch of sand.

The tide was low and I had to walk some hundred yards before I was waist-deep and breasting the invigorating waters of old ocean. I swam out at once to a pile of rocks, a good quarter of a mile from the shore, and climbed out upon them. Now, at low tide, they formed a nearly circular, barnacle- and weed-covered island, about fifty feet in diameter and rising only a few feet above the waters. After resting a few minutes I clambered over the jagged stones toward the center, where there was a depression about six or seven feet deep and about the same width, and where the retreating waters sometimes left strange denizens of the deep, which could be observed under ideal conditions.

Just before I reached the little pool, I thrilled to the sound of a splash of a heavy body. The tide had left something there with a vengeance, I thought gleefully, and I hastened forward to see what it was.

I stared, sickened by what I saw — a dead man, with shriveled, shrunken skin, hollow cheeks, and hideous in apparently the last stages of putrefaction. There he was floating on his back a bare few inches below the surface. His hands were under him, and at first I thought he was naked. Then, as I overcame my first horror, I noted that he had a sort of apron about his loins —an apron made of what appeared to be the scales of a large fish. It was a curious garment and covered with green algae or sea moss. The man must have been dead a long time to have allowed for the formation of that slime. I puzzled over this, wondering how it was he remained whole and not half devoured by the scavengers of the sea. Then suddenly I remembered the splash I had heard. Who had made it? Not the dead man. Closely I searched the pool for some other sign of life, but except for a sea crab or two there was none.

Turning my attention to the body again, I scrutinized it closely and felt my scalp twitch when I thought I detected a barely perceptible rising and falling of the chest. The more I stared the more certain I was that I was not mistaken. But drowned men do not breathe, I told myself; I must be laboring under a hallucination. I turned my eyes away and gazed out over the sea and sky to rest them, and when I turned them back again I was shocked into an exclamation. The body had moved toward me. I could still see the faint traces of the eddy it had made to reach me. But dead men cannot move and there was no wave or tide or any breath of wind that could propel it within that enclosed space.

Now I was certain it was breathing. The slight but definitely regular expansion and contraction of the chest were caused by respiration. I could not be mistaken.

Then suddenly the lids flashed open and I was staring into its eyes. And they were the eyes of a living creature, sea-green and evil, that probed through mine into the very recesses of my brain with satanic curiosity. Then, still holding me with its baleful gaze, the thing reached for the brink with huge hands that were webbed like the feet of some aquatic bird, and started to pull itself up.

Somehow I broke the spell by which the thing held me, and, half mad with loathing and horror, I kicked him with my bare foot back into the pool.

I think I stumbled half back to the open water before I recovered my courage and paused to look back. It had come out of the pool and was dragging its slimy length over the rocks toward me. I realized at once it could not walk upright and that I would have no difficulty in evading it. With unmitigated loathing I watched it crawl until it approached to within a few feet of me. Then I backed away from it, taking care to avoid being crowded into the sea where it could easily outmaneuver me with its finlike appendages.

Again it tried to hold me with its hypnotic stare, but I avoided its eyes, and, stooping down, picked up a fragment of rock and tried to threaten it back. Suddenly it, too, reached out and picked up a stone, and we both threw at the same moment. But I was completely beside myself with horror and missed him by inches, while he caught me fairly on the chest —a blow that knocked the breath out of me and dropped me to my knees. The next moment he was upon me, his powerful hands closing about my throat, his cold, slimy body against my cringing, warm flesh, his fetid breath in my nostrils.

But I fought, fought in a stark, frenzied madness that promised to rid me of his clinging, hateful weight, when suddenly he released one of his hands from my throat, and I could feel him fumble around his waist. The next moment I would have been free of him, but his hand came up again wielding a stone or coral knife.

I screamed and tried to evade the blow, but while I spoiled his aim for my throat he managed to inflict that awful gash on my forehead.

---

When I came back to consciousness it was with a cry of terror, in the arms of two men who were lifting me into a skiff; and for some minutes I struggled with them, before I realized they were my rescuers.

Their story is briefly told. They had observed me from the beach apparently trying to avoid some creature which they thought was a seal. They quickly got into a skiff and rowed to the rocks, shouting to frighten off the creature when they saw me struggling with it. Then for a minute or two I was out of their sight, hidden by a projecting rock, and when they again saw me I was alone and lying flat on my back, though a moment before they had heard the thing splash into the sea.

That is their story. Mine they would not believe. In fact, they tried to stop me in the telling of it, and attempted to soothe me as if I were a terror-stricken child, or crazy. They said I had injured my forehead by falling on a jagged stone.

But that day two bathers were pulled down to their death by some creature of the sea. Sharks, they all said. But I know better.

---

Sirens Chasing Sirens

By Seth Wade

---

We call during the chaos of night, when the fireworks break into their explosive peak, when boys with bellies full of poison grind fast to pulsing rainbow beats. When revelers holler and flail on the smoke-filled beach and swimmers watch raining embers from the hug of warm, lolling waves. When the bars engorge with pleasure-seeking flesh so heavy it sags the pier, nearly making it cave into that pitch-black sea.

Everything is so easy now, with smartphones. We stagger our breaks from bartending, allowing each of us to scroll through options. Hungry. As two of my brothers return from their break, bobbing back behind the bar, dizzy from satisfaction—redness sticking to their teeth, hanging from their breath—another puts his arms around the sweating shoulders of a boy he’s been messaging all night. He whispers and they leave, with a twitching glint in their eyes.

It’s my turn soon.

I leave carrying a tray of candy-colored tubs. I flicker through packs of boys, men more leather than men. Patrons grab vials, slurps the insides and bounce back to the dance floor. At some point, I’m staring into that black union of night and sea. The neon glow of rides and games from the amusement park nearby blurs through the firework-smoke. Hints of funnel cake and popcorn leap from the slow breeze. A gleeful shriek spills over the club music; below the balcony, swimmers play, looking like bobbing torsos stuck in fresh tar.

I return my tray behind the bar, check my phone. Open apps, swipe out seduction. And wait. One of my brothers refills some guy’s Cosmo, looking over my phone and snickering, saying, “You always go for the broody fucks.”

I roll my eyes, but my phone vibrates, and I know my call was heard.

I find my boy outside, smoking and staring out into the ocean. He is short and stocky, wearing a faded jacket and pants that do not fit him.

I lean on the railing “Beautiful. Isn’t it?”

He turns around. His eyes are harsh violet and his breath reeks of Vodka. Bits of ash speckle his beard. He’s been crying.

“Hey,” he says. He takes a final huff from his joint, flicking the corpse into the waters below. He stumbles. I catch him.

But then he grabs my arm, yanking me towards a dark corner of the pier. He is so serious I almost laugh. Then my stomach growls, and I grow so sad.

Another burst of fireworks crackles the sky, vibrating everything, and I know he’s anxious, that his mind’s already outside of itself, bubbling in the sea, floating in the sky. Gone. I know he’s annoyed at my hesitation, as he pulls me to the ground, pushing me down.

We quake to sounds of summer bliss. The music, the firework-booms, the yelps all screech together as we fuck above that sloshing black sea. We’re approaching the peak, that chaos of night, that wild of life, that height of being where time becomes a skippable thing and reality mushes in and out of comprehension. We’re almost there, we’re almost—

My wings crack out from the flesh of my back.

“Your eyes almost glow,” he says between pants.

“I know.”

My fingers stretch into talons. My teeth unfurl into fangs. Horns pierce my scalp.

“Your eyes—”

The fireworks climax, thundering into oblivion: raging streaks of flame illuminate me.

I sing.

Sucking at the bloody, gurgling gash in his throat, I hollow him out, chew his muscle and grind his bones, shred then gulp his skin. I pop his organs between my jaws, savoring the juicy, salty warmth gushing out. I swallow all I can, then throw what’s left over the railing, splatting onto the rocks below.

I’m full. My stomach pounds, hot and pulsing like a cyst. Wincing as my mutations retract into my body, I don’t know how there’s enough room for my own insides and the insides of the boy. But there is.

There always is.

Tottering back inside, my brothers smile at me.

One of them slides a tall white glass my way. “Collins to wash the Tom?”

I take a light swig, swish the sweetness of the lemon about my teeth, let it lick away the salty syrup of red from my tongue. “What?” I ask.

“Your precious Tom,” he says handing me my phone. “Your broody bite tonight.”

Something pangs my distended belly, forcing me to cough. I forgot he had a name.

Suddenly everything feels heavy. I’m already hungry again. My eyes start oozing fluids I do not recognize and the pier creaks and groans, like something desperate to collapse.

---

Dread and Faith

by Ash Vale

---

The first time I saw the creature, it was an accident.

A night of loud music and carefree dancing led me to the rocky outcropping of a sea cave with a woman I met at the bar. She tugged on the short hairs at the back of my neck as we giggled and undressed in the damp and dark, leaving our clothes behind as we slipped naked into the warm, rising tide.

Our embrace had a delicious peril as the swell rose around us. White spray arced at the entrance where water rushed in violently. Glimmering flecks of edible glitter from our heated bodies melted into the fathomless pool, sugar and chemicals that created pearlescent spirals as we kissed under the trapped moonlight. Pleasure ebbed and flowed as easily as the lapping waves.

It wasn’t until we were hastily retreating, clothes rearranged, that a shiver up my spine urged me to look back. I was frozen for a moment by the sight of shifting skin and pitch-black eyes, watching me from just above the waterline. I blinked, and it was gone.

I walked my date home, but her laughter and chatter grated now in a way they hadn’t before. My mind was racing with the thrill of being seen.

---

I returned on my own the next night, rain jacket bundled up tightly to combat a swelling spring storm. Self-preservation has never been a strength of mine. I stripped and plunged into the water just as I had the night before, a strange electricity breaking out across my skin as quickly as rising goosebumps. Lightning crackled outside the stony hollow; clouds obscured the waxing moon. In the brief illumination, I sought out the deity I was certain would emerge. I waited and waited, an eager supplicant. Nothing appeared. I laughed at myself as I walked home after, trying to shake my head free of droplets and foolish conviction.

---

The next time, I returned with a working theory, intent to sin, and someone new, someone eager and handsy. Our feet dangled in the dark waters while he kissed up the side of my neck, tasting the muggy heat mingling with my perspiration. As the waves crashed against the rocks beneath us, my eyes caught on an unnatural stillness amidst all the movement.

Enormous, blackened sclera watched me from a pale, discoloured face, only the top of which was visible. Long dark hair floated out from behind it, stringy and unkempt. I knew I should be afraid, perhaps even tell my partner, but I didn’t. I had to know what it sought. Was it jealous? Lonely?

Hungry?

I ran a hand across my chest, collecting some of the sweet gold body glitter I regularly applied underneath mesh shirts or harnesses, and I offered it to the being, my fingertips trembling unseen behind my partner’s back. Its leer flicked to my outstretched palm, but it didn’t move. My eyes shuttered against the intensity of its gaze, my skin crawling with the danger of willingly presenting my belly to an atavistic predator. Something wet and cold licked gingerly at the pads of my fingers. I smiled against the shoulder pressed to my front but when I opened my eyes, it was gone once again.

---

Tonight I come prepared to pray.

I’m alone, skin sticky both from sweat and the shimmery sweet cream smeared over my chest and shoulders and neck. I shed my clothes in the dim light and pile them carelessly on the crags nearby. I dip my fingers in the water, letting glimmering remnants swirl off my hands into the deep. I wait.

The new moon is nearly at its peak when the thing comes. Voided eyes watch me intently as high tide breaks along the cavern’s opening. Its hair is sinewy and matted, flecks of my artificial gold scattered amongst the strands, constellations in a nightmarish night sky. I lean back, feet swaying in the water, my body language promising confidence my squirming insides don’t trust. Dread and faith are my stalwart companions.

There are no ripples on the surface, but suddenly it’s beside me in the water. I didn’t see it move. Thin, pale arms ending in long, jointless fingers reach out to touch me, to caress the rough scars under my flat pectoral muscles and smudge at the greasy luminescence there; benefaction for a famished, abyssal god.

The small bit of moonlight that was limping along disappears, leaving me to my devotion. I realise with a rush that the tide has closed off the mouth of the cave; I am a prisoner until the moon begins her waning. The creature rises out of the water, eyes unblinking and fixed on me. I scramble backwards, away from the rictus grin, wide and sharp, licking at overlong digits coated in my sweetness and submission.

My offering has been accepted.

---

Host Commentary

I’ve talked before about how I struggle with a lot of older genre fiction, and horror especially (You know who I’m talking about and won’t be talking about again). ‘The past is a foreign country’ as The Go-Between by LP Hartley opens and it’s not one I enjoy visiting by and large.

But when you do, you get such surprising context. This story by itself is a fun piece of Fortean nastiness, and one that with a modern lens, bluntly, smells distinctly of gammon. The belligerent self-righteous arrogance and fear of our lead here is a song sung off-key and discordant by a thousand tiny men with tiny hearts who have spent most of my adult life screaming about how oppressed they are as they strip rights away from whoever it’s fashionable to hate today. I’m not saying his fear response isn’t legitimate. Fear is fear and when the uncanny valley washes ashore on your quiet life it’s very hard to deal with and Leeman, because he’s incredible, finds enormous humanity and enormous emotional complexity in the lead.

But if your first response is to try and kill the unknown with a rock, you don’t get to complain when it tries to kill you right back.

I think for me, the horror of this piece sits somewhere Schiff perhaps didn’t intend. In that final line, and four words that wrap themselves around that self-righteous aggressive fear like barbed wire around a trembling fist.

‘But I know better.’

Sure you do.

---

Here’s what the author had to say:

‘”I wrote this story with the original Greek myth in mind. I wondered how sirens themselves felt about the role they played. As a young queer person I found their plight incredibly compelling. I imagined how gay sirens might live in modern times and the rest suddenly flew out of me like a song.”

The line in this story that haunts me is:

‘Then my stomach growls, and I grow so sad’.

The total lack of awareness, conscious or otherwise, in the first story is replaced by stark, cold honesty ouroboros’ed together with feral, raging hunger. Here’s who you are, here’s how you deal with it. Good luck.

The hope sits in the moment we become aware of that. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but it’s there. When we see who we are, and who we think we are, and the distance between those two points the only choice we have is whether we want to be a statue or a story. Statues are radiant and immutable. Stories change. It takes work, but it can be done and, sooner or later, it must be done.

That’s where the horror sits for me though. The moment before that, a moment that can last decades, lifetimes. Where you sit inside the shape life has put you and realise it doesn’t fit and no one can change that but you. The extra layers of horror here only make the situation darker, and Wade turns the knife five times. The horror of feeding on a living being. The horror of feeding on one of your own. The horror of sublimating emotional and sexual attraction with predation. The horror of doing so in a world already eager to feed on people like you who lack your talons. And the crushing realisation that the story you told yourself about who you are is part of the problem. Nothing’s easy, nothing’s fast. There is nowhere more comfortable than accepting the life you’ve been given. There is nothing harder than turning that down. But sooner or later we all must. Take the first step, flex the wings you’ve been told to hide. Fuck what other people think. Fly.

---

That boundary line, of sea and land, horror and fantasy, that’s where the good stuff washes ashore. That’s Terminus’ domain. I learned about Terminus, the Roman God who protected boundary markers from one of those radio dramas I was far too young to listen to. It was a coastal thriller, which living by the coast was thrilling in itself, about someone who was either a killer who worshipped Terminus or was Terminus. I remember very little about it aside from that, and from listening to it and listening to the ever present ocean bounding my world, and my life. My own personal Terminus.

Years later I’d realise how many more ways I was bound and how many of Terminus’ places I lived in. The expectations of being a teacher’s kid both from my parents and my compatriots. Being Big to some and Clever to others but never too much of either and God forbid both. Learning, many many years later that I was both the youngest person in the house and the only one not diagnosed (and in one case treated for) depression. Being The Good Kid. Capital T. Capital G. Capital K.

Most relevant to this story, perhaps, is the fact that because I was large, and softly spoken, and liked books, I was clearly gay. Which, growing up on an island where homophobia was institutionalised for decades, was a problem for anyone who wasn’t 6 foot and 200 pounds. It was a problem for me too, but the bullying was only ever verbal. None of the people doing it had the guts to try anything physical. Most of the time that was a relief. Sometimes…

Sometimes isolation is freedom. Sometimes destruction is. Sometimes, like in this story, pushing those boundaries to breaking point and beyond is. The lies you tell yourself in those situations, as you walk home, as the story puts it ‘head free of droplets and foolish conviction.’ But not free of where you’re bound. The town, the island, the hated land, the beckoning coast. Terminus, arms folded, barring the way.

Sometimes isolation is freedom. Sometimes destruction is. Because in the end, everyone wants to be free. Even if that freedom destroys who we were. Sometimes especially if it destroys us. Great work everyone.