Beat.
My first entry for the February round of the writing competition brigits_flame. This week's prompt was:
Beat
My back and arms ached, and my eyes were stinging from what sweat ran into my eyes before the rain washed it away. We had been rowing for almost two days with no sign of land nor life, before the island came into view. It started as a dark speck on the horizon, and my five companions and I spent half a miserable hour arguing about whether or not it was an illusion caused by the clouds and the rain, or whether it was actually real. A further hour of rowing towards it confirmed that it definitely was not.
The dim sun was low in the sky, just above the immense mound of the island, as we approached, and disappeared from sight behind one of its mountains as we rowed into its shadow. Everything was thrown into dull grey relief. Closer now, we could see that the island was mainly forest, and we were headed straight for a deep, narrow bay. In fact, as we rowed slowly into its proximity, the rain now weakening to a light drizzle, we could see that the water here was not as it was out at sea. The beaches were not sand, they were thick tan-coloured mud. The sludge was oozing into the water, colouring it, rendering it opaque.
I suggested that we bear left and pull up against the left-hand bank of the bay. The arms and shoulders burned and I just wanted to get out of that damned boat as soon as possible. Shortly the nose of our boat scudded up the bank with a scrape and grind of gravel and grit, and we juddered to a stop. I groaned a sigh of relief as, my joints and muscles protesting, I rose shakily to my feet in the boat, feeling it starting to sink into the bank. Throwing caution to the wind, overbalanced myself to bring my foot down outside the boat. Immediately I was forced to throw my body weight the other way, as I found the ground beneath the boat held almost no resistance at all, my sodden boot sinking deeply into the mud with ease. Grasping the side of the boat, I shifted my foot until I felt I could get a little more purchase on the bank, then slowly lowered my other leg down onto the shifting sludge. I was sinking, slowly, so I kept moving my feet to make sure I didn't.
Turning from the boat, and from the faces of my tired comrades, I looked up the bank. It was steep, and made entirely of the same mud I was standing on. At the top, the ground looked firmer, and that is where the trees started. Telling my companions to wait in the boat, I pumped my legs and with some struggle made my way to the top of the muddy bank. By the time I reached the firmer ground - though it was not firmer by much - my arms were covered up to the elbow with cold sludge, my legs to the knees. However, I stood atop that bank and I stared into the forest. The rain was getting a little heavier and I was aware of cold watery mud trickling into my shoes. To my right, there seemed to be some sort of path along this bank, leading up into the trees. I turned to look down at the boat, and shouted that they could get out of the boat and come up here, there was a path, and to bring all the supplies they could.
At that moment something caught my eye in the trees on the opposite bank of the bay. Straining my eyes I tried to catch what it was I saw. A pale shape darting through the trees. Was that...
A shout from far to my left made me catch myself. Looking over, I saw that all 5 of my comrades had managed to get from the boat up the bank, up the sodden path, and were very nearly out of sight. I turned to follow, when a beat beneath my feet made me jump. I stared down at my shoes, or where they should be, to find I was halfway to my knees in mud. But something was happening beneath my feet, they were being hit or pushed in some way, in a rhythmic pulse. I could feel sharp impacts on the soles of my soaked shoes. Beat. Beat. Beat. Giving a strangled cry of surprise, I wrenched my feet free of the mud and very nearly tumbled backwards in doing so. I shuddered, swallowing hard, and turned to follow the others. I only got two steps, when I heard a sick, sucking sound from the mud behind me and upon turning to look, where only a moment ago there had been nothing, there was now a horrid sight.
A man, for the most part naked, in tattered clothes, covered head to toe in mud. The only way I knew he was human was from the pale skin where the rain streaked patches of his skin clear. I couldn't see his features clearly enough to judge his age, but the effect was of someone terribly old, his head bald and feet bare. It was cold, but he wasn't shivering. He wasn't even moving. He was just standing, slightly hunched, several meters from where I was. I was frozen to the spot. The smell rolling off him, barely diffused by the rain, was of something old and festering. His visage was terrifying. He looked completely unnatural. Not even meeting my eyes, instead gazing somewhere over my shoulder, he murmured in a soft, childlike voice:
"Down in the muddies, like your old man did."
He didn't say anything else, but upon his final word his eyes flicked to mine, fixing me with a powerfully hateful stare. At the same time, there was again the sensation of pulsing on the soles of my feet; impacts on the soles of my shoes, powerful beats, shocking my ankles and legs. Beat. Beat. Beat. Recoiling, reviled, I staggered backwards and started to jog up the path, aware that the ground was losing cohesion beneath my feet and the faster I ran, the harder my feet pounded the mud, the deeper I sank with each stride. Hazardously I dared to look behind myself, only to find that the man was gone. I kept running anyway, turning my head to look forward again -
The man was in front of me. I slid to a stop, gasping, nearly losing my footing. He wasn't any more than a meter away.
"Down in the muddies, where your old man died."
His voice, so soft before, now mocking and so full of menace. I watched as slowly he seemed to sink down into the mud, his eyes never leaving mine, until only his torso remained. Then his neck and head. And as his head slid under the surface, I noticed he didn't even close his eyes as he sank down and then he was gone.
BEAT.
Now I knew what was beneath my feet. It was the hammering of fists and hands on the soles of my shoes.
Horrified, on the verge of vomiting, I wrenched my feet out of the mire and ran headlong into the trees, not caring where I was going, just wanting to be away from this terrible mud and this terrible creature. As I ran and ran, off the path and through the sparse forest, I could feel the ground getting more and more solid, but my stomach gave a lurch as I realised that it wasn't really the ground. Wherever I placed my feet, there was a hand underneath supporting my weight. I could feel the fingers momentarily curl round the soles of my shoes and then let reluctantly go as I lifted my feet. The dead were down there, I knew now. So many. And they wanted me now.
"Down with the meeces, I guess. Poor little meeces. Drowned in the muddies."
I heard this thick, crackling whisper through lips caked with ooze, from a throat that breathed mud, and as I ran I looked down and could see the man, gliding along under the surface, his shape in the thick tan mud, moving through its murk like a fish, cutting through it so easily. It made me retch to watch, the ease with which his body slid through the mire like an eel. As I slipped and slid, supported now only by the hands of the dead under my feet - maybe my companions, how could I know - I saw his eye open, the surface of it sealed in sludge.
There were no hands to support my next two steps and with a great splash and struggle, I sank instantly almost to my neck in the thick, icy mud. Gagging, coughing, crying out, I could feel limbs, hands, mouths on my body, curling gently around me like heavy snakes. I sank. As my nose and throat and lungs filled with viscous mud, I could hear the whispering of these dead things in my ears. The last thing I did in my life was open my eyes to the swamp. I could see absolutely nothing at all.
Beat
My back and arms ached, and my eyes were stinging from what sweat ran into my eyes before the rain washed it away. We had been rowing for almost two days with no sign of land nor life, before the island came into view. It started as a dark speck on the horizon, and my five companions and I spent half a miserable hour arguing about whether or not it was an illusion caused by the clouds and the rain, or whether it was actually real. A further hour of rowing towards it confirmed that it definitely was not.
The dim sun was low in the sky, just above the immense mound of the island, as we approached, and disappeared from sight behind one of its mountains as we rowed into its shadow. Everything was thrown into dull grey relief. Closer now, we could see that the island was mainly forest, and we were headed straight for a deep, narrow bay. In fact, as we rowed slowly into its proximity, the rain now weakening to a light drizzle, we could see that the water here was not as it was out at sea. The beaches were not sand, they were thick tan-coloured mud. The sludge was oozing into the water, colouring it, rendering it opaque.
I suggested that we bear left and pull up against the left-hand bank of the bay. The arms and shoulders burned and I just wanted to get out of that damned boat as soon as possible. Shortly the nose of our boat scudded up the bank with a scrape and grind of gravel and grit, and we juddered to a stop. I groaned a sigh of relief as, my joints and muscles protesting, I rose shakily to my feet in the boat, feeling it starting to sink into the bank. Throwing caution to the wind, overbalanced myself to bring my foot down outside the boat. Immediately I was forced to throw my body weight the other way, as I found the ground beneath the boat held almost no resistance at all, my sodden boot sinking deeply into the mud with ease. Grasping the side of the boat, I shifted my foot until I felt I could get a little more purchase on the bank, then slowly lowered my other leg down onto the shifting sludge. I was sinking, slowly, so I kept moving my feet to make sure I didn't.
Turning from the boat, and from the faces of my tired comrades, I looked up the bank. It was steep, and made entirely of the same mud I was standing on. At the top, the ground looked firmer, and that is where the trees started. Telling my companions to wait in the boat, I pumped my legs and with some struggle made my way to the top of the muddy bank. By the time I reached the firmer ground - though it was not firmer by much - my arms were covered up to the elbow with cold sludge, my legs to the knees. However, I stood atop that bank and I stared into the forest. The rain was getting a little heavier and I was aware of cold watery mud trickling into my shoes. To my right, there seemed to be some sort of path along this bank, leading up into the trees. I turned to look down at the boat, and shouted that they could get out of the boat and come up here, there was a path, and to bring all the supplies they could.
At that moment something caught my eye in the trees on the opposite bank of the bay. Straining my eyes I tried to catch what it was I saw. A pale shape darting through the trees. Was that...
A shout from far to my left made me catch myself. Looking over, I saw that all 5 of my comrades had managed to get from the boat up the bank, up the sodden path, and were very nearly out of sight. I turned to follow, when a beat beneath my feet made me jump. I stared down at my shoes, or where they should be, to find I was halfway to my knees in mud. But something was happening beneath my feet, they were being hit or pushed in some way, in a rhythmic pulse. I could feel sharp impacts on the soles of my soaked shoes. Beat. Beat. Beat. Giving a strangled cry of surprise, I wrenched my feet free of the mud and very nearly tumbled backwards in doing so. I shuddered, swallowing hard, and turned to follow the others. I only got two steps, when I heard a sick, sucking sound from the mud behind me and upon turning to look, where only a moment ago there had been nothing, there was now a horrid sight.
A man, for the most part naked, in tattered clothes, covered head to toe in mud. The only way I knew he was human was from the pale skin where the rain streaked patches of his skin clear. I couldn't see his features clearly enough to judge his age, but the effect was of someone terribly old, his head bald and feet bare. It was cold, but he wasn't shivering. He wasn't even moving. He was just standing, slightly hunched, several meters from where I was. I was frozen to the spot. The smell rolling off him, barely diffused by the rain, was of something old and festering. His visage was terrifying. He looked completely unnatural. Not even meeting my eyes, instead gazing somewhere over my shoulder, he murmured in a soft, childlike voice:
"Down in the muddies, like your old man did."
He didn't say anything else, but upon his final word his eyes flicked to mine, fixing me with a powerfully hateful stare. At the same time, there was again the sensation of pulsing on the soles of my feet; impacts on the soles of my shoes, powerful beats, shocking my ankles and legs. Beat. Beat. Beat. Recoiling, reviled, I staggered backwards and started to jog up the path, aware that the ground was losing cohesion beneath my feet and the faster I ran, the harder my feet pounded the mud, the deeper I sank with each stride. Hazardously I dared to look behind myself, only to find that the man was gone. I kept running anyway, turning my head to look forward again -
The man was in front of me. I slid to a stop, gasping, nearly losing my footing. He wasn't any more than a meter away.
"Down in the muddies, where your old man died."
His voice, so soft before, now mocking and so full of menace. I watched as slowly he seemed to sink down into the mud, his eyes never leaving mine, until only his torso remained. Then his neck and head. And as his head slid under the surface, I noticed he didn't even close his eyes as he sank down and then he was gone.
BEAT.
Now I knew what was beneath my feet. It was the hammering of fists and hands on the soles of my shoes.
Horrified, on the verge of vomiting, I wrenched my feet out of the mire and ran headlong into the trees, not caring where I was going, just wanting to be away from this terrible mud and this terrible creature. As I ran and ran, off the path and through the sparse forest, I could feel the ground getting more and more solid, but my stomach gave a lurch as I realised that it wasn't really the ground. Wherever I placed my feet, there was a hand underneath supporting my weight. I could feel the fingers momentarily curl round the soles of my shoes and then let reluctantly go as I lifted my feet. The dead were down there, I knew now. So many. And they wanted me now.
"Down with the meeces, I guess. Poor little meeces. Drowned in the muddies."
I heard this thick, crackling whisper through lips caked with ooze, from a throat that breathed mud, and as I ran I looked down and could see the man, gliding along under the surface, his shape in the thick tan mud, moving through its murk like a fish, cutting through it so easily. It made me retch to watch, the ease with which his body slid through the mire like an eel. As I slipped and slid, supported now only by the hands of the dead under my feet - maybe my companions, how could I know - I saw his eye open, the surface of it sealed in sludge.
There were no hands to support my next two steps and with a great splash and struggle, I sank instantly almost to my neck in the thick, icy mud. Gagging, coughing, crying out, I could feel limbs, hands, mouths on my body, curling gently around me like heavy snakes. I sank. As my nose and throat and lungs filled with viscous mud, I could hear the whispering of these dead things in my ears. The last thing I did in my life was open my eyes to the swamp. I could see absolutely nothing at all.