The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

STEMMING THE TIDE Simon Strantzas

Marie and I sit on the wooden bench overlooking the Hopewell Rocks. In front of us, a hundred feet below, the zombies walk on broken, rocky ground. Clad in their sunhats and plastic sunglasses, carrying cameras around their necks and tripping over open-toed sandals, they gibber and gabber amongst themselves in a language I don’t understand. Or, more accurately, a language I don’t want to understand. It’s the language of mindlessness. I detest it so.

Marie begged me for weeks to take her to the Rocks. It’s a natural wonder, she said. The tide comes in every six hours and thirteen minutes and covers everything. All the rock formations, all the little arches and passages. It’s supposed to be amazing. Amazing, I repeat, curious if she’ll hear the slight scoff in my voice, detect how much I loathe the idea. There is only one reason I might want to go to such a needlessly crowded place, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to face it. If she senses my mood, she feigns obliviousness. She pleads with me again to take her. Tries to convince me it can only help her after her loss. Eventually, the crying gets to be too much, and I agree.

But I regret it as soon as I pick her up. She’s dressed in a pair of shorts that do nothing to flatter her pale lumpy body. Her hair is parted down the middle and tied to the side in pigtails, as though she believes somehow appropriating the trappings of a child will make her young again. All it does is reveal the greying roots of her dyed black hair. Her blouse … I cannot even begin to explain her blouse. This is going to be great! she assures me as soon as she’s seated in the car, and I nod and try not to look at her. Instead, I look at the sun-bleached road ahead of us. It’s going to take an hour to drive from Moncton to the Bay of Fundy. An hour where I have to listen to her awkwardly try and fill the air with words because she cannot bear silence for anything longer than a minute. I, on the other hand, want nothing more than for the world to keep quiet and keep out.

The hour trip lengthens to over two in traffic, and when we arrive the sun is already bearing down as though it has focused all its attention on the vast asphalt parking lot. We pass though the admission gate and, after having our hands stamped, onto the park grounds. Immediately, I see the entire area is lousy with people moving in a daze — children eating dripping ice cream or soggy hot dogs, adults wiping balding brows and adjusting colourful shorts that are already tucked under rolls of fat. I can smell these people. I can smell their sweat and their stink in the humid air. It’s suffocating, and I want to retch. My face must betray me; Marie asks me if I’m okay. Of course, I say. Why wouldn’t I be? Why wouldn’t I be okay in this pig pen of heaving bodies and grunting animals? Why wouldn’t I enjoy spending every waking moment in the proximity of people that barely deserve to live, who can barely see more than a few minutes into the future? Why wouldn’t I enjoy it? It’s like I’m walking through an abattoir, and none of the fattened sows know what’s to come. Instead they keep moving forward in their piggy queues, one by one meeting their end. This is what the line of people descending into the dried cove looks like to me. Animals on the way to slaughter. Who wouldn’t be okay surrounded by that, Marie? Only I don’t say any of that. I want to with all my being, but instead I say I’m fine, dear. Just a little tired is all. Speaking the words only makes me sicker.

The water remains receded throughout the day, keeping a safe distance from the Hopewell Rocks, yet Marie wants to sit and watch the entire six-hour span, as though she worries what will happen if we are not there to witness the tide rush in. Nothing will happen, I want to tell her. The waters will still rise. There is nothing we do that helps or hinders inevitability. That is why it is inevitable. There is nothing we can do to stem the tides that come. All we can do is wait and watch and hope that things will be different. But the tides of the future never bring anything to shore we haven’t already seen. Nothing washes in but rot. No matter where you sit, you can smell its clamminess in the air.

The sun has moved over us and still the rocky bottom of the cove and the tall weirdly sculpted mushroom rocks are dry. Some of the tourists will not climb back up the metal-grated steps, eager to spend as much of the dying light wandering along the ocean’s floor. A few walk out as far as they can, sinking to their knees in the silt, yet none seem to wonder what might be buried beneath the sand. The teenager who acts as the lifeguard maintains his practiced, affected look of disinterest, hair covering the left half of his brow, watching the daughters and mothers walking past. He ignores everyone until the laughter of those in the silt grows too loud, the giggles of sand fleas nibbling their flesh unmistakable. He yells at them to get to the stairs. Warns them of how quickly the tide will rush in, the immediate undertow that has sucked even the heaviest of men out into the Atlantic, but even he doesn’t seem to believe it. Nevertheless, the pigs climb out one at a time, still laughing. I look around to see if anyone else notices the blood that trickles down their legs.

The sun has moved so close to the horizon that the blue sky has shifted to orange. Many of the tourists have left, and those few that straggle seemed tired to the point of incoherence. They stagger around the edge of the Hopewell Rocks, eating the vestiges of the fried food they smuggled in earlier or laying on benches while children sit on the ground in front of them. The tide is imminent, but only Marie and I remain alert. Only Marie and I watch for what we know is coming.

When it arrives, it does so swiftly. Where once rocks covered the ground, a moment later there is only water. And it rises. Water fills the basin, foot after foot, deeper and deeper. The tide rushes in from the ocean. It’s the highest tide in the world over. It beckons people from everywhere to witness its power. The inevitable coming in.

Marie has kicked off her black sandals, the simple act shaving inches from her height. She has both her arms wrapped around one of mine and is staring out at the steadily rising water. She’s like an anchor pulling me down. Do you see anything yet? she asks me, and I shake my head, afraid if I open my mouth what might come out. How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait? Not long, I assure her, though I don’t know. How would I? I’ve refused to come to this spot all my life, this spot on the edge of a great darkness. That shadowy water continues to lap, the teenage lifeguard finally concerned less with the girls who walk by to stare at his athletic body, and more with checking the gates and fences to make sure the passages to the bottom are locked. The last thing anyone wants is for one to be open accidentally. The last thing anyone but me wants, that is.

The sun is almost set, and the visitors to the Hopewell Rocks have completely gone. It’s a park full only with ghosts, the area surrounding the risen tide. Mushroom rocks look like small islands, floating in the ink just off the shore. The young lifeguard had gone, hurrying as the darkness crept in as fast as the water rose. Before he left he shot us a look that I couldn’t quite make out under his flopping denim hat, but one which I’m certain was fear. He wanted to come over to us, wanted to warn us that the park had closed and that we should leave. But he didn’t. I like to think it was my expression that kept him away. My expression, and my glare. I suppose I’ll never know which.

Marie is lying on the bench by now, her elbow planted on the wooden slats, her wrist bent to support the weight of her head. She hasn’t worn her shoes for hours, and even in the long shadows I can see sand and pebbles stuck to her soles. She looks up at me. It’s almost time, she whispers, not out of secrecy — because no one is there to hear her — but of glee. It’s almost time. It is, I tell her, and try as I might I can’t muster up even a false smile. I’m too nervous. The thought of what’s to come jitters inside of me, shakes my bones and flesh, leaves me quivering. If Marie notices, she doesn’t mention it, but I’m already prepared with a lie about the chill of day’s end. I know it’s not true, and that even Marie is smart enough to know how warm it still is, but nevertheless I know she wants nothing more than to believe every word I say. It’s not one of her most becoming qualities.

The tide rushes in after six hours and thirteen minutes, and though I’m not wearing a watch I know exactly when the Bay is at its fullest. I know this not by the light or the dark oily colour the water has turned. I know this not because I can see the tide lapping against the nearly submerged mushroom rocks. I know this because, from the rippling ocean water, I can see the first of the heads emerge.

Flesh so pale it is translucent, the bone beneath yellow and cracked. Marie is sitting up, her chin resting on her folded hands. I dare a moment to look at her wide open face and wonder if the remaining light that surrounds us is coming from her beaming. The smile I make is unexpected. Genuine. They’re here! she squeals, and my smile falters. I can’t believe they’re here! I nod matter-of-factly.

There are two more heads rising from the water when I look back at the full basin, the first already sprouting an odd number of limbs attached to a decayed body. The thing staggers towards us, the only two living souls for miles around, though how it can see us with its head cocked so far back is a mystery. I can smell it from where we sit. It smells like tomorrow. More of the dead emerge from the water, refugees from the dark ocean, each one a promise of what’s to come. They’re us, I think. The rich, the poor, the strong, the weak. They are our heroes and our villains. They are our loved ones and hated enemies. They are me, they are Marie, they are the skinny lifeguard in his idiotic hat. They are our destiny, and they have come to us from the future, from beyond the passage with a message. It’s one no one but us will ever hear. It is why Marie and I are there, though each for a different reason — her to finally help her understand the death of her mother, me so I can finally put to rest the haunting terrors of my childhood. Neither of us speak about why, but we both know the truth. The dead walk to tell us what’s to come, their broken mouths moving without sound. The only noise they make is the rap of bone on gravel. It only intensifies as they get closer.

For the first time, I see a thin line of fear crack Marie’s reverie. There are nearly fifty corpses shambling toward us, swaying as they try to keep rotted limbs moving. If they lose momentum, I wonder if they’ll fall over. If they do, I doubt they’d ever right themselves. Between where we sit and the increasing mass is the metal gate the young lifeguard chained shut. More and more of the waterlogged dead are crowding it, pushing themselves against it. I can hear the metal screaming from the stress, but its holding for now. Fingerless arms reach through the bars, their soundless hungry screams echoing through my psyche. Marie is no longer sitting. She’s standing. Pacing. Looking at me, waiting for me to speak. Purposely, I say nothing. I’ll let her say what I know she’s been thinking.

There’s something wrong, she says. This isn’t—

It isn’t what?

This isn’t what I thought. This, these people. They aren’t right…

I snigger. How is it possible to be so naive?

They are exactly who they are supposed to be, I tell her with enough sternness I hope it’s the last she has to say on the subject. I don’t know why I continue to make the same mistakes. By now, I’d have thought I would have started listening. But that’s the trouble with talking to your past self. Nothing, no matter how hard you try, can be stopped. Especially not the inevitable.

Dead flesh is packed so tight against the iron gates that it’s only a matter of time. It’s clear from the way the metal buckles, the hinges scream. Those of the dead that first emerged are the first punished, as their putrefying corpses are pressed by the thong of emerging dead against the fence that pens them in. I can see upturned faces buckling against the metal bars, hear softened bones pop out of place as their lifeless bodies are pushed through the narrow gaps. Marie turns and buries her face in my chest while gripping my shirt tight in her hands. I can’t help but watch, mesmerised.

Hands grab the gate and start shaking, back and forth, harder and harder. So many hands, pulling and pushing. The accelerating sound ringing like a church bell across the lonely Hopewell grounds. I can’t take it anymore, Marie pleads, her face slick with so many tears. It was a mistake. I didn’t know. I never wanted to know. She’s heaving as she begs me, but I pull myself free from her terrified grip and stand up. It doesn’t matter, I tell her. It’s too late.

I start walking toward the locked fence.

I can’t hear Marie’s sobs any longer, not over the ruckus the dead are making. I wonder if she’s left, taken the keys and driven off into the night, leaving me without any means of transportation. Then I wonder if instead she’s watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do without her there. I worry about both these things long enough to realize I don’t really care. Let her watch. Let her watch as I lift the latches of the fence the dead are unable to work on their own. Let me unleash the waves that come from that dark Atlantic ocean onto the tourist attraction of the Hopewell Rocks. Let man’s future roll in to greet him, let man’s future become his present. Make him his own past. Who we will be will soon replace who we are, and who we might once have been.

The dead, they don’t look at me as they stumble into the unchained night. And I smile. In six hours and thirteen minutes, the water will recede as quickly as it came, back out to the dark dead ocean. It will leave nothing behind but wet and desolate rocks the colour of sun-bleached bone.