What October Brings

No Other God but Me Adrian Cole

October’s a weird month. Sometimes you get an Indian summer, and days are more like the good ones in August. Other years it’s like November’s come early, with high winds, seas fuming and a deep chill settling under clouds that never disperse. Here on the north coast of South Western England, where the villages jut out into the Celtic Sea before it merges with the open Atlantic, we notice the cold. Our climate is pretty mild, even in the autumn. Maybe this change they keep talking about had something to do with events two years back. When all hell woke and came visiting.

People think it began with the vicar, Martin Shute. The way he died and all. They found his body one morning, down on the beach. It was a mess: the gulls had already flocked in to feast on it. They eat anything, not just fish: food waste, chips they can pinch off tourists, even human flesh if it’s available. The police reckoned it was the birds who’d picked Shute clean, but I don’t see how they could have leeched all his blood and flown off with half his bones. Maybe they knew there was something nastier at work, but they couldn’t figure it out. They did admit it was unusual – their word – for so much religious stuff to be scattered around the priest’s remains. A number of small crucifixes, a Bible and a prayer book, both badly torn up, a couple of silver salvers from the church, crumpled like paper and a miniature Jesus statue.

It didn’t need a genius to know someone was taking the piss out of Shute’s Christianity. It was an act of violation, coupled with the killing. Someone suggested sacrifice, but the police were prepared to consider it religious mania, the work of nutters. They combed our village, Rooksands, but found nothing, no clues. The national press had a wonderful time and we suffered TV people milling around, as bad as the gulls, but once the trail went cold with nothing new to add, they all took off back to look for something else to gorge on.

The Reverend Shute was found at 5:00 AM on October 1. Three weeks later, Rooksands was almost back to normal. The police maintained a watch, an ‘incident room’ in the Parish Hall, so they could continue their investigations, but the fact was, they were going backwards.

Like I said, people think it began with the vicar. Me and most of the villagers knew otherwise, but we weren’t about to blab to the police. They’d have taken us for lunatics if we had. Mind you, Shute’s death was the last straw for us. I’d been saying for a long time we needed to take action ourselves. No one liked that, or my suggestions, but the death of the holy man broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Maybe it did some good, though I’d not have seen Shute slaughtered like he was. He’d been a good man. Naïve, but kind.

So where did this nightmare begin? I’d say two years ago. I was one of the first people to know about it, because I spend a lot of time at sea. I don’t make my living as a fisherman, like a lot of the Rooksands men, but I have a small boat and I like to go out into the bay for mackerel, or sometimes I’ll go for something much bigger. I’m fifty and I retired early. Drove big trucks for most of my working life, never married (came close twice) and put enough money aside to keep me going. Bought an old cottage in Rooksands, where I grew up, and modernised it. I like the simple life.

Only life in Rooksands wasn’t so simple. Not once the killings started. Make no mistake, they were killings. I know they were seen as accidents and at first it seemed like they were – people lost at sea in storms, others carelessly falling from the local cliffs. Easy to dismiss them as freakish. The coast and sea here are a harsh environment. There’s an old village further along the coast, Trewithick Hole that was almost dragged off the shore and flattened in a horrendous storm back in 1922. All that was left was a few broken-down houses, like huge gravestones. Tourists like to visit the place and I know Tom Kellow makes a bob or two taking his Ghost Walks along there.

So a handful of local deaths – with no trace of any of the bodies – could be attributed to freak weather. Some of us in the village suspected something worse. Trouble was, the things we saw weren’t credible. I mean, this land is stiff with legends. Down in Cornwall they have the Beast of Bodmin, a big cat or something that chews up sheep and the like. Never been caught. I know people who’ve seen the thing, but as far as the world is concerned, it’s a myth, a night shadow.

The things out in our bay are the same. Like the night Davey Smale and I was out fishing for shark. Thought we’d hooked a big one, but when we got it into the boat, we had a shock. At first I thought it was an oversize squid, almost as big as me, only we don’t get them here. It must’ve come up from beyond the Atlantic shelf. We had a hard time killing it and Davey suffered nasty damage to his arm from the thing’s suckers. We got it back to my place and stuck it in one of my small outbuildings. Covered it with a tarpaulin. Next morning the door was ripped off its hinges and the thing was gone. Tarpaulin was shredded. Worse than all that, Maurice Tiddy, a neighbour, had lost two dogs. We found enough blood to suggest foul play.

Davey Smale and I described the thing we’d brought ashore to the police, but it didn’t help them. Soon after that the so-called accidents began. Five people lost, two local and three holiday-makers. All in bad weather, in some cases in the middle of summer. I’d found some weird tracks along the narrow beaches, leading into the sea, and the villagers complained about a stench that hung over the water, like something huge had died out there, a whale maybe. But there was no carcass washed up. I don’t reckon anyone would have suspected what I did. They might be superstitious, but the world isn’t so small any more. They like practical explanations.

My trucking days had taken me all over Europe. I’d heard some strange tales. I’d met sailors and travellers who’d picked up word of things at sea, things they said explained what I’d dragged out of the deeps that time. Creatures that lived out in the ocean and worshipped gods most of us never heard of. Mostly it had struck me as rubbish, the booze talking, or just someone spinning a good yarn to entertain us on the long nights on the road.

It struck me, though, that Rooksands needed to defend itself from whatever was out in the bay. At first everyone laughed it off. The nasty death of the vicar brought the village to its senses. While the police were nosing around, trying to make sense of things, I had a small posse visit me. Tom Kellow, Davey Smale and Kelvin Dobbs, spokesmen for the rest. They were good, honest men, hard workers all. They’d put their necks on the line to help you if need arose.

“You were right,” Davey told me. “About fetching help. The police are stumped.”

“They will be,” I said, “as long as they’re looking for answers on land. You boys know where the real problem lies. It’s out there in the bay.”

Tom nodded. “My ghost stories are based on legends and the like, though I don’t believe in ghosts myself. You’re right, though. Whatever did that to the vicar, isn’t normal.”

“It was a warning,” I told them. “Martin thought he could use his Christianity to ward off those things. It took a lot of guts for him to recognise the problem and stand up to it. You saw what they did to him. His God wasn’t strong enough to defend him.”

Before Shute’s death, the three men would have been appalled by that kind of comment, but not now. They were frightened, and none of us was sleeping well.

“The whole village has been talking,” said Kelvin, who’d been radically opposed to bringing in any outside help. He’d changed his tune, big time. He really was scared. “I don’t mind admitting I was against it, but what sort of help can we get?”

“This is something outside normal bounds. That’s why Martin’s religion didn’t work. This goes way, way back. Primitive, you know?”

They were all nodding.

“We have to fight fire with fire. We have to bring in someone who really knows about this stuff.”

Tom scowled. “You’re talking about witchcraft?”

“In a way. But not the twisted medieval version. Wicca craft, the craft of the wise. Maybe even older stuff. We need a shaman.”

Again, they would have scoffed at the idea once, but not now. “Any port in a storm,” said Tom, trying to make light of it, but the others were as serious as they could be.

“You know one?” asked Kelvin. He’d always been impressed by my tales of wandering and the world outside, not having travelled much himself.

“I think so. There’s someone on the edge of Dartmoor. She’s not a freak, or a hermit, or anything like that—”

“She?” said Davey. “Then you are talking about a witch?”

“Morgana wouldn’t call herself that, but she does have that old kind of wisdom. She’s no fool. I reckon she’d be able to help.”

“How soon can you get her?” said Tom.

“As soon as I can. We need to act quickly. I reckon whatever is out there in the bay will be coming at us soon.”

Davey swore. “What – an invasion?”

“Something like that. No one will be safe.”

I spoke to her on the telephone. I’d never met her, though I’d seen her on local television. She wrote books on the occult as well as herbal stuff, and had done well for herself. She must have been about forty, and from what I’d seen of her, looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors, probably on the Moors. She spoke with a cultured but natural voice, very assured and easily deflected some of the more sceptical questions her interviewers like to taunt her with. My initial awkwardness at contacting her dissipated quickly: it was almost like she’d been expecting my call.

“Rooksands?” she said. “That’s not far from Trewithick Hole, right? I know the place. Can we meet there? Given what you’ve told me, we better make it soon.”

Two days later I drove along the winding cliff road to the open area above the cove where the remains of Trewithick Hole poked up like huge tombstones above the rocks. The road was narrow, pitted and in places overgrown, ending in an open area that had been fenced off. The fencing was dilapidated and dangerous, though few people came here unsupervised.

Morgana was already here, her four-wheel drive parked close to the winding path down into the cove. She was dressed in a thick woollen jumper and jeans, her raven hair piled up and pinned. Her face was all angles, too sharp to be pretty, but she was an attractive woman. Her eyes were mesmeric, a steely gray. We shook hands and I was surprised at the strength of her grip.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“I’ve been here before.” She looked down at the sea as it rolled into the cove, for once subdued, although I knew how treacherous those currents would be.

We exchanged a few pleasantries, but she was obviously eager to get on with the business and led us down the path. Some attempts had been made to shore up its worst sections, and we said little as we concentrated on getting down to the crumbling village. There was a quay, which was also in danger of disintegrating, and the curved sweep of a narrow jetty. We walked out on to it.

She studied the swirling waters inside the miniature breakwater it made. I was looking at the ruined houses. Not much left of them now, just a wall here and there, or a shed or two. All the roofs had long fallen in and much of the debris had been swept out to sea.

“What’s happened at Rooksands,” said Morgana. “Also happened here, at the time of the 1922 storm. It wasn’t a natural one, although that’s how it was reported and recorded. The cliffs here have been collapsing for years. It’s a notorious stretch of coast. That night the village finally succumbed was part of something else.” She indicated the sea beyond the jetty. Its waves today were gentle, undulating almost invitingly.

“The things inhabiting the deep waters came.” She was cool, almost casual. “They took many of the villagers back into the deeps. The records show people were caught by the unusually high tide. Some fell into the sea when chunks of the land fell away like sand. It was far more sinister than that.”

She stared down at the waters below us, her body statuesque for a moment, then she suddenly drew back as if she’d seen something, watching the waters more closely. I couldn’t see anything other than shadows, but her perception of things was more acute than mine.

“It’s the seventeenth,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of time. They’re here. They don’t usual risk exposure by day. Tell your villagers to keep away from the sea.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to keep the fishermen from going out.”

“It’ll be Samhain in just over two weeks.” She pronounced it ‘Sah-when’. “They’ve already discredited the Christian god. And they’ll know I’m here. I’ve fought them before. They’d like to discredit the Old Magic. Samhain would suit them as a testing time. We have to prepare, and quickly. Take me to the village.”

Her extraordinary presence and that total belief in what she was doing, coupled with my anxieties for the village brushed aside any lingering doubts I might have had about this business. I told her about the police.

She smiled. “They know me. I’m a crank. Harmless. They won’t bother about what I get up to. They’ll be glad of me when this is over.”

“You can rid Rooksands of this…intrusion?”

“I’ve been expecting something. It’ll be tough. But if we don’t make a stand, it’ll get far worse.”

Back at the village, I showed her around and introduced her to some of my friends. Her presence made them uneasy and I got the impression Kelvin thought she was a bit maze, but they were committed. The death of the vicar had shaken everyone up. Ironically, when she drove off, there was a strange vacuum, as if we’d become a little more vulnerable.

She’d given several of us some strict instructions about preparing the village, protecting it. There were certain charms and spells we could use. So we cut branches from elder, hawthorn and rowan among others and gave them sharp points, digging them into the ground so their tips faced the sea. Morgana had also given us a notepad in which she’d scribbled sigils and weird doodles.

“Carve them into your doors,” she said. “Take the bigger pebbles from the beach and create the signs at its edge.” She also gave me a number of small wooden figurines that looked like variants on the piskies of Cornish legend. “Hang these in the trees.” My companions surprised me by their sudden faith, and got on with the job industriously, almost like children, absorbed by their activities. No laughter now, this was deadly serious.

By evening we’d made a thorough job of setting out the first wave of protection. A few of the villagers, particularly the ones who’d come here most recently, wondered what the hell we were doing, but we said it was part of the early planning for the Halloween festival, coming up soon. Most of them took it in good spirits and asked if there was anything they could do. No one mentioned the shadow lying over the village.

I spoke to some of the fishermen and told them up front what we’d been about. Normally they would have rejected the suggestion they stay out of the water, but I could see the fear in them. Some of them were tight-lipped, but I knew they’d seen worse things out in the bay than the thing I’d brought ashore. They knew something evil was stirring. Old superstitions die hard in these parts. In the end I had a compromise. They’d stop fishing a week before the festival.

The following day Morgana returned, her big vehicle towing a long trailer. I helped her undo the tarpaulin and gazed in surprise at what was revealed. She smiled at my expression.

“Pumpkins?” I said. “There must be dozens of them. Is this for the festival?”

“Powerful magic. Yesterday you showed me some fields backing on to the village, overlooking the beach.”

“Riddick’s Farm.”

“We must set these in the soil. Get the farmer to plough it.”

I frowned. Jed Riddick was an ornery type. Very protective of his land. The fields in question had been fallow for years. They were reedy and the soil wanted too much doing to it to make it much use other than for grazing Riddick’s sheep.

“And I mean now,” Morgana added.

Kelvin Dobbs was Riddick’s cousin, so we gave him the job of twisting the farmer’s arm. Surprisingly Kelvin came back from his visit promptly. “He’s getting his plough out.”

“That quickly?” I said. “What did you say, mate? You hold a shotgun to him?”

Kelvin shook his head grimly. “He’s lost a lot of sheep. Found remains down along the waterline. He said if ploughing the land will help, so be it.”

The words sobered all of us and Morgana pointed to the trailer. “There are two hundred pumpkins in there. As the land is ploughed, put them into the soil, cut end down. Twenty rows of ten, each row three feet apart.”

None of us asked her what for. If she was working magic, it was fine by us and we set to with a will. Jed Riddick was as good as his word and had the ploughing done in no time. He and the rest of us seemed to be reaching back to a far past, something atavistic, in all of us, and up there on the slopes of the fields we were like men of a different age. Morgana walked among us as we set out the rows of pumpkins. Tom Kellow asked with a grin if we should have carved eyes, nose and mouth out of them, but Morgana shook her head.

“Once they’ve rooted in,” she said, her face completely straight, “it won’t matter.”

By the time we’d done, it was late afternoon, but we had our twenty rows of pumpkins, all partially buried in the clinging loam. Morgana had fetched several buckets from the front of the trailer. She set them down and we watched in fascination as she peeled off their plastic lids. We reeled back at the stench.

“Blood and bone, and a few other things besides,” said Morgana, smiling at our revulsion. “Very potent. Come on, we need to feed the plants.”

Again we did as bidden and emptied the disgusting contents of the buckets evenly among the pumpkins, the soil soaking up the liquid mess. We all stood back, mopping our brows, after it was done and Morgana said she was satisfied.

“Good work. You’ve earned your beer. And the drinks will be on me. Mind you, you’ve one more job. These plants need to be watched. From tonight and every night, set at least two men to watch them right through till dawn. With shotguns.”

Tom glanced at her uneasily. “Expecting trouble?”

“Possibly. I don’t want the plants harmed, but the deep dwellers will be curious. If they come, use the guns.”

“And the police?” I asked.

“Say you were scaring off poachers. Tell them there’s been a bit of sheep rustling going on. The guns are just for effect. They’ll buy that.” She was right, I thought. Sheep rustling across the country had become a problem these days. It would make a good cover.

I shared guard duty with Davey on the third night. The other guys reckoned on having heard something down on the beach the first couple of nights, and that ripe sea smell stank a few times, otherwise things were quiet. They livened up when I was there. It was long gone midnight when that familiar foul stink permeated the air. I’d taken one end of the pumpkin rows, Davey the other. It was very dark: apart from a few street lights on in the village there was nothing to see by, other than our flashlights. It was a wild night, clouds blotting out any potential moonlight and a blustery off-sea wind racing up through the fields.

Davey’s flashlight was on. I heard him moving across the bottom of the field, nearing the beach. He shouted something but a gust clouted the words away. I saw a flash and heard the shotgun go off, two distinct blasts. Quickly I got to him. He was reloading, his flashlight at his feet. I swept my own beam in an arc across the beach and something was moving at the water’s edge, maybe thirty feet away. I couldn’t make out what it was, so didn’t fire.

“Kill it!” shouted Davey, face twisted with fear.

I heard the splash as whatever it had been went into the sea and although I shone my flashlight, it was too quick. Davey rushed past me and fired off another two cartridges, pausing close to the water’s edge.

“What was it?” I called.

“It must have crawled up the beach. It was almost on me, going for the rows of pumpkins. Had some kind of weapon. I think it dropped it. I saw its head…its face. Christ, it was revolting. Long hair, more like weed, so I only got a glimpse. Mouth like a big sucker…like a lamprey’s, you know?”

“You must have hit it,” I said, bending down to the sand. “See, what’s this stuff? Blood?” I shone my flashlight on a patch of sticky muck that could have been from the wounded creature. We walked back up the beach, following the scuffed sand. There were no footprints, just deep scores, as if a turtle had struggled back to the sea, or a huge slug. Further up we found more of the blood stuff and with it a chunk of something flesh-like. It reeked and we knew this was the source of the stench from the sea.

“Looks like you hit the bastard,” I said. “Blew part of it off. Don’t touch it.”

Davey knelt down and shone the flashlight on the mess. I heard movements nearby and saw another beam. One of the policemen had come to investigate.

“Bury it – quick,” I told Davey.

He wasted no time and used the stock of his gun to scoop out a hole in the sand. He prodded the chunk of meat into it, burying it, roughly smoothing the sand over it.

“What’s the problem?” said the copper. “Why the shooting?”

“Bloody poachers,” said Davey. “Don’t worry, I only fired into the air. Scared ‘em off, though. They sneak up through the fields and set traps for rabbits. They’ll likely damage the pumpkins.”

The copper, a young lad of about twenty-two nodded uneasily. “Right.”

“Festival’s coming up soon,” I said. “We don’t want the pumpkins ruined this close. Can’t replace them.”

“No,” he said. He hadn’t noticed the scuffed sand. If he caught the foul whiff from the sea, he didn’t mention it.

Later Davey and I found the dropped weapon. It was a thin length of old beam, twisted and maybe carved into a shape like a digging tool, primitive but effective. We didn’t show the copper. He’d gone back into the village to a mug of hot tea.

There were no other sightings in the last few days up to the end of the month. Morgana said the sea dwellers had learned all they needed to know. Halloween came and that night Morgana stood with me and a couple of the other guys down at the tiny harbour, watching the waves snarling in on what had become a blustery night. The moon was full, the clouds sparse, so the sea had a brilliant tinge to it, heaving and tossing out in the bay. High tide was just after midnight, and with this wind, it would roll right up along the harbour. Everywhere was battened down. Behind us, in the higher village, around its small square, the festival was in full swing, with numerous lanterns and candles, other pumpkins, these carved, brandished on poles, or set in numerous windows. People were singing, cheering, and generally having a good time.

We’d warned them all to get inside their houses and lock everything down tight after midnight. They knew the storm was going to be a really bad one. Many had already retired, especially those with young children, but there were still plenty of revellers, and the endless supply of hot dogs and grilled burgers filled the buffeting air with their unmistakable reek.

“They’re out there,” said Morgana. “I can feel the hatred of the sea god. It knows me, and the things we’ve set here against it. Its servants will come. Nothing will prevent that now.”

She was right. The bigger waves that battered their way in along the narrow harbour clawed at the buildings, whipped up by the ferocity of the wind. Lightning forked over the bay in dazzling displays and thunder rolled over us, almost drowned out by the roar of the waves. Small ships bobbed up and down at their moorings, tossed dangerously high. Several smaller craft were flipped over and dashed to pieces on the quay. I saw something emerging from the sea, a shadowy mass, like one wave had formed itself out of thick, glutinous tar. It wrapped itself around the bow of a trawler and I realised what it was – seaweed. Tons of the stuff, mangled up and balled into a massive web by the madness of the sea.

In that flickering light it extended several tendrils; they snagged the back of the trawler. Davey cried a warning. The boat belonged to his cousin. He could see it was in danger of being wrecked. Already the weed had tangled itself around the wheelhouse. Another huge wave tore along the harbour and as it hit the trawler, the weed mass was flung completely over it like a black blanket. Moments later it subsided, dragging the craft under the water.

Davey howled in fury, but there had been nothing any of us could have done. We raced along the harbour side, opposite the maelstrom where the trawler had gone down, but there was no sign of it.

“Get the last of the revellers inside!” Morgana yelled, heading back to her vehicle, which was parked up one of the narrow side roads.

As I started for the village square, the air writhed with shapes, debris perhaps, ripped from buildings, fences, anything loose. Ahead of me, one of the villagers was coming to see what was happening: something hit him in the face and chest. His hands tore frantically at it and I almost choked in revulsion as I recognised it. A jellyfish whipped up from the sea and hurled like a missile. We’d often had plagues of these creatures, but they were smaller than the palm of your hand and relatively harmless. This thing was three feet across, a sickly transparent colour, its long fronds barbed and deadly. They swung like lashes and cocooned the upper body of the villager, flinging him to the ground.

Before I could react the air was filled with more of the things, blown into the village like a wave of mutant bats or aerial manta rays. I wove my way to the side street where Morgana had disappeared and barely reached its sanctuary in time to evade the whipping tendrils of another of the creatures. I could see the square. Most of its lights were out, the people having made for their homes now that the storm had erupted so violently.

Morgana had pulled from the boot of her vehicle a long canvas bag. She hastily undid it and another bolt of lightning was reflected on what she revealed. Swords. A half dozen of them. At first I thought they were samurai blades, as they had that slight curve and were their typical length. But as she gave me one I realised it was something different, maybe from another time, an ancient weapon, although beautifully preserved.

My other companions had all made it to the side street and each of us took a blade, unsheathing it to reveal a silvery blade on which unusual runes had been carved. Morgana waved to us to follow her. She was dressed in clinging dark clothes, a black assassin, a tight mask hiding all but her eyes. In the constant flicker of lightning she moved like a huge insect, occasionally swinging her blade at the air, slicing into the things that were gusting past us like missiles. We did the same, slicing the horrors apart in thick spatters of fluid.

At the edge of the village, higher up, we could see the tide’s edge where the frothing white insanity of the waves disgorged more shapes. Things hopped ashore like giant fleas, and man-like beings shambled out of the water, apparently not damaged by it, as at home in its turmoil as seals. They were entering the village but I couldn’t see any of the villagers. The storm had thankfully driven them inside. Doors had been doubled locked and windows boarded up in preparation for this mayhem.

Morgana shouted something about a black god’s army, intent on driving home his will. “They’ll want to reduce Rooksands to rubble, as they did with other villages. This time they’ll be weakened by the relics and the charms you set as protection the place. If we can divert their attention to us,” she added, but the wind tore the rest of her words away.

I stood with Davey, Kelvin and Tom and in a minute we saw another figure coming down from the fields beyond us. Jan Riddick. He carried a shotgun, though Morgana tossed him the last of the swords. He gripped it uneasily but nodded. We were exposed up here, the storm raging around us, and it was all we could do to keep on our feet. We could see the edge of the sea, where waves larger than any we’d seen before uncurled and crashed down on to the beach, churning the sand and flinging it back up onto the edge of the field.

Beyond us, out of reach of the waves, the lines of pumpkins stretched away into the darkness. I had seen them grow daily, the bloated shapes emerging from the ground at an extraordinary rate. Whatever foul concoction Morgana had fed them had done its work well.

“There!” cried Tom, pointing with his blade.

They were coming for us, knowing we were the key to the success of their invasion. The seas spewed forth another wave and it burst and reassembled itself into more skulking shapes. Tens, dozens, scores, a whole mass of them. The sea dwellers. The frightful, misshapen creatures that had been out in the ocean since before our own race walked the land. I tried to see their faces, but they were hidden under frond-like tresses, though their mouths gaped, ringed around with those lamprey-suckers. Their arms were elongated, ending in long, spatulate fingers. All carried a weapon, something resembling short spars of wood – ocean debris, perhaps, they’d shaped into killing tools.

Neither I nor my mates spoke the one thing we feared – we hadn’t got a cat in hell’s chance against this huge mob. And there was nowhere to run. We were just going to have to use our swords and protect ourselves as best we could. Jan Riddick thrust his blade into the ground and levelled his shotgun at the front ranks of the sea things. He shot at them twice, and two of the creatures exploded like sacks of treacle, collapsing. But it was like killing two flies in a swarm.

Morgana raised her sword. “Stand aside for a moment!” she shouted and the five of us fanned out away from her. She spoke strange words, which I took to be ancient Celtic lines, probably from the Old Magic she swore by. It was like she was conversing with the raging storm. To my amazement – and I admit, terror – she stretched upward and a crackling bolt of pure white light sizzled down from overhead and hit the end of her blade. The weapon went incandescent and I gasped, thinking Morgana would be roasted where she stood.

However, she seemed unharmed. Instead she swung the blade down to the earth and drove it home. The five of us watched in amazement as the white light poured from the blade down into the soil. More than that, it spread out like a huge stain, back towards the rows of pumpkins. It was like fire, only it didn’t consume. It empowered. The pumpkins shook.

For a moment the ranks of sea dwellers had paused, perhaps smitten by the dazzling lightning. They liked the darkness.

On the upper slopes, all two hundred bloated pumpkin heads were shaking. I saw one begin to rise up, tearing itself from the ground, something from a nightmare. Shoulders, arms, a trunk – an entire body. Deep green, rounded, unfinished, but a body. Those arms unfurled, twice the length of human arms, and for hands there were roots, thick and gnarled, curling fingers of filament. And the faces!

If there are such things as demons, they would have such faces. Blazing eyes, jagged mouths, the scarlet light of hell itself pouring from within!

Morgana waved us back and the lines of earth creatures moved forward, down the slope, to meet head on with the sea creatures. Overhead the clouds boiled, like the two gods from remote antiquity watched as their servants tore each other apart. Chaos burst out on the slope as the conflict began. As for me and my companions, we were caught up in that lunatic affray, rushing down on the sea things, possessed by I don’t know what, certainly a kind of ancient madness. I felt it coursing through my veins as I shrieked with the utter joy of it. We used our blades, spurred on by Morgana, who had become like some fantastic elemental warrior, clothed in the storm-glow. I heard a deep, gurgling sound, the combined voice of the sea creatures, calling out the name of their god, indecipherable yet somehow unnerving. Morgana’s curses crashed against the sound like those ragged waves below, equally as potent.

Somewhere deep within me, something stirred, a memory of life long gone, a primeval striving, a power as dreadful as anything the sea had disgorged. It fed on Morgana’s words, on the vivid light in her blade and our combined mental resistance. Our god had a name, and it formed in the air like a blast of anger.

The dreadful contest, the mangling of bodies on either side, the tearing apart of sea thing and pumpkin monster, ensued in a sudden grotesque silence, other than the shriek of the wind and the continuing blasts of thunder and crackle of lightning. It must have gone on for an hour, although we fought in a timeless vacuum. In the end I sagged down, exhausted, expecting to be swamped, but the world had gone still.

Morgana stood over me, her mask removed. Her face looked almost human. She gripped my shoulder, her hand and arm slick with the mess of battle. “They’re beaten,” she said.

I staggered to my feet and looked down at the beach. Through the littered dead sea things and the smashed remains of many pumpkin creatures, I saw the last of the enemy slinking back to the water. A wave unrolled like a boiling carpet and embraced them, dragging them beyond sight. My companions had all survived, though they were spent, their arms like lead, their bodies coated in the muck of battle. Each of us shook our heads, not quite able to credit what we’d been through.

Morgana raised her blade and kissed the runes. “It will be a long time before they come again. When dawn comes, all traces of these horrors will have been swept clean. Your people will remember Halloween and its storm, but no more than that. What lies out in the deeps will subside and lick its wounds. The Old Magic endures. And preserves.”