My original title for this was going to be "Barrier Islands Society" but I didn't want any mix-ups with the Haar.
The wind blew in from the sea, making the trees and their moss sway gently. His car sputtered by under their shade as he followed the curves of an aged road, bouncing and hopping on every last bump.
Thankfully, he reached his destination and could liberate himself from his metallic prison. There was a salty smell in the air, blown in from the sea, paired with the faint smell of something rotting. Hopefully, that was from washed-up seaweed and not his house; however, he couldn't be that confident, looking at the place. The wood was old and the paint was peeling, but it was his, so….
He circled around his car and made to unpack his things. From what he remembered, the place had a landline, so he wasn't completely cut off from the outside world… his hand drifted, for a moment, to the revolver he had bought. He barely knew how to shoot the damned thing, but he had brought it. Any cops would take ten minutes to show up and their suspension would be shot to hell, after all.
Justin shook his head. There was no reason to go insane just because he had moved into a small town. The people who greeted him had all seemed perfectly nice- engaging in a bit too much small talk, honestly- but he'd rather be safe than sorry. It felt like there had to be some catch when it came to inheriting a house. Well, a catch other than the house just being about half a century past its prime.
He unloaded his clothes, his books, his notebooks; set up his bed; and dumped a few travel-size toiletries in a bathroom that looked like it would cover him in a layer of rust before getting him clean. It was a definite fixer-upper, but looking out of the bedroom window made him think it would be worth the effort.
The yard was covered in weeds and crabgrass that almost completely choked out the pavers, but there were no doubts about where the yard ended. A perimeter of mighty, knife-like cypresses laid out the bounds of the yard, seeming to fence the whole area in… but beyond them, there was the broad expanse of the gray sea. Ever so gently, they swayed in the wind.
Tomorrow, he'd go and check out town. Tonight, he'd sit down and attempt to draw blood from the stones with his current draft. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd get a sentence or two down.
One unfortunate catch of his stellar bedroom window view was that the rising sun was perfectly positioned to make an assault on his eyelids. He stumbled out of bed and forced himself through his morning routine. He had a busy day today, considering that his breakfast was the last of the food he had packed in advance. Into town he went.
The ride back into town was not one bit smoother than the ride in, and his posterior suffered for it most terribly. If it wasn't for his hunger, the little town of Calvary wouldn't have been worth it. It hardly seemed to be worth anything to everyone else: the storefronts were old and worn, the rows of houses covered in grime.
He did manage to acquire some victuals, although they would probably require a bit more cooking than he was used to… He forgot to test the gas stove. Whoops.
Even the church wasn't spared: you could barely tell that it used to be whitewashed, and ivy crept up the walls and sat upon the sills. A brief glimpse inside revealed some pews- without dust, to his shock- and a looming crucifix, paint not quite fresh but certainly better than outside. Some light came through abstract stained glass windows. It was quiet.
He rushed back to his car and hoped that the appliances back home all worked properly. Otherwise, he really was in a bind.
Thankfully, he would be eating tomorrow. But before tomorrow, there was tonight, and he wasn't quite feeling up to opening up the old text processor. (He had thought that an empty page was intimidating, but the scenes he was caught on now? Horrible.)
Avoiding his work aside, he decided to poke around on the web a bit, figuring out what sort of things happened around the little town of Calvary. Well, that assumed this town was even modern enough to be found on the internet…
Well, there was something. There was a little web forum for Calvary and a few other towns up and down the coast, called the Islands Society. They were, apparently, a group of avid wildlife observers: thread titles were things like "Black Bellied Whistling Duck Observation" or "Turtle Nesting Site on Calvary" with discussions about getting together to watch the birds or escort the turtles to the sea.
It wasn't the worst idea Justin had ever seen, but maybe that was just his urge to get outside talking. Maybe his muse was waiting out there, under the downy wings of the… Ruddy Turnstone. Yeah, that was an animal that existed and totally wasn't a forum prank.
The waves lapped on the shore and the trees sighed in the wind, all under the light of a fullish moon. He had brought a flashlight but kept it in his pocket.
Call him a city boy, but he had never seen this many stars before. They filled the sky up with such incredible abundance that he couldn't imagine they were always there. It had to be some sort of trick, right?
Unfortunately for his hopes of catching some unique, inspiring specimen on day one, his city boy eyes (and legs) weren't used to this sort of thing. His hands were already raw from the number of times he slipped, and his attempts at picking something out from the darkness were laughable. Sure, occasionally some silhouette moved slightly, but he couldn't tell waving trees and wildlife apart.
There was still something remarkable about it, though. It was only a few minutes walk from his house, and he felt like he had been thrown back in time. This was what primeval nighttime had been like before humans had carved out a space for themselves with artificial light.
Well, it felt like primeval nighttime unless you looked out to the ocean and caught the flashing of a boat's lights above the waves, rising and falling ever so gently. It was possible to ignore it though, what with the moonlight reflecting off each crest, riding the curve of the waves. If he really focused, he could pick out the silhouettes of boats- sometimes even big ones, like cargo ships- but the point of his little adventure was nature, so…
He proceeded to step in some nature and got it all over his shoe.
Ugh. It was a fish. Well, the remains of a fish. Now it was just an odd collection of scales and bones that looked like they had seen the business end of a chainsaw. He crouched down to take a closer look at them, lifting up a shard of fishbone from sand dyed maroon by blood. The size of the bones and the mess seemed to hint at a very big fish…
With his eyes and his light closer to the ground, he noticed something off. Little troughs in the ground, coming from the sea before turning to run parallel to the coast.
No, it wasn't just the little ridges in the sand… these were tracks.
TheGreatProcrastinator: Sorry if I missed a rule somewhere but I don't understand why my previous post was deleted?
(ADMIN) BethOnIt: Rules are a little unclear, but we've got a pretty strong anti-rumor stance.
TheGreatProcrastinator: Rumors? I mean, I get how my post sounded but I swear I'm as confused as everyone else… Okay, I see how that sounds.
(ADMIN) BethOnIt: Yeah I know it's a bit anal but we've had some pranks get really out of hand.
BlueNarew: Heh. Anal.
(ADMIN) BethOnIt: This is the reason they're never gonna make you admin, Narew
BlueNarew: Because you guys can't have fun. It's illegal.
Elizabeth sipped at her coffee and didn't even try to fight the feeling of dread that had crashed into her when that new post went up. The description was a bit clumsy, but she could picture what it described perfectly.
These weren't just normal biped tracks, though. They looked almost like boots, but the rest of the prints… Between the boot-marks there was a wavy line cutting through the sand, occasionally coming far enough left or right to spill sand into the boot-marks. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was like a swaying tail.
Stranger still, on either side of the tracks there were these troughs in the earth, several little lines in a row. Now sure, maybe it was some dork with a pair of rakes or something, but it didn't seem like it. That or someone mutilated a poor fish for the weirdest prank imaginable.
She shook her head and started thinking about a way to get in touch with the new guy before he got himself in real trouble. Before she forgot, she also wrote down the rough location. It wasn't too far outside of her usual range, thankfully.
I didn't even realize how perfect this would be for spooky season. I have something of a plan for this (which is a true miracle tbh) with hopes of it being kind of horror-y. Any guesses for first shipgirl? Chapter title should make it pretty obvious.
My rough game plan is to have chapter titles be slightly urban legend-y/epithet-y nicknames: Long Claws, Hard Road, Horned One, All Cool, Fox-Wife, Two Faced, & The Beast. Each is gonna come with weird powers and such. These are essentially codenames, developed by… well, you read the title.
This is inspired in part by The Northern Caves on AO3 although my fic is less epistolary. I was also thinking of SCP and humming the Gravity Falls theme like mad while brainstorming so that's about what I'm going for lol. Might even do some rough sketches for the later parts, if I have time? I have a very particular idea in mind for The Beast, who serves as final boss/biggest eldritch horror of the gang.
Setting is otherwise a town on a barrier island somewhere in the southeast USA. 90's timeframe, enough for webforums to be a thing.
