They (final draft.) with more changes

“The notion that the world around us is continually evolving is a platitude; we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not think of evolution in plants and animals occurring in a matter of days, or weeks, though it does. And If we were to grasp the true nature of nature –if we could grasp the real meaning of the word “evolution” then we would envision a world in which every living plant and animal species is changing at every instant, in response to every living plant, insect and animal.”

J Michael Crichton.
Prey.

“Mutation took us from single cells organisms to being the dominant form of reproductive life on this planet. Infinite forms of variation with each generation, all through mutation."

Charles Xavier
X-men first class.

Normally I can see for miles. But a chilly sea mist is blocking out the Horizon. And that, I have to say, is very worrying.
I stare away from the horizon, and observe with childlike wonder, the surface reflections of the cold, clear and near brackish green, of the North Sea.Tiny waves wrestle within waves; as they reflect, refract or absorb the near pale morning light. The sea reminds me of time…in fact, it becomes time... For both sea and time swirl in constant eddies of hidden currents that then ebb and flow about my prescience… I have to say, that even when it appears at peace, its’ only an appearance. Its near fibrous form is always restless; flexing its surface membrane, of translucent tender skin, around an invisible, yet very powerful muscle… and always its mysterious…always it keeps its real presence and purpose hidden from view.
Yet time, like the sea, leaves traces of itself... like worn pebbles in the sand. It skins our much loved and tenderly kept linear memories; and with cold calculation, slowly wears them away, as wave after wave, removes year upon year from the flesh of our souls… leaving nothing but bare bones....and dry shallow dust of or physical form.
I slowly sit down in a crossed legged position upon the hard brown rock of "the point". I shut my eyes, and beg to listen to those tiny waves within waves, as they gently collide against each other; so near, yet not near enough to my pale, almost numb, naked feet.
Yes...There is something mystical about the slapping, sucking sound of this near silent sea... I hear in its motion the delicate echo. It pings, like a solitary sonar note, deep within; and as it bounces back, from some black hidden depth, unknown to me. It brings to the surface of my mind, images old and new. While I, in a steady stream of partial, near dream, consciousness; try to clasp hold of these tiny stones of thought; these surface waves of the years long past, and of the years yet to come; roll over, over and ever over, onto my steadily clearing mind. And as I start to absorb all the emotions connected to them; I realise that these images of recollections past and yet to come, are not buried or forgotten by time, as they haphazardly collide upon one another. I bear witness to something greater… I perceive that they being gathered together, before being slowly, and delicately, led away from me, by something greater than mere I.
I open my eyes once more to watch the waves, silently slide away from me. I watch with detachment as they finally writhe, almost snakelike, upon the long arc of the sandy beach, that rests ever languidly in the pale grey, middle distance. Beyond the grey sandy shore, there rises the grassy bank and the collection of wind twisted sand dunes. I can just see them, picked out in an almost ethereal light; like a series of sharply cut lines, made by a coarse knife, into shades of black steel and cold iron grey.
It's out of the dunes a see a shape take form. It’s a dark shadow, that slowly becomes... becomes... no! I shut my eyes tight so tight it hurts. I punch the cold cracked ground with my now hard fists causing shards of pain to slam up my arms. I hear a sound. I slam my hands over my ears. I don't want to see. I don't want to feel. I want to forget! Forget! Forget!
I turn around, so I know I am not facing the beach. I remove my hands. I open my eyes; making a brief note of the blooded blistered skin now covers my sore knuckles. And look up. The sun shines a dull grey though the mist. But it's blocked from direct view by the huge tower that stands over me. It’s the shadow of our home…St Mary’s lighthouse, upon the edge of Whitley Bay.
I recall my Dad and Mum bringing me here, long before "They" came. The first thing I recall is my inner excitement. Of the trip, I recall the strange burning smell of electricity and the old oil that mixed badly with the stale cracked leather interior of the dark green Morris Minor he owned, as it battled down those narrow roads that surround “the point”.
As I close my eyes, I can still see my Dad gently smiling down upon me. His skin had a reddish leathery quality, his face round and large; his gentle eyes a chestnut brown, alive, yet almost hidden by his thick bushy eyebrows. His voice a mixture of warmth, yet carrying a heavy thick grizzled bear tonal quality to it; as he spoke grandly about the history of the Lighthouse. While my mother sat next to him in the passenger seat. Not so silently clock-watching. Her narrow, bird-like body, forever, it seems to me, tightly wrapped up in her dark turquoise raincoat. Her tightly rolled auburn hair was always hidden from view from the outside world, by a tightly drawn yellow and red paisley scarf around her narrow head. Her pale blue eyes never shone, and her face, would be forever pinched with lines of tired careworn bitterness; as she spent her time complaining about the weather, the trip, or her marriage to a man she never really loved… or that I would probably puke before we got there….and… I have to say… that occasionally… and out of an act of malicious spite, I did.

***

I'm brought back to the present by hearing tiny faltering skipping steps. I turn to face the sound and see little Alice our precocious five year old, stagger over the rocks towards me. Her thick long blonde hair hangs around her shoulders in two heavily platted pigtail’s; her large green eyes shine from her elfin shaped face, that is filled with a frown of concentration. Her faded yellow floral dress is mottled with ever larger multi coloured paint stains that have grown larger and larger since our arrival here six months ago.
I feel the depth of love begin to swell in my heart; it puts a smile upon my face, and brings a tear to my eye, as I see her nearly trip over the rocks as she walks towards me. The tear is because I see him in her face...
Gaz...
I look down and away from her; as, I recall his gentle yet firm muscular body; his auburn tousled hair fading to a wispy grey at the edges. The kind, yet penetrative stare from his large blue, green eyes… I think of the feel of his stubble upon his narrow square jaw as our faces touched... I recall how itchy it felt, as well as the tender touch of his hard calloused skin from his large well worked hands, as our bodies gently entwined together, in the tender, yet urgent need for intimacy.
Alice comes over and gently sits upon my lap; but looks down and away from me.
‘Mummy?’ her gentle voice carries within it, the echo of a once warm summer’s day.
‘-what is it darling?’
There is a long, plump heavy sounding pause.
‘ I had the dream again last night.’ I hear the tension in her voice, and note the tremble of her lip. She has been screaming with night terrors again, and I know why. But now is not the time. She has to understand We have to stay here, there is no way that we can move, It’s too risky for all of us, Oh, sweet Lord I wish I could think clearly for one second, Gaz Why-
‘ –We’re safe here.’ I can hear the lie coming from my mouth. Why do I say it? Jesus why do I pretend? Is it right to lie to keep her safe… to keep her free from… them?
‘-But, what if they can-‘
‘ -No.’
I hold her tightly, and then lift her head back to stare, as sincerely as I can muster, into her large beautiful green eyes, that shine so very brightly.
‘I promise you… ‘ I say, the words but I feel my insecurity become obvious because, I’m not sure that I believe it myself. ‘…That...they can't get us here.’
‘-But...Gaz-‘
I feel hot anger build at the sound of his name. Anger at being left to fend for myself, two girls and a baby boy on my own; and anger at Alice, who has no real idea of what sweaty, blistered scab she has innocently scraped off. I want to scream and yell. I want to hold her tight and tell her that everything is going to be alright. Instead I say something else. Something terrible.
‘Gaz is dead.’
The words come out with far too much force and I instantly regret them. There is another long pause, and in that pause I feel a gulf tear open between us.
Alice stares at me, her eyes begin to change shape as they fill with large salty tears, I sense she has become riddled with an inner pain that I know only too well. I try to cuddle her to show her that it’s all ok, and that I love her desperately. But she shakes her head, her blonde pigtails, and sway about her as she roughly stands up. Swaying slightly as she pulls away from me, she takes a step back. And in that step I feel a greater gulf begin to form.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ . You b,bb,lame me!’ starts to shout and she falters as she steps back. ‘You you think it was my fault. Well it wasn’t! IT WASN’T!...’
I shake my head; and try not to cry, as I try to reach for her. I long Just to hold her close. As inside I feel my own pain grow and wrap about me like a poison giant. Oh God, I need her to know I don’t blame her, I need to feel something, anything but this sadness anger and pain. I need her to know that we stand together against them. But she fights me off and pushes me away all the harder; while Inside I’m begging her to stop and desperately wishing that I could just turn back time and take those terrible words back.
‘…I Hate this place! AND I HATE YOU!’ She screams. As she runs away from me and into the safety of the lighthouse; leaving me alone with my guilt and glass shards of bitter, fright filled memories.

***

We -those of us who are left- called them "They" because we honestly, didn’t know what else to call them. After all, what can you call an alien un-nameable species..? Even the names that were chosen seemed inadequate to fully describe what they are…they came here, 25 years ago, upon the twenty third of December twenty twelve; when the earth, our precious world, was burned by an asteroid, simply called “Prissy/Williams 7”.
The asteroid was named -as always- after the astronomers Arnold Prissy and Steven Williams, who had observed it entering our orbit the year before. Somehow, it managed to get past all our defences, and with the ease of a sharpened knife through soft chicken meat, it collided.
The initial impact had the force of a two megaton hydrogen bomb, and had the effect of changing the Atlantic Ocean, and the land around it completely. Causing unprecedented damage on a global scale; and left countless millions dead in the wake of huge tsunami; but, despite the predictions of an extinction level event, mankind… somehow… survived.
But what mankind didn’t know, or even fully prepare for, were for the events that followed.
For there was something within that rock that crashed into our planet...something... neither “vast, cold and unsympathetic” as Wells would say…in fact it was something so small, that it could barely be seen; but never the less, had terrifying consequences for every living thing… a new strand of DNA, buried within the rock interacted with our planet's ocean species...causing the generic species that lived within our planets oceans to evolve and mutate at an unprecedented rate. Earth had been invaded… and we had no idea that they were amongst us, until ten years after the asteroid impact.
Of course this had happened before... We had seen the signs of similar incidents the K2 boundary, is an example of the scientific evidence to support the possibilities, of what had occurred, and what was occurring… not to mention all the years of written down thesis or photographed evidence from dug up bones that became a part of the fossil record for all humanity to see. The last great change of mutation ended the dinosaurs rule, and brought about the birth of the mammals, and led to us… But, as always, in our arrogance, we hadn’t really seen it for what it was. We arrogantly listened to our priests, who told us we were special, or our scientists, who told us we could accomplish anything if we put our minds to it… And like a blind rabbit running onto a motorway we ignored what we found. Moreover, we had lied to ourselves, believing in our innate ability to survive all that nature could throw at us…
At first the fish began to dwindle, then fishing boats that had to go further and ever further out to sea began to go missing. Then, oil tankers, then supply ships, then submarines and other military ships went down silently… Then our new coastal villages, towns and cities began to fall.
Everyone I have spoken to knows where they were on the day they first attacked.
I was a S.R.N. at Newcastle General at the time. My night duty had almost come to an end, and I was looking at the encroaching dawn from the second floor window of the duty room, I could see the new towers glean with the golden light of the sun, and began to think about how Gaz would feel about the sad fact that I had to work a double shift to cover the next weekend, leaving him with baby Alice when Dave Bradshaw a usually laid back and overweight R.G.N burst in on the office.
‘ Gem, have you seen it.’ He asked. I looked at him shocked; I’d never seen him so tense before.
‘What?’
‘The News… For Christ’s sake! Gem! New Brighton’s been attacked!’
I turned on my ipod and tapped the screen to open the app You-news; and saw with almost disbelief and sheer horror, the sea slowly and silently retreating to reveal a scene that might have been born from the mind of HP Lovecraft.
They came from the sea…thousands of Them… staggering upon the shore in an ungainly unholy manner. Their round thickly blue veined bulbous mass quivered and rippled, as fine tendrils lashed, from cavernous mouths towards the people fleeing in retreat. Those poor people who were hit, were either snapped back into their mouths or violently burst into a mass of decomposing flesh, that was greedily fed upon as They made their way ashore, to eventually come to a shuddering stand upon pairs of huge muscular legs that quivered violently with each new heavy step.
I stared with grim horror at the small screen an even larger gelatinous body, was brought onto dry land. Before my eyes the bulbous mass began to change colour, from a pale pink to a dirty rotten brown. Then it suddenly burst open to allow spores of huge insect like creatures before the screen went black.
What followed were five nightmare years, years spent in hiding wherever we could, gathering together in small bands. When we could we fought back...and we found their weaknesses... and that became our means of defence… a solar charged battery cell, that when linked to fibrous lines of copper cable, helped build huge electro-magnetic shields; that, when turned on, could rise up about us like huge almost invisible domes. They protect us from their hideous advances; but… we’re now caged... like animals in a zoo.

***

I enter the old fisherman’s cottage through the back door, and walk into the large white walled kitchen. I am met by the warm welcoming odour of freshly baked bread. It almost hides the stale smell of the decaying vegetables. In the background I can hear baby Si’, screaming for attention and for food. Rachael has her back to me, but I can see she is making soup. Her long black hair falls around her shoulders in shiny, spindling ringlets.
‘Our supplies are low.’ she says with her back to me. Her voice sounds cold and as sharp as a razor blade.
‘-I know-‘
‘-an’ the lines need bringing in-
‘-yes, yes ok!-’ I feel tired and put upon.
‘-Jane-‘
‘-Just for Christ sake, shut up!’ I shout savagely; as I leave the kitchen and go through the narrow hall, to the front room, where Si’ is lying on the white rug; his pen surrounding him. It doesn’t take him long, a cuddle and a suckle, settles him quick. I look down and see in his eyes Gaz staring at me. As I sit in the rocker by the window, words start to fall from me like the heavy summer rain.
‘Why… why’d you have to do it? Be the fucking hero… when we need you… when I need you… There’s so much to do… so much to sort out…
‘Si’ looks up and gurgle’s sweetly; his round face and blue eyes shine, his toothless mouth white with milk and spit. I smile down, unaware of the footfall in the hall.
‘Jane.’ It’s Rachael again, I feel my nerves grate. ‘Alice is upset. Why did you have to say that?
‘-We’re safe here.’ I can hear the lie in my voice, because I know it’s insane to stay, but I just can't let go...
‘-Who says?’ She asks. Her voice sounds clearly hostile; and that hurts me. ‘You know ‘ow we’ve done it in the past… Alice ‘as the dream an’ we move on. That’s what we’ve always done since...’ She doesn’t finish the sentence but the air is heavy. ‘…Gaz would want us to move on. Staying ‘ere is suicide.’
‘-Gaz isn’t here.’
‘-An’ don’t we know it…’ She replies tersely. ‘…They are real, you know they are! And they are coming…’ Her words echo about the large living room, like a dark prophecy. ‘…You might want to stay ‘ere an’ hold on to your memories, your dreams, an’ your youth. But we, the rest of us need to live!’
I don’t look up; I only hear her feet slowly walk away upon the red flagstone floor.
I hear a clatter of pots from the kitchen, and feel my face blush with guilt and shame. I look to the cot, but Si’ is asleep. So I turn in my chair to look out of the cracked window. The green sea is flat and seems to go on forever. The sky, a stone grey. The fog has lifted. I only wish my mind was as clear.

***

Night has come. The fire licks orange-yellow flames up the chimney, and leaves the room feeling warm. Si’ has been taken from my lap, and placed in his crib. I look across the room and see the heavy sofa. Oh how I wish he was here, holding me close, telling me what to do.
But he died six weeks ago, while Alice was building sandcastles on the beach…
a week ago. I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast, while Gaz stood in the doorway, looking out towards the beach. We had been up for about an hour; I was feeling sleepy warm, ruddy and tender from our love making.
I looked out of the window across the tiny bay to where a wet Alice; her blonde hair dark, tousled and full of salt; had started to put sand into the small round yellow plastic bucket by her knees.
Then the alarm sounded. Instantly, we stared at each other. Nothing was said. Our eyes wide open simply met; while my heart began thumping with a black panic.
Then he ran as fast as he could down the narrow path that led back to shore. It didn’t take him long to reach the beach; or the heavy black junction box that we had improvised as part of the EMF shield extension. He quickly ripped the lid off it; before, as gently as he could, so not to make her panic, call Alice over to him.
It was a sunny day… the sky was unusually blue and clear from the swell of grey cloud that normally came from across the sea.
It seems amazing that I didn’t see the raised antenna, or the tentacles that followed, until it was too late.
I screamed as I saw them snake up the beach. Rachael saw them next. She ran from the lighthouse picking up the rifle that was resting by the kitchen door. I saw her wave frantically, before charging down the narrow path. Her body jarring as she sped. She stopped as she reached the beach and managed to get two shots off, as the tentacles silently sped towards them.
It was enough for Gaz to see what was coming. I saw him click something. The alarm suddenly died, and then, instead of running towards us, with Alice in his arms…he ran the other way…leaving Rachael and Alice to run towards the safety of the newly functioning shield.
It only took a second… hundreds of tendrils wrapped about his body; lifting him up high into the blue sky. And there he hung for a moment, like a twisted puppet, his arms outstretched, screaming; before he was suddenly dragged down at a lightning speed, swallowed by the green swirling sea.
‘Gaz…’ my voice sounds dry and cracked. I close my eyes and shut out the candles, the fire-place and the near silence of the room. But the room isn’t empty any more.
‘Jane.’
The room is a blur; a swirling wash of orange embers, mahogany and candlelight.
‘Jane.’
I wipe my eyes and stare across the room.
‘Jane.’
He sits there sweetly, that smile upon his face; as if he’s never been gone. Doesn’t he know what he’s done to us? Doesn’t he care that we have had to cope without him?
‘Jane, listen.’
Gaz…He sits in front of me, wearing that blood red jumper. I shake my head, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to believe.
‘Jane my darling, you have to leave here. Alice and Rachael are in real danger.’ He speaks, in urgency, yet in a voice that I find hard to grasp. ‘The old ones are coming here. They know you’re here. Jane…please listen to me.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Jane I know how much this place means to you, but you have to leave.’
Suddenly I’m in the open! There is a screaming whine of an insects wing, followed by the clacking of hideous alien voices , followed by a loud whump; as their heavy feet made of constantly winding tendrils tie themselves about each other, giving strength to the whole form as it staggers upon the land, with a hideous slouching gait , its single yellow eye ablaze with insane victory as it screams in an unearthly triumph; all the while more huge fibrous tentacles are reaching out for me, smothering…smothering my face.
I scream myself awake. Baby Si is in Rachael’s arms. I feel a little jealous that he is resting in her arms, but I try not to let it show. After all I love her as if she is my own.
‘I’m sorry ‘bout yesterday.’
I find a smile upon my face and hope that it isn’t fake.
‘-It’s ok.’
‘-It’s… just that I miss-‘ I can see her pain and her strength.
‘-I’ts ok. You’re right. It’s not safe here any-more. We’re leaving, get Alice.
With a smile on her face she speedily turns and leaves the front room.

The sky is full of slate black raging clouds that boil and curl over a violent pale green sea. The wind is beginning to rage too. That’s good because it means the insects can’t fly. Also with the electro-magnetic energy the land monsters will be stuck too. That only leaves they from the sea.
Leaving is painful…The memories fill, and wash over me like the sea they pull me in all directions, like time they fold over me yet keep me from drowning... I almost feel haunted, though not by the monsters… For I have lived two lifetimes here, and that’s not bad for a woman in her late fifties...I look at the lighthouse and I see my father speaking in an age long past, about a time now gone. I see my mother, her dedication to the seventies written on her narrow face, as is her longing not to be anywhere near here... And finally, I see Gaz...the man who kept me sane, and us together… The Father of Alice and Simon, and the Brother of Rachael...I see him standing on the beach waving us off, so I know it’s time… and it’s ok now, to say goodbye.
We get into the screen cracked land-rover. It’s weighed down with supplies and the four of us. I turn the engine over and see that the tank is half full. I also know that we have a spare tank of fuel in the back… we are ready to go, And not before time. For as we sit in the car, we watch silently, to see huge leathery tendrils come out of the broiling sea, we hear a hissing scream as they wrap themselves about the buildings; and monstrous howls as slowly the buildings are torn to shards of rubble iron and glass; the towering light, broken into bones of iron and lumps of powdered stone. Where are we going? I am not sure, south... I think... I look back at the ruin of the lighthouse; our home for so short a time, is now a broken shell. I look at Alice and she smiles for the first time in an age... and at Rachel who loving holds Simon… she is smiling too and that is nice to see... Yeah… it’s time to move on.

The end.