Sandcastles

I sit upon the cold rock, my knees are drawn up and my arms are wrapped about them. Slowly I breathe deep, allowing the chilly rich salt air to fuel me.
How long have we been here..? About four month’s I think; least that’s what it feels like; though it could easily be longer; time doesn’t seem to hold well for me any-more.
Normally I can see for miles; but there’s a fog this morning.
The cold clear green sea slightly rises, and then gently falls. It cracks slurps and slaps, as the waves pass by “the point”, to then, gently writhe snakelike and eventually land upon the beach; that is picked out in fine serrated lines of black and grey. I turn around and look towards the white sun. Standing almost in its way, like a huge grey-black finger, is our home; St Mary’s lighthouse.
I recall my Dad and Mum bringing me here, long before the old ones came. The excitement of the trip, the strange smell of the car, as it battled down the narrow roads. My dad smiling, his face large and round, his eyes brown, alive, yet almost hidden by thick bushy eyebrows, as he spoke grandly about the history of the Lighthouse. While my mother, stood silently clockwatching; wrapped up in her dark turquoise Mack, her rolled hair, tied in a yellow scarf around her narrow face. A northern uniform, for lighter times.
Child’s laughter brings me back to the present. Its Alice; I can hear her, feet as she staggers over the rocks .
Then a partial shadow stands over me.
For a second I think of Gaz. his gentle muscular hands, his tousled hair fading to a wispy grey, the kind, yet penetrative stare, from his large blue eyes And the feel of the stubble, around his narrow square jaw. I recall how itchy it felt, as his cheek slowly and very gently, stroked mine.

‘Mummy?’ Alice asks waking me from my muse.
‘-what is it dear?’
There is a long pause.
‘ I had the dream again last night.’ she said awkwardly.
‘ –We’re safe here.’
‘-But, what if they can-‘
‘ -No.’
I reach over and hold her, this tiny old person; and I pull back to stare, as sincerely as I can, into her beautiful green eyes, that shine so very bright.
‘I promise you… ‘ I say, feeling unsure that I believe it myself. ‘…That the old ones can’t get us here.’
‘-But Gaz-‘
I feel anger build. Anger at being left to fend for two girls and a baby boy on my own. And anger at this little innocent girl. Who has no Idea what sweaty, blistered scab, she has innocently scraped off.
‘Gaz is dead!’
It comes out with too much force, and I instantly regret it.
Alice looks at me with sad pain-filled eyes; and she pulls away. She falters as she steps back. I try to reach for her and hold her close, not so much for her, but for me. But she fights me off and runs to the safety of the lighthouse. Leaving me with my memories.

I enter the house through the back door, and walk into the kitchen. I am met by the warm welcoming odour of freshly baked bread. It almost hides the odour 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 long, spindling ringlets.
‘We need to get to the settlement, our supplies are low.’ She says with her back to me. Her voice sounds cold and as sharp as a razor blade.
‘-I Know-‘
‘-and 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 out of 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… I can’t do it on my own.‘
‘Si’ looks up and gurgles 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.’ Its Rachael. ‘Alice is upset. Why did you have to say that? Can’t you see we need you to be together, now more than ever?’
‘-We’re safe here.’
‘-Who says?’ She asks. Her voice sounds clearly hostile; and that hurts me. ‘You know how we’ve done it in the past, Alice has the dream and 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 here is suicide.’
‘-Gaz isn’t here.’
‘-An’ don’t we know it…’ She replies tersely. ‘…The old ones are coming…’ Her words echo about the large living room, like a dark prophecy. ‘…You might want to stay here and hold on to your memories, your dreams, and your youth. But we need to live.’
I don’t look up; I only hear her feet slowly walk away upon the red flagstone floor.
The room is silent. Si’ is asleep. I turn in my chair to look out of the cracked window.
The huge green sea is silent, the horizon is now clear. I only wish my mind was.

*

Night has come. The fire licks orange-yellow flames up the chimney, and leaves the room feeling warm. Si’ is asleep, and I have been left alone. 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 watching Alice building sandcastles on the beach…
Sandcastles…
That’s what we are; and that’s what we made for ourselves.
The problem with sandcastles is that the tide turns and washes them away. My mind twists and turns, like the sea as fragmented images of the last six months swell to the surface, and underlining everything are the old ones.

We called them the “old ones” because we didn’t know what else to call them. After all, what else can you call something that reminds us of our past. Twenty five years ago, mankind had made its final great mistake, in building a super computer, and storing all the gathered knowledge of human history in one place.
Then, on the fifteenth of May, twenty fourteen, it became sentient. And the world we knew came to a blistering end.
What was left of us, lived in small tribe’s underground, simply hoping that the air would clear. When, after ten long dark years, it finally did; we returned to a world totally unrecognisable.
We found a world where monstrous tripods stalked the countryside; where snakelike submarines, slid through the ocean virtually unseen; or huge hover planes, seem to fill the sky… killing us with jests of flame; or grabbing us with huge snake-like tentacles; that wrapped about our bodies. Sucking us up and locking us away inside their huge metal hulls, for reasons… God only knew.
So we fought, and learned how the machines worked. We found their weakness’s and then began to establish settlements where possible. Our only means of defence, small to large calibre weapons and heavy long cables, that when tied to powerful solar batteries, in as large a circle as possible, created electro-magnetic shields that rose about us like huge almost invisible domes. They protected us from their hideous advances; but left Mankind, the animal, caged.
After five years, Gaz, I and a few families had built for ourselves a pretty good community. We even started to have children. But then, about four months ago, our shield generator failed and the tripods, waiting along the perimeter, attacked.
It didn’t take them long to decimate us. Gaz gathered baby Si’, Alice and I into the Land-rover, then he saw Rachael screaming. Darting between the whiplash of the tentacles, crawling between the stabbing flames; he grabbed her; and dived into the land-rover, as I started to speed away. Swerving between the shattering explosions, I drove, drove, drove. I Drove north; stopping for shelter in small places, moving on when Alice had any scary dreams; heading to the one place I knew I felt safe. Not even knowing, if it was still standing…
St Mary’s Lighthouse…
Gaz…
I close my eyes and shut out the candles, the fire-place and the near silence of the room, as I recall that morning a week ago.

I recall that we woke that morning, to hear the alarm.
I went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, while he, wearing that bright red jumper and brown combat trousers; and sticking out against the sand like a bloody finger; left the safety of the Lighthouse and started to examine the long cable, we had found when we first arrived and had improvised into a EMF shield.
Just over five feet away from him, was a wet Alice. Her blonde hair, was dark, tousled and full of salt; as she put the sand into the small round yellow plastic bucket by her knees. She tapped it with her shovel, and slowly managed to lift the bucket up revealing her sand towers. While Gaz, between screwdrivers and pliers, stared at her with eyes of love.
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. I didn’t see the raised antenna, or the tentacles that followed, until it was too late. It’s amazing, isn’t it? How joy can turn into sorrow in the blink of an eye.

The door creaks.
I turn and look at the entrance of the front room.
No one is there.
Oh Christ…how I miss him.

I was in the kitchen and saw it snake up the beach behind her. I screamed. Rachael saw it next and ran from the lighthouse and waved frantically as she tried to call to them.
But they were too far away. Rachael picked up the carbine that was on the floor by her feet and next to the lighthouse wall. She took two shots at the tentacles as they sped almost silently towards them.
It was enough for Gaz to see what was coming. And instead of running towards us with Alice in his arms…he ran the other way… Leaving Alice to run towards the safety of the shield.
It only took a second. The tendrils wrapped about his body and he was lifted up high into the blue sky. He hung there for a moment, his arms outstretched; screaming, then he was suddenly dragged down at a lightning speed; Swallowed by the green swirling sea.

‘Jane.’
The room is a blur. A swirling wash of orange embers, mahogany and candlelight.
‘Jane.’
I wipe my eyes and see 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 red jumper I knitted for him last year. 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 rotor engines, as a glittering hover plane descends. I can see its searchlights blazing, followed by the clacking scream of metal grinding metal, followed by a loud whump; as the heavy feet of a tripod, its single yellow eye ablaze, seeks me out. It screams in an unearthly triumph; while it’s huge fibrous tentacles reach out for me, reach out for me.
*
I wake. Baby Si is in Rachael’s arms. I feel a little jealous that she is suckling him, but I try not to let it show. After all I love her as if she is my own.
‘I’m sorry about 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 hover planes can’t fly. Also with the electro-magnetic energy the Tripods will be stuck too. That only leaves the sea devils.
Breaking camp is painful but very necessary. The memories fill me; I almost feel haunted, though not by monsters… For I have lived two lifetimes here. Not bad for a woman in her late thirties.
I look at the building 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 here, and in the arms of her lover. And finally, I see Gaz, the man who kept me…us… together… The Father of Alice and Simon, and know it’s ok to say goodbye.
We get into the screen cracked land-rover. It’s weighed down with cable supplies and the four of us. I turn the engine over and see the that the tank is half full. That’s ok, we have a full tank of fuel in the back… we are ready to go, And not before time. Because as we sit in the car, we watch silently, to see huge metallic tendrils come out of the broiling sea, and wrap themselves about the buildings; slowly tearing them to pieces; crumbling the stone tower to powder and the frame to twisted metal.
Where are we going? I am not sure, South, I think, and back to the tunnels. Hopefully, we can start up somewhere else soon.
I look back at the ruin of the white 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 a week. As does Rachael.
That’s good…Yeah… it’s time to move on.