The Hammer of Dawn.

The beech swung in the slight breeze. Mark lay back in his bed, arms folded behind his head, watching the branches of the old, creaking tree swing and whip in the wind. The grizzled thing was silver in the light, but was a ghost on the black landscape, sucking in all witness like a sponge. When they had bought the house, his parents had let him go about the garden, naming the trees. They had read this was therapeutic for small children when moving. Many years had passed since then, trees had been uprooted by storms, or for landscaping, but the elderly beech had remained – Jupiter. Jupiter curled in on itself, sheltered by the cottage from the elements, rooted firmly on the edge of the costal cliff, gnarled and helpless. The cottage was close to the edge now: erosion had gotten the better of earth and the cliff had collapsed in on itself ten years ago during a storm from the sea. Mark could still remember it. Inky black water shooting up the face, sloshing and slashing, swallowing up mounts of soil, foam popping and crackling on the grass, bubbles like a multitude of eyes which gleamed in the moonlight..1

Now he stared at Jupiter. Jupiter was loose in the atmosphere, but gave an impression of tension, of waiting; a prowling cat, a trunk shining like a raised blade, fit to carve and end at a moment’s notice. Somewhere below, a wave cracked a gunshot on the rocks - Water coursing through sandstone, perhaps to remind him of the storm. The time when the earth was swallowed by the sea. Or, perhaps, this was just a psychic illustration. Jupiter held no answer. Slosh.2

Mark was immediately awake. What was that sound? Could it be what he had heard so long ago? Jupiter just stood, giving no clues, but Mark was paralysed by the night, and the soft, distant, braying of the ocean against the land. Slosh. There it was again, a little louder, a little closer? He turned on his side as best he could, the scratchy old linen resisted, though. He had never heard it this sincerely before, like it was meant to be opposed to him, and the barbs it held could only quote this to be true - Slosh. He sat upright, clutching at the covers. Jupiter was calm; the night sky was clear with glinting stars but… No illumination could dispel his fear. The candle burning in the living room flickered slowly in the cold air, buffering out the tension with a wave of smoke and warmth. He silently put his legs over the edge of the bed. With feet like searching hands, he slunk into his slippers. Keeping low, he crept out, watching the cracked glass window, to his bedroom door and slid through the open entrance, always watching Jupiter. The flame welcomed him, bathing him in an orange glow from head to toe. He slumped into his worn fireside chair, which groaned under his weight. He felt foolish; jumping at the sloshing of water, especially as he had lived next to the shore for so long. The whole thing was ridiculous and embarrassing. Clunk.3

His fingers cracked as he gripped the arm rests in terror. His knuckles whitened the skin. His eyes flicked around the house. Outside, down the cliff, with quietness that only true horror could render, came the lowest, unholiest of moans, making the hair on Mark’s neck stand up straight. The skin on his arms tighten. The blood in his veins turned to ice. He shrunk into his seat like a child, listening. All he could do was listen to the moaning, the crunching of shells and crumbling sandstone underfoot. The grunting of effort. He screwed his eyes shut and curled into a ball, but the noise remained; sharper, more distinct, louder, and closer. Now he heard the scraping of feet through soil, and realised that the being, the thing, was climbing up the cliff side, one grunting grip at a time. Mark knew what he had to do.4

He scrambled up and fumbled about in the dark. He searched desperately - he knew what he was looking for, but could he find it before the thing had ascended the rise? His cold, numb hands lurched fevered, and then, like an epiphany, clutched the familiar smooth handle of the garden fork. He raised it to his chest and held it there. The flat wooden end rested stoically against his trembling thigh. He peered around the corner, through the bedroom doorway, to the outside world, to Jupiter. A pale, leathery wet arm reached up from the well of darkness and sunk its long, thick fingers into the lawn, curving them around one of the roots of the old beech tree. Mark pulled himself together and launched out the backdoor. He pelted towards the cowled figure, which had already righted itself on the tenuous edge, leaning against Jupiter. With the fork in front of him, he sunk it into the thing’s belly.5

The fisherman’s waterproof hood fell back. His old, grey face became a mask of shock; he stared at the pitchfork skewering him to the tree, then, taking his dirtied hand off of the deep cut in his shoulder, he rested it on the neck of the shaft. He gurgled, blood spilled and oozed out of his mouth, and he died, nailed still in Jupiter’s orbit.6

Word Count: 920 Words.7