As The Ocean Bites At Our Rusted Shores

Chapter 1: Shame On You Scabs

"Russell!"

It was a regular late-night yell of horror. Russell was used to Melanie doing this by now. Hell, he could practically repeat what she would tell him. He mouthed the words to himself as he trudged upstairs, dry carpet underneath, dry lips smacking together as he breathed "there are people in my windows!". He rolled his eyes and continued, hand sliding up the banister and eyes facing forwards. He reached the top and turned left. He could feel the room on the right and shuddered slightly. As far as he was concerned, that room didn't exist any more. Melanie's room upstairs, he slept on the sofa, kitchen, little down-stairs bathroom, done.

He sighed, and opened the door, and saw Melanie tied up in her quilt, trembling in the corner of the bed. She stuck her blonde head of hair over the parapets of her bedspread and whispered.

"They're here again!"

Russell's fist clenched ever so slightly. His smile twitched. Melanie shook whenever rain bulleted into the window; the noise terrorised the room, the wind rattling and skittering the panes. He saw the curtains drawn and crossed the room, stepping carefully over toys and ragged dolls. As he made to draw the curtains he felt Melanie recoil in the corner.

"It'll be fine, Melanie." he murmured, hand clasped over the curtains, "There's never been anyone staring through your windows before, has there?"

"Once..." she said quietly, so only her tear-stained pillow could hear her.

Russell drew the curtains and the rainstorm slapped against the window like the tide. The moon made shadows of the rain drip across his face. He looked behind him and saw raindrops streak past his shadow. The night sky crackled and thundered, purple light shining in the sky. Lightning dripped down the window, trapped in reflections.

Nobody was outside.

All of a sudden, Melanie was at his heel. She clasped her arms round his leg, her pyjamas trailing, and looked up at him fearfully.

"Is there anyone there?" she asked. He picked her up and lifted her by her armpits, wriggling and uncomfortable, so she could peer owlishly into the window, moonlight reflected in her eyes. She checked left, and she checked right, and checked behind the curtains. She couldn't see anyone either. Her brow furrowed, she wriggled out of his grasp and landed back on the bed. Russell looked back at the window. The weather was ferocious. The wind beat itself like a dying man against the glass, like it was trying to get into the warm of the house. It howled when it found locked doors and windows and it thrashed against them in frustration. Fingers of breeze crept in through any crack and the wind shook the house in revenge. Russell felt the clouds grin maliciously at him and he turned away.

He tucked her in, and made sure she was warm, and he stroked her hair and looked into her bright green eyes. They looked like her mothers. But then again, maybe they didn't. Everything reminded him of Juliet these days.

The stairs were narrow and they were full of her; the daughter and mother staring at him from the walls. You could see the living room, small and ringed with Ikea, from over the banister. He sat in it, and it was the most uncomfortable living room in the world, because it felt pressurised, like someone had squeezed his three-seater sofa into a two-seater and his 32" plasma was a 24" and his dinner table was a coffee table. This room used to be bigger. He turned on his 24" plasma television and picked up his tea. It was cold. A film lay on the top. He idly played with it and made interesting shapes with it over the-

The moon shone like a spotlight across the ocean, its light playing with the waves, dancing and diffusing and the waves writhed and leapt across their feet as the lovers gambolled in drunken two-step across the sand. Seashells sang and the moon, hung as it was, illuminated their every sand-sputtering misstep along that endless, wonderful beach. In the distance there was a house. Even from here they could see the way the light shone through it; holes gaped through its wooden chest. As they moved closer they saw beams branch out like ribs, broken, silhouetted in the moonlight. They laughed and headed towards it, for nothing could stop them now, those lovers of everything and nothing; curled so tight into each other you'd think it was-.