Writing for Fun
June 2017
Out Of The Mist - Pete Norman
The bile was rising. Jonathon swallowed and held his breath. His stomach hurt, his chest hurt, his head hurt and he had made his mind up – he was done with puking.
The journey to Shetland had been unbelievably long and exhausting but the short ferry trip to the island of Bressay had been unbearable – in what felt like a force twenty gale his stomach had emptied several times over and the last remnants of his enthusiasm, which had not been very much in abundance when he had started, were now completely destroyed.
He had been so relieved when they had finally driven off that hateful boat, he had thought it was all over, but then the endless bumping of the Landrover over the endless ruts in the endless dirt-track road seemed . . . without end.
The bile started to rise again . . . Jonathon swallowed and held his breath.
For all of his short life the family had lived in remote places, because his mother hated city life and his father always seemed happy to indulge her idiosyncrasies, but Bressay was not just remote, it was at the edge of the world and running for the horizon. He had looked it up on Google Maps on the school computer – it was a tiny dot in a vast ocean and it was in fact closer to Norway than it was to mainland Scotland.
He hated this place with a passion. This would already be the second time he had moved house and the second time he had been forced to change schools. He would have to try to make friends yet again and he could only wonder what the other kids – you know, the sort of kids who lived on an isolated rock right out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – would be like. Perhaps they would be all weird. Perhaps they would all hate him. Perhaps . . .
The bumping finally stopped and with great relief Jonathon crawled out of the Landrover into the pouring rain, holding onto the door handle for support. He stared in disbelief at the small whitewashed cottage which stood barely fifty yards from the broiling ocean. He was too wet, too tender and too exhausted to work out just how much he hated this place. He allowed himself to be carried to the door. His mum made his bed up and he crawled between the sheets and within seconds he was surrendering himself to Morpheus.
When he awoke the sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window. He tried to make sense of the unfamiliar surroundings, failed, gave up and made his way downstairs. His parents were in the kitchen emptying boxes and arguing about where everything should go; that the cottage had looked so much bigger in the brochure; that they should never have brought so much stuff here etc. etc. He sat for a few moments until he realised that there was no immediate prospect of breakfast and then he did what any other self-respecting seven year old boy would have done, he escaped through the back door and went exploring.
The island was apparently only ten square miles and there were supposed to be more than 350 people living on it, but this cottage was on the otherwise deserted east coast, far from the main towns and as far as he could see there was no other cottage in sight – they might as well have been on the surface of the moon.
The ocean was no longer broiling, the force twenty gale had subsided overnight and the water was as smooth as a millpond. If it had not been quite so cold he might just have stripped off and jumped in . . . maybe tomorrow.
Jonathon picked up a large stone and hurled it as far as he could, watching with some satisfaction as it skimmed several times across the surface before it sank out of sight, then he turned and walked along the water’s edge. There was no beach as such, there was just a wide flat strip of nothingness where the rough lumpy grassland was losing the ongoing battle with the waves. He bent down to pick up a piece of flotsam – a stick as long as his arm and sort of flat – he examined it, named it Excalibur and wandered off slaying invisible dragons with powerful swipes of his mighty sword.
He passed a large hole in the grassy bank. It was too small for a dragon but some other mysterious creature must have made it its home. He dropped to his knees and peered inside but it was too dark to see very much. He thrust in his arm up to his elbow but he could not feel anything furry and savage. He thrust Excalibur down it a few times but of the creature that had dug it there was no trace. He lost interest in the hole and wandered further along the beach towards a pile of rocks. There were four of them and they were huge – far too large for the waves to pick up and move – and they were all piled up just like a pyramid. Just below the rocks were four holes exactly like the other one.
Four rocks and four holes – he was fascinated.
He lay flat on his stomach so that he could investigate further. Once again there was no trace of the mysterious creature but this time he decided to retire to a safe distance, lay low and watch. He was certain that there must be something living in one of them. If he was quiet and patient then – just like those wildlife photographers dad loved to watch – then the creature might just pop its head out . . . and Excalibur was waiting.
He watched for a long time.
It did not pop its head or anything else out.
Jonathon tired of the game and stood up but when he turned around he saw something that completely took his breath away. In the short time that he had been facing the rocks and the holes someone had stolen the sea . . .
Where the water had once been was a wall of white. He dropped Excalibur and ran down to investigate. It was just as if a cloud had fallen down from the sky. He put his hand inside the cold, clammy stuff. His hand looked a little fuzzy round the edges. He stepped a little closer until his body touched the surface. There was this weird sort of feeling as if something was trying to pull him inside.
He stepped back again.
He was not certain that he liked it.
He sat down and stuck out his foot. As it penetrated the white cloud he felt the same strange feeling, only this time a little stronger, it was as if the cloud wanted him to come inside and play.
‘Jonathon . . . Jonathon, where are you?’
The sound of his mother’s voice dragged him back to reality and he abandoned the strange cloud and ran back to his new home and the prospect of breakfast.
His mother took hold of him as he reached her. ‘Jonathon, darling, you mustn’t run off like that. I was worried about you.’ She pointed at the fallen cloud. ‘And I don’t want you playing in the sea mist – you could get hopelessly lost and never find your way home again. Ever.’
Jonathon turned to look at his strange cloud – or sea mist – whatever. He had heard what his mother had said but it only served to intrigue him more. He thought that he might just explore the cold clammy cloud a bit more . . . after breakfast that is.
His stomach full of porridge and close to normality he got down from the table. His mother’s instruction that You might go up to your room and put your clothes into the drawer, sounded to him to be an open invitation to Go out and play in the fallen cloud, so he by-passed the stairs and disappeared through the back door.
If anything it had spread even further inland and the sort of beach bit was much smaller than it had been before. He ran along the edge of the cloudy, misty thing, trailing his fingers through the clammy cotton wool stuff until he reached the four rocks and the four holes, where Excalibur still lay, across the entrance, guarding the island from the dreaded creature in the secret burrows. He picked up his mighty sword and turned to face the cloud. Now that it was only sea mist and not some enchanted fallen cloud it didn’t look anything like as frightening as it had before but there still might be dragons in there. With a fierce war cry he ran forwards.
The mist welcomed him in, engulfed him in its cold clammy nothingness. He spun around and around, laughing at the strange feeling, then he ran and he turned and he slashed with Excalibur at dragon after dragon, turned and slashed, turned and slashed until he lost all sense of direction, all sense of the world outside.
Suddenly he stopped. His mother’s words of warning rang in his ear. He began to feel uneasy, a wave of claustrophobia surged through him. His feet were cold. He looked down but he could not see more than a few inches from his face. He stamped his feet and a muffled splash told him that he was at the edge of the water. In a rare instance of inspiration he turned his back to the water and walked in as straight a line as he could manage until he burst out of the mist into daylight.
Directly in front of him were the four rocks . . . but where were the four holes? They had vanished completely.
He turned towards where their house should be but all he could see was the skeletal ruin of an old shed thing with grass growing out of the windows and a big fat seagull sitting on the roof, watching him intently.
You could get hopelessly lost and never find your way home again . . . ever . . .
He was hopelessly lost and the alien creature from the holes and the dragons and the weird clammy cloud had . . . had . . . and he would never find his way home again . . . ever . . .’
He didn’t know what to do. He clutched tightly onto Excalibur for strength and started to walk towards the shed thing – he might just be able to use it for shelter when it got dark.
The seagull squawked and flew off.
He peered inside but threw himself back when he saw the size of the spider sitting in the big thick web that filled the window frame.
Jonathon curled up in a ball and began to cry.
In the distance he could hear a faint sound. He strained his ears. It sounded familiar. It was just like his mum’s voice. She was trying to call him back . . . but she seemed so far away. He turned back towards the cloud. Maybe if he just went back inside then the time machine thing would take him back to his real home, to his mum. But the white wall towering over him looked so threatening he simply could not face the thought of it engulfing him again, disorientating him again . . . eating him?
There was another faint sound – only this time it seemed to be a little louder – it was the sound of his dad shouting. ‘Jonathon! Stop messing about. Come here . . . now!’
This time the voice came from further down the beach, not from inside the cloud. Jonathon ran as fast as his legs could carry him, around a bend, past another group of four rocks piled up just like a pyramid, with four holes just below it . . . and into the arms of his mother.
As he hugged her, with tears in his eyes, he said, ‘I didn’t go into the sea mist, mum, honest! You have to believe me . . .’