A Grave by the Sea

A piece of short horror fiction by Daniel Ouellette The howling of winged horrors rippled on the wind through the pouring rain, as though the storm itself was a wounded beast, crying out in rage. Carcass stumbled forward on his old, shaking legs, hoping to avoid the glow of the monsters’ great white eyes as they circled in the clouds above. His leathers and furs were soaked through, and his eyes stung from salty spray. Footing was difficult to find on the wet, jagged cliffs. It would be easy to trip on the bones, cracked shells and burnt debris that littered the rutted stones. Massive waves ceaselessly surged over the cliff’s edge, groping for his ankles like rotted black fingers. As he held fast to the bleached remains of a coral growth, he contemplated letting them take him. He could slip from the cliffs and let the ocean embrace him. Let it massage the air from his tired chest, and rock his scarred mind into a numbing slumber from which he would not wake. But Carcass was afraid. Despite the name he had bestowed on himself, he still could not bring himself to die.

Arm to his forehead, Carcass pushed through the beating sheets of the downpour and the guttural moans on the wind until a softer sound joined them: the gentle tones of a woman’s song. Carcass felt a sting of relief, a knot in his gut that pulled him toward the sweet call. Moments later he saw the outline of some black structure holding fast against the elements. A sanctuary surrounded by dead trees hung with kelp and coral. He was so taken by the sight that his boots slipped from beneath him and the wind buffeted him to the ground. Landing on his side, Carcass groaned as a broken blade pierced deep into his arm. The remains of a massacre from many years ago. Carcass’ face contorted as he pulled the metal free, the rain quickly washing it clean of his blood. He tossed it aside, repulsed, and the sound of it striking the stone was lost in the storm. Carcass dragged himself to his feet and made for the structure ahead, clutching his bloodied arm as the mysterious song faded away.

It was a fisher’s hovel wrought of stone and scrimshawed whale bones. The roof was thatched and weighted to hold through violent coastal storms. And held it did, for now. That was enough. Carcass threw in the door on its screeching hinges and nearly collapsed as he turned to shut it. The hovel was windowless, and provided a much needed respite from the sounds and sights of the tempest outside. But he could still hear the monsters. Their low howls reverberated through the walls as they searched the cliffs from somewhere above.

“I hope you’re good company.”

A woman’s voice scratched at Carcass’ ear. He whirled around. Panting, adrenaline pulsing in his aging muscles, his cold fingers grasped the handle of one of the axes that hung from his waist. He squeezed so tightly that his knuckles went white as bone.

“Worst storm I’ve seen in decades,” the woman continued. She was seated in the middle of the hovel, wrapped in a blue haze of smoke that crept from her bone pipe. The light of several mismatched candles danced within the colorful sea-glass that hung from her long black hair and sealskin coat. She looked up at Carcass and her eyes were blue. The deepest blue that he had ever seen. So blue that he might drown. “You look half dead already.” She smiled, but only a little. “Come sit. All storms abate with time and good company.”

Carcass choked on any sentiments he may have wished to express. The woman’s gaze was kind, but it froze his heart, like he was staring into the furthest depths of the churning sea. Clutching his arm he made for the circle of candles, sitting without a word.

“You’re hurt.”

“A flesh wound,” Carcass rasped. “Just bloody meat.”

“I have some salve,” the woman reached for the pack that lay beside her.

“I’ve nothing to repay you.”

“Conversation is enough.”

“It is not.”

“Your axes must have value, then?” The woman angled her drowning gaze toward him, framed by glittering glass.

Carcass silently chewed his thoughts, glancing between the woman and his injury. He removed the axes from his waist. One forged of fresh steel, sharp and clean. The other worn, stained and notched… a weapon from a time long past.

“I’ll take the old blade,” the woman muttered, “no need to trade away good steel.”

“No. You’ll have the finer…” Carcass lifted the weapon and flipped it over, gripping the blade to offer her the haft. “You’ll… you’ll have the finer blade…” The old axe was not a burden that he could simply give away.

“The new blade then,” the woman replied. She pulled a small pot from her pack and handed it to Carcass as she took the axe. “What is your name, traveler?”

“Carcass,” he grunted as he applied the greasy brown salve to his gashed arm.

The woman chuckled coldly. “I am called Siren. I am a musician… it is good to have found a companion on such a cruel night.”

Carcass grimaced, and the candles flickered as a chill gale found its way through the cracks in the walls. “Strange name,” he said.

---

Rainwater found its way into the hovel, pooling in the corners drop by drop. Carcass sat with his back against the wall, watching hot wax creep down the stems of Siren’s candles like pale flows of blood. It was all he could see, blood. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, it stained his mind. It would be simple to wash it all away. It should be simple...

Siren began to hum a soothing tune as she whittled a short branch of driftwood with a sharp knife.

“What is that?” Carcass asked.

Siren turned to him, ending her song and the motion of her knife. “A charm to ward away beasts.” She rolled the wood over in her hands. “Though who can say such trinkets work?” Her eyes flashed toward Carcass. The candlelight played off their surface like the moon off the waves.

“No, not that... What is that song?”

“A lullaby.”

“Were you… were you singing before I found this place?”

Siren raised an eyebrow. “No. In fact it was your appearance which put me at enough ease to hum a tune. Enjoying it?”

Carcass raised his eyes to the ceiling as the howling of the storm beasts outside reached a crescendo. “Have they noticed us?”

“The vulsheer only stop howling when they go for the kill.” Siren leaned forward so that the candle light cast deep shadows across her face. “They glide down silently to carry bad children into the sky, ripping them up so that their blood falls like rain.”

“Is that another lullaby of yours?”

Siren laughed. “Don’t sulk over there, dead man, come back into the light. I’ve some drink to share, and you’d be welcome to share my pipe as well.”

Carcass watched as she produced a bottle of black liquid. “What sort of musician are you?” he asked as he warily joined her once more in the ring of candles. “I see no lute. No drum.”

Siren uncorked her bottle and took the first draft. A drop of the dark liquid rolled over her chin and down her neck. Carcass took a deep breath. His fists clenched. “Have a drink, dead man.” Siren offered him the open bottle. It smelled of salt and pungent spirits. “A brew of serpent’s ink and sea flowers.” She smiled, her teeth blackened by the drink. “Enough to make any man forget for a while.”

Carcass could feel sweat dripping down his forehead, following well traveled paths between the wrinkles on his face. “You did not answer my question, musician.”

“Perhaps when my lips have been loosened.” She swirled the neck of the bottle through the haze of pipe smoke, tracing hypnotic rings.

Carcass swallowed the thick air, seized the bottle, and drank deep to the howling of beasts and the laughter of the siren.

---

“Not certain why I… why I came here...” Carcass muttered. A lie. He ran his thumb along the edge of his battered axe.

Siren took another drink. The bottle was near empty. “Then why do you think you came here?”

To die, he thought. “To…” he stared down at the blade he had used back then. Each notch a bone broken. Each stain blood spilled. Each swing a scream on the salt air. Perhaps the drink had addled his better sense, but Carcass felt a swell of warmth in his face and tears began to fall from his tired eyes. How disgusting.

“To what?” Siren whispered.

Carcass raised his head to see her in front of him, face pressed close to his own. Her blue eyes stealing the air from his lungs.

“To find some solace from yourself?” Siren’s fingers caressed his cheek. They were so cold. So soft. “To find some vindication from what you’ve done?” She tilted her head and the sea-glass glimmered. “Or simply to forget?”

Carcass shuddered. He tried to pull his gaze from hers but it was impossible. His every thought had been dragged beneath the surface of sensibility. His head treaded water in a haze of pipe smoke and libations.

“I cannot offer these things. Nor am I inclined to,” Siren whispered once more, “but perhaps I can offer some worldly pleasures at least?” The top of her sealskin coat hung open. An invitation. She leaned forward, her lips near touching Carcass’ knotted ear as he began to take heavy, rasping breaths. “What say you… dead man?”

Carcass shoved Siren back. Holding her at arm’s length. One hand gripped her shoulder, the other her neck. He stared at the damp stone floor. At the drops of his own sweat and tears that speckled his old killer’s blade. Quickly, shamefully, he released his grip. “I came here to die,” he muttered, “no other reason. None at all.”

Siren threw her head back and laughed.

“What of you?” Carcass spat. “Why are you here?”

The woman’s laughter weakened into a smile. She stood, stepping back into the ring of candles, and pulling her fingers through the thick blue smoke that hung in the higher parts of the hovel. A crack of thunder shook the cliffs outside. The waves roared. The vulsheer howled. “To play my music…” she said, “for you.”

Carcass pulled himself across the stones until his back hit the door. Those blue eyes. His memory was adrift in their cold reflection. “How… how do you know me?” he murmured with wet lips. “Who are you, witch?!”

Siren knelt down and picked up Carcass’ old axe. She leveled her unblinking gaze on him as she ran her fingers over every notch. Every imperfection. “People used to live here,” she began, “they sang songs from the cliffs to beckon the sea’s bounty. They set candles afloat in sparkling parades that stretched to the horizon. They taught their children the names of the corals and beasts that reveled in the darkest depths eons before the earth dirtied our feet… but now all that remains are bleached bones, screams on the wind and old notched blades…”

Carcass felt as though his heart may burst. His breath was haggard, choked with fear. He grasped the door handle, but stopped short of opening it. The howling had ceased, and only the groaning turmoil of the storm remained. He looked back to Siren, still kneeling among the flickering candles. Still staring with those suffocating eyes.

“Do you remember this one?” Siren asked, pointing to a chip in the axe blade. “It must have been a powerful blow… did they die instantly? Or did they suffer, do you think?” Her finger slid to another warp in the old steel. “What about this one? Did they scream? Or did your strike shatter their jaw, that they could only gurgle pleas of mercy?” She tossed the blade at Carcass’ feet. The metal hit the stone floor with baleful screech. “And how many do you think left no mark on your butcher’s instrument, dead man? After all… the bodies of children are so very soft.”

“I am sorry...” Carcass muttered.

“You cannot even recall their faces, can you? Just bloody meat...” Siren laughed. “Shall we remind you?”

“I am sorry…”

The candles extinguished. The blue smoke swirled around him, inundating Carcass’ senses with the sweet, stinging odor of burning flesh. He could hear the screams again. See the red stained teeth of the dead; blood flowing down the hafts of axes like trails of hot candle wax. He felt his fingers clamping down on fragile throats and bones snapping beneath steel. And finally he saw the woman’s eyes. Haunted, bereft pools that arrested his own gaze. Such a deep, dark blue they were. He held the mangled body of someone who had once sat upon the woman’s knee reaching dreamily toward the horizon... who had listened to her lullabies on stormy nights... Carcass stepped toward her, hungrily, and threw the body aside like so much bloody meat. The woman would not look away. Her eyes remained upon him… Even as she cast herself from the cliffs.

Siren’s fingers cut through the smoke and dragged Carcass’ mind to the surface. To the somber reality of the rain-soaked hovel. She stood over him, a black mass of grief given shape, gazing down. Such a deep, dark blue.

“That which sinks into the abyss may not remain there forever, dead man…” she hissed, “given enough reason, forgotten things can claw their way up from the seabed...”

“I... beg forgiveness…” Carcass choked, “I…”

“And now the carcass begs the mercy of the carrion birds.”

“Please... I have tried…”

“To make amends? To pick the gore and terror from your conscience?”

“Nothing is enough…” Carcass stared at his old axe and began to weep. “Nothing will ever be enough…”

“Not even the life you came here to end?”

“It is not enough. It… it is not.”

“But the ocean churns and hungers all the same…” Siren whispered.

Carcass heard a song on the wind once more. The song that had called him here, carried by a woman’s soft voice. It froze his blood with fear, even as he answered the call, pulling himself to his feet and opening the door to the storm.

The rain now fell as thick red droplets, dribbling into sanguine tidal pools from kelp that hung like flensed off skin. The wind carried the stink of rot and rust, and lightning split the clouds. The thunder that followed was a sharp peal of screaming voices. Perched on every jagged stone and dead tree, the vulsheer awaited him. The rain flowed in crimson webs across their slick, pale skin and fin-like wings. They watched him with bulging lantern eyes, their lipless, needle toothed mouths sucking in wheezing breaths of the cold sea air. Straight ahead of Carcass, flanked by the leering beasts, was the cliff’s edge... where that sweet and terrible song beckoned.

“Your penance, dead man,” Siren said. “Prove that you can do more than just take...”

Carcass stepped forward. The wind bit at his skin and the rain chilled his heart as he shambled to the cliff under the piercing white gaze of the vulsheer. Every footfall was agony. Every motion soaked with blood and wailing pleas. At the edge he gazed down into the roiling black as it climbed the sharpened edges of the ocean stones in wrathful surges. The sea raged. Bellowing skyward and straining for Carcass’ final breath.

The old killer was numb, his meaningless tears ripped away by the storm. He turned his head toward the hovel. Siren stared back. Her eyes just as blue as they were that day so long ago. She laughed with such rapture that the storm laughed with her and the vulsheer howled in joyous concert.

Carcass shut his eyes, felt cold blood spatter his skin, and stepped from the edge.

THE END