In a House by the Sea

April had never wanted to live by the sea. She hated it. They had only moved there in the first place because her dad died. Her mum had said that they needed to make a fresh start — somewhere away from all of those painful memories. But April missed her old home. She missed her old bedroom, and her friends and her school. Even the teachers. She missed going hunting for acorns in the woods near their house, and their next-door neighbour's big ginger tom cat who would always run over to play in their garden.

She hated the new house. And most of all, she hated having to see the little boy…

Their new house looked straight down onto the beach — and the endless expanse of deep blue ocean that lay beyond, stretching out for such a vast distance that it made her uneasy just imagining it. Her mother loved it, though. Said it was perfect. A beautiful view. She probably wouldn't have thought so if she could have seen what April did.

The little boy wandered the beach every single day. At dawn, his shadow would become visible in that eerie half-light. He was never there when the sun was up. She thought that he didn't like the light. But he always reappeared at dusk. As the shadows deepened and stretched like awakening beasts, there he would be. Wandering. She thought that he must walk there all night long. But she could never catch sight of him properly in the black depths of the night. Only a flash of movement here and there.

One morning, she woke up and pulled open her bedroom curtains to peer cautiously outside. And there he was. Only this time, he was no longer walking but instead standing quite still. His face — so terribly bloated as it was — was turned in her direction. She recoiled. His distorted features looked even worse from that angle. He was dripping wet. And his eyes were gone. So were large chunks of his mottled blue flesh. She felt sick just looking at him…

Every day after that, the boy's wanderings seemed to bring him ever closer to their house. And on a grey morning in early December, April's mother returned from taking the rubbish out with a slight frown on her face.

'That's peculiar,' she said, as she stepped through the back door and pushed it closed. 'There are little wet footprints all over the patio, as though somebody has been walking around out there in bare feet. You haven't been out there, have you, April? Because in this weather, you'll end up catching a nasty chill.'

April shook her head. She was too afraid to actually speak. And what could she say, anyway? How could she possibly find the words to tell her mother that it was the little boy who had been there? A little boy who was terribly lonely — and long-since dead…

Samantha has been writing horror fiction for over a decade, ever since completing a writing course in 2012. Since that time, she has completed three novels, the most recent of which is currently being looked at by agents. She also regularly writes short stories and poetry for magazines, and has had work published in both England and America. Her website can be found at https://samanthabrookehorrorstories.wordpress.com/. When not writing herself, she is also a short story competition judge on Reedsy.

Find more by Samantha Brooke in the Author Index.

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