The oceans around here hadn't risen a fraction of an inch; it was warmer

in February now-- that was for sure but the seas did not rise after the

icebergs melted. He'd heard that a lot of the water just disappeared.

The ocean was a giant dead zone for sure. Nonetheless, the Old Man still

came here every day-- rod and reel in hand. Not many tried fishing

anymore, hence the availability easy f tackle in town. He hadn't seen a

person catch a fish in almost a year. Word had it that they were still

catching fish a few hundred miles up north-- up there on New England's

Atlantic Coast.

The old man with the rotting waders was standing-- as usual-- in the surf

today... the grey haze that settled in over the ocean had been there for

at least ten days now... some kind of stringy haired charlie manson type

had been on the beach lately, claiming that the "grey clouds was nothing

but poisonous government created gas." Who knew these days. The old man

just kept on casting and retrieving-- casting and retrieving. Never

catching a fucking thing. The fish were gone-- the ocean was dead. And

everyone here walked the beaches alone.

No more trains, no more planes, no more automobiles; a few bicyclists

seemd to be able to move about-- even in the small towns and cities-- the

bicyclists moved around the best it seemed to him. He was thinking about

trying to find a bicycle one day and maybe seeing what he could do with

it. Bicycling would at least provide some mobility. Where he would go

after these years on the beach he sure as hell didn't know... fuckin bike

probably wouldn't work anyway.

He wondered if She was still alive. She talked about New England before

she disappeared from the beach. for awhile everyone talked about New

England but that talk stopped pretty quick. No one around here really

knew if she took off or if she had been taken. The sand wasn't blood

soaked after she disappeared, wasn't even disturbed. Her things were

gone. She got tired of the beach scene around here-- who wouldn't get

tired of this dead grey surf?

The old man tried casting out a little further this time... the hook got

caught in his waders. No, this time the old man got the hook caught in

his flesh. The old man looked down at it and then yanked the hook right

out of his thigh. "The blood...it'll bring in the big fish." He put his

rod down into the filthy sand and then walked into the water... "It

burns... it burns real good." He walked out of the dead surf and back to

his rod.

The beginning of the end was the summer of 1987, it was supposed to be

the big summer of the harmonic convergence and instead it became the

summer of mob dumped hypodermic needles and dead porpoises. The

government laughed at the problem. Now just about everything on earth

was dead. Like ghouls, we come down to the dead surf and scavenge what

was left while evading the mutations. that's why He still walked what

was left of the Wildwood boardwalk at night-- looking for company.

that's where he found her. That's why the old man still looks to the

dead sea for diner and trophy-- he speaks often of landing one of the

"new fish." The creatures from the bottom evolved upward in the space of

a decade-- growing in size and still retaining the those weird lights on

the tops of the their heads. The razor blade teeth got a lot bigger too.

no big deal to him-- as long as you didn't get in a boat you were okay;

there were stories about the giant new fish lazily swimming amongst the

piers-- trying to chew through the pillars. That was the story anyway.

He'd never seen anyone chewed apart by the new NightFish nor had he even

heard of any secondhand, hearsay type of stories. No one had figured out

why the dolphins died either.

He decided to go down into the surf-- it didn't seem to bother the old

man too much. He stepped out of the tent and took three steps before

something under the sand reached up through and grabbed hold of his

ankle. He knew instantly that death close by. Another painful tug, a

dullish red leathery tentacle reveals itself; in seconds one if his legs

is completely under the sand. He feels the leg tear loose from the hip.

something new underneath the sand is eating dinner, His Inner Voice

calmly tells him as his flashing mind remembers all life' little details

one more time on the "way down." His other leg was torn now; no point in

screaming. No one was coming to his aid, for a number of different

reasons.

Then, the thing under the sand lets him go. He pulls himself out and is

surprised to find that his assesments as to what was happening under the

sand were accurate. No more legs, no hip-- but his spinal cord seemed to

be intact. "I'm okay!" he yelled out. I'm okay. He used arms to pull

himself around now-- no more legs, just arms and a bloody spinal cord.

Everything felt fine. He pulled himself down to the surf. "I'm fine!"

he said to the old man as he pulled himself by. The Old Man gives him

the thumbs up sign. He goes into the surf and does a great backstroke--

finding that the now cleaner looking spinal cord helps him immensely in

the surf. He even spears a small sickly looking Whitefish. He eats it

immediately. He disappears down into the surf for some seconds and then

darts back up with some more sickly looking Whitefish-- all skewered on

his newly revealed spinal cord.

He emerges from the surf. He tosses the old man a few Whitefish and then

pulls himself back to his tent. He watches the sun start to set on this

late winter afternoon. He goes to sleep. It looks like a peaceful sleep

as we pull out of his tent.

the end