Far beyond the Paulo Lighthouse, a tidal flow wound its way. In a hundred tiny aquatic arcs towards the bay.
No, it was further than that. Right out to where only the reckless and foolhardy would go. And then beyond, to where the reckless and foolhardy would turn back. (If they still could.)
There it lay, miles out at sea. Even with the beam of the lighthouse you'd struggle to see it. But oh, you could see it if you knew how to. Tom always saw it.
At midnight, on the dot, the crystalline wave rose out of the sea.
Nothing stood higher than the midnight wave.
Nothing was above an evil that rose from the depths of the water, when the moon was full, as the clock struck twelve.
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Most folks dismissed it as an urban legend, but Tom always scoffed at them.
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Urban legends didn't take your oldest son from you.
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A voice screamed from the other room and Tom Hathaway sat up. Even after a year passed, sleep still eluded him.
But that was a penance, wasn't it?
Even if he couldn't for another sleep for another year, for another ten or even fifteen, it didn't seem to matter.
Nothing seemed to matter since Jake had been stolen by the sea.
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He flicked on the light by the bedside table and wandered across the floorboards that felt like ice under his old and calloused feet, Little Daniel was at the window, tears streaming down his hot and puffy face as he pounded on the window with his little pink palms.
His screams had abated but he was letting out the soft and low moan of a trapped animal.
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Tom briefly wondered how many more episodes of night terrors that Little Daniel was going to have.
He wondered groggily how many more sleepless nights there would be before life continued.
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Not until life went on, or until life was okay or acceptable, but how long it was until it merely continued.
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He put his arm around his youngest son and patted his shoulder.
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He flinched for a second, before recognising his father and burying his head into the right leg of his pyjama bottoms. "Just a bad dream, son." Tom said. "Just a bad dream."
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Little Daniel nuzzled further into Tom's leg as Tom held his son closer.
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Tom thought of his oldest son and his eyes stung. It was only after he'd gone that he wished he'd hugged Jake more, so much more, in fact.
But there was that phrase, Tom thought as he felt the first warm trail begin to make its way down his face, about locking the stable after the horses had bolted.
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As Tom did what he'd hoped not to and broke down next to his son who'd started wailing again, he wondered how he was going to see tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
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Tom's last thoughts as he climbed into his bed were that if he were to get through it all, he'd only be able to do it by fiddling with the padlock of an empty and silent house, remembering what once was.
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Tom's alarm started buzzing at five thirty. He wasn't asleep but in a conscious/unconscious haze.
The tide had died down to a consistent watery thrum as Tom made his way across the beach. The grey skies, cold frosty winds and gentle patter of rain did little to stop him.
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This was his vigil.
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Every day.
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The first batch of surfers with crew cuts, shark tooth necklaces and radioactive yellow surfboards with "Walls Ice Cream" stencilled on the front arrived at seven. The surfer at the front with a bobbing crop of bleach blond hair ran straight into him.
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"Uh, can you, like, get out of the way?"
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Tom stoically pointed to a large four-foot high picket sign.
On the front of it was a crudely drawn surfboard underneath a large painted "X".
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"No surfing." said Tom.
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"Hey, you must be the guy that the shopkeeper told me about. Na, I'm sorry man but I just wanna catch a quick wave or two."
The surfer tried to pass by Tom, who moved across with frightening agility.
Tom was the upper end of sixty, but stepped across to block the surfers path with the spry footwork of a man thirty years younger on hot coals.
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Tom made a mental note to have a stern chat with Greg over at The Sand and Sunray Post Office along with an informal talk with two members of the local county council just for good measure.
Tom eyed the kid with the surfboard, furrowing his wrinkled brow.
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He was every bit like Jake.
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"I said no surfing allowed, pal. You can surf up by Stark's Cove or the other side of the bay. But you can't surf here."
"But-"
"You just can't."
"But-"
The surfer looked at his friends for support and found none forthcoming.
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On a litterbin just behind them, a seagull tried unsuccessfully to pull out a Cornetto wrapper coated in chocolate dregs and squawked indignantly at the injustice of it all.
Several other seagulls circling the sands squawked back in agreement.
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A small van with a mesh wire cage attached to its rear trundled along the beachhead as the three surfers stood in front of the immovable father.
A gruff man suffering from male-pattern baldness got out of the van and started to pick up the green Peroni bottles littered in front of a pile of logs, ash and spent Rizla packets.
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"Look, man, dude, we're sorry."
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"Sorry for what?" said Tom, conversationally.
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"Your son, man." said the black-haired surfer behind, adjusting the front of her wetsuit as she spoke. She had an agitated look on her face and was looking over Tom's shoulder at the waves which seemed to coax her into the sea.
"But stopping everyone from going surfing isn't going to bring him back, my dude." added the surfer next to her, a heavy-set black man with dreadlocks threaded with thousands of coloured beads.
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Tom regarded them all with a cold contempt.
He grabbed the surfboard out of the blond surfer's hands and, ignoring his protests, began to walk over to the rockpools by the side of the shore.
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"IT'S ON LOAN, MY DUDE, IT'S ON LOAN!" howled the surfer, as he chased after him. Tom ignored him and began to raise the surfboard above his head, ready to bring it down on a selection of hard and pointed rocks.
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"Wait! We promise not go in the sea! We promise!" protested the blond haired surfer, his voice rising into a falsetto.
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Without lowering the board, Tom turned his head. His eyes were dark. "You're going to go to the other beaches, yes?" he said.
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"Of course, of course! We don't want any trouble, sir!" said the surfer, his hands were clasped together in a plea as he stepped casually towards him.
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"Alright." said Tom.
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The blond surfer breathed a sigh of relief until he saw Tom raise the board. He let out a small cry as the board splintered and burst into hundreds of tiny plastic fragments that rained down upon the sands.
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"Just gotta make sure though." muttered Tom. He turned to walk back to his house as the black surfer began to pick up the fragments of the broken board and the blond surfer's lower lip began to quiver.
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He unlatched the door and walked into the foyer of his small house. Kicking the sand off of his boots, he headed into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. The dinky light inside pinged on, highlighting half of a cheese sandwich, a bottle of milk and a small tub of butter.
He sighed to himself. Was he supposed to have gone shopping yesterday? The days had an irritating tendency to blend into each.
He was looking forward to a celebratory cup of Earl Grey with his legs up on the sofa and a few trashy American shows like Judge Judy, but Daniel couldn't exactly have a pint of milk with a lump of butter in it for his tea, could he?
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Could he?
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He shook his head, slightly angry and sad that such a thought had bustled through his head. He loved his son. It was unfortunate that he just felt sometimes of... giving up. Every single task of the day was just so much more effort than it had ever been. Every single thin he'd enjoyed doing was turned, almost as if by magic, into some sort of dreary chore without purpose.
That was just what grief did to you, it seemed.
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He pulled on his coat before pushing open the front door and heading out the shops. Before he got to the end of the driveway, he remembered that he'd forgotten to do something. He turned back to his house and took out a cracked yellow part of broken surfboard from his coat pocket and hurled into into a container he's duct taped to the wall.
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The broken surfboard fragment pattered against the thousands of other surfboard fragments in blue, red, yellow, green, purple and countless other shades in between as Tom continued down his driveway and off to the shops.
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By midday he reached the local supermarket. It was a TESCO, although it hadn't always been that way. Underneath the plastic lettering the words "High Tide Supermarket" could be seen bleached into the wall.
That'd gone under in 2005 and was happily bought out by the bigger kids on the playground.
Tom struggled with the trolley for a minute or so, having difficulty detaching it from the chain of others before finally wrenching it free and heading into the store.
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He didn't take long, he never did. From the plastic sign advertising beer and disposable barbecues under a harsh florescent light at the door to the bucket of reduced Snickers bars at the till, Tom Hathaway took about five minutes.
He liked to think it was just because he didn't particularly like shopping or ambling and did it for the sake of efficiency, but if he was being honest with himself? He was scared.
People were starting to notice, and people were starting to point. He pretended not to hear the jibes, the mutterings about a man who lived alone with his son who was becoming increasingly unfit to look after him. Oh, he heard them alright.
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As Tom put his shopping onto the moving conveyor belt, he felt a strange sense of determination to get things back to normal again, whatever shape or form this 'normal' would eventually take, he wanted it. Craved it so bad. For both himself and Daniel. They'd-
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The checkout lady had said something. Tom wrapped his arms around himself. The checkout lady had said something and he hadn't- He hadn't heard her! He looked nervously into her face, wondering what to say. He looked past her to his shopping sitting on the other side of the woman with red lipstick and a plastic name-badge marked "Jolene."
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He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, knowing that she'd no doubt said something about him not being fit to be a parent.
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"I'm really sorry," said Tom. "I'm trying to do better, I really am." He felt his eyes well up as he felt a tap on his back.
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"Hey," said the customer behind him. "She's asking if you've brought your own bags or not."
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Back home, Tom slouched on the sofa and began to channel surf. It had become something of a habit, keeping his eyes busy so that he didn't have to look above the television.
But there was nothing on and still about three hours until Daniel came home from school. He'd done the domestics, he'd sorted the groceries, he'd done the dishes, trash and cleared the crud from the black drainpipes that skirted the house and his eyes were glancing upwards, away from Dr Phil who was talking about some trashy young teenager on the placating glass teat.
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As his eyes drifted upwards, he tried to think of more things to do, but there was nothing and his eyes finally caught up with the shelf he'd been avoiding since Jake had gone.
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The worst part of looking at his trophies wasn't the part he thought it would be. He thought he'd look at the awards and simply weep uncontrollably for his lost son, for his legacy, for everything that drove Jake into being just like him. But no, that wasn't it.
The worst part of the trophies for Tom was, oddly enough, the thin film of dust that had built up around them over the year they'd gone untouched.
They used to be cleaned regularly but Tom couldn't bear to look at them. At least, he thought he couldn't bear to look at them. Now that he was looking at them, he felt a strange but happy emptiness. It was almost like nostalgia, but yet sweeter.
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He remembered each one he'd won and the time spent with his son, who'd been just as enthusiastic as he'd been. Looking at the surfboard that he'd put above his trophies after he'd set the world record for Largest Wave Surfed at a staggering 50ft
Of course, that was before newer surfers like Garrett had come along and swiped the record by surfing the 78 footer down in Nazare, Portugal.
Man, those were the days. Him and Jake around the breakfast table, talking about the waves, the surf, the style, the newbies, the peak tourist surf season.
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He'd never really bonded with Jake over much, apart from their mutual love of surfing. It was all they ever needed. Ever since Jennifer Hathaway had gone out the door for cigarettes one day when Jake was early teens and Daniel wasn't even out of diapers, he'd always had trouble keeping the family together.
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He'd hoped that Jenny would come back at some point and sort everything out, but she must have really had trouble picking between brands at the store because it had been four years and she hadn't come back. No word, no letter, no sign of her. And last year when her own son had passed away? Nothing. She'd just stepped out, skipped out on the family in the lighthouse. Sometimes he felt sad about it, enraged about it, but generally the grief had turned into a greying shadow next to Jake's disappearance.
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As the girl on Dr Phil began to get laughed at by the studio audience and she started launching expletives at them, Tom turned off the TV and sat up. It was time to get Daniel from school and besides, trash TV just wasn't doing much for him today. Today felt like a different kind of day.
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It still felt different as he drove Daniel home from pre-school, getting beeped at by drivers left and right because his mind was distracted. Twice he ran over the kerb and a pedestrian hurled a Starbucks cup of coffee at him. He watched the drink explode over his windshield with mild interest, the brown and steaming liquid drizzling down into his windscreen wipers.
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"Huh." he said.
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"Dad?" said Daniel. "Are you okay?"
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"I'm fine, son. Just fine."
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After he fed Daniel some baby carrots, pork trimmings and broccoli, he carried him upstairs in a fireman's carry and popped the boy into bed.
It was only when he pulled the covers up to Daniel's neck and stroked his tufted hair that he felt his mouth open and finally realised why he'd felt different all day.
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"I'm going to go and find Jake."
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Daniel nodded.
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"Do you think you'll be able to bring him back, Daddy?"
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A moonbeam had slid through the circular window of the small cottage. Tom continued stroking his son's hair as he watched the silvery shore writhe onto the sands.
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Tom checked his watch. 11:30pm. It was time.
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Tom opened the door of the cottage and was met with fifty people holding picket signs. He recognised many of the surfer's amongst them. The one at the front had his fist outstretched, about to knock on the cottage door.
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"Can I help you?" said Tom.
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"Uh, we've come to protest the, uh, shoreline. Uh, and the fact you won't let us surf here, man." said the surfer. "It's, like, really unfair."
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Tom looked at the crowd that had turned from what looked like an organised lynch mob to an embarrassed shuffling mass of swimming trunks who were looking around as if they weren't quite sure what they were doing.
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The only person who hadn't backed down was the surfer at the front, with his puffed up chest and bright, staring eyes.
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The blustering winds whipped at his hair and as Tom stepped out onto his doormat, he realised just how this young man looked like him. Perhaps the surfer recognised part of himself in Tom, too.
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In the light of the lantern on the side of the house, every wrinkle of Tom's face was silhouetted as he stepped forward. His eyes, brown speckled with black, the pockmarks on his cheeks. Somehow the light accentuated his age as the circle of surfers broke, spreading out as he moved forward.
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"You can surf down by the bay." he said. "But on one condition."
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He stepped forward, revealing the gleaming surfboard tucked under his arm.
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"I get to go first."
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There was a warm laugh that rose up from many of the surfers around him.
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"No offence old man, but it's ten at night." said the heavy set black surfer with dreads. "And you're what? Sixty-nine?"
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Tom considered for a while.
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"And the tide's at its highest. You'll never make it."
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Tom nodded.
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"I'm actually seventy." he said, picking up his surfboard. "Excuse me, gents."
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The surfers parted, their faces incredulous.
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As Tom walked across the sands he took one brief look back and could see them still looking at him. As he moved towards the sea, he tossed the board into the spray and grinned. Despite his fear, despite everything at stake, he felt like someone greeting an old friend. He walked into the sea, feeling the sting of the icy water raise the hackles on his legs
He hoped he still knew how to do it.
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His hope was ill-founded. As he hooked a leg around the board, it all came surging back to him in an instant. He leaned forward and began to paddle, his arms drawing long and stretching half circles into the water. He moved further out to sea.
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The first real waves were rising up to him and he ducked straight through them, pushing the neck of the board down and diving straight into the base of the wave. Knowing exactly how to get under them was key. If he misplaced himself, he was likely to bail and get pushed back to shore by the next wave before he could right himself.
The waves themselves got bigger and bigger. He could hear shouting from the shore and noticed that some of the surfers had come to the edge of the water in the hopes of getting him back to dry land.
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Several of the men dipped their feet in the water, shook their heads and bunched their arms.
"Sissies." Tom muttered to himself, a smirk growing on his mouth. It was killed immediately by a large wave that rose up out of the water that he barrel-rolled under at the last second.
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He came up gasping for air as the next wave surged into him and he reacted in a split second. Diving under and pushing himself through the water, he looked up and saw the foam of the wave as it passed over him and the shadow it cast over his submerged body.
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He broke water and breathed deeply.
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On the horizon, he saw a brief sparkle. As it distracted him, wave almost tore the surfboard out of his hands. He clenched the side of the board and his fingers turned white as he paddled frantically in the open water.
He kept paddling. Looking back to shore, the people on the shoreline had become ants. But he needed to go further. Further out until they disappeared.
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The Midnight Wave was a fable, a story made up by a coastguard once upon a time to stop people from riding the waves at night and risking their necks on jagged rocks that couldn't be seen. At least, it had become a fable. Old Man Roy claimed that The Midnight Wave was a legend attributed to a time before the invention of surfboards. The Midnight Wave was a rip in the sea itself, a place where you left the part of planet Earth that made sense. Of course, Old Man Ray was one of the oldest lifeguards and the most notorious village drunk that Tom had ever come across.
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The waves were getting higher still and Tom felt the energy sap from his body as he saw just how high the waves were getting. These were invincible and towering, building up into great arching crescendos.
He dove through and kept swimming. He knew when he'd find the Midnight Wave.
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The Midnight Wave itself was a sheet of ice water that rose from the depths of the sea. There were those who'd claim to have ridden it, but they were fools. Nobody rode the Midnight Wave and lived. Because it wasn't just water and wind. It was a living, horrifying wave that lived to kill. It had a mind. It was aware. Tom checked his watch. It had stopped working. In fact, not only had it stopped working, it was running backwards. But that wasn't the strangest thing.
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Tom looked around. The waves had stopped.
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He kept treading water in the still waters. He couldn't see the shore at all. All he could see was a thin silvery line on the horizon and was filled with an indescribable terror.
It get closer, rising and rising further. Tom turned his shaking hands away from it. He squinted, hoping to see the shore, but there was nothing by sea.
He could feel the board begin to rise and gripped as he saw the wave underneath him begin to build. It lifted him, higher and higher and higher until Tom was aware that he was just a speck, just a single mote, in something so big and so dense that it couldn't be described. There was no limit to the sky. There was no bottom to the ocean underneath.
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He could hear the roaring in his ear as he gripped the board and gingerly raised one knee, his right leg shaking. He lifted his leg and put the ball of his foot onto the board and followed it with his other foot. He was suddenly aware that if he fell, he was most likely dead. The wave had to be hitting speeds of forty miles an hour. The trough of the wave was beginning to foam and Tom winced as the top crest of the wave hung over his head. He leaned on his board, surfing away from the break of the monstrous wave, but there was no need.
Gravity had simply stopped working. The physics of the world had simply left. The foam and silver spit hung in front of his face, lapping and splashing at the air. Instead of rushing forward, the wave had simply hung.
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At that same time, a break in the wave appeared, a dark hole opened and something very strange moved through it. It was the nose of a surfboard, but it seemed to be made of a thick black stone. As the nose followed through, he saw the feet of the rider and his breath left him.
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The skeletal remains of Jake Hathaway rode through. There was nothing left of his skin, just a grinning skeleton. His head was wreathed with seaweed and barnacles had crusted in his left eye socket. There appeared to be netting wrapped around his body in the loose fashion of clothes, riddled with fish hooks and the bones of small fish.
He turned his head to Tom and there was an audible crackling as he smiled widely. Tom was speechless with fear and as the skeleton pointed out across the ocean, Tom felt his neck turn.
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Under a starless night sky, the wave had picked up speed and Tom felt his own board being pulled into the undertow, felt himself being dragged back by the sheer velocity of the wave. Tom turned back to his eldest son and noticed that he was ignoring him and had begun to pull harshly back into the wave as it began to speed up even further.
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The break of the wave hung further and further over Tom as the wave sped up. There was almost nothing to see through the wave. No stars, no land, not even any sea. Nothing. The pulsing and spitting waves that roared almost deafeningly in his ears suddenly silenced. The skeleton seemed to smile and once again pointed forward.
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It was quite simple.
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Jake wanted to race.
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The cresting wave pulled back as the wave seemed to almost reverse and the sound of the sea ran back into Tom's ears. It was as if leaving a waking dream, the coast swam gently back into view and The Midnight Wave seemed to settle into a slower speed, seeming less rock solid and more temporal.
Tom found himself enjoying the experience. Maybe the horror had simply broken his mind, but he was enjoying surfing after spending so long out of the water.
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And then it happened, Jake did an Alley Oop.
Cutting back across the swell, his board rode up the wave and flipped 180° across Tom and landed the other side.
Tom laughed, all thoughts of this strange hellish demon leaving his body and his only thoughts being of what surf tricks he still knew.
He settled on a Blow The Tail, whipping the board into turn, the swing of it turning him back out. He looked back at Jake, smiling like loon.
Jake followed up with a Rodeo Flip, grabbing the neck of his board and front flipping over, his seaweed hear lashing against the board with a wet smacking sound as he did so.
As the sands closed in, Tom threw out a Layback Snap and kicked against the wave, bouncing off it. He came out of it laughing, looking for Jake.
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He had disappeared.
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The wave slowly melted down into a thin ripple and Tom gently rode the surfboard to the shoreline. He stepped off of the board and into the waist-deep sea.
Wadding out of the water, he looked up and noticed a throng of people congregating at the shoreline. Some held candles, others held torches. Tom checked his watch. It was one in the morning.
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He clambered out of the sea, almost falling over as he did so and made his way back to the cottage, the sand patting and squelching lightly against his feet.
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No.
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Tom turned back and walked back towards the sea. Amongst the throngs of young surfers, the old man pulled out the picket sign he'd made which loosened with a wet squish and a pop.
Turning it over in his hands he looked at the illustration, the markings of a desperate man wanting to stop nature from doing what it would do anyway.
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Part of him wanted to hurl it into the sea, but he felt that somehow that wouldn't be quite right. He loosened his grip and the sign slowly sifted through his limp hand and hit the sand.
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"Be free."
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Tom turned back towards his cottage. The walk back seemed to last an age, but was probably closer to a matter of minutes. He heard cheering and revelry coming from the strand.
He let himself into his cottage and traipsed up the stairs.
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As he got into bed, he felt his eyes closed. There was no more of the hot current of anger and salt in his bloodstream. The rage, the sadness, confusion and grief had all washed away.
It had all been replaced with a gentle ebb which thrummed within him.
Acceptance? It was that.
That, and no more.
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FOUR YEARS LATER.
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"Dad, can you pass the mustard?" said David. There was a clink as Tom passed the mustard pot. David took it and began to coat his beef with it.
"Easy there, champ." said Tom, laughing. "You might wanna save some for the rest of us."
David sheepishly handed back the pot, a light pink rising on his face.
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"Na, is this wholegrain?" said the heavy set black surfer with dreads. He looked like an oversized figure in a dolls house and took up almost two chairs as he held his cutlery like two cocktail sticks in his oversized hands.
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"Sure is!" said Tom, munching on a stem of asparagus.
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"Ah, I'm gluten intolerant." said the giant man.
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"Pssh. You ain't intolerant, Stix." said the black-haired female surfer and the blond haired surfer nodded in agreement.
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"Am too!" he said. "Whenever I have anything with bread I end up going to the toilet, like, three times a-
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"Dude, dinner table." said the black-haired surfer. But Tom and David were smiling.
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After dinner, the guests said their goodbyes and thanked Tom and David for the Sunday Dinner, dropping a few handfuls of coins into a red bucket marked "Grub after Surf Donations." in black sharpie. The coins hit the bottom with a hollow clunk. Tom considered emptying it. With so many surfers in recent days, it was getting quite heavy.
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Tom stood on the doorstep with his arm around David. They smiled widely and waved at their new friends as they walked back up the cobbles to their homes, waving back at them and grinning.
Behind them was the mural on the side of the cottage, made up of the surfboards that Tom had broken.
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In the cracked and fragmented surfboards, coloured pieces of wood, kevlar and epoxy resin, brands of Wavestorm, Firewire and Wegener, a teenage boy was depicted surfing a giant wave made up of clear plastic bottles and navy-coloured detritus that Tom and David had found whilst beachcombing.
Jake was smiling too.
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