Leave Nothing But Footprints, Take Nothing But Photographs

With our second comic currently on Kickstarter, and halloween coming up we thought we'd share the prose version of our first horror comic :

Leave Nothing But Footprints, Take Nothing But Photographs  
By Tom Smith  


  
1.  

  It was the last day of sunshine. The forecast said the weather was set to turn wet for the rest of the week. Katherine padded barefoot along the beach cast in the deep orange glow of the setting sun. Her father used to bring her to this beach as a child and even now in her middle twenties she still enjoyed to walk the sands collecting her ‘beach treasures’. She had gathered quite the collection today; iridescent shells from mussels and razor clams, a fist size rock covered with long dead barnacles and her personal favourite find; a newly dead crab. She took no pleasure in the fact the crab was dead, of course, Katherine loved all animals and although the sight of the dead crab saddened her it offered an opportunity to examine its strange alien features up close.  "I found one!" she called over to her boyfriend Ben. He clumsily made his way back over the sand towards her his floppy hair blowing in the breeze; even in adulthood he still carried the awkwardness of adolescence in his movements and mannerisms which Katherine had always found endearing. "Poor thing" she said, as Ben looked at it's beady eyes which gave no clue as to whether it was live or dead. The detached top if it's carapace signified very clearly that it was dead. Ben feigned a look of disgust. He loved animals too of course but found great humour in pretending to Katherine that he not only didn't, but that her interest in them was a bizarre proclivity.  "We should give it a proper sendoff" said Katherine. And the two began constructing a funeral mound on the sand complete with a moat and shell decorations. They applied the finishing touches of dune grass sticking out of the top of the mound and Katherine sat the crab atop his throne. "Behold! the crab kingdom!" said Katherine.  "So cruel" said Ben
"What do you mean?"
"Giving him a kingdom only to force him to look on as the merciless tide reduces it to nothing" he said with mock solemnity.
"Shut up!" she laughed as she landed a playful slap on his arm. "You don't really think I'm weird for playing with dead crabs do you?" she asked.
"A true freak of nature" he replied.  

The tide began to come back in and the couple retreated to the higher ground of the tallest dune at the beach head. They sat in a tender embrace and watched the red orb of the sun disappear over the horizon and made love amongst the tall grass in the dunes. They lay a while looking up at the stars until the chill of the night encouraged them to make their way home. A perfect end to a perfect day, they thought.  


 

 2.  Katherine woke early for work the next morning. The early mornings at her new job in the Burmeister gallery were killing her, but the chance to finally curate at a renowned gallery made it more than worthwhile. Ben was working late shifts at the petrol station this week so she left him to sleep until who-knows-when in the afternoon. She rubbed her eyes, got out of bed and made her way towards the bathroom. She was disconcerted by a sound coming from somewhere in the apartment a sort of dripping and popping almost as if it was raining indoors. The noise stimulated the need to urinate in Katherine and she made her way immediately to the bathroom. As she sat on the toilet she looked around and inspected each tap and spigot in turn checking for any that might be leaking. She saw nothing and further to the point the sound had seemed to grow much quieter. The kitchen! She thought, If Ben's left the tap on again! She made her way over to the kitchen to find that not only had Ben not left the kitchen sink dripping but that he hadn’t even attempted the washing up from yesterday. The noise had grown louder however, and Katherine stalked silently around the apartment seeking out the origin of the noise. The closer she got to the doorway by the front door the louder the noise got, and the louder the noise got the more the sound began to take on a sickening gurgling noise along with the dribbling cracking and popping.  Ben was still asleep as Katherine came back into the bedroom;
"Ben, Ben....Ben!" she said as her voice ascended from a whisper to a shout.
"Hmmm Hm?" he muttered awake but with his face still planted firmly to his pillow.
"I think we've got a leak in the front hallway, by the bookcase."  "You called the landlord?"
"Just come and take a look Benjamin!" she said, invoking his unabbreviated name to let him know she was losing her patience. He shambled through the combined living room/kitchen of the small apartment towards the bookcase. He prepared himself for the worst as the wet popping and gurgling did not sound good.
"Where?" asked Ben looking for any sign of dampness or damage.
"I don't know, maybe it's coming from inside the walls"
Ben pressed one ear against the wall pretending as if he knew entirely what he was doing. "It's not coming from the wall. If anything the noise is quieter with my ear pressed to it." "Where can it be coming from?" asked Katherine. Ben took a half-hearted glance around as if by magic the source might reveal itself to him.
"Maybe under the floorboards?" Ben said lowering himself into a prone position. As he went   onto all fours the noise almost seemed to react to his presence giving out a sharp crackle as he shifted his weight onto the floor.
"It sounds like it just came from your gym bag!" said Ben.
"Don't be ridiculous!"  As Ben began to unzip the bag the noise took on a further dimension; that of a wet rasping underlying the original sounds. He rummaged through the bags contents and pulled out a damp plastic bag. The popping and clicking resonated through the bag causing the back to rustle along with the noises. He opened the plastic bag and was immediately hit with the briny rotten smell. Set amongst the shells and stones were twenty or thirty rasping white mouths that snapped and gurgled and thrust out their brownish tongues, or tentacles, or arms, or who knows what groping outwards towards the fresh air. "Ughh!" said Ben as he recoiled in disgust handing the bag over to Katherine.  "What?" asked Katherine "What is it?", she looked in the bag quite nonchalantly remarking with a twinge of sadness; "Oh no! Those barnacles were still alive! I think they'll die if their out of the sea for too long! What shall we do?" Ben looked at her at a loss he didn't really care what happened to the barnacles as long as the obscene noise and appearance of them was out of his sight. He normally loved animals of any description but these creatures he thought could barely be classed as animals! More some horrific plant or sea scum!  "You sure they're barnacles?" said Ben "They don't look like any barnacles I've ever seen! and what's with that horrible noise they're making?"
"There are hundreds of kinds of barnacles!" she said "and they're probably making that 'horrible noise' because they're dying out of the water!" Ben bowed his head unsure of what to say. "Look, I know this is going to sound really cheeky,” said Katherine, “but could you please put these back in the sea while I'm at work today? Please?"  "Kate? It's near enough a three-hour drive there and back!"
"Oh don't exaggerate!"
"In rush hour traffic?"
"Well could you at least put them in some salted water until we can go take them together?" she said motioning toward the kitchen.  "I'm not sure it works like that" he replied.
"Then what do you propose we do Ben?" she asked on the verge of losing her cool.
"Erm," said Ben beginning to squirm, "couldn't we like, y'know, just get rid of them, maybe? I mean they're probably going to die anyway. Right?" Katherine shot him a glance of disappointment that he would come up with such an idea, a supposed animal lover. The look told him in no uncertain terms that they would not simply be disposing of the animals no matter how unpleasant he may find them. They had taken them home and they should be the ones to put them back where they found them or else they would be responsible for the animals' deaths. "Ok," he said "maybe I can take them to the river or something, it’s a tidal river so they'll probably survive quite happily in there."
"Would you please?" she asked putting her arms around him, "I know it's a pain, but I feel really guilty for taking them home!"
"It's not your fault, you didn't know they were still...alive. Don't worry about it" he said kissing her  
forehead, "I'll take care of it today. Sorry for being a grouch about it." "Thank you baby," she said "Love you"
"Love you too!"  

3.  

Ben watched from the seventh story window of the apartment as Katherine walked down the street towards work and slowly went out of sight. He walked back over to the plastic bag that still held the rock and it's grotesque in habitants. They now made awful burbling, farting noises and a briny grey foam frothed out of the rasping mouths. Ben was struck again with how strange these creatures were and how they looked and especially sounded like no other barnacle he'd ever seen at the beach or anywhere for that matter. They were the same size and colour of normal barnacles of course leaving any lay-person with an ounce of common sense to assume that that was, in fact, what they were. But something was off about them. Maybe it was the unusually ornate shells that almost mimicked a spider-web shape or the groping finger like tentacles that occasionally extended out of the shell openings and searched around in the air that looked nothing like those he had seen on nature programs... and the noise, the awful, awful noise.  

There was no way he could endure a car journey with these things. And Besides, he thought, looking at the state of them they most likely die before they got there all the while covering my car seat with sea foam! He resolved that whatever Katherine did not know would not hurt her and decided that he could get a nap before his shift at the petrol station if he simply disposed of them. He picked up the barnacle covered rock being careful not to touch any part covered in the creatures or the repulsive foam. The tongue-tentacles reached out towards his fingers in apparent desperation, the tickling of them against his forefinger sent a shudder throughout Ben’s body. "Euuuchhh" he wretched as he tossed the clump of sea life down the toilet.  

To Ben's surprise the rock floated in the toilet as if the barnacles were keeping it afloat somehow. "Sorry guys" said Ben as he pulled the handle of the toilet sending the clump of alien life into a vortex of swishing water which subsided leaving the rock, still defiantly floating in the toilet water. Ben picked up a bottle of bleach and squirted it onto the writhing lump. It let out a final high pitched gurgle and sank as it bubbled with escaping air. " 'Least you won’t suffer anymore guys." Ben told himself as he flushed the toilet a second time. "For fuck's sake!" he exclaimed as he saw the rock and dead barnacles still strewn across the bottom of the toilet bowl.  Now armed with a plastic coat-hanger Ben proceeded to maneuver the rock through the U - bend. He cursed with frustration as it repeatedly fell back as he failed to balance it as he tried to lift it up through the pipe. With much patience and a lot more cursing he heard the plastic clatter of the rock tumbling through the pipes down through the lower apartments and into oblivion where he would never have to see it again. Ben could relax now and get some well- deserved rest before work.  

 

 4.  

Katherine was already asleep when Ben came home from work. He climbed into bed quietly so as not to disturb her and not have to answer any questions she might have about the releasing of the barnacles. He could think of a better story about their release tomorrow when he wasn't so tired. He eased himself under the duvet, gently as possible.  "Babe?" mumbled Katherine half asleep. Ben froze and stayed quiet in the hopes that she'd drop straight back sleep. His heart sank when a bed-warmed hand reached out to touch him. "Yeah, what’s up?" he said softly back.
"Did you go to the river today?" she asked in a breathy mumble.  "I took care of it they're back in the water now"
"You sure?" she asked questioningly.
" 'Course I did, why?" he said rubbing her back gently.
"I must have been dreaming" she said "Could've sworn I heard that noise again but coming from the floor"
"I can't hear anything," said Ben partially re-assuring himself, "but I haven't been able to get that noise out of my head all day either, it was pretty horrific wasn't it?"
"Yeah, do you think they are ok now?" she asked.
"Erm, I think so," said Ben "At least they're back in the water where they belong"
"Thank you baby" said Katherine. Pangs of guilt shot through Ben as he tried to fall asleep.  

Katherine awoke the next morning feeling exhausted. She had dreamt of the disturbing noise of the dying barnacles and although she had had more than enough sleep she felt as if she had had almost none at all. She dragged herself to the shower in the hope that it would wake her up a little. The splashing of the shower brought the memories of her strange dreams back to her almost as if she could hear the horrible noise now in her waking life. Nevertheless, the shower helped wake her up somewhat, enough at least to help her dress and head out for work.  

She stood waiting at the bus stop in the damp miserable morning weather. She made small talk with Janet, a divorcee in what Katherine suspected was her early sixties (she had a bus pass anyway) who was desperately trying to cling onto her youth and saw Katherine as one way of doing so. She was an amateur sculptor who lived in the apartment below Ben and Katherine's, but thought of herself as something of a professional, and upon finding out that Katherine worked in a gallery, frequently harassed her about exhibiting work.  "I had a word with the chief curator" said Katherine "but I haven-
"Oh it's okay darling" said Janet who also had an annoying habit of talking over people. "I'm sure there's only so much you can do."  
"Yeeeah" said Katherine, her tone apologetic.
"Say," said Janet "Have you and Ben been having trouble lately, with your plumbing that is?" "Not that I know of"
"Think there might be a leak either in the wall cavity or maybe in between your flat and mine. Kept me up all night! Hopefully him indoors hasn't been leaving the tap on again!"
"Funny you should say that actually," said Katherine "because we thought we had a leak yesterday morning but it actually turned out to be a bunch o-
"I'll just simply have to call the landlord!" said Janet having zoned out of Katherine’s story entirely, "I mean the damage will no doubt be bad enough but the noise is insufferable!" "Noise?-
"Oh my bus is here! Au Revoir darling!" said Janet as she kissed Katherine goodbye on each cheek smearing part of her pancake make-up and musty perfume onto Katherine. She climbed onto the bus and as she stood waiting to show her bus pass, she crammed a full four fingers into crevice between her buttocks attempting to give herself a discreet but full-forced scratch. Katherine was still cringing long after her own bus turned up to take her to work.  

5.  
Ben awoke to a faint knocking at the door. He looked at the alarm clock by the bed and saw it was 12.07. It was his day off and he would have preferred more of a lie-in but begrudgingly went to answer the door. The tapping on the door was faint but ceaseless.
“OK!” shouted Ben as he pulled on his nightgown. He approached the door, the knocking still continual, and put his eye to the spyhole. He was disconcerted to find that the hallway was empty, no sign of anyone at all. And yet the knocking continued with its faint tap tap tap. Ben slid the door chain into place and carefully cracked open the front door.
“Hello sonny!” came the voice that almost scared Ben to death. Ben looked down to see the skeletal figure of an old man dressed in a tweed suit almost two sizes too big for him, bent almost double in a deep hunch. He lifted his flat-cap revealing deep-set, droopy eyes that looked at him with a sense of urgency. Ben opened the door fully.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Sorry to bother you, but have you got any cream?” the old man whispered most politely pointing downward with a bony finger.
“You mean like double cream?” asked Ben.
“No, no” the old man said pointing more fervently downwards, “Y’know, cream” the old man leaned further whispering; “Arse cream! Preparation H or something my haemorrhoids have been giving me murder recently and I ran out last night!”
“Oh right, sorry!” said Ben finding himself returning the discreet whisper “I don’t have anything like that though, thankfully it’s not something I’ve had to deal with... yet.”
“Oh, thank you anyway” the man said as his face dropped even more. Ben felt awful letting the man go empty handed continuing his door to door quest for haemorrhoid cream.
“We have some Sudocrem, I think.” said Ben, “If that’s any good to you?”  
 “Oh if you could sonny,” said the old man “It will at least tide me over ‘til I get my prescription!” Ben went and rummaged through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and brought back the grey tub of cream to the man who was now waiting in tense anticipation.
“Thank you!” he beamed as he took the pot from Ben. He turned and hobbled away, his walk showing visible discomfort. The old man flipped the cap off the Sudocrem and scooped a generous helping onto his gnarled hand, he turned to Ben and said; “I’ll bring this back tonight, yes?”  “Oh, no! By all means keep it! You know, just in case!” insisted Ben shuddering at thoughts of the state the tub might be returned in.
“You’re sure now?” asked the old man.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah definitely!”  “You’re a kind man” said the old man “A kind man!” and with that the old man slipped his hand into his baggy trousers and stumbled away whilst applying the cream to the source of his discomfort.
“Bye now!” called Ben down the hall as he closed the front door. Happens to us all one-day thought Ben.  

He had promised himself that he would spend his day off productively but ended up curled on the couch watching daytime television lamenting the decline of culture whilst unable to pry his self away from chat shows and soap operas. Midway through the Jeremy Kyle show he became faintly aware of the same rotten brine stench from the day before. His mind jumped back to the night before to Katherine saying she thought she could still hear the sound of the barnacles coming from the floor. That’s stupid, he thought, even if they were somehow in the pipes still, there’s no way that they could still be alive! Covered in half a bottle of bleach and going on three days out of salt water! He was sure they must be dead, but not so sure that he didn’t pour the remaining half bottle of bleach down the toilet. Just to be sure.  

6.  
Katherine returned home from work to the overpowering stench of air freshener. The aerosol hung thickly in the air and clung to the back of her throat creating a bitter synthetic taste in her mouth.
“Ben!” coughed Katherine.  “Yeah?” Said Ben, darting out from the bathroom, can of deodorant still in hand.
“What’s going on in here? I’m almost choking to death.”
“Just a bit of cleaning! Y’know, being productive on my day off, like we talked about!” he said. Katherine looked around the room it looked almost no tidier than when she left. Oh well she thought some effort is better than none I guess.
“That’s great. Just give the air freshener a rest yeah. Before one of us ends up choking to death”
“Sure, sorry” He said “I’ll go open a window!”  
That evening, the couple stayed in and watched movies until the late evening. Ben recounted his strange visit from the old man and Katherine told of her her equally awkward encounter with Janet.
“I guess that’s what we’ve got to look forward to eventually” said Katherine, “Slowly falling to bits, one embarrassing ailment at a time”
“You’ll get haemorrhoids long before me” laughed Ben “Women often get them in childbirth, you know, from all the straining”
“Yet another reason to never have kids!” replied Katherine. “Sorry Ben, but you’re destined to be the only child in this relationship.”
“If I’m a child then what does that make you?” he chuckled. Katherine rolled her eyes as Ben put his arm around her and caressed the soft skin at the nape of Katherine’s neck.
“Oww!” shouted Katherine in pain, rubbing the back of her neck.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ben. Katherine held her fingers up to show Ben the blood on the end of them from where he had scratched her neck.
“You seriously need to trim your nails Ben!” said Katherine, annoyed.
“Rubbish! I trimm-
The two recoiled as Ben lifted his hand to reveal the single white barnacle creature right on the tip of his right index finger, flailing it’s tongue wildly into the air.
“Where the hell has that come from!?” said Katherine in disbelief. Ben struggled to find an explanation.
“Maybe it fell off the rock the other day; it must have attached itself while I was cleaning up earlier!”
“Can they do that?” asked Katherine, “I mean, un-attach and re-attach at will?”
“Who cares?! All I need to know is how to get the thing off me!” said Ben tugging at the firmly attached crustacean. “It’s on there really tight.”
“Hang-on” said Katherine as she disappeared into the bedroom, returning with a pair of tweezers. She held his hand tightly in hers. “Hold still!” she said as she widened the tweezers and attempted to slide the tip of one point in between the edge of the barnacle’s shell and Ben’s skin. The two were so firmly fixed together that she found skin each time she attempted to probe with the tweezers.
“Arghhh!” cried Ben “You’re just stabbing me in the finger!”
“Yeah ‘cause you’re not holding still!”
“I am holding still!”
Katherine growing exasperated thought it best to take the barnacle off with one quick and easy lunge leaving Ben no time to complain. She lunged forcefully with the tweezer tip and again it simply buried itself into Ben’s skin.
“Aaarghhhh!” screamed Ben pulling back his right hand and cradling it with his left.
“Fine! Do it yourself!” said Katherine throwing the tweezers at him and sitting back on the sofa with her arms folded. Ben picked up the tweezers and began uselessly digging around the base of the creature finding out how tightly stuck on it truly was.
“Maybe it’ll be easier to get it off if it’s dead” he muttered to himself. He took one point of the  tweezers and began to probe the opening on the barnacle’s surface. As soon as the tweezers drew near the mouth-like opening closed tight but with a little force Ben slid the tweezers into the barnacle’s soft inner body. Ben winced in pain as he could somehow feel the metal tip of the tweezer sliding into the barnacle, as if he were probing and bursting an oversized pimple on his fingertip. He could feel the pain of the contents of the shell being scrambled and watched the briny translucent slime ooze out of the barnacle’s cleft emitting its pungent rotten-fish aroma. Ben turned the tweezers back to the base of the barnacle and began to pry it off again. It still hurt like hell, but now he was in control of the meting out of the pain he found it easier to bear. He slid the prong of the tweezer underneath the creature as far as he could bear and used a levering motion to pry it from his finger. Pain stung him and radiated throughout his hand as the barnacle came free, taking with it a considerable amount of skin that left a crater on Ben’s fingertip that began to slowly pool with blood.  
“You should see a Doctor” said Katherine, “In case it gets infected”
“I’ll be fine” said Ben sucking the blood from his finger, “I’ll clean it up and put a plaster on it and if it looks bad in the morning I’ll go to the walk-in centre”
“OK. We should check the flat though,” said Katherine “In case any more fell off”
“Yeah, good idea,” said Ben “You check in here and the bedroom and I’ll check the kitchen and the bathroom” The two separated and Katherine went off into the bedroom. Ben went into the bathroom and ran cold water over his finger, he noticed he was still clutching the dead barnacle in his left hand and threw it down the toilet to join his brethren. He awkwardly applied a plaster and continued to search the bathroom for any other loose barnacles and was taken aback to discover a cluster of barnacles firmly attached to the bottom of the toilet bowl alongside the dead one. How is this happening? Ben thought; why aren’t they all dead? Ben dashed through to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife he could find and headed back towards the bathroom.
“Find anything?” asked Katherine walking out of the bedroom.
“No, nothing yet.” Said Ben hiding the knife down by his side, “You?”
“Nah, nothing either, it’s so strange though! How was it even still alive? The rest looked to be on death’s door almost two days ago!”
“God knows”
“Oh, how’s your finger by the way, does it hurt?” asked Katherine.
“It’s fine” said Ben “Look, you should get some sleep you’re in work early and I’ve kept you up long enough as it is!”
“Yeah you’re probably right” said Katherine checking the time on her phone “I’m just going to brush my teeth and-
“No!” snapped Ben.
“No?”
“Don’t go in there it...stinks”
“It stinks?”
“Yeah, I had to go, you know, when I was looking in there.”
“I’m sure I’ll cope Ben, I have so far.” She said heading towards the bathroom.
“No.” insisted Ben, “It’s really bad, I’ll be embarrassed if you go in there and smell it!”  
 “Whatever” she said, “...Is that a knife you’ve got in your hand?” Katherine asked in confused shock. Ben began to panic. She can’t know, he told himself.
“Ugh yeah, you see I tried to flush it but it wouldn’t... go, I think it needs breaking up”
“I don’t believe it!” she snapped “And you were going to use the best kitchen knife to do it as well!” Ben stared blankly. “Use the old rusty one and throw it away when you’re done!”  “Oh, yeah, sorry” he said.
“I’m going to bed,” she muttered “You’re going to have to grow up one day you know!” Ben replaced the shiny knife with the dull rusted one and chipped the barnacles away from the bottom of the toilet as they bubbled, hissed and spat back at him. Once again he flushed them away and tried to forget all about the bizarre episode.  

7.  

Katherine awoke once again feeling as if she had had almost no sleep at all. No more late-night horror movies for me she thought as she reflected back upon her bizarre dreams, no doubt inflected by the strange incident of the previous night. Only now it seemed as if she were still in some waking dream almost certain she could smell the foul smell and hear the awful noise of the barnacles. The strangeness continued into her commute to work as much as she tried to ignore it. As she sat in her seat on the bus Janet got on, Katherine waved to her and budged up leaving Janet a space to sit next to her as she would undoubtedly want to chat. But Janet seemed to look straight through Katherine as though she were a complete stranger and took a seat behind Katherine on the opposite side of the bus. Is this about me stalling her on exhibiting her work? Katherine wondered. She turned around and smiled at Janet;  
“This isn’t your usual bus Janet” said Katherine. “Are you going into town?”
Janet looked at Katherine as if she had two heads and without a shred of recognition in her eyes.
“A trip to the beach today I think” said Janet, a glazed look in her eye.
“Oh really? Me and Ben went there on Sunday, it was lovely!”  “That’s nice dear” said Janet in a flat monotone.
“Are you OK Janet?” asked Katherine.
“I’m fine dear”
“Are you angry at me, over exhibiting your sculptures?”
“Why should I be angry dear?” she asked in the same spaced out tone of voice. Katherine was less sure than ever that she was awake, she pinched herself hard and could only come to the conclusion that she was indeed conscious. Janet loudly unwrapped a shop-bought chicken sandwich and began picking it apart with her fingers, eating the morsels of bread but picking out the meat from the filling and surreptitiously dropping it into the front of her blouse. She was chuntering and cooing as one who was feeding a baby might do. Has she suffered some sort of breakdown? Katherine wondered in utter disbelief at what she was seeing if she was indeed seeing it. In any event, it couldn’t hurt to help she thought. Katherine got up and approached Janet. The hissing and rasping in Katherine’s head seemed to grow louder.
“Janet, is there anyone I can call for you?” said Katherine as she reached out a hand to touch Janet on the shoulder.
“NO! GO AWAY FROM US!” screamed Janet. The barnacle stench and noise grew ever louder until it was almost unbearable. Katherine had to get off the bus, the fresh air calmed her and the noise seemed to subside. She decided to walk the rest of the way to work to clear her head.  

8.
Ben awoke some time later feeling no better than Katherine had. His guts seemed to churn and turn over themselves. Ben swaddled himself tightly in the duvet attempting to ride out the waves of nausea washing over his body. Furthermore, a creeping sense of guilt began to gnaw away inside of him but for what, he was not quite sure. Was it for lying to Katherine? No! I was simply trying to put her mind at ease! He told himself. It’s those poor barnacles I feel sorry for! Ben was shocked to find himself thinking such things, but nevertheless he was thinking them. Not only that he was feeling them too, a raw spike of piteous regret surged throughout his being, bringing Ben to the verge of tears. If only there were some way I could take back what I did to those poor barnacles! He said to himself. All they wanted was to live, just like any other creature and I destroyed them for the simple fact that they were an inconvenience to me! I am scum! We could have co-existed we could have been...happy! He looked as his index finger and removed the bandage hoping to see his barnacle companion still clung tenaciously, bravely even, to his fingertip. All that remained however, was the red crater-like scab serving as a cruel reminder of Ben’s transgression. He looked on in horror as tears began to stream down his cheeks.  

After crying into his pillow for almost an hour Ben was determined to make amends for his crimes against nature but was unsure as to how he could accomplish this. Perhaps a trip to the beach! He thought. Of course this time he would not be so thoughtless as to bring more barnacles home with him, removing the poor creatures from their homes. Perhaps I could make sure that any barnacles that have been washed up get back to the sea, he thought, save lives where I have in the past so cruelly taken them. And if one or two take a liking to any part of my body that I’m not particularly using then who am I to argue? Why should I not share my body with them?  

He got up from his bed, damp from the tears and the profuse sweating brought on by his nausea. He walked over to the bathroom sink and splashed his face with water. He lifted up the bottom of his t-shirt and used it to pad his face dry. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of his bare midriff and became overwhelmed with joy, his nausea disappearing immediately. He stared at himself in the mirror and beamed the most beautiful smile he had seen on his own face. He walked through to the kitchen and excitedly rummaged around in the fridge pulling out packet after packet of raw and cooked meat. Running with a spring in his step he jumped back into bed, curling up into a contented ball surrounded by the packets of meat.  

 9.  
Katherine sat in the open plan office that looked out into the lobby of the Burmeister Art Gallery. She was nursing the mother of all migraines brought on by the incessant, clawing racket of barnacles. She lifted up her head from her hands to take a sip of water. Just one more hour ‘til I can have another Ibuprofen she told herself. She massaged her temples with the tips of her fingers and looked out into the gallery. Her vision had begun to blur slightly but she was fairly sure that she could make out the outlines of several patrons observing art pieces, hands firmly wedged between their buttocks while their fingers wriggled away in an attempt to alleviate some annoyance. I must be mad or hallucinating, thought Katherine. If only there was some way to tell, she thought  
“Try this,” said Ashleigh, the weekday receptionist, “it’s basil and flaxseed oil, always helps with my mig-
“Ash!” interrupted Katherine desperately.
“What’s the matter?”  “Do you see those people there? Do you see what they’re doing?” asked Katherine. Ashleigh let out a restrained giggle.
“Yes seems to be going around doesn’t it? The piles I mean. I never knew they could be infectious.”  “They’re not!” said Katherine.
“Oh well that’s good at least! I can tell my husband not to worry! Perhaps it’s down to all the damp weather we’ve been having recently.”
“Wait, you mean you have them too!?” asked Katherine.
“Shh.” Said Ashleigh. “No need to broadcast it!” she started to whisper, “The funny thing is that they’re rock hard, literally!”
“Haven’t you seen a doctor?”
“I tried to get an appointment at first but they didn’t have one for weeks. I’m not too bothered now though; I can live with it.”
“What do you mean? It sounds awful!”
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ashleigh “it was horrible at first, the itching drove me mad. But now I don’t feel it anymore. I know it might sound stupid but I don’t really want them removed now almost as if I’d, I don’t know...miss them, or something.”  

The cacophony of crackling and spurting sea creatures rose to an unbearable pitch. Katherine desperately popped several tablets from her blister pack of Ibuprofen, crammed them into her mouth and swallowed them all without even needing the aid of water.
“Sorry but I have to go!” she announced, “I can’t take this headache anymore! I need to rest.” She grabbed her coat and set off out into the grey drizzle outside. She waited at the bus stop only to find that each passing buses’ destination was labeled simply as “Beach”. After fifteen minutes of waiting and with no alternative she began to walk home. Her hallucinations seemed to grow worse as she walked home in the rain. Each drain and manhole cover was encrusted with the strange looking barnacles that had haunted her all week. I must be hallucinating mustn’t I? She thought. After all, no one else was batting an eye to the barnacle covered streets or showing any sign that they could hear the hellish noise that saturated the air or even smell the repulsive scent that lingered like a death-stench in the damp air. It just couldn’t be that everyone else was mad and I was the only exception! It must be me! But If I’m sane enough to realise that all this is insane then can it possibly just be me? She began to pick up her pace; it might take her an hour to walk home. Ben will know, she told herself, he’s still himself, and he will help me!  

10.  
As Katherine approached the block of flats, her hallucinations began to reach some kind of awful crescendo. Passers-by covered their faces to hide barnacles encrusted all over their faces. The creatures hissed and crackled and spat their foul odour when she passed as if it all were being directed at her. An elderly man was crawling out of the building’s front door on all fours. His upper body was bruised and battered and he left a trail of blood from the bottom of the stairs along the tiled foyer of the apartment block from where he had fallen down the stairs. Barnacles that covered him from his chest downwards rasped their brown tongues through tears in his bloodied suit.  
“Tell the damned bus to wait!” he yelled as he pulled himself away from the building. Katherine, too speechless from the assault on her senses to to offer assistance, followed the blood trail back up the stairs where Ben would get her the help she needed and make everything right again.  

Katherine slid her key in the lock and opened the front door. She felt like collapsing from the exhaustion of attempting to maintain what was left of her sanity.
“Ben!” she called out desperately; “Ben!”
She found Ben asleep in bed. How like him, she thought to herself overjoyed, good old predictable Ben good old normal Ben. She shook the lump in the duvet that was Ben and he began to stir. As the covers drew back a waft of nauseating stench filled Katherine’s airways causing her to gag. Ben rose calmly from the bed and as Katherine caught sight of him she stifled herself into a silent scream. Katherine’s delusional hallucinations had not spared Ben, not at all.  
“Exshquishite aren’t they?” lisped Ben his mouth teeming with the writhing crustaceans and stunting his speech. As he stood she could see the gaping crater in Ben’s torso where the barnacles had grown from his inside-out and forced his sternum to warp and collapse in on itself. If this were real, he wouldn't be alive Katherine kept telling herself like a mantra as the tears began to well in her unbelieving eyes.  
“And to shink I onsh wished them harm” Ben continued, running his one arm not yet host to the creatures along the craggy shells of his body’s new occupants which lapped in seeming contentment at his hand with segmented tongues as he fed them morsels of food.
“Ben, I need help” pleaded Katherine; “I’m seeing things. They can’t be real and I’m scared Ben” she began to weep, “you need to take me somewhere to get me help, all I can see hear or smell  is infected by those barnacles!”
“Kasherine don’t wowwy, everyshing wiw be fine shoon. She barnaclshe told me, they shpeak to me.” said Ben in a wet rasp.  
“What do they say?” sobbed Katherine.
“Com wish me and we can be togesher fowever,” said Ben, “they jusht need our help to get home and shen we can get back on wish our livesh”
Katherine, no longer able to trust her senses concluded that at his point she had no choice but to trust that Ben would do the right thing for her. Though her sickened mind would not let her perceive it, Ben would undoubtedly be taking her somewhere to get help and would be worried sick about her. All she need do is follow his lead and surely he would lead her into recovery. The first steps would be back down the bloodied stairway.
“Where are we going?” asked Katherine.
“To the beach of coursh!” replied Ben.  

11.  
Ben led Katherine towards the bus stop just around the corner from the flats, he moved with a sense of purpose and determination that she had never before seen in his otherwise apathetic nature. It filled her with a sense of comfort that she found herself under his care. The old man from before was only just approaching the bus stop having dragged his carcass through the apartment’s car park. Ben helped the broken-up man, soaked to the bone from crawling through puddles in the car park, up and onto the waiting bus that already had a queue of four buses waiting behind it brimming with barnacle infested passengers.  
“I always said you were a kind man” said the old man to Ben as he helped him onto a seat. The passengers nervously eyed Katherine with suspicious glances as she got onto the bus ruffling up long overcoats, trying in vain to hide their precious pets that adorned their bodies. The driver was almost fastened into place by the mass of barnacles that had fused him and his driver’s cabin into one writhing mass of craggy organic matter. The bus hissed as the doors closed behind Katherine and the bus pulled out into the road. She took her place in a seat that Ben had saved for her by the window. The streets were deserted apart from the convoy of buses that slowly but surely made their way westward through the rain sodden coast road.
“The cloudsh are shtarting to lift” said Ben, “shoon it will be too dry for them, if we don’t help them they’ll dry out and die.” The bus carried on its way for a while before hitting a traffic jam of buses around half a mile from the coast.
“We walk from here” said Ben. The pair disembarked from the bus with all of the other passengers in tow some walked, some limped and many dragged themselves along the floor but all in the same mass-exodus to the beach. The queue of buses must have been hundreds deep and many more followed behind Ben and Katherine’s. They made their way through the throngs of people back to the beach where a mere few days ago they had spent their magical day before all of this had begun. They made their way through the dunes and as she came over the peak of the final dune Katherine took in the sight of countless thousands walking calmly down the beach and right into the gaping maw of the ocean.
“Finally we are tchaking the lasht of them back home”  “But what about the people?” asked Katherine.
“We will all be tchogesher” said Ben starting to descend the dune to the beach. “Don’t go Ben” pleaded Katherine, “Don’t leave me!”
“I’ll shee you in there... shoon” said Ben.
“No Ben, I can’t go in there!”
“You will” said Ben, “when they shpeak to you, you will lishen.”

With that he made his way with new purpose down the beach towards the sea. Katherine fell to her knees truly alone in the masses of thousands. She watched Ben until he was just a speck in the surging tides and eventually disappeared from view completely amidst the waves.She went to wipe the cold sweat massing on the back of her neck only to feel the rough shells of barnacles against the tips of her fingers. The creatures tickled her as they reacted to her touch. Almost playful she began to think. Maybe a dip in the ocean wouldn’t be so bad, after all I would never want to harm these creatures.  

-End

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