Hubert approached the freezer door gingerly. The seals were failing and he was fearful of triggering an ejection of its replenished contents. DIY maintenance was not his forté. Opinion on this had been unanimous since the incident involving pergola components, a hammer drill and his newly numbed left hand and truncated thumb. Lifting the door handle and easing outwards whilst bracing with his knee usually worked.
He had been re-examining the previous evening’s chronology – the pier’s shadow in the fading light, the incoming tide and Jenny paddling at the water’s edge. They were discussing wedding pros and cons – woodland versus church – when interrupted by a commotion out in the bay. A boiling murkiness was expanding as it rose from the ocean’s depths. Bubbling and spitting it ran towards the shore; the coral-pink darts of the drowning sun were unable to disperse it. Overhead competing clouds of gannets and seagulls quarrelled in a screaming circular tornado. And at their feet, tickling their toes, the advancing flume line turned silver with thousands of doomed sprats. Fleeing the mackerel’s strike they wriggled and squirmed on the reducing ribbon of sand.
Homes, hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and barbers emptied as their occupants gathered in thousands on the foreshore. Always quick to spot a commercial opening enterprising vendors appeared as if by magic.
“Cumon my luvlies. Bag yu catch ere. All sizes. One quid only.” Smirking “A big one for you madam?”
Hubert bought two 10kg bags for himself, two 5kgs ones for Jenny; they started filling, he with mackerel, she with sprats.
Inevitably the forces of Law and Order arrived to deter petty crime, inspect vending licences and augment the council’s coffers with fines from offenders. Indeed many survivors who reported having seen the flashing blue lights and heard the splash thought a speeding police van had overshot the pier and sunk. Not Hubert. The ever vigilant twitcher, he raised his straight-barrelled binoculars and zoomed in. Something grey and vaguely wallaby-human in shape… no neck, elongated legs, shortened arms was clambering up the spiral metal staircase on the pier’s leg. Another followed, then another.
The power cut put an end to further inspection. As the searchlights paled, the town was enshrouded in a darkness punctured by the occasional twinkle of ailing solar garden lights.
Hubert felt a touch on his left hand, side, his arm, exploring his body. He heard cries, screams, whimpers, and the shuffling of frantic feet up the sand dunes towards the car park beyond.
MACKERAL NEWS.
“Some scientists maintain that acidic secretions from human skin burn through their protective scales thus inducing a lingering death. Others contend there is no scientific evidence to support human agency citing skin damage from crowded nets.”
Bingo! The door opened revealing the now-frozen fishy booty. Hubert caught sight of bloodied bone as the flesh unravelled from his truncated left thumb and up his arm. Up, up, up. The pain whipped in.
Humans touched by Aliens?
