7:00 PM, Midnight (Chapter 1)

Friday the 13th of December 2024

We finally moved house today.

When Dad told me we were moving a few months ago, I didn't really know how I was meant to feel. Sad? Scared? Excited? I just assumed I'd need to process it and then I'd know. Now, sitting in bed after arriving here, I still have no clue. I can't say I particularly like the place, but I don't have any reason to completely hate it, although I still don't know why we had to move to begin with. It doesn't help that Dad never really told me either; when I asked him, he just mumbled something about bills and work. That didn't help. All he ever does nowadays is mumble about bills and work. He didn't say anything more about the house until the evening before we left. According to him, we were moving to a place by the coast, on the outskirts of a little village called "Thurton Quay". Apparently it was the only place that could take us. I asked why. He didn't answer. We left the next day.

We didn't really need to pack anything. Dad said the bare essentials were already waiting for us; a lounge chair, an old telly and two beds, so we just left ours behind. The only things we packed were my notebook and pen, a few packets of Dad's cigarettes, the kettle, a handful of cutlery and a few pots and pans, not to mention a bin bag of various clothes that we couldn't be bothered to assort and fold. Then we slammed shut the boot of our beaten up Ford, revved up the engine and left our old lives behind. I still felt nothing.

The drive to the house was mostly uneventful; long grey motorways that occasionally turned into tricky country lanes with narrow roads and sharp bends. Dad didn't seem to need any help, though none of the road signs I could see actually displayed "Thurton Quay" on them, or even hinted at a beach of any sort. At one point I fell asleep. That was weird. I never nap if I can help it, otherwise my body clock gets screwed up and I can't sleep properly for weeks. I don't even remember doing it. All I remember is waking up to Dad driving along a thick pine forest, and a rough tarmac road that steadily got more and more faded until our only guidance was the deep tyre tracks of the people who'd gone through before us. The radio hissed with static. The forest was dark and muddy, and the car was starting to complain. We had to take it in first gear, crawling along as the engine roared with effort along the damp earth.

It was probably due to the car's AC breaking a year ago, but the air had a sweet smell and a thick, muggy temperature. I cranked open the window in an attempt to let some fresh air in, but it only made things worse, peppering my lap with the pine needles falling from the trees around us. I tried to tell Dad that we were definitely lost, but he wasn't having any of it. In fact, he was acting really strange. For the entirety of the journey, he'd been slouched, uncaring, driving one handed with a cigarette in the other. But now, he was totally still. Sat bolt upright. He didn't even speak. He just kept driving through the woods, the trees getting denser and thicker until almost no light broke through the pines. Seemingly any doubts he had were quashed by some sort of strange, robotic need to just get out of the woods, or to get to whatever was on the other side. And somehow his persistence was rewarded, because with no warning, by some strange miracle, the trees started to thin out, revealing an opening towards the edge of the forest. That was enough encouragement from Dad to slam on the accelerator hard, forcing the car through, and eventually out, of the thicket with an awful groan, where we found ourselves crawling through a field surrounded by dead grass and soggy mud. The car lurched forward for about a minute before, with one last splutter, dying in the middle of the field. We were stuck.

The car dying didn't really bother us. It was prone to shutting off once things got too hot, and we knew to just leave it for a while to let it cool down. So Dad put the handbrake up and we got out, where I immediately noticed two things about our surroundings. First was the absolutely stifling heat. It was so hot, I thought I was feeling the sun on my back before I noticed it setting in front of me. But it wasn't even the heat that bothered me, it was the fact that it was the middle of winter. Not to mention it hadn't been nearly as hot when we left at midday. The second thing I noticed, although I'd already been thinking about it towards the end of the drive, was the smell. The forest had a somewhat cloying smell, certainly not pleasant, but not so bad you had to pinch your nose over it. But in the field it was a thick, vile stench, like raw sewage and rotten meat. I couldn't tell if it was the mud itself that stank so much, or if some large animal had died nearby and I was smelling it rot. I tried to breathe through my mouth, not wanting to take it in, but I just ended up tasting it instead, which was far worse. I tried my hardest not to gag.

I heard the scrape of a lighter behind me. I guess Dad wanted to relax, or maybe he preferred the smell of cigarette smoke to the smell of something you'd find in a sewer. I tried not to breathe the smoke in, but I still got a strong waft as he blew it out. It was almost refreshing to smell though. I can't stand the smell of cigarettes, but they weren't nearly as repugnant as what I had been smelling beforehand. But I still left Dad alone. Smoke breaks were his not-so-subtle way of telling me to piss off. In the meantime, I decided to have a look around for some roads, or anything that could guide us to where we needed to be.

There seemed to be a steep decline in the field a ways away from where we were standing, so I decided to go over there first. The mud was boggy underfoot, staining my trainers with a colour that made me feel queasy to look at. Not to mention it was unusually wet, despite the heat. I'd only walked a few yards when I stepped on a loose shoelace and lost my balance, slipping and falling down face first and covering my whole front in a sickly green hue. The stench made my eyes water, and I held back the urge to puke. Dad muttered something about not believing it. This wasn't a great start to my new life.

I spat mud from my mouth, retied my laces, tried my hardest to clean the mud off my front, and kept walking forward until I reached the beginning of the slope, where I was able to look out from the edge of the plateau where we'd parked. The warmth was drying the stains on my clothes and face, making my skin itch. I fidgeted, trying to scratch the mud off my skin before noticing the heat haze of a long tarmac road at the bottom of the field. This then continued for about half a mile before reaching a small cluster of buildings, all thatched, surrounded by a large patch of dead grass. Thurton Quay. It looked tiny. Not that it was particularly small or anything, it actually seemed fairly large. But it was either the distance or the wobbling heat that just made it look miniscule. Insignificant. Like a zit in the grass.

Three distinct "points" seemed to spread out from the village, making it look like a somewhat distorted triangle. The first point was from the field we were currently in, a tarmac road that led straight into the centre. This seemed to be the only way into or out of Thurton Quay. The second point was the only one without a road leading away from it, but it was surrounded by various houses that seemed to block off any potential road out, like they were shielding it. The third point was a thick line of dry dirt, stretching up a hill towards the coast. It was longer than the tarmac road leading to the village, and was split in half by a trail of grass running through its middle. This road led to a deep stretch of ocean, a thin white glow that hurt my eyes to look at. Two smaller roads spread from the dirt; one leading to yet another thatched house and another further along that led to an eerily tall spire standing at the top of the hill, silhouetted against the yellow sky. I blinked, not knowing how long I'd been looking at it. Even as my eyes were closed, I felt it in my head.  

I decided to go back to Dad and tell him about the road at the bottom of the field. On my way over, I noticed a large black cloud behind him, crawling across the sky. I have no clue where it came from. Throughout the journey, the sky had been pretty much totally blue. Dad had noticed the sudden cloud too, as he'd gotten back into the car, hurriedly telling me to get in as smoke puffed from his mouth. I ran in and told him about the road I saw, only just clipping on my seatbelt before he raced off, the car's worn tyres tearing up the boggy ground as we went. Brown grass and clumps of mud wedged themselves into the wheels and splattered against the windscreen as dad tried in vain to wipe it off. Muck streamed from the back of the car as we crawled along, and after an agonisingly long minute of grinding gears and petrol smell we managed to join onto the road, seemingly dragging half the field behind. There was no sign to greet us.

The road was unmarked. That awful smell didn't get any better as we drove along, but that was likely due to the leftover mud still clinging to my clothes. Dad didn't seem to notice it; I think he was just preoccupied with finding the house and getting some rest by this point. The wind blew against the back of the car as we drove, moaning as it made its way through the gaps in the windows. I looked out, hoping to see a signpost or anything that could help us get to where we needed to go, but I was instead greeted by the shadow of that grim cloud as it drifted above the village, crackling with electricity and sending down a thin film of drizzle. The village was pitch black. If there was any daylight remaining, this would make sure that there was nothing left.

Dad tried to flick on the full beams, but the rain was thick and the reflected light just blinded us. We had to shuffle along at a snail's pace so as to not crash into anything we couldn't see. We only moved at the rare moments when the village would briefly shine with lightning, letting us see what was going on for a few precious seconds. But Dad still had some faint idea of where to go, even in the long stretches of pitch black; out of nowhere he turned into a solitary road, almost clipping a wall as he went. Then it was a long slog across a steep dirt lane before taking another sudden turn, this time into a bumpy driveway. The car rattled along with some speed before letting out a dreadful screech as Dad suddenly slammed on the brakes, flinging us both forward. A final, dramatic crack of lightning revealed a thatched cottage standing before us, not even a metre before the car. It wasn't exactly a welcoming sight, especially with an introduction like that. I still have no clue how Dad knew when to stop or even how he knew it was the right house, especially considering I didn't see any sort of name or number by the door. But he seemed certain he was right, and I wasn't going to argue with him.

We jumped out of the car and quickly bundled our things together before running in. What was once a light drizzle had now grown into a full downpour, and even though we only took about ten seconds to get out of the car and through the front door, we were both totally soaked. But we had made it, standing on a scratchy doormat and dripping mud onto the floor. Only I couldn't say I was feeling particularly happy about it. Something about it just made me feel uneasy, almost sick. And deep down, something told me that wasn't the last unpleasant thought I was going to have.

The house was pitch black. We managed to find a light switch in the dark, but the storm must have damaged the fuse because the bulb above us gave off almost no light at all. Dad pulled out his lighter and struck a small flame so we could see around. And I was blown away by how little there was here. The front room seemed to be a sort of lounge area, consisting of a beaten up old telly sitting idly against the back wall, a tattered leather sofa positioned by the left wall, and an old wooden rocking chair in the middle of the room, facing us as we looked around. To our right there were two more doors, one at the far end of the hall leading to the stairs and the other near us opening to a corridor, which gave us the dining room and the kitchen. And that was all there was. Nothing else except the splattering of a leaky drain from outside and that now moist heat that I'd almost gotten used to at this point.

My watch read at 6:54 PM. It was early but for some reason I was unbelievably tired. I left Dad to explore by himself and climbed up the spiral stairs, hearing them groan under my weight. My eyes had somewhat adjusted to the dark by now, and I was able to make out a door immediately to my left. It was stiff, scraping against the floor as I pushed, but eventually opened with a hard shove, blasting me with a wave of old stuffy air. 

The room's layout is a simple square, the door sitting at the bottom right. Positioned in the centre of the opposite wall is the window, which I opened in an attempt to let some fresh air in. To the right of that window is a sink. I used it to wash the mud off my face with some tepid water and dried myself with the inside of my shirt, before dumping it and my trousers on the floor underneath the window. Then I climbed onto the bed and started writing.

I'm sitting down on top of the duvet, my back against the wall as I write in this notebook. The light switch is to my left, about head height. I switched it on just now and the main light turned on, a single bulb protruding from the ceiling. It's just bright enough for me to write with, which is useful. The bed's not too warm, and the mattress is nicer than I thought it'd be, especially when lying on top; the duvet's adding a nice layer of extra cushioning, and I'm not going to sleep underneath it in this heat. I can hear the distant rain outside, as well as feel the occasional gust of air come in through the window. It's nice.

I guess I shouldn't speak too soon about this place. Despite how it may sound, I don't completely hate it. I have no reason to. It'll probably just take some getting used to.

I hope so, at least.
I hope.
Goodnight.