Avenger

Epilogue, Part One

Epilogue, Part One

Wow. I mean wow. I can’t put into words what the outpouring of concern for me and my family has meant to me. I’m sorry for leaving this the way I did, and for not filling you in for so long, but things have been crazy here since all this happened.

After I finished writing, I searched for local information about the tide, but I couldn’t find shit in the time I had. We pulled into Southside-on-sea Station before I even had a chance to look for hardware shops in Southside.

I used my trusty maps app again to find a shop that would have a torch. Southside-on-sea is on a hill, and it’s a very old-fashioned town because that’s what pulls in all the tourists. It must be a ruddy pain to live here.
It was gone 16:00 when I was walking around town, and still daylight. The first few shops I went into seemed bamboozled by a crazed woman begging for a torch and offering to pay way above market price for one, even one that was second hand. I knew that as I ran from shop to shop that I was making a scene of myself. But maybe this is how local legends start. Crazy woman from the North terrorises local businesses in search of torch, is later found by police in a cave with her six-year-old son and a madman.

I finally found one in a shop ran by an elderly man who was selling beach stuff. Plastic spades and buckets for the kids, rubber dingies, beach towels. It reminded me of trips to the beach with my son and daughter. Beach trips are exciting as a kid, boring as a teenager and young adult, then exciting again when you have your own little ones. Just like Christmas.
The man sold me a torch as slowly as is humanly possible and commented on how I don’t sound like I’m from around here. I smiled, trying to calm my rage that he was taking so long.

“I’m from up north,” I replied.

He looked down at the torch in his hand. “I ‘ope you’re no plannin' on a night walk on the beach, at least not for too long. Tide's comin' in.”

“Is it?” I asked eagerly.

“Yeah,” he said, and placed the torch in my open hand. “So, you be careful alright? Don’t get trapped in any caves.”

I looked into his eyes, and he smirked.

“We can always tell,” he said, half-laughing. “You younguns always think you can pull a fast one. Look, I don’t know who you’re goin’ down there with, but the coastguard gets enough calls from tourists who get stuck on the beach in the dark because of the tide. You get your arses off the beach before 9, you hear me? And don’t lose your way in the dark. There’s no light down there, so head back way before 9. Do you understand me?”

I hadn’t been spoken to this way since I was a child, but I was so unbelievably grateful to him right now. Now I knew how long I had to rescue my son, how soon we had to be out of there, and that there was a reliable coastguard service here used to dealing with people getting stuck in the caves due to the tide.

“Thank you,” I said, and left as fast as I could.

My legs had managed to recover from the sprint in Pestleton on the many hours long train journey, but now I had messed them up again. By the time I reached the steps that lead down to the beach, the light was already beginning to fade. It was still daylight, but it was on the turn indeed. It was undoubtedly the time to be leaving this beach, not climbing down onto it.

I took the steps down two at a time. The place looked the exact same as it had all those years ago, which was equally nostalgic and depressing. The steps were covered in sand and grasses, before my feet hit the soft sand at the bottom. In such dull light, the sand looked grey and desolate. I looked out and saw the tide looming nearby, roaring and grey and beautiful and dangerous. Everything we love about nature.