I sit on the couch thinking about Sergeant Johnson. I play with iPerceive, flipping it on, turning it off, turning it back on, then back off. On, off, on, off, on/off/on. Now I’m at the door, now outside; now it’s snowing again, cold and getting colder. I turn iPerceive off. I follow muddy tracks in the virgin snow.

Nathan Susnik is a biomedical researcher and medical writer who lives with his wife and children in Hanover, Germany. His fiction has appeared on Gallery of Curiosities and is forthcoming from in Devilfish Review and Grievous Angel.

For publication updates, follow him on Twitter at @NathanSusnik.

The Black Tide

Laura Duerr

Art: P Emerson Williams

The harvest moon drew us out to the beach late on Friday night. It was mid-September, still warm, and I ached to escape campus with my new friends and enjoy the coast – no matter the hour – before the autumn rains started. I sat in the back of Angela’s Jeep with Gabe. Up front, Angela and Kate argued over the best route to take.

“Michelle, you grew up there,” Angela said as we left campus. “Which freeway do we want?”

“It’s almost midnight – does it matter?”

“Fair.”

We reached the beach within an hour and a half, expecting to find the town asleep, but it was as crowded as a summer weekend. Every street, every parking lot, even front yards and dunes were crammed with cars. Shadowy masses of shouting people poured down the moonlit, sandy lanes towards the beach. I’d hoped for the head-clearing solitude of the deserted coast; instead, the atmosphere felt more like the minutes before a concert starts, all electric anticipation.

Much too late, I remembered why. The moonlight should have reminded me, but I’d worked so hard to forget. It had felt so freeing, so daring, to mark up my September calendar with normal things like soccer practice and homework due dates instead of the countdown to the harvest moon – but there it was, gleaming innocently, luring all these people down to the surf.

I felt two truths instantly: the moon would take my new friends, and it would be my fault – unless I did something.

“Maybe we should just try again next weekend,” I suggested. It was the best I could come up with. I couldn’t tell them the truth, they’d think I was crazy, but in my panic, I couldn’t think fast enough.

“No way.” Angela continued down another block, negotiating the Jeep through the swarming crowds. “I didn’t drive all the way out here just to turn around.”

Her bangles jingled against the steering wheel. My dresser top was scattered with orphaned earrings and a tangle of necklaces, but Angela’s looked like a store display, with dainty metal trees showcasing her jewelry. Angela asked weekly if I’d help keep the room clean, but I kept finding excuses – I had practice, I had homework, I was late for class. I’d found excuses to let Gabe take on more than his fair share of work for our case study. I’d even found excuses to avoid Kate when she needed someone to talk to about missing her boyfriend. I’d been selfish and I’d taken my friends for granted. After tonight, that would change.We just needed to get back to campus.

But no excuse seemed good enough, especially since I’d been the one to suggest the adventure – we had no game tomorrow, no need to go to bed early.

I felt sick – and then relieved. I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t feeling well, to beg them to drive me home.“Look!” Kate pointed. “Those guys are leaving.”

Three people climbed slowly into their sedan. They were crying.

“What’s that about?” Gabe wondered. I said nothing. They wouldn’t believe me anyway, and if they refused to leave, they would find out soon enough.

When the sedan didn’t immediately depart, Kate reached over and tapped the horn, earning us a trio of middle fingers.

“Just give them a minute,” I burst out.

“Jesus, fine – I just want to get out of this car, already.”

The sedan left and Angela took its space. Kate had already unbuckled and leaped out before the engine shut off. Within moments, I was alone in the car.

“Let’s go!” Kate shouted.

The sounds outside were familiar, the soundtrack to my annual living nightmare. As I climbed down from the Jeep, I felt like I was five, or twelve, or fifteen again, terrified of how my quiet beach town turned into a moonlit hell once a year.

The streets were raucous with voices and the distant surf. The thrum fed Kate like a breath over embers, but for me, it was a harrowing reminder of why I’d left. I’d chosen a college inland, safe from the moon, but also near enough to reach my family, if needed. Every past harvest moon night loomed in my mind: identical memories of trying and failing to sleep, thanks to the blinding full moon and the shouts of triumph and grief that reverberated through the town all night.

I wanted to run, to hide in the car where it was safe – but I knew if I let my friends out of my sight, I might lose them forever. They didn’t know, and even those who knew were lost so easily on nights like this.

So I caught up with them as they ran the final block to the beach. Kate led the way. Her blonde ponytail danced as she dodged between eager visitors pressing towards the ocean and wild-eyed mourners leaving.

“What the hell are so many people doing here?” Gabe asked as a sobbing woman collided with him and drifted away. “And why are so many of them crying?”

I almost told him. If I could catch them one by one and explain it to them, there was a chance they’d believe me and agree to leave – but then we reached the dunes.

Even Kate fell silent at the sight of the beach. The pale sands were coated in black. Hordes of people with flashlights crisscrossed the beach, so many that their voices almost drowned out the surf, the flashlight beams slicing across the pitch-dark sands. The noise was alternately hellish and jubilant.

“Was there an oil spill or something?” Angela asked.

“It’s the black tide.” All three stared at me. “Once a year, during the harvest moon, millions of black jellies wash ashore. No one’s ever been able to figure out what they are, or even if they’re alive or dead. We just call it the black tide. My parents always kept me inside whenever they came ashore.”

“Why?” Kate kept glancing back to the crowds. “Because of all the crazy people?”

“Because of the jellies themselves; because one time, ages ago, people tried eating them.” My stomach turned, roiled by fear and disgust. “About half of them died instantly. Just dropped dead where they stood.”

Kate wrinkled her nose. “And the other half?”

“They’re probably still here,” I said. “They lived forever.”

They stared at me for a moment, then Gabe barked a laugh. “Come on. Is that your town’s version of the Jersey Devil story or something?”

“It’s true.” I pointed. “Just watch them. They cluster around each other and egg each other on and wind each other up until finally someone is brave enough to pick one up and try it. They come with friends and family and they all swear they’ll keep each other from doing something stupid, but secretly they hope it’ll work, that they’ll be one of the chosen ones. And then they’ll go home with a parent or a sibling or a spouse who will never die...or they’ll go home alone. Just watch them.”

We inched down the dunes, afraid to get close to that slimy black mass but drawn by its possibility. Though I knew I shouldn’t, though the thought made me shudder, I wanted to touch one, to finally understand what made them so tempting.

A man, his triumphant face lit by a half-dozen flashlights, dragged the blade of a pocket knife across his bare chest. Blood poured down, but the wound sealed itself in the blade’s wake. Angela gagged; Kate gaped. I covered my mouth and found my cheeks were wet: I was crying. For all I knew, I had been crying since I saw the tide.

“I didn’t know it was tonight.” Was I asking preemptively for forgiveness? Or was I praying, or perhaps planning what I would say to the parents of whoever might succumb to the temptation? “If I’d known it was tonight, I’d never have let us come out here.”

“Don’t worry about it. None of us are stupid enough to take that risk,” Angela said.

“Really? I was going to say none of us are stupid enough to turn it down.” Gabe stooped and came up with a handful of jewel-black organisms. I lashed out reflexively and struck his wrist before he could fully straighten up, sending the black spots spattering.

But it was too late: the crowd, alert for anyone making the attempt, gathered tight around. Led by the newly immortal man with the bloody chest, they pressed in. My feet were stepped on and an elbow jabbed my side. No apologies followed: their attention – their will, even – was fixed on Gabe.

“Are you going to do it?” The hushed insistence came swiftly, an uninterrupted susurrus of temptation, the voice of the Serpent itself. “He’s gonna do it. Is it worth the risk? Do it, man. What’ve you got to lose?”

One last bit of black slime still clung to Gabe’s index finger. He squinted at it, turning it to catch the light from the jittery flashlights. I was too far away to stop him. He tossed his head, making his bangs dance to one side: his nervous tic whenever he didn’t know the answer to a question.