Through the Marshes

This one is very similar to a story I had in an episode of the NoSleep Podcast. I guess I like the mix of water and the undead. I can’t remember which I started first, but the idea is very much the same. Sometimes the water gives back.

I was born in Fadwick, around the turn of the century. Back then, it was one of the slowest places in Cambridgeshire. The railway didn’t reach us until I was twenty-five, and even then the train would only come once a day. We were at the end of the line, and few people were making their way to us; few wanted to breathe the marsh aromas when they could get to Brighton or Blackpool.

I made a living loading barges on the canal. It wasn’t much, but it kept me in rent and beer money. After that, what does a man really need? There was never much to do in Fadwick then, caught between the coast and the marshes as we were. The nearest town was on the other side of the bog; there they had proper bars and a large church. If you knew your way, you could pick across the marsh using the spires of each village’s church to guide you, but if you didn’t, well, that didn’t bear thinking about.

I had a couple of pals I’d meet up with in the evenings, just to kill time. None of us was a high-calibre man, but we clubbed together the way you will when your options are limited by circumstance. There was Dane, who worked as a milkman. His real name was Owen, but he had straw-blond hair and stood at six feet, so we all joked he’d been left behind after some raid by the Vikings. Paul and John were brothers and carpenters by trade. The last of our group was Lewis. He was a bargeman like me, but made a little on the side as a poacher. It was illegal, sure, but we could abide him well enough; after all, he was only hurting the squire and himself if he was ever caught. He was often lucky; the most he’d ever had to do was a month in Ipswich gaol. He was a decent lad, but when he’d been drinking too long, he could get disagreeable.

One day, there was a new face in town. A lad by the name of Mills appeared off the train from god knows where. He must have spent most of his money on the trip, so by the time he made it to us, about as east as east gets, he was near penniless. The first I saw of him, was the day he stepped up to the barges. He was a gangly one, that was my first thought. Mills came decked out in a crumpled suit, the elbows reinforced with leather patches. I reckoned it to be a hand-me-down by the way it hung off him. When he clambered onto a barge and off the towpath, he was blinking like it was his first time seeing the sun. I didn’t pay him more heed; I had a crate of potatoes that needed seeing to.

He became the subject of interest within the town. A place like Fadwick, nothing much changes, so when a new face materialises, eyes turn, and rumours start to crawl out of every gutter. I heard from the chemist that he was the son of a mine boss up north, that he’d gotten a girl in trouble and had to flee our way. The butcher’s wife was sure he was rich as well, but he’d sold his family’s company and come up from London. I didn’t know for myself, and the feeling amongst my friends was that we didn’t care. We saw another young man, another piece of competition for the few jobs there were in town. Nothing would have come of it if he hadn’t stumbled into our haunt one evening.

The pub was called the Lost Lamb, a rickety old place on the canalside. We picked it as our haunt because it was the midpoint between all our houses, and we met up there often to commiserate with each other and suck down pints. That night we had a snug at the back, and we’d settled in for a quiet one when the door came in on a draft of rainwater. We looked up from the cards we’d set out and stared over; there he was, Mills, shaking off at the bar, his hair plastered down across his forehead.

“So that’s him then?” Lewis nodded across at the newcomer, “That’s the prick trying to slide in on us?”

Dane was taking a draft of beer, but managed to turn his eyes over long enough to notice. He swallowed hard and shook his head.

“Leave him be; he looks like a drowned rat as it is.”

“Leave him be?” Lewis said. “He’s the one here sniffing after our work, and I should leave him be?”

“Sure, who cares about him? He’s in the same mess as the rest of us.”

I nudged Lewis and smacked the deck down on the table in front of him.

“Come on, it’s your deal.”

I was beating the lot of them, and I was anxious to press my luck. He picked up the cards, and I thought for a moment we might get some peace and a little more sport as he began to shuffle them listlessly, sneaking glances back towards Mills. His face twisted up, and he dropped the deck again.

“Sorry, lads.” He thrust the deck back to me, “Go on, you deal again, you’re faster,” and before we could stop him, he’d pulled himself from the snug, his face slipping into a jovial grin.

“Fuck sake,” Dane shook his head and took another swig from his glass, “Why’s he like this, huh?”

I shuffled the cards about in my hands, but none of them was interested anymore. In the end, I nodded over at the bar.

“Come on, let’s go after him; keep him in check if we can.”

It wasn’t that Lewis was a bad person, but he was mean in a childish way; he liked jokes that always seemed one-sided and never stopped to think them through. To make it worse, he was a notorious sulker when he finally caught the short end of someone’s nerve.

We set the cards aside and took our glasses, sauntering over to prop the bar up, one on either side of Lewis and Mills

“...it’s certainly hard to find something these days.” Lewis was nodding along at something the damp stranger was saying.

Mills had a foamy pint of lager in front of him, his fingers sliding over the glass. He was grinning with Lewis, right, right, exactly right, but it was the kind of face you pull at an animal you think might be ready to bite.

Lewis was waving us into the conversation,

“Hey, here my friends are now. Say hello, guys.” And we all ran through the opening chatter, each volley of questions and polite jokes. I let myself hope it was going well for a time, that maybe Lewis was just sober enough that he wasn’t in the mood for trouble.

We took Mills over to our snug, and we all got in at the cards again. I kept my winning streak, as luck had it and took five shillings from the others. I looked up an hour later as the clock in the far corner struck nine. I looked around at the others and started raking in my winnings, ready to pack up and head home. That was when Lewis decided to make his play with the newcomer.

“Oh, come on,” He whined, “We can’t finish up yet; we haven’t even done our tradition.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, sliding away my money. “What?”

“Come on!” Lewis dropped a hand onto Mills’ shoulder. “He’s new; we have to put him through the ritual!”

Dane and I swapped a look. The hairs were prickling at the back of my neck, but Lewis was nodding, draining the last of his pint.

“Every newcomer has to make the trip across the marshes to Eldwich; after that, you’re a real Fenlander!”

I felt the weight of the day sag onto me, and I rocked my head back, exhausted.

“Come on, let’s not do this. I’m in no mood for messing around in the marshes tonight.” I leant past Dane and shook my head at Mills, “Don’t listen to him, alright? He’s loaded.”

“No, no,” the new lad held up a hand, “If there’s something I must do to earn my place here, then I’ll do it. You just point the way, and I’ll be off.”

Holding back his mirth, Lewis gave him directions, then Mills downed his pint, and no matter how many people called out to him not to go, he pushed through the door and out into the night.

Paul slammed his glass down and glared across at Lewis, “Why the hell would you go and do a thing like that?”

“Would you all relax?” He put up his hands, “He’ll get halfway there and lose a shoe, then turn around, alright? He’ll be fine.”

We settled back into our night, but an uneasy feeling hung over the pub, mixing with the rain that lashed down outside.

When Mills didn’t show up for work the next day, people started to look at Lewis. He met them with jokes, waving off the suspicion.

“He’s just run off; the work’s too hard for him.” But I could tell his bravery was a mask for a far more desperate emotion.

When they finally found Mills, he was face down in the marsh, so bloated that his clothes had begun to split at the seams. All the murmuring stopped, but the looks went on. Only then did Lewis stop with the jokes. We tried to get back to normal. Working together, Lewis and I could joke and get on as we had before, but something in him had changed. He wasn’t lively anymore, not like he had been. He did his work without complaint, but without joy.

The months passed, and I thought we had regained ourselves, the changes in Lewis aside. We returned to the Lamb, if more quietly than before. No one picked on Lewis; the difference in him was easy enough to see, but just as well, no one would go out of their way to associate with him. A small village can be a lonely place for a man like that. I should have known something was going to give, but god preserve me, I never imagined it would end as it did.

Winter came howling in, and the storms blew in off the coast, channelled through the marshes. The days were hard and the nights long; tearing wind kept us all indoors or wrapped in layers of wool and oilskin. The night it happened, we’d returned to the pub and dug in for a long one, hoping the storm would abate before we were kicked out. The rain was lashing down outside like the lord was making ready to whip the slate clean again, and Lewis, Dane, and I were huddled up along the bar, the air steamy with shivering bodies.

Dane and I had slipped out the back, where the publican had a covered area for a lav. We thought nothing of leaving Lewis there; more and more he liked his own company, and we’d left with a full pint. As we came in again, we were hit by a gust of wind, let in through the open door. Someone had come in and let it bang open in the gale. The first thing we noticed was the smell, like the bilge from the guts of a barge, river water and a slurry of coal dust and rat shit.

My eyes shifted, following a trail of murky footprints that led from the door to a shambling figure crossing the floor. They were all bulging flesh, mottled black and grey with swollen lips, yellow eyes bulging from sockets now too tight, a cloud of flies trailing behind. Step by lumbering step, they moved across the floorboards, which creaked under their bulk. Each time they placed their foot, more water oozed from their pores. They made their way across to Lewis, wheezing with the effort.

Our friend looked up from his beer, face pale but now unclouded.

“Good to see you again. You finally made it back, huh?”

The corpse slumped onto the stool beside Lewis, the legs creaking beneath him.

“I guess you’re a real Fenlander now after all. Will you take a drink?”

In response, the newcomer’s head lolled forwards, hair falling into his eyes.

Dean tossed a handful of coins onto the bartop, “Come on then, Albert, one more for myself and my friend here.”

Dane jumped forward, ready to step in, but I caught him by the arm. There was a sense in the air; whatever was happening, Lewis wasn’t making to run. He was as scared as any man would be, but he was steady.

Albert fought his terror-stricken hands and pulled out another two glasses of ale before pressing himself against the back wall. In the rest of the bar, all that could be heard was the lashing rain outside and the waterlogged breaths of the corpse. Lewis slid the beer in front of his guest and raised his own.

“One for the road, huh?”

The pair drained their glasses; foamy backwash dripped from the corner of the dead man’s mouth, then Lewis gave a nod, and they rose as one.

“Lewis!” Dane called out over the silence, “Come on, don’t go out there.”

But he turned that face on us, and I saw in his eyes a peace I’d never witnessed on his features before.

“Don’t worry, lads. We’re just off to take the air. I’ll see you later, alright?”

And he turned up his collar and followed the hulking shape out into the rain, reaching back a hand to draw the door shut behind them.

I can’t say what we did for the rest of the night; we drank far too much after that, though I’d say we earned it. We staggered home together, jumping at every shadow along the way.

They found Lewis not long after dawn.

He was stretched out in the churchyard, laid on top of the grave belonging to that unfortunate young man who’d drowned in the marshes. His skin was grey, his lungs still bloated with water, but on his face? An expression of repose, unmatched by any cherub in that graveyard.