The Thing on the Shore by Tom Fletcher Page B

burrowed its way in through those holes. The raindrops came down like ball bearings. Like bullets. Arthur stood there on the harbor, near The Wave (currently deactivated), and imagined the height from which the water was falling. He imagined the force of the wind behind it. If Yasmin had glanced down from her living room window, she would have been able to see him. He kept his head down and his hair hung around his face like black pondweed. If she were still alive, his father’s mother would have said the rain was coming down like stair-rods. And she would have been right. These weren’t raindrops—they were solid bars connecting the earth to the tops of the cumulonimbus clouds, piercing his body and pinning him to the spot in the process. Arthur could feel them running right through him. Hishands were pushed deep into the pockets of his thin black trousers. His ears were so cold that they felt skinless, but he didn’t mind. The thin layer of water dancing across the pale stones and small metal fish adorning the harbor promenade looked like boiling oil.
    Bony spotted Arthur standing there from a short distance away, but he couldn’t attract his attention through the noise of the downpour and the voice of the wind. He wore his hi-vis jacket and some blue waterproof trousers that he occasionally used for fishing. He jogged toward Arthur and slapped him on the back.
    â€œYou ready?” shouted Bony.
    â€œYeah!” shouted Arthur. “Been here for bloody ages!”
    â€œWhy didn’t you give Yasmin a buzz? Could’ve waited up there!”
    â€œNo answer!”
    â€œCome on, then!” shouted Bony.
    They turned and ran past the end of the Sugar Tongue, then past the end of the Lime Tongue, occasionally skidding and waving their arms about in an effort not to fall over. They ran past the Zest Harborside restaurant, and at the end of the promenade turned right on to the long stone harbor wall. They ran along it, past the green hull of an upturned rowing boat. They ran on past the Sea Cadets’ building. The sky was something between black and green, and seemed alive and pulsating. Arthur and Bony ran until they reached the warning sign.
    WARNING
The surface beyond this point is uneven.
    They stopped running here and started to walk instead. The sign marked the point at which the harbor wall really struck out into the sea, because it was here that the land fell away to the left-hand side as well as to the right. The sign indicated the point at which it became the West Pier.
    It was a two-tiered structure: one a wide, uneven surface with huge rusty lumps of metal sticking out of it, to which tall ships had once been moored, and the other a high, narrow wall, running alongside the left-hand edge, which had protected sailors from the sea while they were working in bad weather. You could walk along either, but Bony and Arthur now chose the lower path. The smell of salt water filled their heads like a corrosive vapor. The sea down to their right was in a constant state of violent motion as the rain hit it with enough force to smack the water straight back up into the air again, turning it white and soft. When the pair looked up and ahead of them to where the West Pier began curving round to the north, they saw the crests of waves breaking against the barrier wall and showering foam down on to the path that the two of them intended to follow. The pier was so big, so strong and wide and deep and old-looking, that they were both—unknown to each other—reminded of the architecture in that video game,
Shadow of the Colossus.
They hurried onwards.
    As they came to the very end, they slowed down. The structure widened out here, like the clenched fist at the end of an arm, and rising from the center of the bulge was Whitehaven lighthouse. The lighthouse entrance was at the level of the lower tier, but some steps led up around it to enable access to the upper tier. Here, at the end, was an