Midnight at Swimcart Beach

The wind is cold, even though sunset is a couple of hours away. Catherine looks up and down the beach, pulling her knitted shawl tighter around her shoulders.

There are other holiday makers dotting the beach and the campsites, though not nearly as many as she had expected. Most are distant and hazy, featureless impressions of folks going about their holiday. A man tends two fishing rods that jut from the sand, each considerably taller than he is. Further along, a trio of teenagers sits together just above the tide line. In the other direction, two local women stride purposefully along the waterline while a small terrier splashes along behind them. At one of the campsites, a mob of kids is being herded towards a group of cars by their loudly fed-up mothers - a big family group, leaving before nightfall.

Nobody is swimming – just beyond the tide’s edge, a few metres out into the water, Catherine can see a dark line where the water turns a deeper shade of blue. The shelf. An old weather-beaten sign at the car park entrance urged swimmers to be aware of the submerged shelf that ran the length of Swimcart Beach. As if you could miss that abrupt blue border where the sandy beach fell into the ocean.

Catherine sighs. No campfires, no party crews. The beach is gorgeously wild, of course, but she’s still disappointed. In the last week she’s camped at a few gorgeously wild beaches, but she came to this one in particular because it’s popular, it’s Saturday night… and she could use some company. Lonely Planet had noted that Swimcart was a favourite of the locals. Just not tonight.

She flops down on the cold sand. It is fine and white, squeaky. It clings to the light folds of her long floral skirt and scratches her carefully selected nail polish as she leans back on her palms.

The idea of a solo camping trip along Tasmania’s East Coast had seemed pretty wild from her flat in Carlton. She had camped with friends plenty of times, and she had been to Tassie a couple of times over the years, but an extended backpacking trip in a state she wasn’t that familiar would bring her right to the edge of her comfort zone. Or so she had thought. Despite her mum’s anxious warnings that a young woman shouldn’t be backpacking alone, the trip had actually been something of a non-event. The beaches were all beautiful and wild and ancient, but that was Tasmania. Everything was relatively accessible, food was cheap but of high quality, people were friendly but not intrusive. Apart from her phone running out of batteries yesterday, there had been no drama at all to speak of. Even the buses had run on time.

Catherine wanted fun. She wanted to be breathless, through a gasp or a kiss either way thank you very much. Working in a city like Melbourne was sometimes the greyest type of anonymity – you could lose sight of yourself amongst the wide concrete streets and soaring buildings. Her flat and her office, both airtight and unchanging, hummed quietly amongst the city’s white noise. Weeks could tick by, marked only by the progress of TV series and the occasional visit from her parents.

She wanted to be a part of the world. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted adventure.

So she had come to Tasmania to find it. It was the middle of summer and the East Coast would be thrumming with people. She saw herself in a lemon sarong, dancing on a beach amongst a small crowd of hipsters while a visibly high DJ played records in a van until the sun came up. Each campsite would be a party in progress. Anyone could be a new lover, best friend, or drinking buddy.

The man down the beach is packing up his fishing rods. Catherine hasn’t noticed him catch anything. The big family is gone. The two local-looking women have almost reached the small stone hut that denotes the end of the campsites. The hut backs on to a small carpark and from there a long dirt road leads back to the highway. In minutes she’ll be alone on the beach.

She climbs to her feet, scanning the long single row of campsites. There are no lights, no murmuring, glowing tents. Her camp is the only one she can see. She sighs again. There must be a festival on further down the coast, some event that’s drawn every one away. She had noticed a few event posters at the airport in Launceston but hadn’t imagined anything would be on down here. In any case, she has the beach to herself. Brushing sand from her skirt, she heads up to camp to get dinner started before it gets too dark.

When the moon comes out it is full, round and silver, sitting low above the waves.

Fidgety and restless, she fusses with her bed, her tent and her towel until each is laid out perfectly in preparation for her impending sleep. There isn’t a speck of sand in her tent. She sighs, bored, and pours another glass of wine. She can’t help wishing – not for the first time this trip – that she had gone north to the Sunshine Coast or maybe Cairns. In reality, she knew she would have hated the sweaty nightclub crush, the cheap food and the relentless heat. This semi-remote beach was far more her style; it’s just so quiet tonight.

After turning her lamp up as high as it would go and hanging it outside her tent, she picks up her book, blanket and wineglass and walks down to the beach. The water is rolling velvet and blue-grey fuzz. Far out on the horizon, she can see a small light that slowly moves south, a ship headed for Hobart no doubt. Somehow its presence makes her feel even more remote. Marooned. Abandoned. She smiles, wryly, and lifts her glass. Abandoned with a pretty fine Semillon Blanc.

Reading on the beach at night still seems pretty special. Tonight, with the moon as bright as it is, she doesn’t even need to turn her torch on. The ocean is a steady backbeat, breaking gently over the submerged shelf. She reads and enjoys the earthy aesthetic that the odd grain of sand brings to the pages.

She finishes the chapter and her wine, sighs and puts down glass and book. Bedtime. It’s not even midnight. The ship has moved past the horizon. She wonders wistfully if it was a cruise ship, one with a 24 hour bar and dance club. Probably not. The ocean is too lonely for music tonight.

There’s no light in any direction, except for the moon. Its brightness makes the sand bone white. Moonlight drifts across the ocean in a wide arc, illuminating the waves. Catherine can see every ripple on the surface, every shifting plane. A slight breeze tickles the beach. She pushes hair out of her eyes and leans back, gazing out to sea.

There is movement in the shallows. Catherine sits up, wondering if she had imagined the dark shapes, but there they are again. Two distinct shadows are breaking the surface, standing up in the water directly in front of her, perfectly outlined in the moonlight.

The shadows of two people, playing in the water.

Two children.

They circle around each other, frolicking in silence. Their splashing doesn’t move the water. A girl with long hair, and a slightly smaller boy. Otherwise featureless, they play in their own silent world.

Catherine is frozen. She tries to draw breathe. Her body isn’t responding. After a moment her feet begin to work, kicking against the sand, pushing her backwards. She fights for breath, trying to feed the scream building in her chest, gulping loudly at the air.

As one, the shadows stop and look towards the beach. To Catherine’s horror, the shadow girl slowly lifts a hand, waving to her. Her breath comes now, hard and fast. The shadow boy, shorter and stockier, starts running towards her.

Flailing numbly, Catherine finds her feet as the shadow boy reaches the edge of the water… and disappears. Catherine pauses in confusion, but only for a moment. Small footprints are forming in the smooth sand, footprints made by thin air, footprints of somebody running towards her. The shadow girl watches from the water.

Shaking, suddenly drained of strength, Catherine turns and runs. Her feet are heavy and slow in the dry sand and her skirt tangles around her legs. The light of her campsite is a million miles away and as she pushes herself towards it, a cold realisation hits her – she has nowhere to go. She’s alone, a long way from anywhere. She shrieks and runs without looking back.

She reaches the warm orange light of her lamp and snatches it, diving into her tent. Sand from her feet and skirt peppers the canvas floor unnoticed as she quickly zips the tent closed with badly shaking hands. She collapses on to the inflatable mattress and pulls a blanket around her shoulders. Her breath comes in hitches and shudders that she tries to control and fails.

Something touches the tent wall.

Catherine screams, screams like she has never screamed before, a scream that thrums in her ears and leaves her throat raw. Whatever is pushing against the tent wall – it looks like a small hand – traces across the canvas towards the zipper. Shrieking with her entire body, Catherine backs into the corner of the tent, pulling the lamp with her. As the hand reaches the zipper, she starts to sob uncontrollably, unable to look away.

The hand touches the zipper… and retreats. Nothing happens. Catherine’s sobs become shallower as she gets them under control enough to breathe properly. Her eyes never leave the zipper. Nothing happens.

She sits that way for what seems like hours, the lamp gripped in shaking hands. The wind gets louder, but nothing happens. The adrenaline flooding her system begins to peter out. She doesn’t move a muscle. Her ears are tuned to every wave and whisper. She grieves for her mobile phone’s empty battery. She's due to check in with her mother in tomorrow afternoon.

Abruptly the lamp flickers and turns off. Startled, Catherine bites back a shriek. The darkness in the tent is heavy, oppressive. She breathes hard and heavy. Still nothing happens.

Time has lost all meaning. She wonders hopelessly about the sunrise, trying not to remember that the night is still young. The darkness is getting too much. Slowly, she begins to move, to feel her way around her bedding. She finds the best weapon she can – her small frying pan – and grips it in her fist. She creeps towards the zipper, steeling herself.

A small, cold hand rests on her calf.

Catherine screams and whips the pan around in the darkness behind her, striking nothing. She waves it through the air with all her strength, finding no purchase. The hand is gone. Screaming hysterically, she claws at the zipper with her free hand ineffectively. Dropping the pan, she forces herself to slow down enough to grip the zipper tab and pull it down, letting in the night air, breaking apart the thick darkness of the tent. She falls out through the canvas, landing on her hands and knees.

They are waiting for her.

A girl and a boy. Both are pale, fish-white against the night air. Their hair is damp, their bathing suits of some other unknown era. They watch her, expressionless, holding hands, dead.

Unable to speak or scream, Catherine whimpers. With numb legs and feet of stone, she somehow manages to crawl sideways, away from them, towards the beach. When she is a few feet from her tent, she scrambles to her feet and runs aimlessly. Now she can scream, she is already screaming. She looks over her shoulder and wishes she hadn’t.

They are coming for her.

Glowing silver in the moonlight, the pale girl and the pale boy are walking down the beach toward her. The soft sand doesn’t resist their feet the way it does with Catherine. She scrambles and turns, disoriented with fear, knowing only that they are getting closer, unswervingly closer. She runs without direction and doesn’t even flinch when her feet strike the cold ocean water.

She makes it out to the shallows, where the stupor of fear snaps. Freezing water grasps her knees and somehow clears her head. Hot tears are running down her cheeks. She takes control of her breath and looks up and down the beach. There are no lights to be seen, no campsites, no cars passing on a distant highway.

The children have reached the water’s edge. They stare at her, fixated, entering the spray without breaking stride. They move through the water effortlessly, coming for her, unstoppable.

Catherine whimpers and turns away from them, looking back to the ocean’s horizon, looking for a ship. The salt water is painfully cold, but she steps further into it… and suddenly there is nothing beneath her.

The shelf is sharp, steep, deep. She can’t catch herself.

She plunges deep into the freezing ocean, blackness closing above her head. Her kicking legs are slow and ineffective, the water is solid in every direction. She has lost the moon. She doesn’t know which way is up. Coldness is everything.

She stops resisting. In her last moments, in the deep, freezing darkness, she feels something. Two small hands, gentle but firm, wrapping around each of her wrists. She shudders, one last time, as they pull her deeper into the ocean.