The Shoremouth Horror

The engine coughed, a ragged, dying sound that mirrored the state of my escape. Two hundred and seventy-five dollars. That was all I’d managed to snatch from what I’d hoped would be the heist of a lifetime. A cruel, mocking sum. I glanced in the rearview mirror, and the headlights behind me, coming from the wrong direction, sent a shiver down my spine. I was running, and I was running blind.

My destination: Shoremouth, a forgotten coastal town where my estranged Uncle Caleb lived. I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years, but he was my only option. Yet, the road seemed to twist and turn, a maddening loop that led nowhere. I swore I’d passed the same gnarled oak tree three times.

Then, a flickering light in the gathering dusk: a gas station, a relic of a bygone era. The attendant, a young man with a mop of unruly hair, leaned against the pump, whistling a tune that grated on my nerves. I forced myself to act casual, to feign a nonchalant air, but the words burned in my throat: Wasn’t there a Shoremouth around here?

I tried to steer the conversation, to casually inquire about the coastal towns, but my anxiety crackled in the air. The attendant, though, spoke of Shoremouth. He told me of a hurricane, ten years past, that had swallowed the town whole, claiming every soul within its borders. And he whispered of treasures, of riches that now lay beneath the waves.

A spark of greed ignited within me. I pressed him for more information, and he gave me directions to Caleb’s shack, a dilapidated structure clinging to the edge of a cliff. As I drove away, I glanced back. The gas station seemed to shimmer and fade, a phantom on the lonely road.

Caleb’s welcome was too enthusiastic, his eyes burning with an unsettling intensity. His stories were rambling, incoherent, filled with mentions of “friends” who lived beneath the waves. As the tide receded, the skeletal remains of Shoremouth emerged, dark, waterlogged buildings clawing at the surface. Then, the Soggy Dead appeared, a procession of waterlogged figures, delivering a mountain of glittering treasure to Caleb.

My fear warred with a primal greed. I snatched a gemstone, a fleeting prize that turned to dust in my trembling hand. Caleb, appearing as if from thin air, watched me with unnerving eyes. Paranoia gripped me. I needed to escape, but the shack held me captive.

Caleb, feigning exhaustion, revealed a gaping wound in his abdomen, a gruesome spectacle that defied logic. Time twisted and warped, the hurricane a fresh memory in his mind. I peered out the window, seeking an escape, but saw only my own reflection, a distorted, decaying image. Then, a voice, familiar yet distant, echoed from the sea, calling my name.

The Soggy Dead, no longer silent observers, surged forward, their decaying hands reaching for me. Caleb’s eyes glowed with an unholy light. “Do you remember your last robbery?” he rasped.

How could he know? Terror choked me. “You’re dead, Greg,” Caleb continued, his voice a low, guttural growl. “Shoremouth isn’t a place. It’s… a reflection.”

Denial clawed at my throat. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, accept this. Despair, cold and heavy, settled upon me, a shroud that trapped me in this watery purgatory. I was lost, forever bound to the ruins of Shoremouth, another of the Soggy Dead. I would join their macabre dance, dredging the seabed for trinkets, hauling my ill-gotten gains back to Caleb’s shack when the tide receded.

Years blurred into a timeless cycle. Then, a flicker of memory, a replay of my final moments. The botched robbery, the police siren, the searing pain of a bullet tearing through my flesh. I saw myself, a desperate figure, driven by greed, cut down in my prime. In that moment, I understood. I was one of them. I was home. I joined the procession, a new member of the Soggy Dead, the cycle of greed and death continuing its endless, watery waltz. Shoremouth wasn’t a place. It was a reflection of our darkest desires, a purgatory where greed and denial held us captive. And I, Greg Porter, was forever bound to its depths.

This is a novelization of my playthroughs of Cynthia Celeste Miller's Stories from the Grave as part of the Shoremouth Horror misadventure. You can purchase the game here and the seed for the adventure here.