MicroHorror

June had been hot. Records had been set in the northern hemisphere: a high of 130 degrees in Cornwall and holding all along the south coast. Now, with the July sea warmer than it had ever been, holidaymakers flocked to the beaches, stripped off, dived in, paddled the shallows, ate ices, injected cash into neglected seaside towns. This could be it. No more having to go abroad to get the sun. Vines producing real plump juicy grapes. Olives growing in Wiltshire. An end to the miserable British saga of soggy summers.

Ben Seward jackknifed in the water. His friend saw this and went to his aid but never reached him and was not seen again as he too convulsed and slipped under the surface. Ben made it somehow to the shore and raised the alarm. He collapsed but not into unconsciousness as he wanted to. Into pain. Indescribable pain, unbearable.

It was at first local to the skin like a slick of white-hot ash spreading outwards and eating upwards. He wanted to tear his hair out, tear the skin from his arms, rip his face off. If only he could get rid of his skin the pain would abate. But no. It delved inward. It curled about his spine, searing and crushing and trying to make powdered charcoal of his bones and there was no escape, no antidote, no thought, just anguish.

Ben did not recognize that he was being spoken to, that he was in an ambulance, that someone was restraining him, that an hour had already passed in this hell of torment, that he’d been given a cocktail of the strongest of painkillers known to mankind. He knew only agony and the dearest wish he had was to die.

As a marine biologist, Ben had measured the rise in sea temperatures over the past several years. It was not that great in the great scheme of things but the trend had concerned him. Whole species were migrating northwards into colder coastal waters. Those that could not adapt might well die out.

Jellies were always ready to adapt. Their spawning places were well seeded and waiting for just such a threat. In benign waters they did not need to procreate aggressively but now more and more young were hatching that had long lain dormant beneath the waves.

Reports were coming in. Sheets of jellies thick as pack ice out at sea. One such colony had been observed from space. Aerial observations had reported the entire surface of the water heaving with them as if they were one gigantic beast. And judging by the increase of attacks, they seemed to have some purpose of intent. Yachts had disappeared without trace. Shipping lanes had been closed.

Ben recovered slowly. He was glad he hadn’t died. He had to warn people. Just before the attack, he’d felt something very strange, an animosity and greed, a malevolence that in all his years of contact with marine life he’d never experienced before. He was convinced. The jellies were on the move. And he was not at all sure they would remain in the sea.