I found it on the pale beach, ten minutes from our home. Over the rough hills, down the cliffs, by a grey sea.
For a long while I stayed at a distance, not sure about what I was seeing beached on the sand. A conical shell, about the length of a canoe. Tentacles emerging from the wide end that stretched out almost as long as the shell.
I drew nearer. A black eye regarded me. Dead and sightless. The sweet stench of rot filled my nose.
Something from an antediluvian age. Something not of this time. Yet here it was.
It was only the first of many, and not all were dead.
Paddy Dobson
30th October 2022