Day 657

The residents of Stoney Fowlhead were mostly elderly, the youth having left as soon as they could, the rest unable to. They stuck to the gravel pits, left the swampy areas well alone. It hasn't been the same there for many years. Not since the lake had swallowed most of the docks leaving behind unstable shells of the boathouses.

Nobody knew if there were any boats left there and nobody really wanted to find out. The faint sounds of music that drifted out from there (ABBA's "Greatest Hits", a leftover from one of the fishermen's boats, well under the water by now) and the ever present chill only served to remind them of who and what they'd lost.

The mass phone calls from the deceased every year on that day didn't make things any easier. They'd call their old friends, neighbours, all manner of relations and just talk  - sometimes for hours - about what it was like at the bottom of the lake. They'd talk about their boats, how the pond weed chained them to their boats, to the old walkways in the boathouses, to each other in some cases. Fused by greeny-grey tethers like amphibious conjoined siblings.

Though the actual cause of their deaths was debatable as none of their bodies had been found yet, it was the heavy rain apparently. Officially. Flash flooded the lower half of the town - you can still see the faint green line from the algae on some of the houses further down the way. Nowadays of course the event that led to the deaths of forty locals has been reduced to a few lines in the history books.

On the twentieth anniversary of the floods the community leaders decided to commemorate the event in the hopes that the music would stop. They had a touching ceremony full of eulogies from the relatives, poems and ABBA's famous hits, all to try and appease their lost ones and settle the lake for good, make it safe again.

For a while it went quiet, no music, no cold chill over the lake and most importantly no mass calls the following year. Only a handful of people were still phoned by the dead, those who hadn't gone to the commemoration for some reason or another.

Word eventually reached Stoney Fowlhead and questions were asked, a second commemoration was planned for the people that had missed the first. The rain poured down as they began the opening speech, an absolute downpour that formed a fine mist all around them. Someone spotted figures walking towards them, slowly rising up from the algae-coated depths with weed trailing behind them in capes and swathes. They were not appeased.

Stoney Fowlhead isn't on the maps anymore. All the roads were broken up and covered in plants. Somewhere deep in the midlands it still sits there, the lake growing with every drop of rain and the townsfolk waiting underneath in pondweed blankets. They're dormant for now but once a year they still reach out to the descendants of the former residents, the ones that got away.

Ever had a call from an unknown number, a silent one that hangs up as you answer?
Ever had any kin from the English Midlands?
Ever had a craving for the mist-smothered moors of a place you've never set foot in?