Happy Halloween

No one ever visited Lovett’s Cove, the most anyone ever saw of it was the road sign and the unkempt thoroughfare leading between two skeletal oak trees that formed a natural archway, a gateway to the tiny hamlet that was hidden from the real world in every sense. The only habitation for miles on this stretch of lonely country, a road passers by usually overlook, too intent on getting to their final destination to notice the sign now faded with time and encroaching wilderness that indicated the presence of a settlement.
It’s past residents had always referred to the Bay as their “Little Corner”, a part of the world hidden from the events of modern life, and shielded from change by the landscape around them, a place seemingly trapped in a permanent sea haze forced overland by the cruel waves and swirling winds. The colony was built in a fracture of the jagged cliffs, a zigzag of irregularly descending land meeting the churning ocean shadowed by towering white cliffs topped with wispy vegetation that twisted in the wind like a bad toupee.
The road leading down from civilization split into three about a mile from the main road, the left turn cut into the cliff, four dull grey dwellings overlooking the bay scattered along the track that was laced with potholes that held water like small pools and ended with a rusty railing, beyond that chiselled rock and a declivity that led to crashing waves, the buildings seemingly permanently cast in the darkness of the precipice nearby. The road to the right slowly dipped down towards the sea, five architecturally similar domiciles weaved around a bend in the road that eventually conjoined with the end of the middle road on the cusp of the harbour, set back from this third road was a once green building of corrugated iron, now battered by nature for so long that it’s colours bled down it’s walls like dried tears, at the apex of it’s roof a wooden cross manufactured from aging timber the only indication of the structures intended use.
Then there was the harbour itself, two breakwaters jutting out of the ever changing sea sweeping around from the edge of either cliff face until they met, separated by the mouth of the harbour, much like the rest of the place, the rockwork of the wharf had long since passed it’s better days, eroded brickwork and faded markings overtaken by seaweed and ubiquitous barnacles making the manmade promontory their homes. Small fishing vessels jostle about on the agitated waters occasionally colliding with buoys and scattered debris caught in the eddying waters of the harbour, the boats themselves aged but seaworthy full of nets and rusted cans and boxes tethered to land by heavy coarse rope that creaked as it was pulled between vessel and cleat. At the brink of one of the breakwaters a weather-beaten bell hung from a wooden gibbet crying out across the ocean and echoing meekly around the village as the oncoming mist whipped in from dark waters.
The fading autumn light fell slowly across the sky desperate to avoid encroaching night, above the houses Fulmars and Rock Doves argued over their place on the cliff tops and as the shadow of night swallowed the community and the sound of the bell intensified with the cold wind the once quiet hamlet of Lovett’s Cove basked in a stygian emptiness as it’s now barren dwellings did not twinkle with the spark of light indicative of a home, it’s streets did not become illuminated by fake light, it was as if the settlement had disappeared from sight bar from the oft ignored road sign back in the world. The harbour bell rang out into the blackness, it’s clunking chime answered far out at sea by an ungodly shriek that whilst natural in voice seems to stir the birds on the cliff from their roosting places unsettled by it’s intrusion, now more eager to seek refuge elsewhere as the screeching sound reverberates around the gap in the cliffs like a maddened terrier chasing it’s own tail.