August 6th, 2025

Return to Rocky Point
by Lee Clark Zumpe

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Mist crawled over the lumbering surf, coiling itself around the base of the lighthouse on Oak Island and slithering through the gently sloping sand dunes. Along with the encroaching twilight, it skimmed across the glassy surface of the inlet, lapped at pilings in the harbor, and washed over the wharves in downtown Rocky Point. Gulls noisily scuffled over meager scraps near the fish house, while one lone shrimp boat crept across the horizon. The distant crew carefully skirted the ragged coastline on the Atlantic heading further north to another port, either Smithville or Waite’s Inlet. 

Standing on a bluff overlooking the seaside village, a solitary figure inventoried the shadows haunting the somber streets of Rocky Point. Beneath the arching limbs of a live oak once used to lynch pirates, Bryant Monroe stroked his silvery whiskers and scowled. The chill in the air off the water made brittle his aging bones. Even as a young man, he had felt the icy sting of October dusk heralding winter on this gentle rise set above the Carolina shore. Nothing ever changed in Rocky Point.

Bryant Monroe had not come home for many years. The burden that had kept him in exile for decades stemmed from both grief and regret – and had transformed him into a bitter, bleak, and lonely soul. 

Tonight, he swallowed his guilt to find an old acquaintance.

He descended the cobblestone steps and tramped through a weedy meadow while the moon gradually scaled the twilight summit. The moonglow exiled some sinister shadows, but lent depth to others even more menacing. Bryant negotiated the narrow, winding lanes beneath the serpentine, sable limbs of the live oak canopy. He examined ancient mansions and their crumbling gables, the raised porches cloaked in darkness, the shuttered windows and uninviting doorways and ethereal gardens of the centuries-old fishing community. 

As he passed the Old Burying Ground, he reluctantly skirted the wrought iron fence encircling it. His gnarled fingers squirmed nervously around the bars of the gate as he struggled to recognize names on the closest tombstones. He wondered how many people he had known had come to rest in this forgotten field, ultimately abandoned by mourning survivors, allowed to drift into vague and formless memory until they existed as little more than indistinct faces in boxes of photographs or unfamiliar names in family trees. 

They were all here: Friends, family, fellow fisher-folk and their kin. Generations of people whose lives were governed by the whims of the sea rested beneath his feet. In the cold, callous Carolina ground, they disclosed their final secrets, confessed a lifetime of sins, and recounted the highlights of their lives to swarms of apathetic worms.

Bryant Monroe brushed a tear aside. He could not find the stone he sought amidst the beguiling shadows. He wished he had visited it at least once before this night, out of respect, or grief, or regret. Still, he had not come to mourn her now.

He shambled through the vacant streets downtown, wary of shuffling indistinct forms down on the docks. Midnight fast approached, and he had little time to spend chasing echoes of former shipmates, or reminiscing over a pint in the tavern with the barkeep whose tales had surely grown as stagnant as his ale. Shop windows blackened, street lamps dimmed, this effigy of Rocky Point seemed suddenly lifeless and distressing. He half-imagined children playing in the empty schoolyard, young couples walking hand in hand along the waterfront.

Around each corner and down each avenue, he found nothing more than hazy memories superimposed upon the cruel backdrop of reality.

Moving slowly down Howe Street, he recognized immediately the two-story house at the end of the lane. The latticework framing the three steps to the front door glistened in the moonlight. He had kissed her on those very steps when he was only seventeen. 
Out back, he saw her sitting in the gazebo, staring innocently at the constellations, waiting for him to return after all these years and teach her the names of familiar stars. Unlike him, she had not aged a single day – unlike him, the years had not ground down her features and bowed her frame and made frail her slender limbs.

Unlike him, rampant cancer had not riddled her with tumors.

“Bryant?” She called to him across the lawn. Her smile sent a host of shadows scrambling for more melancholy venues. “Bryant, is that you?”

He had not seen her for forty years. He left her right there, in the gazebo, promising her he would return – promising her they would make a life together, and raise a family. The lure of steady work in the Everglades had beckoned him. Laborers from towns all along the Eastern Seaboard flocked to Florida to make miniature fortunes constructing a road across the vast River of Grass. Bryant swore he would save every penny, return to Rocky Point, and settle down with her.

Late that summer, a pack of thunderclouds drifted off Africa’s western coast and raced across the Atlantic. The heat of the ocean fueled the cyclone; the whims of the sea guided it. When the hurricane reached the Carolina coast, the seaside village of Rocky Point virtually disappeared overnight. Rescuers waded through marsh and forest for days trying to reach the town. They found not a single building left standing, not a single boat afloat in the harbor, not a single living inhabitant. 

They found corpses, and debris, and tragedy. Authorities faced the grisly task of recovering the bodies, identifying as many as possible, and laying them all to rest in the Old Burying Ground – one of the few recognizable landmarks to have survived the storm.

After the final memorial service, Rocky Point subsided into the pages of history. 

Bryant Monroe learned about the disaster months later when he returned to Wilmington. He squandered the money he had earned in Florida trying to drown memories of Rocky Point in whisky. He scuttled his dreams, and resigned himself to misery. He made a living doing the only thing he knew how to do: He signed up to work the shrimp boats out of Smithville.

Over the years, he had heard the tales. Fisherman probing the coves and creeks near Oak Island swore that they had seen the village of Rocky Point as though it had never vanished. When the moon swung low over the Atlantic, and sea fog caressed the coastline, they swore that a ghostly likeness of the village would materialize. They spoke of shadows in the form of men, and voices whispered on the sea breeze.

Bryant had listened to sailors spin the stories time after time, rewarding them both with fascination and with beer. Still, he could not return to Rocky Point. Not until now.

Bryant Monroe gazed upon his first and only love. He climbed the steps and sat next to her in the gazebo, watching the moonlight pierce her vaporous form. 

“It is you, Bryant,” she said, leaning against him. 

“Yes, Lydia – I’ve come home.” He could smell her perfume, and her hair tickled his neck. Had she any misgivings about his tardiness, she forgave him instantly. She knew why he had finally returned to her.

“Everything will be fine, sweetheart.” She kissed his forehead gently. “You’ll be safe now that you’re home in Rocky Point.” 

                                                                        💀💀💀


Lee Clark Zumpe, an entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, earned his bachelor’s in English at the University of South Florida. He began writing poetry and fiction in the early 1990s. His work has regularly appeared in a variety of literary journals and genre magazines over the last two decades. Publication credits include World War Cthulhu and The Children of Gla'aki from Dark Regions Press; Through a Mythos Darkly from PS Publishing; Children of Lovecraft Country and Shadows of an Inner Darkness from Golden Goblin Press; and Corridors and The Pickman Papers from Innsmouth Gold. Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter.
 
Lee’s inclination toward horror manifested itself early in his childhood when he began flipping through the pages of Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland and reading Gold Key Comic classics like Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery and Grimm’s Ghost Stories. In his teenage years, he discovered Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Matheson and other masters of the genre. Lee’s work often focuses on character interaction set against a pervading sense of cosmic dread and high strangeness.