"Are you sure this is the place?" asked the girl.

The old man nodded slowly. "It must be. There's nowhere else left to go." He looked around at her and tried to sound earnest. "This is where we're meant to go - what we're meant to do."

Ahead of them, at the top of the long rise, stood a low line of weather-blasted buildings. The road ahead was littered with the discarded debris of departed lives.

Behind a line of bushes dying in the salt-laden wind, the spacious car park was clogged with downed trees and more worrying debris.

'High Point Hideaway' the tired letters on the sign assured them. A stupid name as it was visible for miles around - anything but a hideaway. Shem recalled quizzing his mother about the name even as a child, but she was as just as puzzled as he was.

Another small piece of airborne grit stuck to Ashlynn's skin in the clinging heat. She read the words carved on a stone that stood just past the car park - 'From This Point You Can See 5 Counties'. Counties that no longer existed.

She thought she heard something like voices, low and murmuring. Looking around cautiously, she couldn't see anyone near. In fact, they hadn't seen anyone for over a week. Ashlynn thought there was hardly anyone left now, and that maybe she and Shem were the last ones.

She stared back the way they had come, watching a tornado of trash on its ruinous path across the landscape. Above it the sky darkened still further, working its way up to another storm. Where she stood, the sun was still shining but that would change soon.

"Are you sure this is the place?" demanded Ashlynn. She spoke to Shem with the precise blend of insolence and decayed respect that she would have reserved for her father. Like so many others, her real father had died years ago from living the wrong life.

He nodded, his mind racing ahead to what had to be done next.

His memory was dislocated, fragile and idiotic. He couldn't recall his late wife's face exactly, yet he recalled every self-serving word uttered by this young woman who had attached herself to him on the road.

The storm inland shook the air with its fury. It would overtake them within a few hours, they knew. The soured clouds had turned an unpleasant greyish purple.

The sun burned them, even through a layer of distressed haze, and Shem welcomed the shelter of the service station canopy. He stepped around a temporary barricade of empty racks that had once held oil cans.

The brightly-coloured plastic of the pumps, meant to conjure up dreams of freedom and power, had faded badly in the sun and wind. Shem scraped the salt rime off the glass of the antiquated mechanism. The worn dials showed that the last person to use it had bought an enormous amount of fuel, maybe even emptying the underground tanks.

He hoped that, whoever they were, they had got where they were going. But he doubted it.

They turned and walked across to the main door of the cafe, where they were met by silence.

Shem pushed open the door slowly. Just like the thousands of houses they had passed, it was as empty as their lives. Despite the cause of both having been long gone, the place stank of sweat and benzene.

It was filled with a desolation of empty chairs and tables strewn with the litter of last meals. The place belonged to the flies now.

There were names scrawled on every surface, some in chalk, others in lipstick. One or two looked like they'd been written by something pointed that had been dipped in mustard.

In his mind's eye Shem could see the owners of the names crowded around him. Panicked, confused, angry - grasping at any straw that was offered, thinking that petrol and flight were the answer. How many had turned back, in hope? How many more went on, in desperation?

Leaving Ashlynn searching for something to scrawl their names with, Shem walked outside and followed the road down the far side of the hill.

Scattered along the recently-formed green and brown shoreline, abandoned vehicles, already beginning to rust, stretched almost out of sight.

The tarmac was broken into uneven chunks, backing up the road as if trying to escape the unending battering of the waters.

The white line down the centre of the road disappeared into the creaming froth of the waves, pushing and pulling at the new shore. The bleached and battered remains of a 'Keep Left' sign emerged every time the water receded.

There before him was a sea where there should be no sea - the vast expanse of a living ocean. The words 'a last refuge' broke surface in his mind, to be swallowed again in seconds by his uncertainty and fear.

Ashlynn had emerged from the old cafe and began following him down to the water's edge. She looked back towards the town and, hidden over the horizon, the vast, empty cities. Overcome by longing for a moment, she fought back her regrets and turned towards the water.

When she caught up with Shem, she stood staring at the back of his head, as if trying to see the thoughts inside it. "Shall I start counting backwards from 100?" Her sarcasm was edged with more than a little despair.

Shem gestured impatiently for her silence. Ashlynn listed carefully for several moments, then shook her head. "Look, you said something about a boat …"

He turned to her, lips pursed. "No, I never mentioned a boat."

She frowned at his words. "But how can we get to a ship without a boat? And how can we cross the sea without a ship?"

He shook his head once more. "Not 'cross' …"

She grew angry, waving her arms aggressively at him. "You said we were going to join the others!"

"And we are," he said, firmly. "Now, please …"

Shem waded into the water. He remembered how very long the journey had been. A twist of words and he'd be there. "I see the sea - I think its thoughts." His tongue felt like a blade, severing him from his old life. The musings of the water became the murmur of voices.

Though he'd barely muttered them, he was sure Ashlynn must have heard his words. The time was right. He leaned back and grabbed her by the wrist. "Come on."

"No. No, please - I can't swim!"

His grey locks shook vigorously. "You don't understand. You don't need to swim. Trust me. You have until now."

She took a hesitant step forward, her breath coming hard to her.  "But what about… everything. All that we knew and felt - What about us?"

Shem looked at her and tried to make his reluctant facial muscles conform to the memory of a smile. "It's of no matter now. We will remember. The sea will remember."

He waded in further, the water rushing forward to tug fiercely at him. Wading in, she faced him and he held her hands as the voices of all those who had gone before them grew louder in her head.

Her breathing steadied as she began to understand now what they were saying. She understood that this was the only way.

The waves caressed her skin as she felt the change begin. The water within met the water without. Her skin became transparent as what had been her flesh began pouring away into the waves around her.

Moments before she felt herself become liquid, she saw Shem's face cascade down as the water swept over him. He had been claimed by the receding tide. Now he was the tide.

Where they had stood a few moments before, there was a fresh swell as the water rushed the last of the land once again.

The thoughts of the sea broke on the shore, splintering into a thousand shining wavelets, before dipping hard and rushing back to rejoin the unending ocean of memories.