This year as a part of the Brighton Digital Festival I was pestered encouraged to participate in the Geo-writing project.

Geo-Writing invited you to grab writing prompts based on your location, wherever you were in the world! Centred around Brighton – where there were a higher intensity of prompts – but then rippling outwards, the prompts based on your location could be worked on straight away or emailed to yourself to work on at leisure. Authors used these prompts to write a fragment of a story, and submit to become part of a multi-authored ill-fitting story patchwork created during the Brighton Digital Festival. Sometimes, the same prompt was twisted through various viewpoints, other times characters and motifs featured in more than one tale.

My entry is written in the style of an Argus story and inspired by a prompt I found near West Pier: “A speedboat named Calamity crunches out on the pebbles.” The story also works as a loose prequel to these six Geo-writing stories by Clarissa about a Kemptown overrun by zombies known as ‘Blighters’.

“Two taken to hospital after speedboat runs ashore”

The Argus, Monday 1 September 2014

TWO MEN have been taken to hospital after their speedboat ran ashore on the beach in front of the West Pier.

Emergency services were called to the scene shortly after 5am by Brenda Cobb, 48, who witnessed the incident. Mrs Cobb said that the boat appeared to be out of control as it ran onto the shore at high speed.

“When I went down to help I thought they were both dead at first. They weren’t moving and looked like they’d been out there a while” said Mrs Cobb. “So I called an ambulance. I didn’t think I could possibly help them.”

While it is unknown what caused the accident, it is possible that the occupants were in difficulty before they ran ashore. Mrs Cobb said that they looked unwell, but wasn’t sure if they were sick or simply injured and confused.

She said: “One of the blighters bit me! While I was on the phone I heard one of them moving about so I went over to to tell him that help was on the way. He just looked at me funny for a moment, then suddenly lunged forward and bit me on the arm. He broke the skin, but it’s fine. It gave me quite a shock though.”

The men have not yet been identified. The Argus has discovered that their vessel, an Oceanmaster 660 named ‘Calamity’, is not currently on the UK Ship Register.

Both men were taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

More as we know it.