Cry for the Strangers

by John Saul

  When the Night Waves Crash on Clark’s Harbor

  They stayed as close to the high water line as they could, hurrying down the beach. The flashlight was almost useless, its beam refracting madly in the downpour, shattering into a thousand pinpoints of light that illuminated nothing, but made the darkness seem even blacker than it was.

  Suddenly Missy stopped and yanked at her mother’s hand.

  “Someone’s here,” she said.

  Rebecca flashed the light around with a shaking hand. “Robby?” she called. “Roobbeeeee!”

  She turned so that her back was to the wind and called out again. There was no answer, but she suddenly felt the sharp sting of an electrical shock as a bolt of lightning flashed out of the sky and grounded itself in the nearby forest. And, she was sure, there was something behind her: an unfamiliar presence.

  A presence she knew was not her son.

  She dropped Missy’s hand.

  “Run, Missy! Run as fast as you can.”

  And then, as she watched Missy dash off into the darkness, she felt something slide around her neck.

  No, she thought. Not like this. Please, God, no …

  a cognizant original v5 release november 24 2010

  By John Saul:

  SUFFER THE CHILDREN

  PUNISH THE SINNERS

  CRY FOR THE STRANGERS

  COMES THE BLIND FURY

  WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

  THE GOD PROJECT

  NATHANIEL

  BRAINCHILD

  HELLFIRE

  THE UNWANTED

  THE UNLOVED

  CREATURE

  SECOND CHILD

  SLEEPWALK

  DARKNESS

  SHADOWS

  GUARDIAN

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  a division

  of Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Copyright © 1979 by John Saul

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76823-0

  v3.1

  For my Parents

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Book One: Clark’s Harbor Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Book Two: Night Waves Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Book Three: Storm Dancers Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  A clap of thunder awakened the boy, and he lay very still in his bed for a long time, wishing the storm would go away, yet, at the same time enjoying the excitement of it. As each flash of lightning briefly illuminated his bedroom, he began counting the seconds, waiting for the explosive roar of thunder. The storm bore down on the coast; the interval between the flash and the sound grew shorter.

  When the moment separating sight and sound shrank to only seconds, and the boy knew the storm had reached the beach a mile away, he rose from his bed and began to dress.

  A few minutes later he opened the door and stepped out into the driving rain. It slashed through his clothing, but he seemed not to notice. He began walking slowly away from his home, into the wrath of the storm.

  He heard the roar of the surf when he was still a quarter of a mile from the beach. The rhythmic pounding of the waves, usually a soft, gentle sound, was amplified by the storm, its steady beat carried on the wind. The boy began to run toward the sound.

  A sheet of lightning lit the sky as he left the road and turned onto the path that would take him through a narrow strip of forest to the beach beyond. The thunder crashed in his ears as the white light faded from his eyes: the storm was all around him.

  He approached the beach slowly, almost with reverence. Just beyond the woods a mound of driftwood lay tangled on the beach, blocking his way. He worked his way over it carefully but steadily, his feet finding the familiar toeholds almost without guidance from his eyes.

  He was about to clamber over the last immense log when the storm suddenly broke and a full moon illuminated the beach. As if by instinct, the boy dropped to his knees, crouching as he surveyed the strip of sand and rocks in front of him.

  He was not alone on the beach.

  Directly in front of him he could see shapes, dark figures of dancers writhing in the moonlight as if in some sort of ceremony. He watched them in fascination. Then he realized there was something else. Something vaguely disturbing.

  As he watched his eye was caught by a movement near the dancers. Two other forms were moving in the moonlight—not gracefully, purposefully, as the dancers did, but struggling, rolling about in the sand as they fought the ropes that bound them hand and foot. The boy remembered the legends, the stories his grandmother had told him about the beach, and with the memories came an electric surge of fear. He was watching a storm dance, and he knew what would happen. He crouched lower, concealing himself behind the log.

  The dancers continued their strange rhythms for a little longer, then suddenly stopped.

  As the boy looked on, the dancers surrounded the bound figures who lay squirming at their feet—a man and a woman, he realized now.

  They put the man into the pit first, then the woman beside him. They seemed to be weakened, for their struggles were feeble and their voices could not be heard above the surf.

  The dancers put them in the pit so that they faced the sea.

  And then the dancers began refilling the pit.

  They did it carefully, relentlessly. No sand fell into the faces of the victims, nor did the shovels strike them. But as the minutes passed, the pit filled. In a little while there was nothing left above the surface except the silhouettes of the two heads against the foaming surf beyond.

  The dancers stared briefly at the results of their work, then burst into loud laughter—laughter that carried above the surf and sounded in the boy’s ears, driving out memory of the thunder and the roar of the sea.

  As the tide began to rise the dancers started walking toward the woods, toward the boy.

  The moon disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the driving rain began again. The macabre scene on the beach disappeared into the gloom, remaining only in the boy’s memory, where it would stay forever.

  Under cover of the storm the boy left his hiding place behind the log and scurried back into the woods. By the time the dancers from the beach had made their way through the driftwood barrier, he was almost home.

  The tide was rising.

  The boy woke up early the next morning and stretched in the warm coziness of his bed. The sun poured through his window in bright denial of the recent storm, and the child smi
led happily as he looked out at the clear blue sky. It would be a good day for the beach.

  The beach.

  The night came back to him, a dark confusion of shapes and sounds. He remembered the storm, and waking up. He remembered counting the seconds between the flashes of lightning and the thunderclaps. But the rest was all fuzzy, like a dream.

  He dimly recalled going down to the beach and seeing something.

  Dancers, burying two people in the sand.

  And the tide coming in.

  The boy shook himself. It must have been a dream. It had to be.

  He began listening for the sounds of morning. His father would be gone already, working the woods. His grandmother would be bustling around the kitchen, and his grandfather would be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading out loud to nobody in particular.

  But this morning there was silence.

  He lay in bed for a long time, listening. He told himself that if he listened long enough, the familiar sounds would begin, and the nightmare would fade from his mind.

  The silence terrified him.

  At last he rose and started to dress. But his clothes, the clothes he had neatly placed on the chair the evening before, were scattered on the floor this morning, and wet.

  It hadn’t been a dream after all.

  He put on clean clothes, dressing slowly, hoping every second that the morning sounds would begin, that he would hear his grandmother clattering dishes in the sink and his grandfather’s voice droning steadily in the background. But when he was fully dressed the silence still resonated through the house.

  He went to the kitchen. The remains of his father’s breakfast were still on the table. That was all right, then. But where were his grandparents?

  He made his way up the stairs, calling out to them as he went. They must have overslept. That was it—they were still in bed, sound asleep.

  Their room was empty.

  The dream came back to him.

  He left the house and began running toward the beach.

  He paused at the edge of the woods and stared into the trees as if hoping that somehow he would be able to see through them to whatever lay waiting for him on the beach.

  His face tightened with worry as he stepped into the woods. He almost turned back when he came to the driftwood barrier.

  But he had to know.

  He picked his way carefully through the tangle of logs, not so much because the way was unfamiliar, but because he wanted to prolong it, wanted to put off reaching the crescent of the sand.

  Minutes later he climbed slowly over the last log and stood on the beach.

  The storm had covered the beach with debris: kelp lay in tangled heaps everywhere, and a new crop of driftwood was scattered helter-skelter across the expanse of sand and rock.

  The boy looked quickly around. Nothing unusual. His heart surged with relief and the worry on his face gave way to a grin. There would be good beachcombing this morning. With a little luck he might even find some glass floats lying in the seaweed.

  Near the water he saw a huge mound of kelp and headed toward it. He walked eagerly at first, but as he approached the dark brown tangle, he slowed, his apprehension flooding back.

  He began pulling at the tangle.

  Either it was buried deep in the sand or it was caught on something.

  He pulled harder.

  The kelp gave way.

  It hadn’t been a dream. From under the kelp, still buried in the sand up to their necks, two faces stared grotesquely up at the child, their features contorted with fear, the eyes bulging open.

  His grandparents.

  The boy stared helplessly back at them, frozen, his mind whirling.

  He could see in their faces how they must have died, waiting helplessly, watching the surf creep inexorably toward them, lapping at their faces, licking at them, then withdrawing to mount another attack. It must have been a slow death, and a terrifying one. They must have coughed and choked, holding their breaths and spitting out the brine, screaming, unheard, into the wind and rain.

  The boy looked once more into the eyes of, first, his grandfather, then his grandmother. As he stared, grieving, into the finely planed, dark face of the old lady, he thought he heard something.

  Softly at first, then louder.

  “Cry …” the voice inside his head wailed. “Cry for them … and for me.”

  It was his grandmother’s voice, but she was dead.

  The boy screamed and turned away.

  But he never forgot.

  BOOK ONE

  Clark’s Harbor

  1

  Pete Shelling stared out at the sea, reading the swells like a map. Far off to the south the rest of the fleet was moving slowly toward the harbor, their running lights winking cheerfully in the night. Pete was tempted to alter his course and follow the fleet. He put the temptation down at once.

  Following the fleet was not Shelling’s way; it never had been, and wouldn’t be now.

  The wind freshened and Pete went aft to begin the back breaking task of hauling in his nets. Even with the power winch it was difficult work. He grimaced quietly, wishing he’d brought someone with him—he was getting too old to work alone, and the years were beginning to take their toll.

  The nets began coming inexorably in, and he guided the thrashing fish into the hold, keeping the net neatly piled, ready to be reset. By the time he was finished, with the catch secure in the hold, Pete Shelling was alone on the sea.

  The fleet was gone.

  Once more he considered returning to harbor. He looked critically at the sea and remembered all the stories he’d heard about this part of the Pacific—about the sudden storms that plagued this stretch of the Washington coast, storms that seemed to come up out of nowhere, whipping the sea into a frenzy of wrath that could pick up a boat the size of Sea Spray and spin it across the surface like a top. But he had never seen such a storm—they seemed to be a thing of the past, probably an exaggeration, tales built into legend more by the active imaginations of generations of local fishermen than by the storms’ actual ferocity.

  Pete Shelling’s eyes swept the horizon and he made his decision. He would reset the nets and take in one more catch before calling it a night. The tide would be at its fullest and he would have to fight the beginning ebb on his way back into the harbor, but that was all right. Pete Shelling was used to fighting.

  Not that he’d intended to fight, not at first. Years ago, when he’d first decided to put his roots down in Clark’s Harbor, he’d planned to take life easy, join the fishing community, and spend the rest of his years in affable companionship.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way.

  Clark’s Harbor hadn’t welcomed him, and he’d spent fifteen years feeling like a stranger. He’d become a fisherman, but not part of the fleet. The rumors of good fishing never came to him, nor did the easy banter over beers at the Harbor Inn. Instead, the fishermen of Clark’s Harbor merely tolerated Pete Shelling, and he learned to live with it. But it had hardened him, made him as obstinate as they. Now, when the fleet went in, he stayed, waiting for the last catch, the catch that would prove to them that no matter what they thought of him, he was better than they were.

  He moved the boat north now and began slowly letting the nets out again, bringing the trawler around in a sweeping are so that the current would carry the richest harvest into the submerged mesh. Then, when the nets were fully out, he dropped anchor and lit his pipe. One, maybe two pipefuls, and he would start the last haul of the night. The last and the longest.

  He was knocking the dottle out of his pipe, about to check the position of the nets, when he realized something was wrong. The wind, which had been blowing steadily, suddenly shifted, gusting against the boat. The face of the water was different. The swell had been running steadily shoreward; now, it turned choppy, and grew in front of Shelling’s eyes.

  Fete moved aft, intent on hauling in the nets. He threw a switch and the winch be
gan humming steadily. The nets snaked slowly in. He worked quickly, gathering in the net, guiding the thrashing fish into the hold.

  The swell increased and the wind began tearing at his slicker. He increased the speed of the winch and stopped worrying about stowing the net: there would be plenty of time in the morning to straighten it out. The important thing now was to get the catch in and head for the harbor before the full force of the storm broke over him. Pete Shelling worked furiously, hauling on the net, kicking at the fish, racing the elements.

  Moments later, the storm broke with a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. For a brief second the wild coastline was silhouetted in white light.

  Disaster struck as the roar of the thunder died away. The humming of the winch stopped and the nets suddenly reversed themselves, pouring back into the sea. Pete Shelling cursed loudly, realized the danger, and tried to leap aside.

  But it was too late. A coil of net seemed to leap up at him, wrap itself around his foot, and twist. The fisherman was thrown violently from his feet and felt himself being pulled overboard. He grabbed at the gunwhale, held on for a split second, then was torn loose by the weight of the sea tugging mightily at the net. Before he could scream the cold water closed over his head.

  Time seemed to slow down for him, and he resisted the panic building in him, struggling against the almost overpowering urge to thrash toward the surface. Instead, he forced himself still deeper, straining to reach the entangled foot. He opened his eyes, then closed them again immediately—there was nothing to see in the blackness. He felt the loop around his ankle and, with a terrible twist and thrust, managed to work it free. Now he began fighting his way upward.

  He felt the net tangling his arms imprisoning him. He kicked harder, and suddenly his head broke the surface. He gasped desperately, sucking the icy air deep into his lungs, and sank back into the sea, the net pulling at him, his kicks barely holding up against its weight.

  He tried to untangle his arms from the grasping cords, but soon had to give it up and use his arms to force his way once more to the surface. This time, as he broke free of the water, he opened his eyes and saw his boat. The net was still feeding swiftly over the side, the winch spinning free.