Above their heads, a view of the Edgeharbor bay flashed on the screen, followed by a glimpse of the newscaster. Milling policemen flickered, succeeded in turn by an aerial view of Atlantic City. Although no one in the bar appeared to be watching, conversation drifted to the killing, and Steve sat up straighter. For whatever reason—news of the approaching storm or simply because he’d sat here so long this evening—the patrons had finally begun to relax and forget his presence.
“And this body in the damn bay. What do you think that’s gonna do to us?”
“People won’t remember that come summertime.”
“The hell they won’t. You wait and see how many cancellations we get by Memorial Day, every damn one of us.”
It quickly passed, and soon they appeared to talk slower and to say less, until only a companionable silence remained, broken by occasional, fragmentary comments, emphasized by aimless nods or vague gestures. Only Tully kept talking, and as the flurry of his words drifted around him, Steve shook his head wearily, his thoughts growing muddled. “…been outside of everything…so long…” He tried to phrase an appropriate response to whatever Tully was saying but stumbled on his own strange words. “…just looking in I…” He tried again, then gave up and only savored the warmth of the room. Beyond the door, he knew, icy winds savaged the streets. He blinked at the glass bricks: they flickered with pink neon, and for a moment, it appeared that a swarm of insects had been drawn to the light. “Snowing,” he announced. He couldn’t remember their leaving the table or going to stand in the doorway, but the snowflakes swirled in glorious profusion, filling the night while they gawked and laughed like children.
“What are youse, crazy?”
“Would you close that goddamn door already? Freezing in here.”
The younger man wrapped a red mohair scarf several times around his head, and Steve turned back to the doorway through which patrons glowered in unanimous umbrage. “Come on now, guys,” the barmaid called. “Close the door already.” Disgusted patience crackled through the cigarette husk of her voice.
He took a few steps, and it made him sadder to realize that, no matter how carefully he struggled to maintain his balance, he still wobbled. So he was back to this—he could feel the alcohol beading through his flesh, simmering in his brain, dissolving the jagged edges of his thoughts. The door hissed shut on the television drone, snuffing the throb, and snow swirled. Through the flurry, he glimpsed Tully’s raw face, cigarette smoke unwreathing in the air with his words. Then he swayed alone, realizing that Tully must have said “good night,” and he minded suddenly, because it seemed he’d meant to say something important (though he couldn’t recall precisely what) and there might not be time later.
Snow fell with a sudden hush.
The door fought him, and he staggered back into the damp-smelling tavern. As he groped to the table, the tobacco stench closed on his throat. Looking at no one, he struggled into his coat—gave up on the zipper—and threw down some money, having no idea how much, before stumbling back out to the welcoming snow.
Naked trees glistened with ice, and white patches already gathered in the crooks of twisted limbs. Where was the car? He’d scarcely gone a block before the cold settled on him and the pleasant dizziness jelled into a damp blockage in his head. He’d thought it was right here. What was he doing on this street? His neck ached from keeping his shoulders hunched, and he realized he’d walked in the wrong direction. “Great,” he muttered. As he started back, the sweat that slicked his chest made the wind feel even more cutting.
It flurried thickly now, and he could barely see to the end of the block. The sidewalk turned velvety, and the chill razored his forehead. Frozen branches rattled like wind chimes, and he drew his breath carefully, nurturing the ache in his chest.
A monster shuffled in the night. He blinked. A black hedge writhed in syncopation with his inebriated pulse, and skeletal branches crosshatched a sky through which demons hurtled. Just ahead in the blur, something made a chopping movement. His shoulders clenched, squeezing pain through his back, but he forced himself to walk steadily. An elderly man alternately swept and shoveled in front of one of the cottages, sculpting a narrow slice on the walkway despite the swirling flakes that filled in another faint layer while he worked. Steve nodded curtly as he passed, and the shovel rang out, grating against the sidewalk. Near the corner, he glanced back, already scarcely able to see the man. It seemed so earnestly futile an endeavor. Was the old guy so desperate for something to do? Did nothing wait for him within that cottage? He hurried on, suddenly feeling a wave of sympathy. Were they so different? After all, what waited for him? Another stakeout in a freezing car? Around him, snow already banked softly on doorsteps and windowsills.
Turning up his collar, he walked faster, nearly lost his footing, unable to tell whether it was ice or rock salt that crunched underfoot. Silence drifted down, and the swift, simple patterns of the snow began to tangle.
A wail reverberated. The wind battered at the noise, swirling it into ripples of sound along the boardwalk. Sometimes it gusted out over the sea. Sometimes it seemed to contract itself into a dense mass that rolled along the boards. Rapid dots of white glittered through the headlights, steadily increasing as she guided the jeep up the ramp. The screaming alarm faded erratically. At the end of a cluster of shops, she pulled over next to a novelty store. Leaving the headlights on, the keys in the ignition, she got out, and snowflakes stung her cheeks.
The boards felt slick underfoot as she strode to the side door of the stall. Snow settled on her collar while she examined the padlock by the headlight’s glare. Probably nothing. The lock seemed intact. Flakes whipped across her face. These old alarms are always going on the fritz. She headed around the front of the shop, straight into the wind.
Snow flooded around her, streaming almost horizontally, and sand rippled across the boards at her feet, advancing on low currents of air. Great. All of a sudden, it’s a blizzard. Melting flakes struck her hands and clung sharply to her face. Bracing herself, she swung around the corner.
Shadows surged. Already, the snowfall had transformed the tawdry stalls, conveying a sudden glamour. Carried by the sea wind, snow winged past her face, circling and rising, to flow steadily up and over the shedlike structure. She slid the nightstick out of her belt as wind hollowed through the front of the shop. A window grate lay in splinters, shards of glass littering the display platform.
Beneath the broken glass lay a severed arm. And a leg. She made out another limb and several naked torsos in violent confusion. Hovering flakes reversed themselves, spinning upward to float, settling on stumps. The alarm kept screaming.
She blinked. Dismembered mannequins sprawled along the front of the T-shirt shop. Two of the mannequins boasted smooth doll breasts, while a third had been muscled like an action figure. In places, the flesh-colored surface had been gouged away to chalky whiteness, and a plaster hand pointed up, white stubs where the fingers should have been. On the boards at her feet, a blank head bled chalk.
She played her flashlight deep into the store. “All right, come out of there.” Where the light swung, darkness melted. “I said, come out.” She put her foot up on the window ledge. Something glinted, and a triangle of glass flashed past her face to bell at her feet. She tilted the light up to where a larger curving section wobbled. “Don’t make me come in there.” She took her foot down, angling the light. It reflected from gusting snowflakes.
Thick blackness filled the back of the shop. No reason to get spooked. Already, whiteness dusted the mannequins. Whoever did this is gone. Everywhere, it spiraled and glided in graceful chaos. Probably. She stepped back, heart still pounding. I suppose I’d better get that alarm turned off.
She barely saw it. At the edge of the boardwalk, something solid moved. She turned toward it.
A hellish vision coagulated: one clawed hand, reaching up from below to grip the crossbar.
What…? She blinked. It can’t…
Horn
ed fingers dug into the wood, and the arm muscles bunched.
Fat as bees, flakes hovered in front of her face, then swooped on countless varied courses. Through them, the malevolent face leered. A rope of saliva glistened from the mouth.
Demon. Melting darts struck her eyelids, clung to her lashes. Monster. Steve’s words skittered through her mind. Whatever you want to call them. A wet shiver rippled up her spine and throbbed behind her face. I don’t see this. Not really. With a practiced motion, she slid the nightstick back into her belt and drew the gun.
Blood hammered at the base of her spine. Nothing there. Snow swirled where the face had been, but the afterimage blazed in her mind: eyes bulging with rage, lips snarled back from dripping teeth. A mask? Did they sell masks in that shop? It must have been a mask. And those rubber hands kids bought at Halloween. Of course. They sold all kinds of crazy things in boardwalk novelty shops. Whoever broke in took a mask and…
Her fingers clenched hard around the butt of the pistol, and she shivered, the blue jacket suddenly binding around her shoulders. I saw…thought I saw…a monster.
A slow minute passed while snow settled. I really must be losing my mind. Forcing one foot ahead of the other, she crossed to the railing, and the revolver trembled in her grip.
She peered down. The roar of the surf smothered the shriek of the alarm. Snow lumped over whitening hillocks, caking on gravel. It frosted the tufts of beach grass, but even in the diffused light, she could see the footprints below. They had been made by bare feet. And what was wrong with them? She leaned over the rail. Did they look too broad? Did the toes hook crookedly?
She leaned there until a cramp trembled her leg. With one hand on the rail, she pulled herself to the stairs. All around her, gusts whirled one into the other, maddening, dizzying.
As she descended into the hush of the surf, sand and ice gritted on the wooden stairs beneath her boots. Whoever it was, he had to be hiding down here. She played the light through the gaps between the slats of the stairs. But what if he scuttled under the boards and came up on the other side? He could come down at her from above and…
The thought flickered too late.
Stench coiled around her like a draft from an open sewer. Behind her, a growl rumbled. A fist like a knob of bone struck her between the shoulder blades, and her head snapped back. She tumbled over the rail, arms flailing.
For an instant, she became part of the blizzard.
Thudding in the sand, she tasted red, and pain buzzed in her skull.
With a moan, she raised her face from the sand and fumbled for the gun. Where is it? Crystals glinted, and she felt a shudder as something heavy landed near her.
Flinging a handful of grit and snow, she rolled. The growl ripped closer, and she lashed out with her foot. Her boot connected, and she heard a grunting snarl as she slid over the edge of the dune.
Scrambling to her feet, she stumbled, agony flaring in her hip and shoulder. The ground seemed wildly uneven, vanishing beneath her and suddenly reappearing as a soft ridge that left her boots scuffing at empty air. Icy sand mushed underfoot. She fled blindly, hoping to lose herself in twisting flurries. Splinters of pain sliced into the moist tissues of her lungs, and her chest crackled as she whirled around. Run! Get off the beach! Banners of white snapped. Where’s the boardwalk? Chaos sifted down steadily, striping the air. What direction?
Something hissed at her ankles. A spent wave sputtered across her shoes, plunging over the mud. Black foam seethed, and the sea wind circled at her back, sighing right through her heavy jacket.
Her teeth clicked together, and it seemed her brain began to work again: she became conscious of the muted grumble of the surf, of the grainy texture of the freezing mud into which her boots sank, of the way the wind would groan away, allowing snow to sink in shifting forays. She stared. A mosaic of movement—pillars of white seemed to topple as the creature emerged through veils of motion.
No! She absorbed a fleeting impression of nakedness and hulking deformity. Nothing can look like that.
It lurched across the beach.
She stepped back into the water, and the wind slashed. Nothing! Snow flew horizontally, blasting endlessly from sea and sky. With numb fingers, she brandished the nightstick.
Swirls of sudden crimson pulsed in airborne layers. In a smear of light and noise, the dunes blazed, and the bright splotch of the spotlight altered like an amoeba as it rushed across the beach, pursued by the blurring humps of the high beams. The horn blared steadily. The siren wailed.
“Kit!”
Light struck her. The club dropped from her numbed fingers, and she lashed with both hands.
“Hey, no!” He caught her. “It’s okay, Kit, it’s okay, babe, I’ve got you, it’s okay.”
“Run!” Her eyes tracked wildly as she shivered. “Get back in the jeep!” She flinched violently when his arm encircled her back. “It’s here! It’s right…!”
Waves of snow rolled over them as he guided her to the jeep. Remnants of beach fence dangled from the fender. He opened the passenger door for her, and she clung to him when he tried to let go. “…coming…saw it…”
“You’re okay now. Lock the door. Do you hear me? Lock it.” He pried her hands away and slammed the door.
She covered her face.
Moments later, he got in the other side, his shoulders heavily dusted with white. “I don’t see any sign of it.” She didn’t appear to be listening, just sat very still while her teeth chattered viciously. “What’s in here?” He reached for a thermos on the floor. “Coffee?”
After a moment, she trembled, barely getting the word out. “Cocoa.”
He poured some into the lid. “Here.” She shook her head with a jerky motion. “Come on.” He steadied her hands while she gulped it.
“How…?” She choked a little. “How did you get here?”
Taking the lid from her, he set it down. “I heard the alarm, found the jeep with the motor running. I just went tearing up and down the beach.” He rubbed her hands briskly, then poured more chocolate into the lid. “So you’ve seen it.”
She gulped hungrily at the cocoa. “A mask…some kind of costume.” By the interior light, she studied his face. He reached for her shoulder, then held something up, and she took it from him, wondering. “My jacket.” Between two fingers, she held a strip of shredded cloth.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” She shook. “Nothing broken.”
“Why are you sitting like that? Where does it hurt? This side? Let’s get you home so I can look at your shoulder.”
“I can drive.”
“No, you just…” He shifted into first and swung the headlights toward the boardwalk. The jeep bounced. Snow completely layered the beach, and the tires spun.
“Slow down.” She leaned forward. “Can you see anything?”
“Kit?”
“Do you see any footprints?”
“You really are a cop, aren’t you?” He grunted with a sort of sad admiration, and the tires crunched slower.
“Are the wipers on high? Damn, I can’t see. What’s that over there?” She caught at his arm. “On the left. Can you…?”
“I can’t tell. It’s coming down so hard. Might be tracks.”
“They go over that way. No, the other…that’s it. Under the boards.”
“This isn’t such a hot idea. If we get stuck…” The jeep jerked over a mound. “I think I came through the fence right about here.” He eased them into a blot of shadow. Pillars leapt and dodged in the rushing glow, a row of cement columns vaulting. Almost no snow had found its way beneath the boardwalk, but a hill of sand rose steeply before them.
“What in hell…?” He hit the brakes. The headlights poured up the hill, its mountainous shadow concealing everything behind it. “This wasn’t here. I could swear it.”
“I lost my weapon,” she said quietly. “Do you have a gun?”
He nodded, staring straight ahead at the mound. �
�Who could have done this?”
“We have to check.” She unlocked her door.
He grabbed at her. “Kit!”
The door hung open, and she waded into the flood of the headlights, her shadow washing across the mound.
“Kit, get back.” He clambered out. “You’re hurt.” Around them, in the light’s periphery, a curtain of snow defined the edges of the boardwalk.
The mound heaved.
“Get away from it!” Sand cascaded down the sides, and he leveled the revolver. “Kit!” Near the bottom, something squirmed.
She stepped closer, and a shout clogged in her chest.
A black hand scratched up out of the dirt; crusted fingers clutched, fluttering.
“Lord.” He shoved the gun under his coat then threw himself at the hill. Sand flew, as he furiously dug.
“I don’t understand.” She began to help him. “What kind of dream is this?” It felt like digging in powdered ice. “What kind of nightmare?”
The arm moved, then a torso wobbled beneath them. Darkened sand clumped thickly on the naked chest, crevices of white flesh showing through black rivulets. The throat gulped, headlights turning the smears of blood a deep purple.
With a fierce tug, Steve yanked the slender body up out of the dirt and into a sitting position. Mist swirled around clotted flesh.
“Is it on fire?”
He stooped, hefting the body up against his chest. “Steam from the wounds.” He grunted as he rose. “Get the car door.”
“Where are his clothes?” Liquid still oozed black from the head, mingling with the grit that clung to the neck, streaking down the chest to the rib cage. “I…don’t…understand. How did he…?” Legs dangled. Splotches caked on the calves, completely covering one foot.
“Kit! Move!”
She threw the doors open and shoved the seat back, then clambered in and pulled the body in by the shoulder. The white legs looked so long, but the body weighed surprisingly little. Darkness still leaked from gashes on the shoulder and the chest, and clots of sand rained from the sticky mass of the hair and face.
The Shore Page 19