The Shore

by Robert Dunbar

  “Okay, okay,” he stopped her. “Never mind. We’ll chill out a minute. Something’s just hitting me, and I can’t even believe that…” Lowering himself back onto the desk, he seemed to consider his next words very carefully. “Jesus, I’m stupid sometimes. You ever have ghosts in your house, Perry?”

  “Steve? What…?”

  “Did you?” Suddenly, he loomed above the boy, the blanket slipping down. “Or something like ghosts?” Blood worked to his contorted face. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”

  She stared: almost naked, enraged, he towered over Perry…and he looked completely deranged. She struggled to sound calm. “Why would you ask him something like that?”

  “Because that’s part of it! That’s how it starts!” His voice rose ecstatically. “They don’t control it. It just surges out of them. All that power. Answer me, boy. Did things ever move around your house? Move by themselves?”

  The thin frame trembled.

  “It happened, didn’t it? You know what I’m talking about. I can see you do.”

  “Stop it.” Her voice quavered. “You frightened him.”

  “Surprised him. It’s different.”

  “Then you frightened me.” Anger swelled in her words. “You agreed to let me question him.”

  “Fine! Then do it. Ask him what he was looking for by the pond that first morning I spotted him—all those months ago. That girl who was torn all to…”

  “Don’t.”

  “Ask him.”

  “Okay. Perry?” Gently, she lay a hand on either side of the boy’s face, but his shoulders shuddered, and he twisted his head away.

  “…have to…let me go. Please…don’t you understand?” He clawed savagely at the tears that mottled his face. “Not me…hid because I knew he’d come. She’s all alone.” The straining voice roughened. “You have to let me go.”

  “You know we can’t,” she told him, but he wouldn’t look up. “Tell me. Let us help.” She reached out again, laid her palm on the side of his neck. “Oh God. He feels so hot now. Steve? What are you doing?”

  “Is there something dry here I could wear?”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve wasted enough time. I never had a chance to check the apartment. Caught him outside. Then his big brother put in an appearance.” He rubbed his mouth. “If that girl’s alive, she’ll be there.”

  She stared at him. “Don’t say it.”

  “I have to go look.”

  “You know what’s out there.” She shook her head. “You don’t face that alone. I can’t let you.”

  “And him?”

  “I…we…” She hugged herself, her fingers digging painfully into the flesh of her own arms. “How likely do you think it is she’s even still alive? We can leave the boy in the holding tank. He won’t…”

  “No!” The boy exploded in fear. “Don’t leave me!” The chair crashed to the floor behind him. “He’ll come! Please!” Panic knotted his features. “Can’t leave me here!”

  “Then we’ll wait. Steve, it won’t be, can’t be long before help gets here.”

  “You said it yourself. If she’s alive, God knows how long she’ll stay that way…if Ramsey finds the building…if he’s searching now…” The words poured out. “We lock the boy in the back, and you keep a weapon and wait here. To guard him. You understand me?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I have a gun. The apartment’s not far.”

  “No.”

  “That’s the way we do it. And the door to this place stays locked until I get back. What choice do we have?”

  XXVI

  As he stepped into the night, the sound of surf billowed roughly over him. Turning, he nodded at Kit through the diamond pane. As their eyes met, he heard the latch. She smiled wanly, her face etched by a glare that turned her hair a harsh orange.

  He started down the slick street. Don’t look back.

  As he rounded the corner, his flashlight caught the gently settling drifts of rain so that bright patches seemed always to hover just ahead of him. He turned up the collar of the slicker, grateful for the dry overalls Kit had found in one of the lockers.

  He’d decided to go on foot, in case some emergency came up and she needed the jeep. And progress was much easier now, especially this far from the beach. Suddenly large drops covered the sidewalk. Hell, not again! But the squall faded before he’d reached the next corner. Without streetlights or house lights, the sidewalks glittered, and invisible rills gurgled below the curbs. The flashlight beam bounced back at him from the wet concrete and glinted from flickering water. With careful tread, he rounded another corner.

  With constant ragged flapping, a rotting canopy rustled above his head. It took a moment to orient himself. All the old brick buildings looked alike, but his flashlight trembled up the facade of the tallest. Shivering, he approached. Another spattering of rain struck, and a dull stain of lightning rippled on the numerals.

  The outer door creaked open at his touch, but an inner door held firm, so he angled the beam through a glass panel. Shadows huddled in the alcove. The gleam trickled across a stairway, and peripheral gobbets of light dripped up the tiled walls. He kicked the door. And again. So much for the element of surprise. The wooden frame splintered, glass shattering loudly as the door rebounded from the wall.

  His boots crunched over the glass. He thundered up the stairs, past the inky stillness of the lower floors. At the top landing, he swung the flashlight, gripping the revolver tightly in his other hand. A fluid glow washed the walls. One door hung partly ajar, scarlet brightness oozing around it to dimly flood the hall. He shouldered it open.

  A votive candle flickered on the kitchen table, the red glass sliding ruby shadows around the room. From the hall, wind sighed as soft illumination circled, lilting from corner to ceiling, and crimson pools trembled up the wall. A broken chair lay on its side, and a shattered door leaned askew. Fragments of a wooden table littered the floor.

  In the room beyond, the flames of other candles danced along the floor and windowsills. In one corner, a strange substance mounded, white and lumpish like old snow—the stuffing of a gutted mattress that leaned against the wall.

  A hinge creaked. The closet door moved. He eased it open and thrust the flashlight deep into soft dimness. On the floor, stained strips of clothesline coiled beside a carving knife.

  He got her. He turned away. Ramsey. Everywhere the candles quivered, filling the apartment until it resembled a chapel, some shrine to violent dementia, and the smell of hot tallow mingled with a stench of rot. Must have been some kind of ritual. Flattening along the wall, he crept toward the bedroom. She’s dead for sure.

  A flimsy lock on the bedroom door had been shattered. Inside, the box spring tilted from its broken frame, and craters marked the plaster between crumbling gouges in the wall. He noted brown smears near the baseboards. Muttering a curse, he checked the bathroom. Nothing. As he hurried back through the kitchen, he caught sight of something in the periphery of light.

  He tilted the beam to the wall, bringing it closer. In the bright circle, faltering stripes gouged the wood of the door frame.

  Claw marks.

  A block from the station, he felt his stomach lurch. Where’s the light? He jolted over the slick sidewalk. The emergency battery, maybe it just wore down. But fear roiled in his belly. Not Kit. Please, not Kit.

  The door swung loosely. The light above it had been smashed, and points of glass crunched like ice under his boots.

  Inside, the emergency light still glared, and one of the chairs lay splintered among plaster chips from the wall. The desk had been shoved aside so hard the blotter had slipped to the floor with the phone and lamp still upon it, like the result of some evil conjuring trick.

  On the concrete floor, it glistened. A few drops only. Blood. Darkly shining in the light. He crouched and tapped a fingertip to one spot. Already cool. But still mostly fluid. A lump compounded of rage and fear wadded in his windpipe.
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  Something filtered to his eardrums, nothing so definite as sound, more a faint vibration, a sort of scratching in the air where a sound should have been. His grip on the revolver tightened, and he stalked to the holding tank.

  It was still locked. He fumbled the key out of his pocket, and the door swung out, letting the edges of the glare flow in as his shadow bobbed to the ceiling. “Come out.”

  After a moment, he heard a stifled whimper.

  A pale hand fluttered beneath the cot, and then an arm and shoulder emerged. With awkward, clogged movements, the boy crawled out. Still on all fours, he nervously licked his lips and asked, “Did he take her?”

  And his eyes gleamed like candles.

  XXVII

  Awareness filtered in: it butted against…then receded from the pain, and in those first moments, she understood the cellar of the Chandler house to be her punishment. The rats. She understood that she lay in the fetid dark while the vermin advanced, scuttling forward then retreating only to ebb closer, and as she squirmed helplessly, they began to nibble with crimson snouts, tiny paws digging delicately into her flesh. No! She shuddered into consciousness, and pain flared.

  Beyond her eyelids, the world dipped and rolled, then a chair beneath her stiffened. Where am I? Something bit deeply into the flesh of her wrists, and a moment later she knew the burn for ropes that pinned her arms behind her. Not that cellar at least. Lifting her head, she blinked at the bursting waver of the room. Though the dream of the Chandler house dissipated, the chittering of the rats grew louder, and confusion warred with misery as she coughed, sucking in air thick with the smell of mold and brine. Where…? The scuttling slither swelled into a roar.

  Fear erupted from her with an ugly snarl. A clinging film seemed to hang in the air, densely redolent of perfume and some underlying rankness. It stung her throat and rose smarting to her eyes, softening her view of the cramped space. But her gaze drilled into the shadows, drawn to the source of soft moans—feeble as the sighs of a dying infant—and discovered random spasms of movement on something like a cot.

  In the corner, a form twitched on the bedding. An arm flailed, and one leg hung over the edge, kicking spasmodically as though from electric shocks.

  “Who is that?” Kit strained against the ropes.

  With infinite slowness, heavy-lidded eyes drifted open, and a slack face turned toward her.

  “Are you all right?” Kit could see blood on the blanket, and a large bruise bloomed across the girl’s cheek. She’s alive anyway. Is she drugged?

  The girl groaned, twisting to the side. “…you can’t I don’t want you please untie me oh help he’s coming have to get away somebody…” Her battered head jerked back and forth, the broken words chattering out of her.

  Kit couldn’t make sense out of even what she could hear above the thunder that filled the room. Shadows and dimness swirled, then coalesced: an agony of brightness erupted. She closed her eyes until the roar diminished.

  The girl spoke clearly, perhaps not for the first time, for the words somehow seemed an echo. “Does he? Does he love you too?”

  “My head. Something’s wrong with my head.” Kit seemed to fall into the rumbling hiss that surrounded her.

  “…that now we were like married.”

  “What the hell is this place?” The cloud of pain dissipated, and though she could discern more of her surroundings now, she comprehended less. The warped and darkly colorless boards—this chamber must be part of her nightmare—sticky black dirt, the stench of the kerosene heater and the way it threw giant shadows of switches and mechanisms. These shadows stirred. So did the room. It swayed, vibrating with the rat noise, and parts of the dream seemed to liquefy…in the corners…down near the floor strewn with broken boards and splinters where the rushing grew loudest. Melting. She tried to force her mind to clarity. I’m not crazy. I’m not. I’ve got to remember what happened.

  Her thoughts probed back beyond the pain in her skull. The station house. Yes. From outside, the explosion of glass and that deep, terrible man’s scream. Yelling for Steve, she’d rushed outside, waving her gun. Like an idiot. The pain had erupted shatteringly in her skull. Worst cop in the world. He must have been crouched on the low roof of the station, poised to jump, and she wondered what he’d hit her with. Points on her ribs still burned. When a shudder passed into her bones from a thrumming deep beneath the floorboards, she raised her head.

  From the cot, the girl stared back at her. Different shades of ash, the long and tangled hair clung to the dampness of her forehead. The rough cot had marked the flesh of her face. Her skin looked unwashed, grublike, and a greenish vein pulsed at her temple. She might have been about seventeen, but as with the boy, the feverish pallor made her look older. In other circumstances, she might have been pretty, but the dark blotches and the bruises beneath the dirt made it difficult to imagine. Then her mouth went slack, and her head jerked to the side.

  She’s in shock. Maybe dying. I’ve got to help her. The room swam in a deep murk, but isolated details focused. Damn it, I’ve got to figure out where I am. Books on a raw plank shelf had long ago swollen to burst their covers, and paperbacks without covers rotted on the floor around a barrel, around a lumpish roll of decaying carpet. It was mold on the walls, she realized, not gray paint. Again, the edges of the room seemed to liquefy as the sea entered freely through cracks near the floor. A boat, it must be…

  “…did?” The girl’s eyelids fluttered.

  “What?” asked Kit. “What did you…?” But the girl slumped out of consciousness again as she watched. The walls seemed to bow inward, and the girl’s eyes twitched open. Kit watched her jerk almost into a sitting position, tossing her head with a childlike gesture. “Stella?” Kit forced the words out steadily. “That’s your name, isn’t it?” She tried for a smile, her face rigid from the pain and the cold. “Are you listening?” She tried to hold the girl’s gaze. “No, stay awake. Look at me. Where’s your brother, your brother Ramsey? Is he here somewhere?”

  With a wobbling movement, the girl slid back down on the cot.

  “You’re not tied, are you, Stella? Can you stand?”

  The girl hunched forward into a fetal posture, and she began to rock with her arms clasped around her knees. It would have looked like a trance if not for the furious rolling motion beneath her eyelids.

  “Stella, listen to me. I’m a police officer. I can help you. But first you have to help me. You have to get up. You have to untie these ropes before he comes back.” She shuddered as another fragment of memory plummeted into place—a voice at the station house screaming for the keys, the keys that Steve had taken with him. A bellow of frustrated rage as he dumped out the desk drawers. So big, so much stronger, he’d knelt crushingly on her chest, trussing her with the cord he’d ripped from the lamp. He’d taken her gun and gone off to try and reach the boy, and she’d heard shots. Then his kicks exploded on her sides, and he’d crashed something wooden again and again into the wall, until the pounding roar had faded.

  The ocean thundered.

  “Stella, please, can you hear me?”

  The girl writhed.

  “You have to…”

  Wind knifed through the room. “Have you figured out where you are yet?” The moist, gravelly voice seemed to come from all around; then the door banged, and he rose up against the wall like a shadow.

  The breath froze inside her. His head seemed to block the light, and for a moment, she thought some dead thing lumbered toward her. All heat left her body as she twisted against the ropes.

  The thin, dripping hair slicked down to a glistening forehead, pale as the belly of a shark, and the heavy eyelids lifted slowly to afford her a glimpse of the red-rimmed blaze beneath. With difficulty, she recognized the thick expression as a smile. “…such a miracle really, that we should have survived this. Wouldn’t you concur? So near the inlet. But the rocks always did protect this section of the boards. Daddy owned these rides, you realize. Strange to think of
it, I must admit. He owned the whole amusement park once but sold it off one piece at a time. Now, of course, even the gears are rusted stiff. You see? These particular levers once operated the Ferris wheel.” He raised a lantern from the floor and jogged it a little to hear the gurgle of fuel, then peered into the shadows. “Aren’t you fascinated by the history of the town?” The lantern rocked, and a gleam swayed up the wall and down.

  She couldn’t seem to control her breathing. The monster. Locks of his pale hair seemed longer than others, possibly the result of a self-administered haircut, giving his head a bizarrely ragged look. No, not a monster. A man. A killer. I’ve got to hang on, got to watch him, figure out his weak spots, find a way to…

  “…only appropriate that it should be all that remains intact of the town, though it will do my sentimental old heart good to see it wash away finally. Only the rocks left. Finally clean.” Even in the cold, he blinked constantly against the sweat. “…keep staring. I know what you’re seeing, my dear.” His eyes glistened like leeches. “I’m not human anymore, am I? I am aware of that, never fear. As though I’ve become the ghost of myself here, haunting the settings of my youth.” The smile creased his face again. “My youth.” He shucked off the parka and let it slump across a spool. “Don’t you find that a pleasingly romantic notion?” Muscles bulged under the black sweatshirt, even through the layer of fat, a startling contrast to the weak face with its moist, smallish mouth. “…thinking how ugly I am. No, no, don’t deny it. No need. Perfectly true. Except for my mouth. Don’t you think my mouth is fine? Daddy used to say it was the only thing about me he didn’t hate. Charming man, my father. You’d have liked him. Everyone did. Or perhaps you knew him?”

  His brimming eyes burned even to look at. She felt this man lived, had lived perhaps for decades, perpetually on the verge of screaming, and it sickened her even more to feel pity mingling with her terror.

  “…realize he’s dead. Oh, yes. Or, more to the point, I realize that you also are aware of this.”