The Shore

by Robert Dunbar

  The rasping gnaw of the surf surrounded them, and she realized that the girl had begun sobbing with guttural, desperate gasps, like a child. Ramsey stumbled toward the cot, and Kit stared at the massive curve of his back. “Don’t, Stell.” Raising a doughy hand, he let it hang above her face, thick fingers splayed in the air, and the girl sucked a damp shriek deep into her stomach. Gently, he brought the fingers closer; then he hissed between his teeth as he drew back. “Families. So difficult.” He looked up at Kit. “You know how it is.”

  Moving away, he chuckled, pacing into the center of the room. “Some old guy used to run this place.” He flapped his arms at the walls. “Mr. Johnson. He used to let me hide here. Sometimes. When I needed to.” Sweat trickled down his neck. “Sometimes. He always had so many books. All kinds. Science fiction and romance and murder mysteries. I read them all. That old drunk was the closest thing I ever had to a friend. Do you remember him? I remember you. You were the freckled one who always wanted to play with the boys.” He stepped closer. “I always liked your hair.”

  Her stomach knotted. “Keep your fucking hands off me.”

  “You always had a mouth too, if I recall.” He chuckled. “How amusing that you became the town’s protector. A misfit like you. Not much left to protect now, is there, dear? Impressive job you’ve done. There there—you shouldn’t feel too bad about the town. They all knew. You understand?”

  She saw the madness like a flare, a sudden red flowering in his gaze, and she pressed back against the rough chair.

  “…must have heard us…must have heard every night…”

  He moved even closer to her. Fleetingly, the light from the kerosene lamp slanted up on him, revealing an odd, rubbery quality to his flesh, until his features themselves seemed somehow unformed, as though the skull beneath remained too soft to provide sufficient definition. His sparse and ragged hair glinted like spun glass. “Tell me, do you still like to play with the boys?” His touch spidered across her cheek, and a silent scream rattled in her brain. She forced herself to dispassionately observe his subtle facial deformities: something about the eyelids; a distortion to the shape of the upper lip. She began to wonder if they might represent ancient beatings…and she recalled the room with the strap.

  “And if I’m not human anymore, what am I, you’re wondering.” His breath felt damp on her neck. “Maybe I’m a vampire. Maybe I’ll tear out your jugular with my teeth and suck up your blood.”

  Her anger rose like balm. “Maybe you’re a fucking maniac.”

  “That temper of yours will get you into trouble, my dear, one day.” He chuckled. “Mark my words.” His eyes seemed to stretch to unnatural roundness, showing white all around the murky blue, and his fingers trailed to her throat. His fingers slipped into her open jacket, then under her blouse. She felt them slide to her bra, and the calluses on the balls of his fingers scratched her nipples. The heat of his breath jetted down her neck. With his other hand, he loosened his pants. Suddenly, he began to laugh and pulled away from her. “My dear, you should see your face.”

  “Knew…?” She croaked out the word. “What did they…?”

  He reached out again, his fingers tracing her breasts, and the warmth of his hand made her gasp. “Don’t endeavor to engage me in some psychological gamesmanship. You’re ill suited for it.” His stroke resembled the most casual caress. “That face shows everything. Your best feature really. Very appealing, that raw quality.” Her flesh went numb in patches, but she could feel his exhalation on her cheek as he bent over her. “Enticing. Even now. But of course I have Stella now.”

  Rank with a stench like choked-down vomit, his breath sickened her, and she waited for the meaty hands to tighten around her neck. “The Chandler house, your house, is pretty far from town. How could anyone hear…?”

  “I said, don’t play games!” The bellow erupted, ending with a giggle. Nothing could have frightened her more—the high-pitched snigger went on and on, repetitive, mechanical. He pushed closer, nothing in his face sharper than paste. It seemed teeth didn’t belong in so soft a face, even stubby yellow ones. She tried to look away but couldn’t. She bit her lip, using the sharp ache to hold back a groan.

  “He’ll have returned by now,” he said, the grin melting from his lips. “Your gentleman friend, the one who hunted me. Perhaps I should have waited for him after all.” His glance tracked across the room to his sister. “Yes, I can see now that I miscalculated by returning here so quickly.” His expression stayed dulled, as though whatever passions boiled in his chest failed to reach any higher, but his hands clenched into fists. “I could have shot him.” As he paced, his fists began to beat against the upper part of his legs. “I had your gun. I could’ve gotten the key from his body—then I’d have had Perry too, and it would be over. Finally. None of this trading business.” The fists drummed faster against his thighs. “Yes. Hindsight. No need to say it. But he had a gun as well. Mustn’t overlook that. And I can’t take chances of that magnitude. Not now. Not when I’ve got Stella. Finally.” Brutal shrewdness glinted in his face. “He’ll bring the boy here. He’ll trade for you. Then I’ll take your lives. Nothing personal. You understand? I’ll have to. You do see that, don’t you? For the sake of the family.” The words droned quickly, some furious craving driving them. “And I’ll take care of Perry. Finally. The way Daddy would have done. Then it’ll be only Stella and myself. Together.” His face clenched. “Perry had no right. I’m the eldest. After Daddy came me.” Water gurgled all around them as the room rocked. “But Perry must come to me first. No one must know about him. Don’t ever let them see—that’s the most important rule.”

  “What rules?” The trembling in her shoulders grew uncontrollable. “Know what about him?”

  Within the heater, flame pulsed softly. As the chill closed in, he sat on a crate, his shadow mountainous on the wall. “He always told us that. Draw the curtains. Don’t scream so loud. Don’t talk to the neighbors. Don’t talk to anyone. Ever. Always been like that. And it worked well. When his family came here from the barrens, they were laborers. Now we own the town.” After a pause, he added, “What’s left of it.”

  I’ve got to hold on. Her jaw clenched against nausea as the liquid floor gushed again, and in her vision the freezing room broke into pieces, buzzing like angry flies.

  His voice hissed faintly. “…consider the possibility that I may really be quite insane after all. Wouldn’t that be quite a joke?”

  “What…?” She coughed, pain rattling in her chest. “What brought you back to Edgeharbor?”

  His chest heaved as he turned to her.

  She held his stare, desperate to delay whatever action she sensed he was working himself toward. “I mean, why now?”

  “The papers. We do get newspapers, you know, even in lunatic asylums. So sorry. Mental health facilities. It’s the one truly great curse of late-twentieth-century man—we know everything that happens and have no idea what any of it means. But when I saw that the killings had begun, I understood.” His voice rose in outrage. “My brother had taken my place. Besides…he’s too pretty, don’t you think? Too much like her.”

  “Who? Who is he like?”

  Silence swelled, filling the shack.

  “Your mother?” She watched tension bulge beneath his fleshy jaw. “The girl, your sister,” she spoke quickly. “She looks sick. She needs…”

  His face moved with an oblique shifting of shadowed eyes: the sleeping girl’s breasts rose and fell. “You think my mother was good, don’t you?”

  “I…you…”

  His gaze sliced at Kit like a razor. “Everyone did.” From his temples to his bulging throat, the sheen of perspiration formed rivulets. “But she never tried to stop him.” Sweat beaded his chin. “Do you know what she told me? She told me to pray for strength. And the things he did—she called them punishment.” Grunting, he gulped air. “But for what? My fault. Mine. Ugly me.” His fist thumped against his chest. “The things he made us do.” Then
he rubbed his hands together with a dry rasp. “Nothing unique, of course. Quite banal, I’m afraid. I often read about people like him in the hospital library. Not at first, of course, but later, when they trusted me.” He made a laughing clack in his throat. “Sometimes, he used to make me watch. When she was just little. And then after, right in front of her, he’d make me…” The bone-dry chuckle obliterated his words. “Such a close family.” He slammed a big fist into a thick palm. “And—after all that—Perry gets her?”

  “You wanted to help her get away from him? I could tell them that. You were just trying to help her. They won’t…”

  “I’m here now.” His voice rasped with purpose. “And I’ll take Stella away with me. Would you like that, my angel? To finally get away from Edgeharbor?”

  Kit peered toward the darkest corner of the room. This can’t be happening. Agony throbbed in her head. It’s not real. Fear made her thoughts grow vague. She heard his voice raging on, but the words tumbled faintly into one another, dissipating like a spent wave.

  “…after I’ve killed them all. Then we’ll be happy. You’ll see.”

  XXVIII

  The boy crashed against the door.

  “Look at it!” Steve grabbed him by his shirt. “Look at it, I said!” He shook him hard.

  Bullet holes marred the heavy wood of the door. Long scrapes ran along the frame, the knob, the lock, and the safety glass had been cracked and chipped till only wires held the sections together.

  “It was you he wanted!” He shoved the boy’s face against the wood. “Now tell me! Tell me where he’s got her!”

  “I don’t know. Don’t hit me.” Trying to push his face from the jagged glass, Perry gulped air. Blood branched slowly from his nose to his chin.

  “Tell me!” Sputtering with rage, he hauled the boy back by the collar. “Or I’ll cuff your hands behind you and toss you outside. How far do you think you’ll get before your brother finds you? You think I won’t do it?”

  The sobs raked up from deep within him. “Stell…”

  His hands circled the back of the boy’s neck, and strong fingers clamped down, tightening. “Tell me!” The bones felt fragile and sharp.

  Beneath the pressure, Perry bent forward until his head pointed at the floor. “I’m sorry.” He choked out the words.

  Steve took his hands away, and the boy sank to the concrete. Steve watched his own fingers clench and unclench; then he moved to the window and stared out at the night. Behind him, he heard the boy whimper on the floor, and his fingers dug into the grill over the window. Killer. Moisture glimmered on the glass. Monster. Wires cut into his flesh, and he felt the sting of blood. Oh, Kit. His first gulping sob emerged before he could force it down.

  “There’s one place.”

  He whirled around at the sound of shuffling movement.

  The boy spoke in short gasps. “One place he might be.”

  “Please, you have to help me.”

  On a filthy cot by the heap of moldy newspapers, the girl lay unresponsive, almost inert. Again the shack rocked, one wall shivering violently as muddy water slid across the floor. The girl’s head lolled, and white crescents flickered beneath her parting eyelids.

  “Get up!” Kit shouted hoarsely. “Before he comes back. Listen to me. You have to help me. You have to get up! He’ll kill us both. Do you hear me?”

  The girl’s head jerked, her gaze glittering like broken glass, and the fingers of her left hand jerked. “Perry…he’ll get me again…no, please…don’t let him.” A rusty edge grated in her voice, as though she were unused to speaking aloud.

  Kit’s thoughts raced. Clearly, the girl’s mind had broken—it was as though she had no will to move. “Perry’s gone!” She shouted again. “Are you listening to me? It’s Ramsey we have to worry about now. You have to stand up.”

  “He’ll hurt me.” One white hand floated up to cover her face.

  “No! Stay with me! Keep looking at me. I can protect you from Ramsey. I’m a police officer. Do you understand me? Listen to me—if you’ll untie me, I’ll take care of…”

  Softly, the girl began to weep. “I love Ramsey.”

  “Yes.” Kit dropped her voice to a gentle murmur. “Of course you do. He’s your brother. But he’s sick. You know he’s sick. He hurts people. We have to get help for him. You understand? Before he hurts you.”

  “You won’t let Perry hit me?”

  “It’s Ramsey…you know he’ll do something bad to you when he comes back. And to me too. You don’t want that to happen, do you? Look at me. I’m your friend, Stella. The only reason I’m here is to help you. You don’t want Ramsey to hurt me, do you? Well, then you have to get up now. Do you hurt anywhere? Can you walk? Did he give you something? Make you take something?” Shock waves coruscated through her body. It was hopeless. God only knew what the girl had been through, and she might well be drugged. Despairingly, Kit strained against the ropes that scored her wrists. Slow movement across the room caught her attention.

  The girl wobbled to her feet with a strange fluidity. She seemed faintly puzzled as she watched her own arms and legs, and each slow gesture—the trailing of a fingertip to her face, the listening tilt of her head—melted into a profound lassitude that suffused her. “…don’t know what…” As she tottered into the light, her shoulders slumped.

  “No, don’t collapse! Stay on your feet. Look at me! Here! Come around behind me.” A trickle of hope began to course through her. “Get me out of this. Quick!”

  The girl’s manner still seemed dreamlike, but she stumbled closer. “I know this place.”

  “Hurry!”

  “He hurt you, didn’t he?” She staggered. “Your head’s bleeding. All red in your hair. Pretty. Where’s Perry?”

  “Thank you.” She swallowed. “You’re pretty too.” Fighting panic, she forced something like a smile onto her face. Perhaps the girl had been driven as mad as her brothers, or perhaps she was in some kind of shock. When she spoke again, it was as though to a small child. “The ropes. You have to…”

  “Do you have boyfriends?”

  “What? Sure. Why not?” She repressed a hysterical laugh. “Dozens. And a pretty girl like you—you must have a lot of boyfriends too. Now, please…”

  “No!” The girl’s face twisted. “They never let me. Daddy says…”

  “Please, just listen, untie me before he comes back. I’ll get you away from here. I’ll take care of you. I promise.” She felt her tenuous control slipping: already tears pooled, blurring the room. “Stella?” Footsteps sounded behind her. “What…?” She felt tugging, sharp pressure. “No! No, stop it! That’s not the way!”

  “I can’t.” The voice sounded sorrowful, and long tresses brushed Kit’s cheek.

  “Then find something to cut it with. Hurry! Look over there on that table.”

  The girl seemed to move a bit more steadily on her feet.

  “Do you see anything?” Again, the whole room shook, the door actually bulging on its hinges, while water squirted in at the gaps. “We’ve got to get out of here. Did you find…?”

  “This?”

  “Yes, try it! Hurry!”

  From the shadows, Stella wobbled forward, holding up a rusted screwdriver. A tiny bead of lamplight gleamed on the tip, and the girl stared at it in wonder, as if she’d never seen anything like it before.

  “Is it sharp at all? Stella?”

  The girl’s features dissolved in dimness, only the glitter of her gaze still bright.

  They crouched on the floor, the boy poised like an animal.

  “What do you think, kid?” Easing the barrel of his gun over the edge of the desk, Steve peered at the window grate. “He’s your brother.”

  The first of the bullets had plowed into the outer walls with a sound like hail, and now particles of glass iced the floor.

  In the heavy silence, the boy seemed to concentrate. “He went away,” he whispered at last.

  “What makes you so sure?”

>   “I…just think so.”

  “Yeah?” Steve watched him. “What else do you think?”

  The boy’s lips pressed tight.

  “Never mind. Don’t have another seizure. You said you knew where he took Kit.”

  “There’s a place.”

  “No bullshit now.”

  Perry shook his head. “I mean it—I’ll take you there, if…”

  “If what?”

  “If you promise to kill him,” he said. “If you promise.”

  “Easy to tell you’re brothers.” Steve swallowed hard. “Why do you hate each other so much?”

  “…didn’t used to. When I was little, he…tried to help me, take care of me.”

  “But you’re afraid of him now?”

  Perry drew back.

  “Just so we understand each other, kid—and so you don’t try anything—there’s something else you ought to know. He has the girl too. He’s got Stella Marie.”

  “No! No, you’re lying!”

  “Shut up! Let go of my arm. Stop that, I said. I’m telling you, he’s got her. Stop that or I’m gonna deck you, so help me. That’s better. I found that apartment of yours. Finally. Place looked like it’d been torn apart by baboons.”

  The boy trembled violently.

  “There’s no time for that now. Snap out of it. If you really know where they might be, you’d better talk fast. There’s no telling how much time they’ve got or if they’re even alive still. Because you know as well as I do, sooner or later, your brother is gonna do what he does best.”

  “No, across—use the point. Slash back and forth. That’s it. Oww! No, don’t stop! Is it cutting?”

  The door banged open, and a wave of freezing air flooded the room. The screwdriver fell to the floor, but any sound it might have made faded into the rumble of the surf.

  “Ah! Sorry I took so long, ladies.” He stomped and splashed into the room, bolting the door behind him. “Stella, dear, stop whatever it is you’re doing there at once, and come away from that woman. There’s a good girl.” The parka dripped copiously as he dumped a duffel bag on the floor. “I experienced quite a difficult time getting back. The waves have commenced coming up over the boards again. We shall have to leave now, Stell.” He patted the girl gently on the shoulder, and she whimpered faintly. “I’m afraid I couldn’t get to our Perry. But—never fear—we’ll find him later.” His expression went vacant, as though he’d withdrawn to consider his own words. “See? I’ve brought some things from your apartment.”