Snared wd-3

by Stefan Petrucha

  Lindsay noticed that the sand had also fallen on the lip of her beer can, so she set it down. She ran her hands through her hair to get rid of the grit there and noticed Char giving her a nasty look.

  She’s jealous, Lindsay thought. But is she jealous of Doyle or Ev? Maybe both?

  “Sorry about Doyle,” Ev said. “He’s like a hound with a scent. Let’s take a walk.”

  Lindsay and Ev stood. A moment later the other girls were also standing up, brushing sand off their backsides. Mel paused to check a tear over the pocket of her white shorts. She fussed with the edges, looking sad. Doyle appeared with Ev’s beer. She took it from him and said, “Thanks, baby,” before taking a deep drink. Doyle turned his attention back to Lindsay.

  “Where are we going?” Char asked.

  “Lindsay and I are going to wander for a few.” Char’s face fell. Anger crept into her expression. “I want to give the new girl the deluxe tour.”

  Once they were north of the bonfire, out of earshot of the others, Ev slowed her pace. She drank from her beer and looked at Lindsay.

  “Sorry about Doyle. He’s always around. The inland girls usually like him.”

  “He’s kind of old.”

  “Yeah,” Ev replied with a laugh. “He is, I guess, but he’ll always be around, like the ocean and the sand.”

  “He’s just part of the scene?”

  “Totally. And the scene never changes. That’s why I hate it here.”

  “It seems cool enough,” Lindsay said. She was trying to be nice. She didn’t really know what to think about it.

  “Yeah,” Ev said. “It’s cool if you like quicksand.”

  “Quicksand?”

  “You know, in those movies where people get stuck in it, and they struggle, and it sucks them down faster? That’s what Redlands is like. Mel and Tee are already up to their necks in it. They’ll both meet boys and get jobs at some grocery store or restaurant and have a bunch of kids. It’s like already written in stone. Char’s got a little time yet.”

  Lindsay hadn’t expected this burst of philosophy. She didn’t think Ev was particularly deep, what with all her party girl talk and loud attitude.

  “I’ve been planning to get out since I was a kid,” the platinum blonde continued. “I just knew I couldn’t stay here. So I got my GED and I worked at that crappy Dairy Queen on Harper’s and I bailed, because I knew I had to pull myself out. My girls aren’t like me, though. They think they can wait and something will happen or someone will come along and save them. The problem is, they think I’m the one who can save them now.”

  “Don’t you want to help them?”

  Ev stopped walking. The night breeze ruffled her straight hair, blew it across her face. She pushed it back with her hand. “I can’t,” she said. “They’re a part of this place, just like Doyle. They’re deep in the quicksand, and if I try to pull them out, they’ll drag me back in. My manager totally helped me see that.”

  Now Lindsay understood. Ev was just quoting something an adult had told her. She hadn’t created the words, but she certainly believed in them. This left Lindsay shaken. Ev seemed harder to her now. Colder. How could she not want to help her friends?

  “You could talk to them,” Lindsay offered. “Maybe they’d realize there was more out there.”

  “All we did when we were little girls was talk about getting away from here. I did it, but they’re afraid to even try. The fact is, some people just can’t be saved.”

  Lindsay didn’t want to believe that.

  Lindsay lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The party had been fun, she guessed. By the time she and Ev got back, most everyone was wasted. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t know what to expect from them, so she kept quiet, just sipping at her beer, never letting herself totally relax. Seeing Ev’s entourage after their chat totally depressed her. They seemed like blind prisoners—trapped but unable to see the bars around them. The fact is, some people just can’t be saved. The older guy, Doyle, followed her around, always smiling, always nodding his head like he was agreeing with things she hadn’t said. When he spoke, it was always some lame double entendre meant to sound charming or cool. At a little past midnight, Lindsay decided to bail.

  Now she stared at the ceiling. Kate’s party would be in full swing. Lindsay would have known a lot of people. She could have relaxed, and Doyle would have been a thousand miles away, nodding at some other girl.

  For the second night in a row, she heard the odd chanting, the chimes, and the drum. This was another oddity. If Mark’s guardians were so hung up on New Age crap, how could they be so strict? So mean?

  She pictured them. Muscular. Severe. Nasty. Playing lousy music into the middle of the night just to torment Mark.

  “I’m hating this,” Lindsay said to her ceiling.

  The chanting grew quieter. The drums beat louder.

  “Crap.”

  Lindsay climbed out of bed. She went to the window and looked into the sandy alley below. A frame of light surrounded a black shade behind Mark’s window. The lines of light seemed to fade and brighten with shadowy movement. Maybe he was watching TV.

  But she didn’t remember seeing a TV in his room.

  She leaned away from the window. Knowing she’d never get to sleep, Lindsay dressed herself in shorts and a salmon-colored blouse, which she buttoned slowly. She slipped on a pair of flip-flops and left the room. Her ears were still alert, trying to pick up any revealing sound from the house next door.

  In the kitchen she grabbed a diet cola from the refrigerator and walked to the porch.

  Lindsay sat on the wooden bench, cradling the soda can in her lap. Dark water stretched to the horizon, where it met the sky. Both were black, but of different depth. The ocean was as dark as onyx. The sky was more of a plum black pierced by millions of tiny stars. She watched the ghostly white lines of foam crest and fall to the beach and listened to the rhythmic crash of the waves. She breathed in the salty air. Sipped from her drink.

  To the north, Ev’s bonfire party was probably still going on, with everyone paired off. Maybe tomorrow night Lindsay would loosen up a bit more, have a better time.

  She began to relax, letting the sound of the surf lull her. She thought about Mark, thought about what hanging out with him would be like. Not hanging out like they did that afternoon, with a windowsill separating them, but really hanging out. Going for coffee or lying on the beach. She wished Mark were with her now, sharing the bench and the cool night air.

  But would she get the chance to spend any normal time with him? She was only staying at her uncle’s place for nine more days. What if Mark was grounded the whole time and they only got to chat with a wall between them? That would be a major shame. Even though it had a Romeo and Juliet flavor, that kind of romance was completely unfortunate.

  She glanced at the house next door and was surprised to see movement on the porch. Her heart tripped rapidly. For a moment, she felt certain Mark was sneaking out.

  Please, let it be him.

  She squinted, trying to make sense of the shadow on the neighboring porch. Leaning close to the side railing, she was about to whisper Mark’s name, but paused. She was glad she did.

  The shape was too broad and short to be Mark. It seemed to glide across the porch like a black ghost until it emerged into the moonlight.

  Lindsay’s breath caught in her throat. Wearing the same slicker he’d worn the first time she saw him, Jack, the more muscular of Mark’s guardians, descended the stairs. His feet sank into the sand, and he paused, staring out at the ocean. The slicker flapped against him in the breeze coming off the water. Lindsay pulled away from the railing, pushed herself tight to the bench. She held her breath, frightened she might be discovered.

  She didn’t want Jack to know she was there. He scared her. Both of Mark’s guardians did.

  Finally the stubby man left his place by the stairs. He walked across the sand toward the surf. When he reached the tide’s edge, he removed the slicker, and
Lindsay saw he wore a loose, boxy bathing suit. Black, of course. Across the man’s back were numerous dark lines: a tattoo. Lindsay couldn’t tell what the design was (or if it was several individual patterns), but it covered his entire back.

  So much for being a respectable authority figure.

  Jack dropped the slicker on the sand and ran into the surf. Water crashed against his shins. He dove forward, disappearing beneath a white curtain of froth.

  “I hope you drown,” she mumbled. “Or sharks chew off your legs.”

  For a moment, she thought her wish had been granted. She searched the ocean for any sign of the man, but he seemed to have vanished into the waves. Is he some kind of fish-man? A sea creature that can make itself look human?

  That’s stupid. But where did he go?

  The explanation was simple enough: It was too dark for her to see. Still, Jack’s disappearance creeped her out.

  Lindsay decided to go inside and put a locked door between herself and the freak. She stood, but a second later a sharp click sounded in the night. She turned quickly to the source of the noise.

  On the porch of the house next door, a tiny flame flickered. In its dancing light, she saw the face of Mark’s other guardian, Doug. The tall, bald man was lighting a cigarette, and he was looking right at her.

  Terrified, Lindsay raced inside.

  7

  The Redlands Mobile Home Park was half a mile south of the house Lindsay’s uncle owned. Farther south, rocky outcroppings broke the beach with jagged black ridges, jutting out into the frothing surf. In the early morning hours, a white Jeep owned by the Redlands Beach Patrol rolled over the sand in this area, doing a nightly sweep. Sometimes they caught teens making out, drinking, or carrying on so loudly the patrol was forced to run them off. Often enough, they found nothing.

  Tonight was terribly different though. As the Jeep approached the shore, its headlights fell on what one of the patrolmen initially thought was a pile of wet clothes. It only took him a few seconds to see the arms poking out from beneath the soaked fabric, and what he’d mistaken for a damp woolen sweater was actually a knot of thick knotted hair, covering the head of a young man. Always hopeful, the patrolman considered the possibility that this young man had fallen asleep on the beach, and was perhaps too drunk to notice the tide coming in to douse him. He finally accepted the dreadful truth when he noticed a group of crabs climbing over the boy’s bare legs and feet like large armored spiders, already at work on him with their pincers.

  The patrolman parked close and leaped from his Jeep. He ran to the body and shooed away the horrible crabs. He reached down for the boy’s arm, lifted it, checking the wrist for a pulse, but found none. That was when he noticed the cross carved into the boy’s palm.

  In the morning, again woken by bright sunshine, Lindsay dashed from her bed to the window seat. She couldn’t help herself. She looked down into the yard, scoping the sand to see if one or both of Mark’s guardians were there. They weren’t. She looked at his window, and her heart sank. The black shade was still drawn behind the glass.

  “We’re going to the beach this morning,” her dad said when Lindsay went downstairs for her coffee. “Gonna stake out a good place before all the riffraff take over the shore. You interested?”

  “Maybe,” Lindsay said. “I promised Ev I’d hang with her this morning. But I think she might be hurting today. We’ll see.”

  “Sure, honey,” her dad said, his Winnie the Pooh happy-face changing to a look of concern.

  In her room, Lindsay took her coffee to the window seat. The shade was still drawn over Mark’s window. She thought about calling Kate. Talking about Mark might be a sufficient substitute for seeing him, but it was way too early, especially if her friend’s party had been a success.

  Where is he?

  Lindsay opened her laptop and powered it up, casting quick glances at the house next door as she waited for the machine to boot. She sipped her coffee and heard her parents moving around in the hall at the top of the staircase.

  She settled in to read through emails when her dad knocked on the bedroom door. He waited for her to say “Come in,” before poking his head in the room.

  “Just want to make sure you’ve got everything you need before we head out.”

  “I’m fine, Dad.”

  “Oh, and I want you to be careful if you decide to go swimming. A young man drowned last night.”

  “You’re kidding?” Lindsay said, horrified. “Here?”

  “Down the beach by the rocks,” her dad replied. “The news made it sound like he was some kind of druggie, and he just got caught in an undercurrent or something. Couldn’t fight it because he was high. Anyway, just be careful.”

  “I wasn’t planning on swimming anyway. But thanks. You and Mom have a good time.”

  “Well, we’ll have your mom’s cell.”

  “Dad,” Lindsay said, smiling and shaking her head. “It’s not like you’re going to Canada or anything. The beach is like five feet away.”

  “I just thought that if you changed your mind, it’d be easier to find us.”

  “Easier than stepping out on the porch and looking for the biggest dork on the beach?” she asked, just joking.

  “Hey,” her dad said. “You shouldn’t talk about your mom that way.”

  “You can leave now,” Lindsay said with a laugh.

  Alone in the room, Lindsay felt a pleasant kind of sadness. She knew this feeling had a name but couldn’t remember what it was called.

  As she glanced out at the house next door, she remembered her childhood visits to the beach. Back then the vacations were exciting. Despite her uncle’s noisy friends and his smell, she really liked the family trips. In the mornings they all sat around the table and ate a big breakfast of pancakes or eggs with tons of sausage or bacon and lots of English muffins just waiting for gobs of jelly. Pleasantly stuffed, she went with her parents to the beach and played in the sand and surf, building little fat castles and digging ditches to create medieval landscapes for her dolls to roam. In the afternoon her parents would take her shopping or to a movie at the theater in town. And every night, just around sunset, while her mom and her uncle cleaned up the dinner dishes, her dad took her hand and led her back to the beach, right up to the shoreline to collect shells and pretty rocks. Once she’d had boxes of the souvenirs tucked under her bed at home.

  She tossed most of those out last year, except for three really cool shells that sat on her bedroom windowsill. Like her anticipation of the vacations, her interest in the souvenirs had faded.

  Already this morning, she’d received six emails from Kate, three from Trey, and several from other friends. Apparently, Kate’s party had turned into a full-on crisis. Four of the popular boys from school, including Nick Faherty and his brother, got so drunk they were puking in the kitchen sink. Kate got into a big fight with Constance Turner, who was making out with Chad Olivieri on Kate’s bed. Of course, Kate liked Chad, so that made it blow all the more. Matt broke a lamp—“which is totally irreplaceable”—and Funkster, Kate’s terrier, got out and disappeared until morning. The police even showed up because the Jacksons next door complained about the noise. In later emails, Kate wanted to know where Lindsay was and why her cell phone was turned off: “I so need to talk to you!!!”

  Trey reported on the party as well. He thought it was the coolest party EVARRRR! But of course, he didn’t have to clean up the house or endure the wrath of Kate’s parents.

  Lindsay looked away from her computer, and her heart beat faster. Kate and her party were forgotten.

  The shade was up in Mark’s room. He stood in the window, looking at her.

  Waiting for Mark’s guardians to leave was like teetering on the edge of a cliff. She busied herself with emails and spent thirty minutes putting different outfits together on the bed. It was nearly an hour after first seeing Mark in his window before Lindsay heard the car next door pull out.

  Excited, she ran downstairs and out the
front door. In the alley of sand between the two houses, she slowed her pace and smoothed down the fabric of her blouse.

  At Mark’s window, she noticed the strange metal corner pieces driven into the wood again. This time, she touched one out of curiosity. It felt ice-cold to the touch, despite the fact it had to be ninety degrees outside.

  “Hi,” Mark said. He still wore the distressed jeans and the black shirt that hung loose from his shoulders.

  “Hey,” Lindsay said. “How’s it going?”

  Mark shrugged. “Sorry about yesterday,” he told her. “I feel like a total geek for freaking out that way.”

  “They’re really strict, huh?”

  “You can’t imagine,” Mark said. His face changed, and he looked happy. “You look really nice today.”

  “Thanks. So do you.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “Don’t have any clothes that fit me here.”

  “I hate everything I brought,” Lindsay said.

  “How’s your vacation so far?” Mark asked.

  “It’s okay. I met some kids yesterday. They’re cool, I guess.”

  “If I could get out of here, I’d make sure you had a good trip.”

  “Oh really?” Lindsay said a bit too loudly. She got her voice under control and said “What would we do?”

  “I don’t know. I’d teach you how to surf. You said you wanted to learn. Then we could find a nice place for dinner, and after that walk on the beach for a couple of hours. We could build a fire and talk and stuff.”

  “That sounds great,” she said.

  “Yeah. Right now, anything sounds great to me as long as it doesn’t involve Doug, Jack, or this damn room.”

  “Why don’t you come out here?” she asked. “Maybe we could talk out back. You’d totally make it inside before they found out.”

  Mark looked at her like she had just sprouted a snout. His eyebrows scrunched and his head turned to the side like a curious dog.

  “Can’t,” he said. “It’s like, the window. But maybe you could come in?”