The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

by Robert Dunbar

  "Was it your brother who chased us?"

  He still tensed whenever Steve uttered a word. The defiant mask on the boy's face quivered, as though some exhalation disturbed a reflection in a pool...or as though something deep below struggled toward the surface.

  "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

  "Steve..."

  "Answer me."

  The questions hammered on until the boy's determined stillness began to crumble, first in small flinches--as one hand found the other and clasped it--then in gradual gestures and shifts of posture, as he sank farther into his chair, shoulders bowed. Trying to cover himself, he clutched and pulled at the coarse fabric of the blanket.

  "Do you hear what I'm asking you?"

  "He hears," she insisted.

  Slowly the boy's face tilted, and Kit squirmed before the smoldering delirium of that stare. For a moment, it seemed he might finally speak; then his lips jammed together.

  "Damn it." Grappling his own blanket with one hand, Steve perched on the edge of the desk. "You're going to have to answer me sooner or later. What happened to your father?" He leaned forward. "That was him we found in the basement, wasn't it?"

  The boy rubbed one bare foot against the other, then yanked both feet back under the blanket.

  "He's shivering still. Look, his lips are practically blue."

  "Who hid the body in the basement? Did Ramsey do it?"

  Again, something seemed to stir beneath the boy's features.

  "Perry?" She kept her voice gentle. "You've just been moving around ever since, right?" She watched emotions drift across his face: cloud reflections on window glass. "Going from apartment to apartment?"

  "No, don't look away. Answer her." His hand shot out.

  "Steve!"

  The slap stopped short of the boy's cheek, and Steve turned to her, sadness in his voice. "Not exactly what we were expecting, is he?"

  She got up from her chair. "Let me try again." She knelt by the boy. "You're going to have to trust somebody sooner or later, Perry. Believe me on this." Her face hovered inches from his. "All that blood. Who tried to clean up the house? Did you do that?"

  He might have nodded, the movement so slight as to be barely discernible.

  With a sudden gesture, she reached out and pushed the tangle of damp hair back from his forehead again, and for once, he didn't pull away. She stared at a face so pale each eyelash stood out darkly. The flesh felt hot now, moist. He shuddered painfully, while his eyes wheeled around the room, shimmering like glass. He made her think of a stuffed fox, frozen in a semblance of futile cunning. "Lashes like these wasted on a boy." She almost stroked his hand, and he jerked reflexively. "And this coloring." The raw entreaty of his stare stunned her.

  "Kit. Come away."

  Again, she stroked his head, watched primal shadows flutter across his face: panic, rage, and always, just below the surface, hopeless sorrow. And suddenly she knew who he reminded her of. She watched him force his feelings back down, one by one, watched grinding determination return to fill the delicate, sullen features: she'd seen Steve do the same thing countless times. Setting his mouth in a hard line, the boy folded his arms across his chest. "That was quite a workout you gave us before," she continued before their tenuous contact could fade. "You're pretty strong."

  Finally, his lips moved feebly. "Sometimes I am."

  Behind her, Steve rose.

  Her own voice emerged a conspiratorial whisper. "How do you get into the apartments?"

  Wide with hurt, his stare probed the room, seeking a rift in the glare. "...knew Daddy had keys." He drew a damp, snuffling breath. "...took the office key. From his pants...after...went and got them." The soft rasp grated more rapidly now, as though he'd lost some struggle against the need to talk. "Lights weren't turned off in some of the places, you know, for the winter yet, you know, the electricity, so when the bills came...I just copied his signature on the checks." He panted, his mouth twitching.

  "You forged his signature? That was pretty clever."

  "Used to do it in school anyway. Report cards and stuff. Had to. When I went, I mean." His voice became a thin croak, and he sounded older now, though his expression remained vulnerable, dreamy, unconnected to his words. "Stella never went."

  "Never?"

  "Went to a special place...for a little while." Ashamed, he choked it out. "But Daddy didn't like it."

  The floor felt icy on Steve's bare feet. "Special how?"

  Perry flinched.

  "This is your sister you're speaking of?" She wanted to keep him from going silent again. "No, don't look at him," she prompted gently. "Look at me. How was the school special? Don't you like talking about Stella?"

  "Did you kill her, Perry?"

  "Steve!"

  The boy's chest rose, and the expulsion of air seemed to push him limply back against the chair.

  She crouched beside him. "Perry?" For an instant, she thought something flickered in that grimed face, not trust so much as a yearning to trust. "Why couldn't she go to a regular school?"

  He turned away, and his hands locked, the fingers working against each other in a deathly clutch. "Didn't use to be smart," he said finally.

  "How do you mean?"

  The boy shrugged. "Slow."

  "Used to be?" The pink bedroom in the Chandler house surfaced in her mind--the frills and dolls--preserved like a museum exhibit. "Is she dead?"

  "...still gets like that sometime. Stupid like."

  "Where is she?" Steve barked.

  Slow tears glistened on the boy's cheeks, but he didn't cringe.

  Lightly, she stroked the back of his hand with her fingertips, admiring the courage of this child. This time, he didn't snatch his hand away, and she clasped his fingers between hers, trying to sooth their tension. They burned, small and damp, and she noticed the scaled-over scratches on the backs, the dirt caked around the fingernails. A killer? This child? What were they thinking?

  "...goes back to the house sometimes." The husking whisper drifted. "Once...found her at Daddy's office...crying...think sometimes he used to bring her there."

  "Why would he do that?"

  The boy didn't answer.

  "Did you kill him? Answer me."

  Whatever nebulous feelings had lingered in Perry's expression instantly hardened into hate.

  "Steve, maybe we should..."

  "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.

  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 v
iew 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.