The Shore (2 page)

Cracked by sun and wind, the flesh on the backs of his hands resembled drying mud flats. As he struggled to close the padlock, he exhaled heavily so that cigar smoke shrouded him. With his cane hooked over one arm, and the cigar tightly gripped between his lips, the old man grappled with arthritic fingers until at last he managed to jam the door shut. When the padlock on the shed clicked, he turned to face out over the bay.

Waves gurgled and sloshed, the pier swaying stiffly. He stared a long time. Nearly twenty years had passed with grinding tedium since last he’d gone to sea; still he came each morning, never dawdling over the short walk, to fix his Spartan breakfast over a coal stove. By the light of each dawn, he monitored the disintegration of his nets and inspected the progression of the rot that had long since claimed his boat.

A frosty breeze stretched across the bay to tousle the few whitish strands on his head, and still his gaze tracked across the water. Terns wheeled. Buildings on the mainland appeared feathery and vague, while pillars of smoke flattened into haze. Edgeharbor clung to a narrow strip of land that branched southward from the coast, but on foggy mornings, he could imagine with desperate longing that he lived upon an island…an island in another time. He scratched a wiry eyebrow with his thumb, and let his gaze sweep farther out to sea.

Clouds hung motionless, fissured with a milky light that seemed to leak away even as he watched. Today no ships marred the frozen horizon. The wind slapped up small waves, and the few tarp-covered boats bucked, furled sails shivering in place.

Decades earlier, the fishing boats had ceased to venture out—he remembered their decks heaped with fish of all descriptions and covered with dead squid like mounds of empty gloves. Long before the births of his grandchildren, the cannery had closed its doors, and now the brick structure brooded dismally at the edge of the larger dock. Its muddy reflection quivered.

While the wind stung at his unflinching face, he stretched and grunted. His compact body had remained lean throughout the years, his arms much harder, he knew, than the arms of many a younger man. He found satisfaction in the thought, but still his vision tracked along the horizon, searching. After a lifetime as a fisherman, he harbored no romantic illusions about the sea, but if it stirred no poetry in his soul, neither did it evoke the superstitious awe harbored by so many of the old men he’d known as a boy. If anything, he sported a faintly hostile, even grudgingly proprietary attitude, regarding it. Behind him, the corrugated roof of the shed rattled, and he shuffled away against the wind, not bothering to turn up his collar. Above all, he was a methodical man, practical, and often the futility of this daily ritual of inspection vaguely troubled him, but he shrugged it off, instinctively dreading the alternative. Better to rise at dawn and hurry to his dilapidated hut than to sit in his daughter’s house and listen to the television and the vacuum cleaner and his daughter’s blurring telephone chatter. Here at least—brewing coffee and playing solitaire—he retained some memory of purpose.

As he crossed the weathered dock, he savored the sound of the waves. His daughter might lament his advancing deafness, but the sea never fell silent for him. Even on days like this, so still, could he hear it slide against itself, coiling to hump against the pier, while all around him boats plodded up and down in their shifting places, refracted lights dancing on their hulls like memories of vanished summers. He shook his head. Smoke billowed away from him, and he tossed the chewed nub of his cigar in the water.

Something pale shimmered in the swells.

He squinted. Even on such an overcast day, the trembling surface glittered. The object bobbed between two of the old boats. Stooping, he strained to make it out. Some odd sort of fish, belly-up among the sodden pilings? Squidlike, the thing wavered down, now visible, now gone. He crouched at the edge of the rotting wood.

The surface stirred as a swell approached, sloughing sideways like an aquatic serpent. He bent to prod the thing with his cane, to bring it closer, but with the perversity of things in water, it twisted the other way, and he shivered, leaning farther.

Something watched him from the water.

A clammy heat climbed his back. Fear dropped through the tight knot of his stomach, and he gripped the post, struggling to maintain his balance. Memories welled, all the evil tales flooding back. In the old country, his grandfather and the other men of the village had often spoken of
la sirena,
drowned women who devoured men with small sharp teeth in wet and secret places, and dreams of such creatures had terrorized his childhood. He blinked. Small waves slapped fitfully at the broken pilings.

Black tresses smoking around it, the face in the water turned away, one eye, white and yellow, emerging. The head rolled again, bobbed against a floating bottle.

Something pushed against the cane.

Numbly, he regarded the thing that first had attracted his attention. The digits, stiffened and outstretched, did resemble tentacles, and the knob of bone trailed filaments like a lure into the murk. Other things also floated among the pilings—he regarded them clearly now. Clutching at the warped and swollen post, he jerked to his feet and slapped fitfully at his coat as though beating away cinders.

Stumbling across the dock, he limped stiffly away from the peaceful lapping noises. He tried to hurry, but agony thundered in his chest, and pain sparked in his knees. Wheezing in the chill, and leaning heavily on the stick, he hobbled into the streets of the town.

Overhead, seabirds laughed like harpies.

The boy ran until pain slashed his lungs, until reeling with exhaustion, he staggered and caught himself against a fence. Gasping raggedly, he looked back.

No one followed. He hung there, chest heaving, while surge after surge of relief beat through his heart. After a moment, he tried to run again, still panting hoarsely, and sand rained from his clothes to the sidewalk with every jolt. Almost immediately a cramp seized his side. Slowing, he tried to maintain a normal gait, though his legs trembled. Appearing “normal” was so important, the most important thing of all—this had been drummed into his head all his life.

The sky had dulled, and the squeal of a gull echoed above the street.

Leaves eddied along the sidewalk, and his longish hair blew loosely around his collar as he hurried past the church. With quavering hands, he fished a ball of tissue out of his pocket and wiped at his nose. For just a moment, he thought he’d lost his gloves again, but then he remembered he’d had to bury them because they’d gotten all sticky. He crammed his hands into his pockets and let the wind push him along. His cap almost blew free, but he caught it, tugged it down over his ears. Freezing, he blew on his hands. Around the corner, glacial cold struck at his face, and he marched along with his head down, staring at the sidewalk through sudden tears.

Crossing Chandler Street in front of the library always seemed the worst part of the trek. Bracing himself, he bolted for the dark scar of an alleyway on the other side. The narrow channel cut through the wall beside an abandoned restaurant, and he plunged in, hurrying until brick walls blocked out the world completely. Deep within the alley, he stopped running and peered back at the entrance.

A street lamp winked on.

He trudged ahead. The alley trailed behind the restaurant, frozen garbage blistering the concrete at his feet. Wind whistled.

A scream scalded his ears. With a savage movement, the creature rose, swelling to the top of a wall, then over.

The boy’s knees unlocked. Just a cat. Heart hammering, he leaned against the frigid bricks and after a moment shuffled forward again. He knew there couldn’t be much left around here for the poor animal to eat, and he thought tomorrow he might bring some food for it. Slowly, the convulsive throbbing of his blood diminished, and a moment later, the alley emptied into a deserted parking lot. Raw boards covered doors and windows along the rear of a warehouse.

Leaping a low dividing wall, he sprinted across a narrow street and darted blindly into another alley. Home turf now. The backs of buildings crowded together and blocked the lowering sky as the passage narrowed. Scraping the shoulder of his jacket, he squeezed around a pile of crates, careful of where he put his feet.

A door rattled—claws scrabbled loudly at wood, and a broad black nose rutted through a gap.

He ran. The alley broadened into a canyon of basement doors. In the airshaft above his head, gray clothesline twisted, webbing the fire escapes that tangled up the walls like vines, and wind throbbed through the clothesline as he scurried for the tallest building.

As always, he jumped for the fire escape and as always missed the lowest rung by inches. Dragging over a dented metal trash can, he stood on it, pulling himself up hand over hand, grunting until his thrashing feet found the bottom rung. The freezing metal scorched his palms, and he decided he’d need new gloves fast.

When he reached the first landing, he hugged his hands deep into his stomach, warming them. Then he leaned over the rail. He knew he’d messed up bad today. Empty windows overlooked the courtyard in every direction, and over the roof of the lowest building, he could observe a slice of empty street beyond. He’d been so scared, he’d even raced across that last stretch without checking first. Anyone might have seen. Plus he’d forgotten about that dog again. Eventually, someone would hear it bark. They would have to move again…soon. But it would be harder now—things had gotten so much worse. Thinking about the man on the beach, he trembled as the courtyard below him sank deeper into gloom. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered. “Not now.”

Wind lashed the side of the building. He couldn’t die now—she needed him. Something rattled below, and the dog barked randomly.

Finally satisfied that no one had followed, he charged up the metal stairs to the top floor. The window was open a crack, and while cold sucked around his neck and shoulders, he slipped his fingers under and strained. It always made too much noise. He shoved it up more slowly, shivering. At last, pushing through the sheer summer curtains, he slipped over the sill.

He slid the window down and locked it, pulled the shade. Still in the dark, he tugged off his hat and started unbuttoning his jacket; then he pried the edge of the shade and peered into the evening shadows. At last, he switched on the kitchen light and tossed his hat on the table. He stripped off his coat, peeling the top sweater along with it so that, inside out, they slid in a lump across the back of a chair. He smoothed the other sweater across his taut stomach, then rubbed his palms above the red coil of a space heater, pain flushing into his fingers with the sudden warmth. When he twisted the knob all the way, the heater hummed. It almost drowned out the whimpering behind him.

Weeks earlier, he’d clumsily screwed a heavy latch into the wood of the closet door. As he unhooked it now, he heard a shuffling sound within, and when the closet door swung open, the pale mask of her face hovered low. He yanked on a length of chain, and the lightbulb swung shadows at him.

Her hair shone softly. She groaned, huddled on the floor, her back pushed hard against the far wall. At the sight of him, her eyes squeezed shut, rolling wildly beneath the lids, and she thrashed her body from side to side with a soft rustle, like the sounds made by a sleeping child. Her elbow struck the wall. Somehow she’d gotten her hands around in front of her, though heavy nylon cord bound them. A strip of adhesive tape still covered her mouth.

“I’m back.” He pushed into the closet and knelt beside her, shoving a long woman’s coat out of the way. She began to choke. Above them, hangers jangled.

“I told you I was gonna come back.” Slowly, he reached for the tape, but she jerked her head with a moan. “You always get nervous.” Falling to her side, she drummed her feet against the floor.

Gently, his fingers stroked her throat. “Don’t worry.” The flesh felt moist and hot, and he could feel the rapid pulse.

Her eyes became glittering slits.

“I’m home now. See?”

As tears coursed down her cheeks, she tried to roll her face away.

“Don’t be like that. You know I won’t never do nothing to hurt you.” He stroked the long tresses, savoring the pale softness. “It’ll be all right. You know I love you.” He stared hard at her face, knowing that in the sealed cavern of her mouth, she screamed. “I do. You know I do.” He slid down next to her, and his thin arms slipped around her waist. “Don’t be afraid. You got to trust me. Everything I do is for you.”

She trembled convulsively.

“Were you trying to get this off, or what? Good thing I come home when I did.” The caressing flutter of his touch strayed to the tape on her lips; then he stroked the ropes. “Don’t look at me like that. You know why I got to do this—it’s ‘cause you don’t believe me. You’d try to run away if I left you untied. You know you would. And they’d get you. I know you don’t believe me, but they’re out there. Hunting us. I mean it. That’s why we got to hide.” His fingers silked through her hair again. “Or else you’d yell until they found us. Yes, you would. And they’d kill us. Please try to understand. Why can’t you believe me? You and me might be the only real people left in the whole town. All the rest are monsters.”

Beneath the ramp, a rasp echoed. Coughing damply, the fat man lumbered out into the daylight. His parka, which gleamed a dirty orange, distorted his girth and rendered him almost shapeless. He approved. Blinking through wire-frame glasses at the dingy sky, he held up the prizes he clutched: three lengths of thin rope. Stiff with brown stains, they dangled from his fists. Behind him, the contents of a plastic trash bag lay scattered on the sand.

He understood what the ropes meant, and he brought them closer to his face. The girl still lived.

The boy had her.

His gaze raked across the buildings before him, probing empty windows. He would find them. His fists clenched with a spasm of anger. He would. No one else.

Scanning broken glass and eroded porticoes, he turned his scrutiny to the largest structure in the area. The dulled contours of The Abbey Hotel towered above the neighborhood. Terraces scoured by the wind, facade flaking away, the hotel faced the sea. The color of sand, it might almost have been a natural outcropping, a cliff pocked with caves. Even at this distance, he fancied he could hear wind whistle through boarded windows. He knew that sound only too well: it never stopped. For weeks now, he’d been living like a rat in the Abbey’s deserted halls. So many windows—the huge old building had provided an excellent lookout, but now the winter had grown more intense, forcing him to move a few blocks inland.

One thought drove him on. No one else must be allowed to get them, not now when he drew so close. The day before, he’d witnessed the stranger almost take the boy down, and thoughts of it still whipped fury through his bulk. He’d searched and searched, and there remained only so many places where they could be hiding.

Wind billowed suddenly, swamping him in dust, and pale oily tendrils of hair danced free of the parka’s hood to flutter over his forehead like the legs of a frantic spider. He needed just a bit more time. He lowered his face, teeth grinding, and retreated to the relative shelter of the ramp.

Beneath the boardwalk, the wind stirred a low moan, like the closing note of a solemn hymn.

Above the cottage roofs, a husk of moon glimmered in the afternoon sky. Before each dwelling, naked trees swayed, gnarled by salt wind, shadows stringing the lawns.

Even with the seat pushed back as far as it would go, his long legs felt cramped in the Volkswagen. As he sipped coffee, he warmed his hands on the Styrofoam cup. The dead streets seemed slightly wider here, the houses larger, but still no noise intruded, and he found it increasingly difficult to imagine these blocks had ever echoed with the normal sounds of human life. Footsteps? Voices? Laughter? Grinning sourly, he decided he knew little enough about normality to be passing judgment. He turned up the heater. Since chasing the boy on the beach the day before, he hadn’t been feeling right and had been making an effort to keep warm. Using one of the leather gloves from the seat beside him, he wiped at the mist on the side window.

Still no children in sight. He could wait.

Slumped, he stared glumly through the windshield. Weeks ago, raindrops had dried in jagged splatters on the glass, crusting into a translucent pattern that resembled heaps of tiny leaves. He fiddled with the radio again but soon gave up.
Piece of junk.
He hated everything about this car.

Checking his watch, he resumed his surveillance of the street. Between each cottage lay a space wide enough for an automobile. Wooden fences broke up the monotony at random intervals but none offered anything like sufficient cover, especially not in winter with the trees whip-bare. On the other hand, there were no street lamps, and in full dark it might be safe enough, unless a porch light suddenly went on. He studied the yards, mapping out paths to rear doors and lower windows, a routine mental exercise. On the nearest lawn, a birdlike effigy tilted on stiff wire legs; beyond it, a plastic windmill spun, audibly hissing. On the other side of the street, some inventive gardener had bedded only plastic blooms, sun bleached now to a waxy gray, and everywhere small pine trees straggled like ragweed.
The wildness creeps in.
From many evenings of watching, he knew that jackrabbits frequented these streets at dusk, and twice he’d seen forays of raccoons. Once he’d spotted something like a furred reptile, only afterward realizing it must have been a possum.

As the school bus swayed ponderously around the corner, he slid farther down in his seat and stayed down until the door hissed. Crouching, he could just see the bus in the side mirror. A girl hopped out, maybe twelve years old, dragging a smaller version of herself along, both of them all scarves and curls. Three boys bounced down after them, pummeling each other with their books while the bus groaned off, exhaust bulging from its tailpipe. The boys jostled through the intersection, as the girls headed down the block.

Yesterday, he’d trailed the boys. Today, he waited until the girls got halfway to the corner, then jammed the ancient Volkswagen into gear. It shuddered forward, muffler sputtering.
Lousy wreck.
A cloud of smoke swirled up.
Noisier than the damn bus.
They’d promised to provide him with a “serviceable” vehicle for this assignment. He’d almost laughed when he’d seen the black beetle.
How the hell am I supposed to stalk anybody in this?
The clumsy paint job, smudged and clotted, made the car resemble a blob of ink.
Like a hearse for clowns.
The passenger seat bulged where broken springs pressed the splitting vinyl, and something thumped persistently in the floor.
Like Edgar Allan Poe’s car. Could be. Practically old enough.
He snorted.
Serviceable.
The cell phone they’d given him stayed in the glove compartment. Permanently. It never worked in any of the places they sent him.

The boys had vanished. The smaller girl wore a red overcoat, easy to follow, as she swung her schoolbag and marched along behind her sister.
I manage though.
He cruised slowly after them. Passing the girls, the dirty black car turned the corner, gaining speed once out of sight. A crumpled fender sang briefly against a tire, and he scanned each desolate side street he passed. Untenanted dwellings had a look he knew too well.
So why can’t I shake the feeling I’m the one being watched?
He circled the block.
Ever since I found this town.
There seemed to be a strangely methodical quality to the cottages. Clearly they’d been constructed in clusters, laid out as irregularly as the streets themselves, somehow both monotonous and random. He adjusted the rearview mirror.

An antiseptic-looking church on the corner seemed scarcely larger than the neighboring houses. Just ahead, the girls swung into view again. As they started across the intersection, he eased down slightly on the gas pedal.

The gulls wheeled, their silhouettes like sickles, the erratic spatter of their sharpest screams glancing off the surface of the bay. Earlier they had feasted, descending in droves to the banquet. Now, driven from their roosts by vans and cars and flashing lights, they circled, shrilling.

All day, men in uniforms had milled along the old dock, and whenever a gull settled, drawn by morsels still drifting along the surface, the men threw stones or bits of shell. Once, a shot had been fired, and birds had thundered away to hover and swoop in the frozen sky.

Drifting on currents of air now, they pivoted, wailing in the twilight, awaiting their chance to glean whatever scraps the nets and hooks would miss.

The chill quickened his step. He’d left the Volks on a side street and had followed the children on foot to a playground. The older girl had watched the boys toss a football until encroaching dusk had forced them away to nearby homes. These were the only children he’d seen in the entire town, this tiny group. He’d observed carefully, but they’d met no one else, spoken to no one else.

In the fading light, the scratchy planks of the boardwalk seemed a natural barrier between sea and town, sand lapsing into dun wood, then into a granulating wedge of concrete. From the town side, a hotel pressed up against the boards, its tattered banner rustling overhead. He turned away.
So close.
Pain thundered in his head. Above the beach, gulls slowly spun, suspended in the vaporous twilight.

Tide’s in.
Choppy shadows flickered in the waves, but the roar he heard was in his head, in his chest. He walked on, trying to think.

At last, vision blurring with exhaustion, face blazing from the cold, he crossed the boards and headed down the ramp. Patches of ice pocked the sidewalk with the same dull hue as the sky.

Down the block, a lamp winked through the drapes of the house the little girls had entered. No lights showed in any of the other houses, and no curtains parted. Yet the sensation of being watched intensified as he headed into the center of town.

Hiking past darkened storefronts, he peered constantly back over his shoulder. A fleeting shape trailed always just beyond his sight—he felt sure of it. Another sepulchral hotel glowered, boarded as tightly as the one on the boardwalk, and starlings cycloned above its roof. A few street lamps glimmered to life.

With a growl, a jeep bounced past him down the street. Traces of metallic green bled through the white paint around the word
POLICE,
and he glimpsed a pale, sharp face through the windshield. The jeep slowed at the corner, and he studied it with his peripheral vision. Pretty amateurish, he decided. The revolving light on the hood looked like the sort that attached magnetically. He sauntered past, hands crammed deep in his pockets.

Hunching his shoulders, he turned onto a small residential street, then hurried past shriveled hedges. The jeep didn’t follow. He smelled smoke from a wood fire, and his breath spiraled in mist as dead leaves rasped and scuttled across the sidewalk. Keeping his face down, he studied the sidewalk. Past winters had wracked the terrain. Cracks in the street had heaved a foot above the roadbed, as though from an earthquake.
He’s holed up here.
A skin of ice on a puddle crunched beneath his shoe, and his cough felt like a hook in his chest.
I know it.

I can feel it.
He should get the car, he told himself, begin patrolling the roads that led to the highway. Even now, the boy might be sneaking away, and he would have to begin his search again, going from town to town, looking for…

No, he’s gone to ground here.
Yesterday, he’d gotten lucky…and blown it.
So now he knows I’m after him.
A trembling rage convulsed him as debris spun about his head. A dried leaf lifted from the ground and rushed against his chest, held there by the wind. He tried to brush it away, but it clung with brittle tenacity, edges curling sharply, scrabbling at his coat.

Where the hell did I leave the damn car?
He crumbled the leaf between his fingers and let the pieces drift away.

Dusk charred the facade of The Edgeharbor Arms, and the light in the window smoldered, glinting off a brass plaque by the entrance. As the lead glass doors to the foyer swung shut behind him, winter rattled at the panes, and tasseled drapes swayed in the draft. Just to be out of the wind felt luxurious.

The room seemed steeped in decades of tobacco and musty dirt. A single lamp by the desk—its yellowing shade depicting a turn-of-the-century boardwalk scene—left most of the lobby in deep gloom, and shadows bulged behind the ripely ammoniac old sofas. At first, he savored the thawing warmth, but as blood trickled back to his hands and feet an aching weariness swept through him.

The door behind the registry desk stood slightly ajar, and beyond it an infant squalled while a man and woman squabbled in a language he didn’t speak, the cacophony rendered even less intelligible by the din of a television. The wet smell of boiling pasta engulfed him. Suddenly, the voices ceased, and the television roar dropped to a mutter.

So they know I’m back.
Only the baby’s wails continued. Abruptly, the door slammed, and the chandelier jangled. Reflexively, he glanced up at the trembling crystal daggers. Then he peered around the lobby, inspecting every corner.

From the moment he’d spied the padlocked doors of the elevator, he’d understood them to be permanently sealed and not merely shut for the season. This applied to much else here in Edgeharbor. Already the Arms seemed wretchedly familiar, like the setting for a recurrent dream, though he’d only been in town just over a week. With a sigh, he lumbered up the stairs.

Patches of carpet had worn down to bare boards. At the second-floor landing only an unshaded bulb in a ceiling fixture diluted the gloom.
Need to lie down.
Pressure swelled in his head, and it hurt to move his legs.
Now.

When he’d checked in, the proprietor’s wife had been furious about his demanding a room above the second floor, and she’d wailed in broken English about all the climbing she would have to do. But she’d relented when he paid two weeks in advance and threw in an extra twenty. Being the sole guest carried advantages, and he had his reasons for insisting on an upper level. Anything lower would have been useless for observation…and the windows would have been far too accessible from the ground.

Before he started down the freezing hallway, he contemplated the darkness. A draft fluttered at the back of his neck.

As he turned the key, he listened. Cautiously easing the door open, he groped for the light switch. The threadbare carpet exuded a clammy miasma of suntan lotion and sweat, seeming to emanate even from the few cheerless furnishings. He locked the door behind him, slapped out the light. In the dark, he strode across the room and parted the curtains.

Moisture beaded the glass like black perspiration, and a damp lattice of frost feathered the edges of the pane. Scarcely five o’clock, but darkness rose like floodwaters below. He touched the glass, his fingertips slipping through the haze of moisture, leaving marks like snail tracks. Turning away, he unzipped his leather jacket. Dingy gloom seeped through the curtains, and wind shivered the windowpane. He fumbled with a switch at the back of a sconce until it flickered, barely revealing the room.