The Shore (20 page)

The boy cried out again—a splintered shriek—as he threw out his arms and clawed into the door frame, bracing himself against the flow. Whirling, he stared down into the pit behind him. A tumbling splash diminished down the stairs, but his groans trembled to rebound from the walls. At last, he scrambled backward up the steps against the thinning cascade.

One of Steve’s arms tightened about Perry’s shoulders; another circled his stomach, crushing him to his chest. “At last.” Steve’s breath rasped against the thin neck. “I’ve got you.” The slender body felt soaked and frozen against him. “Monster.” His lips pressed close to the boy’s ear. “You know what I’ve got to do now.” His grip wound tighter as the boy thrashed convulsively. “Be quiet.” He could feel the pulse of the boy’s throat against his chin. “It won’t hurt.” He heard the air go out of the boy’s chest. “Don’t struggle.” He spun Perry around to face him.

Snap the neck.
He shook the boy until his head lolled back and forth, then clamped him again in a bear hug.
Do it, damn you!

A growl echoed in the basement, like a cry from the depths of hell.

Steve froze, his hands on Perry’s throat.

Footsteps clomped upward.

Still clutching the boy, Steve inched back. The splashing came closer. He stumbled for the alley, groping for an entrance. As they plunged into the narrow channel of the passage, his shoulder struck a wall. Perry hung limply in his arms.

He dragged the boy around a corner, then slipped, going down on one knee, almost dropping him. Behind them in the dark, their pursuer stomped faster, moaning with sorrowful rage. Steve lurched to his feet, finally staggered out onto the sidewalk.

A blinding light lanced the side of the building. For an instant, he thought lightning had struck.

“Put him down, Steve.” She melted out of the shadows. Thrusting the emergency lantern forward like a weapon, she stepped closer. “If you’ve killed him…”

Her other hand gripped the revolver.

The boy sagged like a corpse in his arms. With no breath left to speak, Steve just nodded back down the alley.

“Don’t move. It’s over. Don’t try to run. I’m warning you.” She stepped closer. “I know everything. I found the knives in your room.”

“…coming!” He tried to gasp the words out.

“Don’t move, I said.”

“…there! It’s coming!”

“Please, don’t make me shoot you.” Wonderingly, she muttered, “You’re really scared.” Her glance took in the trembling pallor of his grimed face; then her gaze tracked to the alley.

Water dripped loudly, and she trained the lamp into the passageway. Dark pools and floating refuse stood out in the glare, and farther back…did something move?

Something hissed explosively—like the snort of a huge beast.

“What is that? What’s back there?” The light wobbled, dimming as it probed, and in the faintest periphery, a form tumbled back, then scrambled over a wooden fence to thud wetly on the other side. Splashing noises faded.

“Evidence.” His voice cracked. “Those things you found. Evidence. What? Did you think they were souvenirs?”

“Was that Ramsey?” She turned to him, trembling slightly. “Is the boy…?” She played the light across them, and Steve closed his eyes, his face a mask of misery and exhaustion. “I don’t understand.”

The wind moaned wetly.

Suddenly, the boy clung to him, quivering with terror. “No, Ramsey! Don’t!” He flailed with his fists, his blows containing no more strength than those of an infant.

Dark silence pressed at the grated windows, and the single orb of an emergency light glared above the entrance. “Runs off a battery,” she told him. “Hold him while I get the door.” Though she struggled to sound calm, tension vibrated in her voice.

Steve took hold of Perry’s shoulders, partly to keep him from bolting, partly to prevent his falling. He felt the boy shiver like a colt.

“The bridge is still down. I checked the radio.” She fumbled with the key ring. “Lots of beach towns got hit worse than us, I suppose. That’s mostly where the rescue efforts are focused—farther down the coast and…”

Feeling another tremor in the boy’s bony frame, he tightened his grip.

“…besides, they probably think we all got out. So we’re stuck here for…”

“You going to open up or what?” He peered through the wires that meshed within the diamond-shaped window.

“Oh. Yes, just…” She jerked the key in while his stare probed the structure. A corner property, it might have been any sort of business, except that nesting up against it, blocking the sidewalk and part of the side street, sat a modified trailer on cinder blocks, with heavy grills covering the window vents.

“Holding tank?”

“What? Oh. Right. We don’t use it much.” The door popped open. “One other thing I heard on the radio that you should know—we’re not a peninsula anymore.”

His eyebrows went up.

“Right. An island. Temporarily anyway.” She seemed to guard the entrance. “So he stays here till help arrives.”

As Steve maneuvered him through the doorway, the boy sagged. “Knock it off!” Steve shook him.

Suddenly, the boy wrenched around, scratching.

“Knock it off, I said, or I’ll break your arm!”

“Steve!”

“Get out of the way, Kit! Here. Help me with him. Take his other arm.”

“I’ve got him. It’s all right. He stopped—ease up, Steve.”

At the end of the short corridor, a desk and several folding chairs filled most of a small room. Bleeding away color, a floodlight near the ceiling streaked the cinder block walls and banded a cement floor from which gray paint had mostly worn away. Shielding his eyes against the glare, he looked around for somewhere to deposit the boy.

Catching Perry around the shoulders, she pulled him along like a puppet. His feet moved feebly. “Okay, here.” She steered him to a seat, knowing he’d hit the floor if she let go. “Sit down.” She shoved him gently. “Stay there.”

He coiled back into the chair.

“Don’t be afraid,” Steve told him.

The boy cringed, his hair matted and dripping, his whole body shuddering.

Steve reached for him. “I won’t…”

Perry grunted, his stomach and chest beginning to rise and fall convulsively beneath the sodden jacket.

“I’m not…not going to…”

The boy watched him with eyes the color of pale, polished oak, his terror like a tangible force in the room.

“Here.” Kit stepped closer. “Look at me.” She’d unzipped her thermal jacket but kept it on. “Your name is Perry Chandler?” One glimpse had taken in the whipthin frame, his long legs and bony hips. “Are you hurt, Perry? Why are you holding your arm like that?” Her hand hovered above his shoulder. “You don’t like to be touched, do you, Perry?”

He trembled. Without warning, he bolted from the chair and dodged past her.

“No, you don’t!” Steve blocked the exit.

Perry plunged backward, flattening himself against the wall.

“No one’s going to hurt you.” She barely gasped out the words.

Brushing away her touch, he grunted like a wounded animal and molded his body to the corner.

“Get away from him. Don’t argue. Now stay behind me.” Steve pushed her aside. “Stop that, you. I said, stop it.”

The gurgling sob in the boy’s chest choked to silence.

“You’re safe. No one will touch you. No one but me. You understand? But right now you have to deal with me.” He righted the boy’s chair and shoved it at him. “First, get out of that damn corner!”

“Steve, you’re both shivering. There are some blankets in the lockup. Let me…”

A look of feral alertness flashed across the boy’s face as quick eyes darted to the door.

“Don’t even think about it,” Steve told him. “Now, sit down, I said. Time to answer some questions. Where’s your sister? Answer me—where is she?”

The boy’s lips drew back, exposing his teeth in a desperate grimace, and a swelling rattle began in his throat.

“Stop that!”

“Steve, what’s wrong with him?”

Crouching farther into the corner, Perry bashed his head back against the wall, a yowl gurgling out until Steve grabbed him by the collar.

“Those scars on the back of your hands—how’d you get them?”

“Make him stop!”

“You’ve never seen the kind of marks that ropes leave, have you, Kit? How about the kind of scars a strap makes?”

“Don’t!” She caught at his arm.

“I’ll bet if we looked at his back we’d find some really interesting souvenirs.” He wrestled the boy into the chair. “They control them that way sometimes. For a while.”

“You’re terrorizing him.”

“Him?”

“He’s just a little boy.” She stared at the bedraggled hair plastered to the thin face, at the clothing that clung so darkly. “He looks so fragile.” The terrible noise had stopped, and he sagged against Steve’s large, clutching fists. “I’m going to get the blankets,” she said, imagining she could almost hear the boy’s heart pounding beneath his shirt. “Did you hear me, Steve?”

Full of terror, the boy’s gaze followed her.

“And don’t touch him while I’m gone, Steve. Do you hear me? Don’t touch him.”

Hard knots bit deeply into sore wrists, and sharp pain surged up her arms. Somehow she’d managed to twist her hands around in front of her, and again she threw her weight against the closet door. It felt like the air was almost gone, and she could barely fill her lungs. But the door didn’t budge. Again her bound hands rasped at the tape across her mouth, loosening a corner and finally ripping it away. Gasping deeply, she hit the door and rebounded, tripping to strike her head against the wall.
No more, please, no more.
Huddled in the darkest corner, she began to sob.
Let it end.

A vibration slid in the wall by her head. Faintly, it throbbed again. Pushing as far back as she could, she bit her lip to keep from whimpering.

The doorknob rattled; she tasted blood.

The door jarred.
Perry! Help me!
She slid to her knees in terror, as the door leapt in its frame.
Who is it? What’s happening?
At the last instant, she recognized the explosions of noise as hammer blows against the lock.
He was telling the truth, oh God, the truth all along, they’re coming to get me, they’re here! The monsters!

The noise stopped. With a soft click, the door swung in, and she blinked. In the trickle of light, a countenance swirled: slowly, it coalesced into the face of all her oldest nightmares.

It smiled.

Ripping from the bottom of her belly, the scream hurt coming out.

The boy sneezed again. Then the man sneezed.

Perry’s hair glistened like metal as it dried, falling forward over his face, and he stared fixedly at the floor. A pair of thin blankets around him, he hunched forward, his bony knees jutting bright crimson. Periodically, he mouthed at a paper cup full of water. A slow pattering provided the only real sound in the room as his sopping clothes, wrung out and hung across the back of a nearby chair, dripped onto the newspapers beneath them. Earlier, he’d stiffened when she’d tried to get the clothing off, silently flailing his arms and legs like an infant, but she’d gotten him dried as best she could. When she’d pushed the darkened tangle back from his face, she’d expected him to be hot, but he’d felt cool to the touch, the sharp bones delicate beneath her hands.

“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…”