The Shore (18 page)

“I can’t get an answer at Charlotte’s. I’m worried. Storms always hit worse on that side of the inlet.” She hung up but kept her hand on the phone. “The lines could be out in places, I suppose. And she never picks up after she’s gone to bed.”

He could see how nervous she was becoming. Sitting stiffly on the sofa, he cradled his head in his hands.

Twice the lights flickered, until finally she lit candles. The effect was hardly romantic, actually seeming to accentuate the shabby, claustrophobic aspects of the duplex. Eventually, she threw together a meal, but neither of them really touched it, and though she tried repeatedly to begin a conversation, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to respond. After dinner, he sank back on the sofa, still silent.

Outside, rain billowed at the windows with a sound like cracking glass. A moment later, he kicked off his shoes and shifted a cushion. He saw her turn away quickly when she realized that he meant to sleep right there.

She left the room.

After a moment, he heaved himself up and followed. She had her back to him. Perched on the kitchen windowsill, the cat tentatively allowed the stroke of her fingertips. Rivulets snaked across the glass, and wind struck again. With an explosive hiss, the cat backed across the sideboard, knocking over a ceramic vase. “It’s okay, cat. Don’t be afraid. Just a little storm.” Stooping, she began to gather the shards of the vase. “Hell, that was my mother’s.”

“You need help?”

She whirled around, not having heard him enter the room. Before she could respond, the ringing of the phone made her jump. “Could you grab that?” She dropped the fragments. “It might be Charlotte.”

He’d already picked up the receiver.

“Who is it?” she asked. “Steve? Is it…?”

He turned away, cradling the phone. “It’s for me,” he answered in a flat voice.

“Oh.” She dropped the pieces into a wicker wastepaper basket. “Who knows you’re here?”

“Yes,” he muttered into the phone, pacing back into the living room, as far from her as the cord would allow. At first, all he heard was a dissonant hum; then the voice on the phone reached his brain like the twitch of a nerve.

“Shall we not play games? Good. You know who I am,” the voice grated. “Is your little policewoman in the room? Simply say ‘yes’ again in a normal tone.”

He pushed the phone so hard into his ear that it ached like an old wound. “Yes.”

“Well done. You’ll want to memorize this address. Six thirteen Decatur. Fourth floor rear. I assume you do understand why I’m contacting you. Am I correct in this assumption? Yes? He’ll move soon now. He’s been searching for a new place for days.” The words broke apart on a raking cough. “Just remember—leave the girl alone! Can you comprehend that instruction?”

“Yes.”

“Pardon me if I get personal for a moment, but I’ve been observing you for quite some time now. You seem, if you don’t mind my saying so, passionately involved in your pursuit. Is that correct? What precisely is your stake in all this? Did the boy take the life of someone you loved? Not that I object to such a motive, you understand. This merely represents, shall we say, academic curiosity on my part.”

A dead voice issued from his throat. “Something like that.”

“I thought as much. How virtuous of you. Virtuous in the old sense—an eye for an eye and all that. Moralizing, however, is hardly my line, and—as I said—it scarcely matters so long as you take his life.”

Even after the line went dead, he kept the receiver pressed to his ear, as though seeking somehow to gain control of it. “Monsters,” he whispered.

“What did you say? Steve?”

He kept looking at the phone as though expecting the instrument itself to reveal some secret. Finally, he returned to the kitchen and hung up, then stood staring out at the teeming rain. A moment later, she followed him in.

“Who was that?”

He watched her reflection in the window, saw the imploring way she stared at his back, the way the palm of her hand wiped invisible dust from the tabletop. “It has to end,” he said at last.

Outside, the storm wailed, and an atmosphere of leaden exhaustion seemed to fill the apartment. She cleared away the dishes, and he wandered back into the parlor. Later, she brought him a blanket, but neither of them spoke as she retired to the bedroom and closed the door.

He lay on the sofa and listened to the wind. The rain droned, and he could hear the cat padding around the kitchen. He would have no choice now. He knew it, and the thought filled him with dread. Very soon, he would have to kill.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Tell you what?”

Kit wrestled with the steering wheel. “What’s different? What’s changed you?”

“Nothing’s different.” Rain sloshed at the vinyl windows.

“Right,” she said through clenched teeth.

“So dark.” With a sharp movement, he turned to face her, and she almost flinched. “More like ten at night than ten in the morning.”

She sighed. “Are you going to stake out the apartment tonight?”

“Look at it come down.” He stared at the rain again.

“Steve?”

“Like it’s never going to stop.”

“Answer me. Do you want me along or don’t you?”

Shaking his head, he stared through the windshield. “I’m tired.”

She pulled the jeep up in front of the hotel. “You sure you’re all right?” The light held a thick, dull quality that made the bricks of the hotel seem luminous.

“I need to rest for a while.” He leaned toward her. “Rest and think.” He tried to make his voice warmer, less distant, and the effort cost him. “How’s your shoulder, Kitten? Will you be okay?” As he spoke, his hand slipped to her arm, then to her shoulder, kneading. “You’re exhausted too.”

“Right.” She stared straight ahead.

The noise of the rain intensified as he pushed the door open.

“What are you planning, Steve?”

He paused, rain drumming on his back. “Nothing.” As he turned away, the rain shot in at her almost horizontally.

“Right. Call me.” She gunned the engine to keep from saying anything further, to keep from demanding or pleading.

He slammed the door, and the tires splashed away along the shiny asphalt. He watched the red glimmer of the taillights disappear. She was too smart, and she’d guessed too much, he knew. There had to be a way to keep her out of it now. The wind struck, raw and wet, and falling water drove against him in steady waves. Streaks of ice glittered on the bricks of the hotel. Slush sheeted off the roof, most of it blowing away down the street, and in gurgling puddles at the curb clots of snow floated like miniature icebergs. Hunching against a sodden gust, he pushed up the few steps, water shimmering copiously around him. Rain smoked down in rolling clouds now, and it blurred the light in the hotel window, hammered at his face to slide dripping fingers down the nape of his neck. Another gust struck just as he reached the top of the stairs, and for an instant, he could barely move against it.

The wet doorknob yanked out of his hand, and the door slammed in his face. He clutched at it again. His jacket slapping around him, he yanked the door with both hands. A sudden billow drenched the foyer, pushing after him. The inner door also flew open, and he caught the street door before it could pound the wall again. As the turbulent downpour slanted through, he struggled with the door, finally slamming his shoulder against it. At last, he stood, gasping and dripping on the carpet.

“Sir?” In his bathrobe, D’Amato quavered behind the desk. He beckoned, looking worried.

The rain stirred along the beach like a pulsing liquid entity. Lightning mottled the sky, and the rocks glittered.

Every particle of the sea heaved. A single strip of foam lashed continually across the surface, and thick currents undulated like gigantic snakes.

Fierce wind gnawed at the land. The beach vanished in flying plumes, and debris gorged the air. Freezing water scoured the rooftops of the beach houses, wave after wave shattering down as though the sea had left its bed in great convulsions. Cataracts spouted from the boardwalk.

Blocks from the beach, teeming pools already shivered between the houses, spreading, merging in the streets, until streams swirled into intersections and surged over curbs to engulf the sidewalks. Frothy currents gushed, lapping at cars, trees, houses.

Behind Decatur Street, rain lanced and ricocheted into the courtyard, and thunder rattled the windows along the back of the apartment building. Steady torrents cascaded from the fire escape, plunging from ruptured drainpipes as the cellar stairwell filled.

The infant made terrible noises, the small angry face clenching like a fist.

Near the crib, photographs and plastic religious figures crowded the low shelves, and Steve hovered uncomfortably, his clothing dark with damp in long ovals down his arms and legs. He gasped at the steamy warmth of the room, and for an instant, D’Amato looked embarrassed: apparently, the landlord’s family never suffered from the lack of heat. Flashing movement dragged Steve’s attention back to the picture tube. “That’s farther down the coast, isn’t it?” he asked, edging closer.

Film clips of devastated towns rolled behind the commentator. Tensely, D’Amato muttered something in Italian, clearly urging his wife to hush the baby so he could hear, and Steve glanced at her. She’d pulled a coat on over her long nightgown but still looked mortified at his presence. Lifting the infant from the crib, she crooned almost inaudibly while making a slight jiggling movement, but she never stopped staring at the set.

Still more photographs of dark-complexioned smiling faces covered the top of the television; beneath them the storm raged. Steve glimpsed houses twisting in the flood, bedraggled people snatched from rooftops, a brief shot of children pulled from a bogged car. “Cresthaven, Blackwater,” the voice droned on, “Ebb Cove and…”

“Eh? Near here?” She stopped rocking the baby, her face and lips the color of one of the sheets she’d been folding when he’d entered. “Eh?”

“Mrs. D’Amato, please, sit down.”

“We got to,” her husband murmured.

“Did they say it?”

“…Stone Harbor, Rock Shore, Edge Water…”

“Did they say?”

“Got to.”

Could waves be that high? Steve watched, paralyzed. Static and glimpses of gray violence pulverized his nerves. “What?” At once, they all realized that the desk phone had been ringing. D’Amato teetered vaguely into the doorway, but the baby began to wail, and he paused, his glance flicking back to the television as Steve squeezed around him.

“Steve? Is that you?” Her voice sounded faint, rigid. “I’m at the station. Can you hear me? The connection’s bad.” An electric burr grated. “Can you get out on your own?”

“What’s happening?”

“Didn’t you hear? We have to evacuate.”

The very concept filled him with dread: months of searching, only to have the town itself ripped away.

“Steve, can you hear me? There are still some older people I have to get. Will you be all right? Is anyone else at the hotel?”

“Just the D’Amatos.”

“For crissakes, why are they still there? Tell them to get the hell out now. Go straight to Pinedale. And don’t try to use the bridge—they closed it twenty minutes ago. Go straight out the old highway to—”

A faint buzz emanated from the phone.

“Kit? Hello?”

“Ah,
Dio, Dio
!” The woman wailed in panic, and instantly the baby’s shrieks intensified. Steve barely had time to put the phone down before D’Amato rushed at him. “They just said! We got to get out!” He dodged back inside, and his voice harmonized with the woman’s harsh wails. “What are you do? Get that…!” Steve stood with his hand on the phone, listening to them argue in English and Italian, repeating over and over about the property and the National Guard and the evacuation center and the property and insurance, while beneath the cacophony of the baby’s shrieks, the television muttered instructions on how to turn off gas and electricity and issued advice about emergency routes and pickup points as well as warnings about downed power lines.

“That van out back is yours, right? Does it run?” Steve peered through the doorway.

“Yes?” The man looked up, puzzled. “Yes, it runs, the van.” The woman bit her lip.

“That’s it then. Better grab what you need for the baby and run. I’ll just get my suitcase.” He gave the woman what he hoped resembled an encouraging smile and headed for the stairs.

“Sir? Sir! They say must leave at once.”

“Won’t be a minute.” He bounded up the staircase. Below him, the sounds of rapid movement—of drawers coughing open and the woman’s urgent complaints—faded into the thin wails of the infant. Before he reached the top of the stairs, the lights flickered.

The television exploded as it struck the wall. “Now, will you shut up?!”

The girl cringed deep into the chair. “You heard it! We have to get out of here.” She gave a small, hiccuping gasp. “Perry, please—we’ll die if we stay!”

His hand lashed out, open palmed, again and again, knocking her face from side to side and battering away her words.

“We’ll die,” she gritted her teeth, tasting blood as he struck her again. “Stop it! We’ll die. You have to listen to me!” She sobbed in terror. “Stop!”

“Shut up!” It burst from him in a roar that racked his throat. “Will you leave me alone? I have to think!”

Rain cracked at the window like a fist.

While the sea twisted in countless anguished circuits, a gale howled ashore and dragged the ocean with it. Where beach had been, waves spewed in varied directions, explosions of muddy froth marking lines of collision. Darker currents surged across what choppy, sodden earth remained.

Winds had already gouged away most of the gravel, exposing concrete foundations beneath the boardwalk.
Not one of my better ideas.
A single darkening lump of earth remained beneath the boards, and as Steve watched, dirt flew like smoke.
Hiding till everyone else cleared out.
He huddled behind the wheel of the Volkswagen.
Well, nobody’ll see me here, that’s for sure.

It had gotten bad so fast. Finding only static, he switched off the radio, giving his full attention to the liquid shapes that flattened on the windshield.
Coming down even harder, just in the last few seconds.
In random spurts, water struck through gaps in the boards overhead, like hammer blows against the Volks.

The car shivered.
What now?
Vibrations trembled through the steering wheel into his bones, and suddenly he understood. He heard the rumble, felt the ocean pound away at the very shale and bedrock of the peninsula.
My God.
Again, the ground shuddered.

I wonder if these things really are watertight.
A gobbet of water hit the side window and he jerked his head away, expecting to see the glass cracked.
Guess I’m about to find out.
He clenched his fists around the steering wheel and willed his shoulders to relax.
Some plan.
It had been an easy thing to help the D’Amatos load the baby carriage into their van, then double back in his own car.
I should give myself the “Suicidal Dope of the Year” award.

He observed the whirling gray of the horizontal torrent, and his stomach clenched.
Give it another minute.
The sea had undergone some alchemical transformation, become an entirely new element, neither wholly wind nor water, an eruption of foaming vapor that streaked at him.
Are you nuts?
Mist struck the window.
Get out of here!

Froth flew, and the car rocked.
Shit!
He hoped that only rain drove against the windows, not seawater. The engine sputtered.
Damn it! Come on!
He twisted the key in the ignition again, and the Volks bucked over the mud, then splashed toward the street.

Water surged around the tires, skewing the car as the steering wheel tried to wrestle away from him. He sloughed through a flooded field, splashed across a lawn. Volleys of rain struck like buckshot. Two empty cars angled on the corner, and he twisted the wheel, narrowly sluicing past them as the wind shoved the Volks onto the sidewalk.

When he reached the corner, the gale eased up fractionally, but in the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of movement. A white avalanche slid out from beneath the boardwalk, frothing over the cars, burying them and tumbling down the street.

He stomped on the gas pedal as the hissing roar pursued him.

Water streaked on the windows until the world became a streaming gray.
Where the hell am I?
With a thundering slap, the Volks went down a steep curb into a shallow pool.
Christ, the hotel has got to be…

Liquid havoc swirled. Some structure hurtled down the street, plunging end over end, already unidentifiable, splashing and smashing itself into bits that the wind swept away. The dim brick facade of the hotel momentarily surfaced in his vision, and he jerked the wheel, sideswiping a mailbox with a dull clang. The Volks splashed deep into the lot. He stomped on the brake, but the car kept going. Slower. Pushing through the water. The Volks hit the wall with a shattering thud, and he pitched forward against the steering wheel and flung open the door.

The storm shoved him down like a hand, and leaves and dirt filled the air, choking him, as brackish spray swept up from the ground. Head lowered, he clambered toward the back of the hotel, his jacket coruscating with a thousand violent ripples. He clutched the doorknob. A spout of wind pounded him to the wood, and the door burst open. Groping his way in, he snatched away the bit of electrician’s tape he’d earlier used to disable the lock.

He threw his weight against the door. It stopped a foot short of closing, wind roaring through.
It’s getting stronger.
His shoes slipped on the wet floor as he strained. The door slammed with a soft chop. Gasping, he leaned against it, rivulets running from his clothes. A muffled roar drummed through the wood.

Damn…soaked…
His teeth chattered.
I’m sure as hell not going back out to the car for my suitcase.
He’d thrown his clothes together, just to fool the D’Amatos, but left everything else.

He staggered down the hall. Just ahead of him, a window blew out, and the curtain billowed, glass and water scattering.

He edged around the window, uselessly flicking a light switch as he passed. At the end of the corridor, the lobby windows glimmered, and he stumbled onward. Above his head, the chandelier tinkled softly, then jangled like piano keys. Groping to the foot of the stairs, he mounted slowly, pausing to listen. The storm bellowed against the walls. Another window exploded, but faintly, in another part of the hotel, and his grip tightened on the banister.

He felt his way along the recessed shadows that lined the corridor. A door slammed, nearby this time, and a ripping moan—full of the shattering of glass—grated along the outside of the building. “Just the wind,” he said. “The wind.” He repeated it louder, then shouted it but still couldn’t hear himself.

He could see now, like a diver rising into shallower depths. The windows held a turbid incandescence, and streaming radiance filled the passage as he fumbled his key into the lock.

In his room, light faded. An eruption rattled the floorboards beneath his feet, and the downpour drowned the thunder.
Here it comes.
He groped for the window.
The real thing.
Bits of debris skated past outside, too fast to make out, and the buildings across the street streaked and blurred. Something huge sloughed through the street below.
A car? A tree? A shark?
Then the world beyond the window ceased to exist.

Coruscating patches glimmered.

Something clattered overhead, and the walls buckled with a loud crack.
Like the end of the world.
Twisting around, he felt for the swaybacked chair, dragged it away from the window. As he began to sit, his hand strayed to his wet clothing, and he shivered. Unbuttoning his shirt, he peeled it off and dropped it at his feet. Setting the flashlight on the dresser, he angled the beam into the oval mirror so that the room filled with a rippled gleam, and the reflected light seemed to pool in the dent in the mattress. He perched on the edge of the bed and worked his heavy shoes loose, then kicked them away. Rolling soundlessly in the din, they left a mottled trail.

The door to the hall swung open. In his wet socks he rushed to slam it, threw the bolt. His soaked pants clung as he wrestled them off. Gathering his things, he started into the bathroom.

He stood very still.

The building swayed.

Wind blasted, and the bathroom lit with a sputtering flash. He heard the clatter of something falling in the other room, and again the building moved. Windows popped along this side of the hotel, a steadily tinkling cascade, and he wondered how much more the old bricks could take before they burst from their mortar. No longer even aware of the chill, he dropped his clothes in a sodden heap and stumbled naked to the chair.

A clap of wind rattled the windowpanes. Then the wind veered from another direction, seeming to move slowly around the building, groping for a point of entry.

Winds mounded the water, then chopped at it, shattered it.

Waves slapped into the air. They surged forward, crushing the stairs, splintering across the boardwalk—a row of shops vanished. Power lines sparked and flared, and flame spurted like a tear in the fabric of the storm.

Even in the sheltered bay, rain-slashed waves swamped the few boats and submerged the dock. Storage huts blew into pointed boards as sheet metal crumpled, peeling back from roofs, and metal and wood took flight.

The door exploded open, and she burst into the hall with a swell of rain. Gasping on the floor, she rolled onto her back. “Charlotte!” With both feet, she kicked the massive door shut against the gale. “Charlotte, where are you?” Stumbling, she massaged her shoulder. “Charlotte, I’ve got the jeep outside. The wind blew it into the porch—we’ve got to get…” She raced, dripping, into the hallway.

The grandfather clock ticked harshly. “Where are your lights? Is your heat off?” She tripped, her flailing hands identifying the object in her path as she caught herself.
No.
The chair lay on its side, and her hand went to the bent wheel. “Oh no, please.” She felt around on the floor. “Charlotte, it’s me.” In the parlor, the smell of damp soot tinged the air.

For a second, she thought the storm had destroyed the room, but when she tugged at the curtain cord, the torrent pounded against intact glass. A flash of lightning made the wreckage lurch with shadows. Only then did she realize that everything around her looked dry, despite the smell of wet ashes from the fireplace. Her glance wandered numbly across the broken knickknacks littering the floor, the torn cushions, overturned table. “Charlotte, can’t you hear me? Are you hiding?”

She raced back to the stairs. “Charlotte, it’s a hurricane! We have to get out of here!” Above her head, floorboards creaked. “Are you upstairs? How did you get up there?” She put one foot up on the stairs, but solid blackness stopped her. “I’m coming,” she whispered. “Wait.” Stepping down, she felt her way back toward the kitchen. “I’m coming.” Rain slapped at her face when she pushed open the kitchen door. Both windows had gone, and the dripping curtains dangled like knotted ropes. A fiery light in the sky seemed to flare through the broken glass. Yanking open the utility drawer, she felt for a flashlight, then raced back to the hall.

“Charlotte?” The beam slipped up one stair after another, finally dissolving. “Are you there?” She took a step. Somewhere, a shutter banged rhythmically. She climbed.

Behind her, a hinge creaked.

Her head turned in agonized twitches. Below her in the hallway, shadows swirled, filling the house like water. The creak sounded again. Insistent. The door to the cellar swayed slightly in the draft.

She’d look for shelter.
As she descended, her feet felt strangely heavy.
It’s easier for her to go down than up. And the storm is so loud. That’s why she can’t hear me.
She pulled the cellar door open wide. “Charlotte! Charlotte, it’s me. Are you all right?”

The smell floated like dust.

Oh God, not rats. Not here.

Retreating from the beam, the gloom swung about her. Rotting plaster had crumbled away from the walls, exposing slats furred with cobwebs, and she thrust the flashlight forward like a weapon. Her holster chafed at her side, and the stairs creaked damply beneath her tread. Peering about, she clutched at the dusty banister.

Sheeted furniture loomed like fun house ghosts, and crates blocked the walls.
More of her husband’s memorabilia. A whole museum’s worth.
From the back, a muddy dimness shimmered back at her.

Just a mirror.
She moved closer, choking on the must that hung in the air.

The sheet puddled on the crumbling concrete, dirty water already seeping through, and the beam trembled over the heap in the corner.

No.
But she recognized the dress. And she knew death when she saw it.

My fault.
She moaned softly at the crooked position of the legs.
I should have been here.
Something sparkled. On the bureau. Dazedly, she tilted the flashlight back: the silver frame flashed softly.

portrait of Charlotte’s husband what’s it doing down here Charlotte will be so upset she

A dark lump occupied the shelf beside it, and she angled the light farther. It took her a long moment to comprehend.

What remained of the face still bore an expression of outrage.

It made a sound like nothing he’d ever imagined—a hollow, roaring whine that thudded against the walls until the whole building lurched and clattered. It seemed to possess actual shape, this noise, a terrible spinning circularity, constant and without contour. Still the roar grew shriller, and pressure gushed against the walls.

At first, he’d tried to take notes, scribbling incoherently in the flickering dimness, until the notebook dropped from his fingers, the pen rolling.
No heat.
He couldn’t feel his arms or legs.
Never any heat in this room.
He’d pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself, but the chill sank deep, and the blanket sagged away from his shoulders. He couldn’t move to adjust it, could only twitch when the floor rocked, and his mind seemed to drift in a howling void.

The room settled into a deeper layer of gloom. Rain drilled at the glass in random flashes, and he felt a muffled rumble, as of something being dragged across the floor above. Did the room brighten perceptibly? He seemed to feel a tightening in his chest, as though he’d surfaced too quickly from the depths, and ripples of light disturbed the ceiling. No longer solid, the walls seemed to quiver, pulsating like the flesh of some huge, shivering beast. He focused with perfect clarity on a spider that scuttled along the opposite wall. Pale. Nearly translucent. Suffused with the green throb of life. He watched it sink gently into dimness.

The boy has to die.
His mind seemed very clear.
It has to end.
The howling tore the world, leaving a hole that sucked him in and spun him down to a familiar nothingness. Memories swirled, slowly engulfing him, and he floundered, desperately trying to grasp at one thought, only one, that might no longer have the power to wound him. He found nothing. The storm drummed in the floor, and in tiny lurches, the painting of the sea beat rhythmically against the wall.

Thunder shuddered the window—it startled him, and a moment passed before he understood why. He’d heard it. He’d heard the glass rattle.