The Shore (23 page)

As though in a trance, she stared down at the water. Her long hair hung motionlessly around her face, and as the wind howled up into the room, her cheeks twisted as though her face were melting. Slowly, she swung one leg forward. Moving like a sleepwalker, she descended into the lapping waves.

“You have to bend down here. Then just keep…”

The thunder of the sea claimed them.

Kit sat alone in the shack. She was alive—that thought alone seemed to rattle in her skull. She was alive. A plume of water rose at the lip of the opening. “Steve.” She choked out his name and then screamed with all her strength. “Steve!” It felt like an explosion of blood in her throat.

The rusted latch rattled, and the door burst at the hinges before falling inward. Steve waved the gun, water rushing in around his ankles.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” she gasped. “I’m freezing to death.” She barely recognized her own grating whisper. “Damn you. What took you so long?”

He stepped warily inside. “Where…?” Following her gaze, he rushed to the trapdoor. A thin ripple stretched after him to trickle over the lip of the opening, seawater joining seawater.

“Now. Please.” She shook against the ropes. “It hurts.”

He flicked his knife open. “I didn’t really believe I’d find you.” The ropes came away, and as she slipped forward he caught her. Somehow her arms went around him, and he pressed her face to his chest. “I didn’t believe.”

“They drowned themselves,” she whispered and felt his body stiffen. She lifted her head.

From the doorway, Perry stared fixedly at the trapdoor. Beyond him, gray chaos raged.

“The boy didn’t run away,” Steve said in a wondering voice.

“…know where they went.” Spinning, Perry fled.

“Wait! Wait a minute!” He rushed to the doorway, then whirled back to her.

“Go,” she told him. “I’m all right now. Go on. Stop him. Save him.”

“No! Come on!” Shaking with urgency, he grabbed at her. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“Steve, I can’t walk. I…”

“Get up!” He yanked her to her feet and wrapped one arm about her waist. “Put your arm over my shoulder.”

She stumbled feebly. “My legs don’t work.”

“That’s it.” He dragged her through the door. “You’re okay.”

A wet mist billowed with each lash of wind. When she saw how close the giant waves heaved, she screamed in terror. The world stunned her, blinded her. Gray light filtered from everywhere, from nowhere, and everything glowed, the water more brightly than the sky. No beach remained, and just this one tilting section of boardwalk still stood. A flat, foaming surface rushed beneath the pilings.

He pulled her along. Through the mist, she tried to make out the rest of the boardwalk: rocks and splintered pilings poked from the water. A trail of seaweed and pulverized shell sediment covered the sodden boards they slipped across, and the wind staggered them. “My God,” she moaned. Huge waves curled, flinging plumes of foam with each collision. “My God!” A breaker heaved across the dangling rail ahead of her.

He held on to her. “Must have gone this way.” He dragged her toward the ramp. “Do you see him anywhere?”

“No! That’s the ocean!” Leaning on his shoulder, she tensed as he pulled her down the ramp. “We can’t go that way!”

The sky churned. Clapping in the wind like a gull, one yellow pennant still trailed from a high cable. Beyond the remnants of the boardwalk, the amusement park sank in a murky tide, and ruined metal structures protruded from the mud like dinosaur bones.

As they splashed into the lot, she leaned heavily against him. “What is this?” A twisted loop of metal blocked the path.

“Used to be a Ferris wheel I think.” He pulled her along. “They can’t be far.”

Something zinged past them; then an explosion echoed faintly. “Get down!” He shouted into the wind, but she heard only a garbled flurry of words. “Stay there!” he barked, shoving her behind a tilting barricade.

She sprawled in the muck. “You jerk!” She spit brackish water and sand.

“Shut up and stay down!”

“Don’t tell me what to…!” Her anger dissipated into the general haze along with her clouding breath. “Do you see them?” Her wrists still flamed where the blood pounded back.

Crouching beside her, he peered over a sheet metal partition, the other end of which ribboned out of the earth to wave in the wind. “Keep your head down, I said.” Beyond the barricade, one of the cars on a broken ride spun continuously in the wind. “What? I can’t hear you.”

“I used to love the tilt-a-whirl.”

“Shut up. You’re hysterical. And keep still.”

“I know I’m hysterical. And stop telling me to shut up.” A shiver began in her stomach, and what little strength she’d been able to muster seemed to drain from her limbs. She let her gaze roam over the ruins of the arcade. Behind them, a fragment of a carousel sloped into a deep pool: galloping animals frozen in panicked flight, drowning. A wooden horse reared, patches of gilt paint still shining, exposing corroded teeth in a silent scream.

Another shot echoed. It sounded faint, harmless.

“Steve?” She had to shout above the wind. “Can you tell where it’s coming from?” She peered over the edge.

“He’s back there,” he yelled, pointing to the edge of the sunken field. Between a pair of concrete outbuildings, a delicate line of white smoke hung briefly in the air. “Keep your head down.”

“Can you see the boy?”

Clutching the gun, Ramsey hazarded a peek around the corner. He couldn’t risk wasting more bullets, but if he could just hold them there long enough for him to find Perry…

Movement! He saw the man leap behind the carousel, and something flashed, bright as an acetylene torch. The bullet spat against the wall by his ear, and particles of concrete lashed his cheek. He cowered. “I don’t know who you are, I must admit,” Ramsey called out. “But I know
what
you are, what you’ve become.” He pulled the trigger, and his own gun jerked in his hand, roaring, the stench of sulfur blazing into his lungs. “You hunt the boy,” his voice murmured, becoming part of the wind. “Would you even exist without him? Without the hunt? Ask yourself. And what wasteland do you go to now? Look around you. Does not this—at long last—resemble a final destination?” He turned away, staying low. Pressing his bulk against the wall, he slid around the corner. “They’re right out there,” he told her. “We shall have to flee.”

One hand on a drainpipe, the girl hid her face in her arms.

“Do not be afraid, my Stell.”

She trembled, seawater dribbling from the nightgown that clung to her legs.

“My poor Stell. You might get sick now. You could even die. After all this, I might yet lose you.”

She let her arms drop. Her lips had gone blue, and nothing of sanity remained in her expression, as though terror had reduced her to something barely human.

“It will be over soon. I promise.” Fury contorted his face as he whirled away. “Come out to me, Perry! I’ve got Stella here. We will all be together.” He panted loudly, like a wounded animal. “It’s your fault she’s like this! I know where you are. Do not force me to come for you.”

Wind slapped wetly along the ground, echoing the pounding rush of the surf, unseen yet all around them. “…why…?” An exhausted pleading drifted on the wind. “…want to hurt me…?” The wail seemed to fall from the empty sky. “…hate me?” The words clapped hollowly against empty buildings.

“Help him, Steve.” Beside him, she crouched.

“I think the kid’s in that ticket booth,” he mouthed into her ear. “I’m going to try to get to him. Promise me you’ll stay here.”

“I can’t move anyway. Ssh. Listen.”

The voices swirled.

“…hate you?”

They soared, disembodied, like the moaning of specters.

“…know how much I love you? Little Perry, you can’t die thinking I don’t love you.”

She watched Steve crawl away, while the wind howled like demented goblins.

“You’re my brother,” Ramsey called softly, inching farther along the wall. “Family is all we have now.”

He twisted around the corner to peer through the rough tunnel of a window swept clear of glass and casement. “Why do you run from us?”

The wind floated an answer to him. “…want to hurt me?” It came finally in the voice of a child—without toughness or cunning—the voice of a small lost boy, so near.

“Perry? Come to me.”

Steve crawled along the base of the tilt-a-whirl, his elbows sinking into the soft ground as he tried to hold the revolver up out of the muck. He got to his feet, and bolted for the ticket booth, trying to gauge the boy’s exact position, but the voices veered again.

Cautiously, he peered about. Now the voices seemed to drift from behind the fun house. He turned toward a hint of movement.

The earth undulated.

Beyond the broken derricks and the fallen Ferris wheel, a cloud rolled slowly into the lot. He felt his body go rigid. Solid blankness, the cloud oozed nearer, obliterating everything in its path.

Panic tightened in his chest. If the fog reached them, they would vanish. Steve knew he had to move now.

“…won’t make it hurt, Perry.” Fading wind slapped the words away. “I am sorry, but you know I have to do it. And you know why. Trust me—I don’t want to. But it’s up to me now. My responsibility. You must see that. You’re out of control. Soon everyone will see. Everyone will know.” The voice grunted with sudden exertion. “…know I don’t want this. Even when you were only an infant, you were the one I took the beatings for. Always you. You were the reason I let him…to keep him off you.” The words droned faster, became a searing monotone. “…thought you would be the one untouched by it all. But when I read about the killings, I knew. Knew you took after his family—the stories he used to tell us. And I could not allow you to hurt her.”

Then the fog swept over them all. Impossibly, it seemed to move against the wind, sliding inexorably between eddies of air. It buried them.

“Hurt her?”

The boy’s reply came from somewhere quite near, and Steve crawled blindly.

“…would never hurt her.”

Now the voices seemed to emanate from the same point in the mist, and he headed toward it.

“…not able to help yourself…must know…tears my heart out. Don’t prolong this, dear boy. If you come now, I’ll let you see her one last time. She…”

“No! You think…! Stupid! Stupid!” The words sliced shrilly through the whiteness. “Run away! You…stupid, you…!”

Through a thinner patch—a sort of opaque tunnel—Steve glimpsed sudden movement.

Perry sprang up behind the shattered gate to the fun house. “Run away!” the boy shouted. Behind him, a huge green head tilted, grinning with weathered malevolence, carved teeth yawning cavernously in the wind. “I’m not the one!”

As the mist seemed to solidify around him, Steve froze. Certainty grew in his mind…finally…like the fragment of a forgotten tune…slowly recalled…gaining pattern and rhythm with each heartbeat. He plowed forward. He understood now. He could stop this.

Gurgling screams pierced the mist.

“No!” Blundering toward the screams, he made out the dim shape of the boy. “Stay there!” Wraithlike, the form disappeared between the buildings. “No, wait!” It seemed Steve ran against the cries, pumping his legs but unable to progress, while the howls rasped into a wet, hoarse choke of agony, interspersed with loud panting.

Silence settled thickly.

“Get back, Perry!” Spinning around the corner, Steve leveled the gun. Nothing stirred in the muddy field behind the buildings. Then he saw him.

Drenched and bedraggled, Ramsey lay on his back in the gravel, one shoulder propped awkwardly against a wall. His chest heaved, and his twitching legs splayed brokenly. Thick fluid puddled around him on the muddy concrete.

Steve gaped at the red ruin of the man’s groin.

Ramsey stared up with lids at half-mast. His mouth hung slackly, his expression full of sadness and pain. He twitched again, a hiss gurgling in his open mouth.

Footsteps grated damply. With a moan of fear, Steve whirled.

Facing into the barrel, Kit braced herself on the wall.

“I told you to stay back.”

Her gaze traveled past him.

“Don’t look.” He tried to block her line of sight. “We can’t help him.”

“god oh my god oh”

“I said, don’t look.” He caught at her arm.

“He’s still alive.” Pulling away, she crouched.

“Come away. Did you see the boy?”

“Why is he still alive? How?”

The mouth writhed as though Ramsey attempted speech, and she leaned closer. But his head had fallen forward on his chest, and she heard only clotted mumblings. Pink saliva beaded on his lower lip, and the hissing in his throat melted into a liquid rasp as thick fluid filled his mouth and spewed down his chin.

“He’s dead now. Kit, come away.”

“You have the right to remain silent.” She began to giggle. “If you refuse that right…”

“Kit, for God’s sakes.”

“It looks like somebody circumcised him with a shovel.” A laugh cracked in her throat. “We’ve got to stop that rabbi.”

“Stop it.”

“No sense of humor, Stevie-boy, that’s your trouble.”

“Hang on just a little longer, Kit. Don’t fall apart. Get up. Come on. Stay close to me now. There’s only one place they can be.” Rapidly, he surveyed the walls: brick caves gaped where doors had been. “Take his gun. There on the ground. No, don’t look at him.”

“A mon…a mon…” she sputtered, giggling, “a monster got him. A monster.”

“Don’t look at him, I said.”

“I didn’t believe you. Oh, Steve.”

“Look, we can both go to pieces later—there’s no time now. Pick up that gun!”

She found it in a shallow puddle. “Why didn’t he shoot?” A single drop of blood trembled on the barrel, as she lifted it to snap open the breach. “There’s one bullet left.”

“Make it count. No hesitations. No second thoughts. The thing’s cornered now.”

“Stop, please. No more monsters. Just a boy—an insane boy, chasing a frightened girl.”

“No.”

“Please, Steve. Don’t make me see it. Just get me out of here.”

He marched toward the twin doorways. “Stay behind me. You’ll be all right.” Planting his feet, he raised the revolver, gripping it with both hands. “Perry,” he shouted. “Can you hear me?”

The wind. Only the wind, shredding the mist. Then a groan echoed.

“No, Steve, please.” A rattling noise seemed to fill her. A moment passed before she realized her teeth chattered together, that she couldn’t make them stop.

“I have a place, Perry,” he called. “A place you could go. Somewhere we can help you. Where there are others like you. I swear. A farm, deep in the woods. Hidden. That’s why I’m here. The two of you can come with me. You and your sister both.” He paced forward slowly. “Perry?”

The groan rumbled. Growing winds tore the mist into trailing patches.

“Wait for me.” She stepped up alongside him. “What is that? What’s in there?”

The groan became a growl, echoing.

“You know what it is, Kit. You’ve seen it.”

The growl crackled into a snarl.

She caught at his arm. “Make it stop!”

On the low roof, a casement erupted, and chunks of glass rained down amid hunks of wood.

“Damn!” He raced forward.

A bulky form crashed through the ruined skylight. Bellowing, it clattered out onto the slick tile in an explosion of furious movement.

As she stared, Kit felt all her remaining strength bleed away.

It stalked to the edge and glared down. Vapor-laden winds damply thrashed the long yellow hair. A blast of sound—an exultant agony—shredded the remnants of mist as the monster shrieked again.

She felt the revolver slip from her slackening fingers, heard it chime against the muddy concrete at her feet. She could not look away.

Shreds of white cloth still adhered to the swollen form on the roof, and something bulged on its back. Through a widening gap in the mist, she glimpsed the red-smeared body across the creature’s shoulder.

She covered her face with her hands. That terrible cry rang out again, and she heard Steve shout something but couldn’t sort out the words. Then his voice faded. Freezing water soaked the left side of her body, and dimly she realized she must have fallen, and only gradually did she understand that what she heard now were running footsteps. She took her hands away.

Nothing paced on the roof. Shreds of fog slid across the ground around her.

“So cold.” She groped until she found the gun. “I can’t anymore.” She wobbled to her feet. “Steve? Where are you?” She took a hesitant step. “Don’t leave me here.” She broke into a staggering run. “Please.”

The world eddied. Isolated objects seemed to float: a single pole, mysteriously still erect; a fragment of wall. Her footsteps thrummed across wood, and she nearly tripped as the surface tilted. Sticking the revolver under her belt, she stumbled up the ramp.

The wind hit. Fog streaked and vanished in a heartbeat, and the sodden planks creaked as she hurried into a blowing mist that made everything blur and glimmer.

“No,” she whispered. Her leg muscles cramped, and she steadied herself against a post. “Not out there, please, no.”

Somehow, the pilings of the old fishing wharf still tilted from the sea, but the ocean rose almost to the boards. Many of the beams had gone altogether, and others slanted madly into waves that squirted up between sodden logs.

“I don’t want to go out there.” The churning expanse gapped before her. At the end of the wharf, where the swells slapped straight across, figures seemed to dance.