Cry for the Strangers

by John Saul

“I’m not either!”

  “Then come outside with me.” Robby was pulling on his clothes. After watching him for a few seconds, Missy, too, began dressing.

  “What if Mommy and Daddy hear us?” she asked as Robby opened the window.

  “They won’t,” Robby replied with the assurance of his nine-and-one-half years. He began climbing over the sill. A moment later the children were outside, huddled against the cabin wall, trying to shelter themselves from the rain and wind.

  “Snooker?” Robby called softly. “Come here, Snooker.”

  They waited, expecting the spaniel to come bounding out of the darkness, wagging his tail and lapping their faces.

  He didn’t come.

  The two children looked at each other, unsure what to do next. Robby made the decision.

  “We’d better go find him.”

  “It’s too dark,” Missy complained.

  “No it isn’t. Come on.” Robby started through the trees toward the beach. Hesitantly, Missy followed him.

  As soon as he was clear of the woods, the force of the wind and rain hit Robby full in the face, filling him with a strange sense of exhilaration. He began running through the storm, listening to the roaring surf, calling out into the night. Behind him, her small feet pounding the packed sand, Missy ran as hard as she could to keep up with her brother. Though she could barely see him, she could follow the sound of his voice as he called out for the recalcitrant dog.

  “Snooker! Snooooooker!!”

  Suddenly Robby stopped running and Missy caught up with him. “Did you find him?”

  “Shh!”

  Missy lapsed into silence, and stared at her brother. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “Listen!”

  She listened as hard as she could, but at first all she heard was the wind and the surf. Then there was something else.

  A crackling sound, like twigs breaking.

  “Someone’s here,” she whispered.

  A dark figure, indistinct in the blackness, moved out of the woods and began coming across the beach toward them.

  “Daddy?” Missy piped in a tiny voice, then fell silent as she realized that it was not her father. She moved closer to Robby, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it tight. “What’ll we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Robby whispered. He was frightened, but he was determined not to let his sister know it. “Who’s there?” he said in his bravest voice.

  The shadowy figure stopped moving toward them, then a voice, old and unsteady, came across the sand.

  “Who’s that yourself, standing out in the rain?”

  “Robby Palmer,” Robby said automatically.

  “Well, don’t just stand there! Come over here where I can see you.”

  Robby, pulling Missy with him, started toward the man, his fear vanishing. “Who are you?”

  “Mac Riley.” The old man was in front of them now, his leathery features more distinct. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking for our dog,” Robby replied. “He’s supposed to sleep under the house, but he isn’t there.”

  “Well, if he’s smart he isn’t on the beach either,” Riley said. “This isn’t a good beach to be on. Not on a night like this.”

  “Then why are you here?” Missy asked.

  “Just keeping an eye on things,” Riley said mysteriously. The rain suddenly stopped and Riley looked up toward the sky. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “They must be working overtime tonight.”

  “Who?”

  Riley reached out and rumpled Robby’s wet hair.

  “The ghosts. This beach is full of them.”

  The two children drew closer together and glanced around warily.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Missy said.

  “Spirits, then,” Riley corrected himself. “And don’t say there’s no such thing. Just because you haven’t seen something, don’t believe it doesn’t exist.”

  “Have you ever seen them?” Robby asked.

  “Many times,” Riley said. “And always on nights like this, when the tide’s high, and the wind’s blowing. That’s when they come out here and do what they have to do.”

  “What do they do?” Robby demanded.

  The old man gazed at the two children, then lifted his eyes and stared out at the angry sea.

  “They kill,” he said softly. “They kill the unwary stranger.”

  Robby and Missy looked at each other, spoke no words, but simultaneously bolted and began racing for home, the wind clutching at them, the surf pounding in their ears.

  Mac Riley, standing still on the beach, watched them until they disappeared into the night, then turned and started back into the woods.

  Behind him, on the beach, something moved.

  Something indistinct, something almost formless in the blackness.

  4

  Elaine Randall woke early the following morning, momentarily disoriented. She lay quietly in bed next to her husband, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the confusion to pass. The blast of an airhorn jolted her into reality and she remembered where she was. Next to her Brad stirred in his sleep, turned over, and resumed his light snoring. Elaine, fully awake now, left the bed and went to the window.

  The storm had passed on to the east and in the sparkling clear morning light Clark’s Harbor seemed to beckon to her. She watched a small trawler chug slowly away from the wharf, then, remembering the storm of the previous night, decided to do some early morning beachcombing. She dressed quickly, resisting her impulse to wake Brad, and slipped from the room. As she passed the desk the same little man who had checked them in the afternoon before smiled brightly at her and bobbed his head in greeting. Elaine returned the smile, then walked briskly through the front door into the fresh salt air. She shivered, and drew her sweater more closely around her.

  The street was deserted. Elaine hurried across it, then walked along the sea wall to the pier. For a moment she was tempted to explore the wharf, but the memory of the dead fisherman flooded back to her and she chose instead to clamber down the short flight of stairs that would put her on the beach. It wasn’t until she had walked a hundred yards along the sand that she realized she was in the wrong place for beachcombing: the harbor was too well protected for much to have washed up. She strode purposefully toward the north point of the bay, enjoying the soft lapping sound of the water and the increasing warmth of the morning sun. Above her a cloudless sky matched the blue of the ocean, and the breeze barely frosted the surface of the water with foam.

  She rounded the point and found herself on a rocky beach mounded with driftwood. She picked her way slowly over the uneven ground, stopping now and then to poke at a likely looking chunk of wood, each time half-expecting to find one of the incredibly blue glass balls. Each time she was disappointed—but only briefly: the search was half the fun.

  Forty minutes later she came to another point. Beyond it, to the north, the rocky landscape changed radically. Warmed by her discovery, Elaine stood looking out over a magnificent unspoiled beach. It was a long, wide crescent of sand, broken in two places by creeks wandering across the beach on their way to the sea. At the far end of the crescent, almost hidden in the woods, she could barely distinguish a tiny cabin tucked neatly away among the trees. Much closer, and in stark contrast to the distant cabin, a ramshackle old house stood on the sand, its wood siding silvered by the wind and salt. It had the lonely empty look of abandonment, and Elaine had an urge to explore. Only her city dweller’s sense of impropriety kept her from acting on her curiosity. She made a mental note to tell Brad about the old house. His sense of what was proper, and what was not, allowed him to do things she would never do. Perhaps if she hinted broadly enough he would insist on coming back to do a little snooping.

  She began walking along the beach, poking into the mounds of kelp that had been washed up by the tide. Every now and then she stooped, picked up a rock or a shell, examined it, then dropped it back to the sand. Final
ly she gave up the search of the surf line, and made her way to the omnipresent mound of driftwood that lay above the high tide line, forming a barrier between the beach and the woods beyond. She clambered carefully over the logs, her eyes darting from nook to cranny, hoping to discover hidden treasure, but finding instead only rusted beer cans, old tires, and pieces of fishnet.

  When she was halfway up the beach she sat down on a log to watch the sea. The morning surf had a soft look to it and she was able to count seven separate ranks of breakers, testifying to the gentle slope that extended from the beach far out toward the horizon. She watched the surf for a long time, listened to its rhythmic throbbing, and realized that her trepidation of the night before had all but vanished. The silent serenity of the deserted beach enveloped her, and she found herself fantasizing about what it would be like to live here, spending her days wandering the beach while Brad wrote. She began to picture herself trying her hand at watercolors, then laughed out loud at her sudden desire to take up painting seascapes. The sound of the breakers swallowed up her solitary laughter. That pleased her too. She could talk to herself for hours on end out here and never have to worry about being overheard. She experimented with it for a couple of minutes, then lapsed back into silence and continued her lazy examination of the beach.

  At first she wasn’t sure she was seeing anything at all, but the more she stared, the more certain she was that there was something buried in the sand. It was no more than a slight rise in the flatness of the beach that she dismissed as a natural contour caused by the surf. But the more she stared at it, the more conscious she became that except for that single spot the beach was pancake flat. She found a stick and began walking toward the slight hump in the sand.

  It was about midway between the driftwood barrier and the surf line, and as she approached it, it almost disappeared. Had the sun been any higher, the bright light would have effectively flattened the bulge—a small mound two or three feet across—and she never would have seen it. She stared down at it for a moment, hesitating, then jabbed at it with her stick.

  The stick went easily into the sand for an inch or two, then stopped. She pushed, and the stick sunk in a little deeper, then sprang back when she released the pressure. Whatever it was, it wasn’t hard.

  She began scraping the sand away, first with the stick, then with her hands. Her fingers touched something. Something soft, like fur. A seal, she told herself, I’ve found a dead seal. She picked up the stick again, and began digging in earnest.

  It wasn’t until the tail emerged that Elaine knew what she had found. A dog, not a seal. Her first impulse was to leave it alone. If it had been a seal, she probably would have. Her curiosity would have been satisfied and she would have been content to leave it where it lay, for nature to take its course. But a dog was something else. A dog was someone’s pet. Somewhere, someone was going to miss this animal. Perhaps, she told herself, it isn’t quite dead. She continued digging.

  Minutes later the corpse was exposed. Elaine stared down at it, afraid she was going to be sick. It looked so pitiful, lying limply in the sand, its coat matted with slime. She knew immediately that it had been dead for several hours, but still she felt impelled to make sure. With the stick, she prodded at the dead animal. The body moved, but the head did not. She prodded at the head, then, and it moved around at an unnatural angle. With a shudder Elaine realized that its neck was broken. She dropped the stick and glanced wildly around, looking for help. The beach was still deserted. She looked back to the dog, and wished she hadn’t. Its eyes were open, and the dead eyes stared up at her as if pleading for her to do something. But all she could do was rebury it. Using the stick, she did the job as quickly as she could. Then she began running blindly back down the beach, hoping that the image of the dead creature would leave her as she left the place where she had found it.

  Brad was standing at the desk chatting with the manager when Elaine burst through the door of the Harbor Inn. His smile disappeared when he saw his wife’s strained look. He followed her up the stairs to their room.

  “What happened?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I found something on the beach,” Elaine said tightly. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She sat heavily on the bed and her hands moved instinctively to her stomach, as if trying to stop the heaving there. Looking at her ashen face, Brad felt his own stomach tighten. He sat down beside her, slipping his arm around her.

  “What was it?” he asked softly.

  “A dog,” Elaine said, choking. “A poor little dog. It was buried in the sand.”

  Brad’s brow knotted in puzzlement. “Buried? What do you mean?”

  Elaine leaped to her feet and stared furiously down at her husband. “Buried! I mean it was dead and it was buried! Its neck was broken and whoever did it buried the poor thing in the sand! Brad, let’s get out of here. I hate this place. I want to go home.”

  Brad took her hand and pulled her back down on the bed beside him. “Now calm down,” he said, “and tell me what happened. And don’t dramatize it. Just tell me what you found.”

  Elaine breathed deeply, composing herself, then told him what had happened. When she was finished, Brad shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so horrible,” he commented.

  “Well, it was horrible. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Brad said reasonably. “But how can you be so sure that someone killed it, then buried it in the sand?”

  “What else could have happened?” Elaine demanded.

  “There was a storm last night, right?”

  Elaine nodded mutely.

  “Well, didn’t it occur to you that the dog could have been playing on the beach and been hit by a chunk of driftwood? That could certainly break its neck. And then the surf does the rest, burying it in the sand. It seems to me that if someone maliciously killed a dog the beach is the last place he would have buried it. The surf could easily have exposed it. If you’re going to bury a dog you bury it where it will stay buried, don’t you?”

  Suddenly Elaine felt foolish. She smiled sheepishly at Brad. “Why did you marry me?” she asked. “Don’t you get sick of me overreacting to everything?”

  “Not really. It makes a nice balance, since I tend to underreact.” He smiled mischievously. “Maybe that’s what makes me a good shrink. I hear the most incredible tales from my patients and never react to them at all. Want to hear some?”

  “I certainly don’t,” Elaine said, blushing deeply. “Didn’t you ever hear about the confidentiality between doctors and patients?”

  “That’s for courts, not for wives,” Brad said easily. “Come on, let’s go get some breakfast.”

  A few minutes later, as they passed through the lobby, the manager asked them if they’d be checking out that morning. Elaine started to tell him that they would, but Brad squeezed her hand.

  “We’ll be here a few more days,” he said. He avoided Elaine’s eyes as she stared at him accusingly. “I want to take a look at Robby Palmer,” he muttered. But Elaine was sure it was more than that.

  An hour later, after she had eaten, Elaine began to feel better. The sun still shone brightly and Clark’s Harbor, basking in the brilliance, once more seemed as charming as it had when they had discovered it the day before. The images of the dead fisherman and the broken corpse of the dog faded from her mind, and Elaine began to wonder if it might not be fun to spend a year here. After all, she told herself, fishermen do drown, but they don’t drown every day. It was just a coincidence.

  Rebecca Palmer parked the battered minibus in front of the building her husband was remodeling and hurried inside. For a second she thought the place was deserted, but then a pounding from the back room told her that Glen was there, and working. She called out to him.

  “I’m back here.” His voice suggested that he wasn’t going to come out, so she moved quickly around the half-finished display case, and stepped into an alcove that would eventually be an o
ffice.

  “This son-of-a-bitch doesn’t want to fit,” Glen said with a grin. He struck the offending shelf once more, then tossed the hammer aside.

  “If you’d measure before you cut, it might help,” Rebecca pointed out. She picked up the hammer, knocked the shelf loose, measured first the board, and then the space it was supposed to fit in, then the board once more. She set the board on a pair of sawhorses, picked up a skillsaw, and neatly removed an eighth of an inch from one end of the plank. Seconds later it sat securely and steadily in place. Glen gazed at his wife admiringly.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “You never asked. Maybe from now on you should take care of the house and I’ll do the remodeling.”

  “That would give Clark’s Harbor something to talk about, wouldn’t it? Want some coffee?” Without waiting for a reply, Glen poured them each a cup, then winked at Rebecca. “Perked with genuine electricity,” he teased. “By the way, your latest batch of pottery came out without a single crack. One of these days, with a little luck, I’ll get this place in shape to start selling some of it.”

  “You’d better. I have a whole new batch in the van. Give me a hand with it, will you?”

  They transferred the unfired pottery to the shelves around the kiln, then put the finished pieces from the night before carefully aside.

  “Now all I have to do is collect Snooker and I can get back home to work,” Rebecca said when they were done.

  “Snooker?”

  “Didn’t you bring him in with you this morning?” Rebecca asked.

  “I didn’t see him at all this morning,” Glen replied.

  “That’s funny. When he didn’t show up for his breakfast I assumed you’d brought him with you.”

  “Did you try calling him?”

  “Of course. Not that it ever does any good. Well, I suppose he’ll show up when he’s good and ready. But I hope he’s ready by this afternoon or the kids are going to be upset. I told them you had him.” Rebecca shrugged. “It was either that or let them search the beach instead of going to school.”