Nothing stirred in the alley. Yet his pursuer lurked out there, he knew. Somewhere.
Eventually, he sighed and swung the binoculars back toward the apartment.
The window! It was open wide now. He slapped his palm against the pane too hard, cracking it. No! Frantically, he scanned back and forth across the fire escape, the alley, the…
He caught just a glimpse of the boy’s cap vanishing down the alley. Tossing the binoculars on the bedding, he grabbed for his parka. The door thudded against the wall as he pounded into the hallway and down the well of the stairs.
In the empty room, the candle flickered feebly, and tendrils of smoke twined up to the ceiling. As the door drifted shut, sleet began to tap at the cracked windowpane.
“Oh, so you’re still around.”
“Nice little town you have here.”
The barmaid swiveled a look to someone at a nearby table, and one of the patrons shook his head.
“Stacey, isn’t it?” Steve ordered a beer, then spent ten minutes trying to draw her into conversation. “I was in Cape May last month, stayed at a couple of the famous haunted hotels.” He grinned. “You interested in that sort of thing?”
Wiping a glass, she barely looked at him.
“Psychic phenomenon is sort of a hobby of mine.”
“Uh huh.” She went on to the next glass.
“Ghosts and poltergeists, that sort of thing.” He raised his voice, watching the other patrons in the mirror. “You know, things moving around by themselves. Anything like that ever happen around here?”
He heard somebody mutter, “What in hell’s he talking about?”
“I mean, are there any old legends about the town? You know, haunted beaches…or strange families. That kind of thing?”
The white-haired man on the next bar stool cast him a look of utter disgust. “People here ain’t no stranger than anywheres else,” the man grumbled as he picked up his beer and moved away. “Leastwise we mind our own business.”
“Here, give me another.” Steve put a twenty on the bar and forced a smile.
“Uh huh.” Stacey shook her head. “You’re different all right. I’ll give you that much.” Under the makeup, she looked tired. “You ought to meet Tully.”
“Who?”
“Besides, if you really want to know about the town, he’s the only one’s gonna talk to you.” Smirking, she looked as though she might say something else but wiped the counter instead.
“Why’s that?”
With one long fingernail, she scraped at a spot on the bar. “Everybody else has gotten pretty leery of strangers since last week. Cops and reporters. Pestering everybody. Just the kind of publicity this town don’t need.”
“You expecting this Tully character tonight?”
“Hey, Tull, come over here,” she called. “Man wants to buy you a drink.”
Steve blinked. A young man rose from a table near the wall. No one could have appeared more out of place, and he watched him smile in habitual apology as he squeezed around a table. The sheepskin jacket and cable-knit sweater looked expensive, and brown curly hair hung to his shoulders, slightly exaggerating a suggestion of weakness in his features.
Cigarette scissored between two fingers, Stacey said, “Now tell him what you was telling me about.” Folding her arms, she observed them through the smoke.
While Steve repeated his comments about psychic phenomenon, Stacey poured drinks. “Oh,” the newcomer interrupted with a chuckle, “so that’s why she wanted us to meet. Sorry, but she thinks you’re weird too.” His hands twitched. “Am I right, Stace?” All his gestures seemed jerky, barely controlled and at odds with his polished appearance, as though he constantly reined in some violent reaction. “They all think I’m a little crazy here.”
She smiled with her lips closed.
“Tully, is it?”
“Nickname. Long story. Real name’s Jason. Jason Lonzo.”
“I take it you’re not from around here?” Steve leaned forward. At the closest table, a laugh cut off suddenly.
“I am. Sort of. My folks have a place here, and I’ve been here every summer since I was born just about.”
Steve patted the sleeve of his own leather jacket. “Strange time of year for the beach, isn’t it?”
“Hmm? Oh, you mean why am I here now? I more or less dropped out of grad school a couple months ago. The situation got a little tense at home, so I’ve been staying at the shore house, you know, trying to figure myself out.” He shrugged. “Maybe do a little painting.”
“You paint?”
“Hope so. I don’t really know yet.”
Steve nodded. His third beer had settled on an empty stomach, and his companion’s last remark suddenly struck him as both eloquent and poignant. “Yeah,” he expounded.
“You think less of me for that? For quitting?” He searched Steve’s face as though this stranger’s opinion suddenly mattered intensely.
“Well, uh,” Steve cleared his throat.
“Hey, Charlie, how you doing?” The long hair swayed in front of Tully’s face as he nodded at one of the regulars hurrying past. “I’m too sensitive, that’s all. I’m sorry, but it’s a little weird. Sometimes I know what people are going to say. You know? What they’re thinking even. Sometimes I think they can tell, and they resent it. Is that crazy?”
“You tell me.” They kept talking and drinking, though the blurry discourse in which they indulged barely qualified as conversation. Tully’s whole demeanor changed whenever he addressed one of the other patrons, his vocabulary and tone of voice altering with a spurious attempted to affect a jocular coarseness of character. Always the locals turned from him with barely concealed sneers. He should give it up. Steve shook his head, feeling a surge of compassion for this young man, so desperate for acceptance. Oblivious, Tully prattled on about some philosopher whose work he found “strangely meaningful,” while Steve ordered more beer. Hell, why am I sitting here? I don’t have time to waste. The boy could be anywhere. He could sneak out of town, and I’d lose him and never find him, and he’d kill and kill and never stop. But a luxuriating paralysis seemed to spread through his body, preventing his muscles from tensing when he willed himself to rise. What next, he wondered? Wander back outside? Into that terrible cold? Kit can only watch the apartment another hour; then she goes on duty. I’ll be there to take over. Besides, he found himself liking his tense and melancholy new acquaintance. I’ll be there. No rush.
“Toxic dumping for one thing. Did you get a whiff of the bay?”
He interrupted the younger man to order food, and they moved to a table.
“You’ve met Kit? Really? That’s somebody else I always thought was out of place here. Hard to believe she’s a cop.”
Steve just watched and listened. While the barmaid wiped the table, he noticed the way she looked at Tully, the way she moved with an exaggerated twitch of the hips. An indulgent smile played across Tully’s face as Stacey leaned far over him to swab out the ashtray with a damp cloth.
Good for you, kid. Steve told himself he wasn’t just wasting time here, that mingling with the locals constituted part of the investigative process. Okay, so we’ll talk a while, and maybe I’ll learn something about the town. Except they didn’t seem to be discussing the town. What was the guy going on about now? Renaissance architecture? The beer created a haze in his vision, but he made an effort to focus. “This town,” he interrupted. “It’s sort of laid out strange for a seaside resort, isn’t it? Doesn’t look much like the rest of the towns around here.”
“It’s older than most. Except for the boardwalk. That only got built about fifty years ago, before the beaches started to go.” Tully nodded enthusiastically, switching conversational tracks without noticeable effort. “The earliest residents were mostly English and German, then a big wave of Italians. Lots of fishermen. They built the center of town—you know, brickwork and alleyways. But they’re mostly gone now.” He sipped his drink. “Like all the people I
knew as a kid.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask somebody—how come the beach is black?”
“Iron ore. There’s a mine in the barrens the town buys sand from.”
Cigarette smoke seemed to create a fog around the lights, and Steve couldn’t concentrate on the words he heard. The younger man was telling him about how offshore dumping had changed the coastline and destroyed the beaches or something like that. He could smell a cigar, and suddenly the bar felt cool and damp. He became acutely aware of hostile glares from the corners. Enough. In a moment, he knew he’d find the strength to leave.
For hours, Charlotte had perused the photographs in the old album, turning the yellowed pages so that light from the fireplace slid across them, illuminating now a face, now a background figure, vivid, then faded…and sometimes strangely unfamiliar, as though they belonged in the memories of another person, some stranger who’d begun telling her a long story full of bewildering details. Then an image would resonate and remembrance would flood back, buoy her a moment, then ebb, leaving her stranded with her sense of loss. Yet she couldn’t stop turning the pages, the surge of feeling worth the pang it left. Her husband’s face looked back at her from every page, and when she glanced up, she found him in every corner of the room, framed on the wall, encased in silver on shelves and end tables, large images and miniatures. Gradually, the firelight faded into bright shadows, and she began to feel the chill. I should put on more wood. What would Katherine say if she saw me shivering here? Gingerly, she placed the album on a delicate table, then wheeled herself to the fireplace. I refuse to become one of those old persons who suffer through self-neglect. Her hand tightened about the wheel rim, and a trace of pain gnawed at her wrist.
A noise trebled below the squeal of the chair.
It’s here. Flames hissed softly. It’s here again. She twisted her body to the curtained windows, listening to the night.
The voice of the sea drifted on a low wind, grunting through the window, like the noise a wolf might make in its sleep.
“Where are you, poor dead thing? Are you right outside?”
The drapes swayed slightly in the draft, and she reached quickly for the phone on the table, but only let her hand rest upon it. No, I won’t disturb Katherine with this. Laboriously, she turned the chair around, while the floorboards sang out their sad, ritual creaking. I will not bother her again so soon.
Guttural panting rattled the glass.
But the dead don’t breathe. And surely they are silent.
Straining, she guided the chair adroitly to the windowed alcoves, until the wheels struck the single stair. She felt for the lock on the wheel, then braced herself with the heels of her hands.
Pain radiated through her. The delicate muscle cords of her arms quivered as, with a thin groan, she levered herself from the chair. But her legs didn’t tremble, and she stood like a statue. In seconds, a film of sweat slicked her neck. Her foot faltered at the step. She swayed upward until her hands clutched at the curtain cord, and she hung on it for balance. Then she pulled weakly with numbed fingers, and the heavy drapes slid open.
Firelight glinted from the pane. Bulging eyes glared at her from the outer darkness.
The curtain cord whipped from her fingers, and she stumbled back. The room reeled.
…something deep…soft…
She lay on the carpet.
The fire had grown dimmer, plunging the parlor into gloom, the shadow beneath the coffee table as black as the sea. I saw it. A brittle soreness sputtered through one side of her body, and her right hand groped for the chair. And it looked right at me. With a moan, she caught at the spokes of a wheel, pulled herself to her knees. How did it get so dark? Was I unconscious? How long…? She shivered. Is the thing still there? Her vision twisted to the windowpane. A leafless china apple tree danced and skittered in the wind, and beyond the dead garden, whitecaps flickered around the rocks: silent, numinous explosions.
Above her head, wood creaked.
Her heart hammered painfully, and dying flames whispered. All around the room, windows shivered in their frames. At last, she sat heavily.
The board creaked again.
“So you’re here.” Faintly, her words rasped. “In the house.” Her head sank forward as though in prayer. “Finally.” The axles squeaked shrilly as she wheeled herself toward the doorway. “You’ve come back to me.”
Firelight barely shimmered into the hall, but it danced the shadow of the banister high across the wall.
Her own shadow loomed, slumped and brittle. To her left, another doorway opened into a smaller sitting room, long since converted into the bedroom she’d despised for years. “I’ve waited such a long time.” Her voice rose with tremulous indignity. “At first, I was afraid. You know how foolish I can be. I didn’t understand. But I know what you are now.” Her voice cracked. “Forgive me, that’s not right. I know who you are.”
Phantom movement flurried at the top of the stairs, like veils in the wind, and she stared upward, straining until she could just make out the window on the landing. Sheer curtains danced frantically. At first, she heard only the creak of a stair, so soft she could almost have believed she imagined it, but there followed the distinct thump of a footfall.
“Yes,” she chanted. “Yes, dead thing, I’m here. Dear dead thing.” She stared into nothingness. “Come down to me.”
Another footstep creaked on the staircase, and Charlotte groped blindly for the light switch too far above her on the wall. She edged closer. Darkness spiraled up the steps. She reached out, her fingers waving like an anemone. Was there a form? Some shape motionless on the stairs? A tingling sensation crawled across her face. “What’s that?”
A squeaking burble seemed to tumble down the steps, barely audible.
“What, dear? Are you speaking?”
She saw the hand first, the way it dug into the banister, sliding into the faint gloom. Then the stench poured over her. “I’ve gone mad. I always knew…knew this would happen. Alone in the dark and I’ve gone mad in the end, howling by myself in an empty house, imagining something has come to me.”
It growled.
Why is it making that sound? Like an animal. It should be calm. Stately. Sad.
Like heat from a furnace, stench came at her in waves now.
It stepped down into the dim spill of light.
“No! No! Henry, help me!” The pain in her chest struck like a sickle, and a pool sprang up around her.
The parlor surfaced through swirling colors. Such a nightmare I’ve had. Somehow she must have fallen asleep by the fireplace. But I was in the hall. I’m sure I was. How did I get here?
Then she saw it.
It stood quite close, turned away from her, and she watched the way its naked shoulders bunched. She saw it lift one of the photographs from its place on the mantel, and her fingers closed instinctively over the poker. “No! That’s mine! Get away from there! Monster! Put it down!”
The creature turned to her as though in astonishment, and she lashed out with the poker.
One hand struck like the paw of a great cat, ripped through her, sent her hurdling from the chair. She struck the wall. She felt things crack and snap within her, but still her voice stuttered. “…mine…leave them alone…you can’t…”
A clawing hand lifted her by the hair, and taloned fingers buried themselves deep in her soft, old face.
XX
“The world gets more and more like science fiction every year.” Tully tilted his chair back. “It’s weird. Some nights I lie there in a sweat just thinking about it.”
Ignoring him, Steve strained to discern the newscaster’s words above the electronic buzz of the television set. Around the bar, a dozen patrons squinted up at the weather report.
“Three inches, they said,” Stacey reported, setting down the plates.
“What?”
“Snow. Didn’t ya hear?”
“You’re kidding?” Steve flinched. Around him, the patrons buzzed in
outrage.
“Did you hear what he said about the hurricane?” asked the younger man.
“What?”
“And snow tonight maybe,” Tully continued while gazing into his empty glass. “Doubt it though. Too cold. My father used to say that. Too cold for snow. But there’s a bad storm heading up the coast, not a hurricane exactly but…”
“Unusual time of year for something like that, isn’t it?” Steve coughed. “I thought…I thought…”
“Never,” a man at the bar called over. “Never happen.” The tavern had suddenly grown raucous. “Never after the first snow.”
“It’s like the seasons are so weird anymore.” Tully shook his head. “Like somebody shuffled the calendar pages or something. I never took a science course I didn’t get an ‘Incomplete’ in, but storms have something to do with a mass of cold air meeting a warm front and…”
“Warm front where?” demanded a guy at the next table. “What warm front? It’s frigging freezing.”
“He must mean Stacey. Hey, did you hear me? He said warm front and…”
“Oh you,” the old lady with the eye patch giggled. “You’re terrible.” She turned to someone else. “Did you hear what John said?”
The woman with the operatic makeup still sat rigidly at the bar, her hairdo—the color of a wasp carapace—unveiled for the evening. “Ever since they put a man on the moon,” she enunciated carefully. “The weather ain’t been right.” She pursed her lips and nodded with an air of profundity, her necklace glittering. “I’m telling you.”
Steve looked around the bar. He’d never imagined these people so animated.
“It’ll miss us probably,” Tully continued. “Usually does. Though we had to evacuate a couple times when I was a kid.”
The Shore Page 18
