The Shore

by Robert Dunbar

  “Part of the pattern,” his voice husked painfully. “We keep finding it.” Wrapped in blankets, he huddled on the sofa. “Not just madness in the family, though we see that too, but that the families develop ways of…suppressing.” Steve barely shrugged, too exhausted to even hold his head up. “Maybe it works…sometimes…a little…or maybe Ramsey never really was one of them. Probably he never…changed…the way the girl did.” His right arm hung in a makeshift sling, and he lifted the cup carefully with his left hand, steam curling as he sipped. “At least not so much.” One side of his face had mottled a deep purple, the bruise spreading down his neck. The flesh around his eyes looked gray with weariness, the bloody rims giving him an unhinged appearance. Also, he hadn’t shaved in days.

  She thought he looked beautiful. “About the boy, Steve. About his not being…one of them.”

  “I swear…when I look at him…”

  “He’s still out.” Nervously, she glanced toward the bedroom. “I checked a few minutes ago. He looks so…fragile, but I never could have made it back to the jeep if he hadn’t come to and helped me.”

  “I meant to kill him.” He followed her gaze.

  She nodded. “But you couldn’t.” Her fingers closed tightly around a bottle of aspirin on the table. “Are you breathing any easier now? You sound better.”

  He turned away. “The world doesn’t need more monsters.”

  “Maybe he can become something more than that, Steve.”

  His laugh startled her.

  “What?”

  “That’s what she’d have said.”

  “Swell.” She stirred her tea. “You’re not a…what was it you called yourself? A phantom? You can still have a life, Steve. Right?” When he didn’t respond, her throat tightened. “He should be in the hospital.”

  “He’s not hurt. That in itself tells me something. All he needs is rest, and he’s getting that here.”

  “He could be developing pneumonia right now. So could you.”

  “Kitten.”

  “Don’t. He had a fever yesterday.”

  “So you said.” Sighing, he ran his good hand through his hair.

  She watched him. Through the sheer curtains, dawn light picked out gray threads with merciless clarity.

  “Kit, he’s been through a shock worse than anything we can imagine.” His eyelids, purple with fatigue, drifted closed. “Let’s just hope it’s over.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I always seem to end up on this sofa, don’t I?” Sighing, he forced himself to stay focused. “The best thing we can do for him is to let him be. Maybe try to get some food into him. And just be here for him. That’s all. Who knows what it would do to him if people started asking questions? Doctors? Cops? Think about it. Dredging up the mother’s death from all those years ago. The father. The brother. That poor damned sister. How many more times does he have to be pushed to the edge? Can you honestly say you don’t think he’d wind up in the same hospital Ramsey broke out of?”

  “I…”

  “And probably for life. When they first sent Ramsey there, was he much older than Perry is now?” He put the cup down sharply, flexed his left hand. “All those years of treatment. Didn’t seem to do him much good, did it?”

  “But…”

  “If we took him to a hospital, how could we even begin to explain?” With a stiff movement, he rubbed his face. “Have you thought about that?” His words grew faint, blurred.

  “What?”

  “The father too. Maybe the father. Maybe something…some sadistic ritual…maybe it helped him repress the changes in himself. Maybe that’s why he…”

  “You should be in the hospital yourself.”

  “…fine…”

  “No, you’re not. And you’re not making any sense.”

  “…maybe it saved him for a while but turned him into a different kind of monster. The father, I mean.”

  “Stop it.”

  “The things he did to those kids. Maybe to the mother too.”

  “And it might make it harder for you to get your hands on Perry?” Her eyes glinted like broken glass. “If he went to a hospital?”

  Wearily, he reached across the table to stroke her arm.

  “I know you’re tired.” She shrugged away. “But these things. What did you call them? Mutations? Tell me more about them. Why is it happening?”

  “We don’t know why.”

  “I wish you’d stop saying ‘we’ like that. You haven’t done that since the first time we…” She flinched. “I thought it was always boys.”

  “So did we. Sorry. So did I. She may have been the first. In all the stories, it’s always been young males.”

  “Why now?”

  He shook his head.

  “But you have some idea.”

  He turned to the window, and the tension in his neck told her how much the concentration cost him. “Maybe they’ve always been there,” he replied at last. “Maybe the world has finally changed enough for us to see them. Maybe a new world needs…”

  Something like a laugh caught in her throat. “And these are your new people?” The teacup rattled in her hands. “Mass murderers?”

  He didn’t turn to face her. “I think that’s…some sort of…phase…something they’re working through.”

  “Terrific. Slaughter therapy.”

  “One of the people we…I…work with is a psychologist.” He stared hard at the table. “I know someone who believes the metamor…the changes…stem from the effort to repress what’s growing in them. This power. Throbbing. Inside them. Scares them. They fight it. The people around them teach them it’s evil, so they fight harder. That’s what warps them, twists them into monsters. She tries to help them stop being afraid. She tries to help them accept the change and channel it into…”

  “Them?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘them.’ How many? No. Don’t tell me. I don’t think I can handle any more of this right now.” Against her will, a sob burst from her. “Are they all…demented? Deformed? What good does it do any of them, this place? Are they all children?”

  “I know a little boy.” When at last he spoke, his voice seemed to come from a long way off. “A strange little boy everybody used to think was mentally defective.” He smiled faintly to himself. “Not so little anymore. And so smart it scares the hell out of me.”

  “It’s hers, isn’t it? Her son. That woman you say I remind you of.” She forced a shattered grin. “And what about us? Just tell me now so I’ll know. I can handle anything, just so I know what’s coming.” The words tasted like acid in her mouth. “Were you just using me?” She forced herself only to watch as his expression knotted, forced herself not to speak, not to touch him, only to wait for his words. But no response came. Finally, she turned away.

  As though released, he leaned forward, and his hand went to her waist.

  “Don’t.” She choked back the words. “You love her.” Her fingers flew to her lips.

  “I.” He spoke the syllable with unconscious finality, forming neither the beginning of a sentence, nor the end of one. “She.” He tried again. “They need me to…”

  “Stop telling me what she needs. What do you need? What do you want? Tell me that for once. Just tell me.”

  Behind them, a vase hit the floor and shattered.

  “No, leave it. The cat’s always knocking things over.”

  “The cat ran away, Kit.”

  A row of books slid from the bookcase to the floor.

  “What’s going on? Is the place collapsing? Should we get out?”

  “It’s the boy,” he explained.

  “What do you mean? No. Leave it, I said. Just answer me.”

  His face went blood dark. “I want not to feel all torn up inside.” A fleck of saliva flew from his lips. “Can’t you feel it?” He rubbed at his forehead. “They do something to us too. Stir something in our brains. Can’t you almost touch him in your thoughts?”


  “Stop that. You sound even crazier than usual. What is it, Steve? Aren’t you allowed to be happy? Do I threaten some kind of bargain you made with yourself?” She looked at the bedroom door. “He belongs in a hospital, and that’s where he’s going.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “I don’t know.” Her head twitched.

  “The kind of help he needs only I can give him.” He stared hard at the door. “I guess I always hated them. Wanted to kill them all. But now…when I look at him…” He shook his head. “Did you see him lying there? How broken? How helpless?” As though to himself, he whispered, “I’m ready. I can go back now.”

  “That’s where you want to take him? To those people? To her?” She wouldn’t look at him. “What? Is he some kind of present? Wouldn’t flowers do just as well?” She pressed her eyelids down with her fingertips, felt the moisture begin to leak. “What if you’re wrong about him? What if he’s not some kind of creature? What if he’s just a little boy who’s been through hell? What will that do to him?” Abruptly, she rose and crossed to the window. “What if you’re wrong about all of them? What if there are no monsters?”

  “You saw.” Patience rasped in his voice.

  “I don’t know what I saw. There was fog. The storm.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “All right—what if they really are monsters? And you’re helping them?” Gazing out at the sea, she kept her back to him. “No. This little boy is in shock, you said it yourself. Who knows what taking him to your crazy friends might do to him? If he’s not insane now, he soon would be.” She crossed her arms. “No, I can’t allow it.”

  “But you helped me.” Behind her, he rose unsteadily. “You believed.”

  “Just in you. I thought I’d found something, something that reminded me of what I used to believe in…about making a difference…but all I found was you, and I just did what you wanted. Whatever you wanted. We didn’t save the town. I couldn’t even save poor Charlotte who trusted me. I’m too weak.”

  “No, you were weak when I met you. Now look at you. You fought to protect the town.”

  “Fat lot of good it did.”

  “And you’d do anything to protect the boy now, wouldn’t you?”

  Her fingers dug deeply into her own arms, and she rocked back on her heels. Slowly, she turned to face him.

  He stared at her, at the way her curls burned like copper wires in the morning light. “I really do love you, Kit.” His face had become a mask of stone. “It’s important that you know that.”

  She felt her eyes grow hot and milky, and he blurred in her liquid vision. She blinked to find him coming toward her with an extension cord in his hands, the sling hanging empty about his neck.

  “Don’t be afraid, Kit. You know I’d never hurt you.”

  XXXII

  “She never knew, did she? Never knew what was happening to her?”

  Wintry sunlight flooded over the debris-littered shore, and the gulls wheeled everywhere. Below the road, vines and scrub sloped to clear water that rippled inches above the submerged seawall. Gentle waves rasped and licked against the stones of the hill.

  They hiked on. The shore lacked most contours now: coves and hills, pine groves and inlets had all vanished. In places, low waves rolled almost to the roadway.

  The sight seemed to fascinate the boy. “Look! There’s some beach left.” He bolted down a sodden incline that led to the edge of the water. Though energy surged in his voice, he moved stiffly.

  “Be careful.” Nursing injuries of his own, Steve limped faster. “Stay where I can see you.” Mounds of drying sea vegetation strewed the rocks, forming huge hillocks.

  Sunlight glinted off the ripples. The man caught up to the boy, and they stood together, staring out. The curving shore blurred into mist, and quiet swells emerged from a haze to slap languidly upon the rocks. The shadow of a gull floated on the water.

  The man studied him. With the light on his face and the breeze caressing him, the boy seemed perfect, untroubled, his features ripe with budding strength. Then a cloud passed and the illusion vanished in shadow.

  The boy turned from the view, his flesh unnaturally pallid, dark smears beneath his swollen eyes. “…sometimes she was better,” he droned in a hiccupping voice, “and she could walk around like she used to.” He thrust trembling hands deep into his pockets. “And sometimes I had to feed her. Take care of her. You know? Like a baby?” A larger wave crashed, and droplets settled on him like frigid tears.

  Steve led the boy gently along the edge of the sea. The debris resembled bones, and they picked their way across bleached wood and rocks. A powdering of pulverized shell particles coated the mud.

  “…because I remember the bad times and want things to be good for her so we hide at night and sleep during the day and we move whenever I think we’ve been one place too long and…”

  “It’s just a little farther now.” They skirted an uprooted pine garlanded with seaweed, still twitching in the breeze. “Do you need to rest?”

  “She don’t, doesn’t like other girls. Makes her mad to see them, like on television and stuff, if they show one kissing a guy she gets all…she gets like…”

  “And she never remembered anything? Afterwards?” He halted. “Look at me. Does your chest feel better? You’re sure? There’s something I want to say to you, and I want you to listen. About your sister. No, look at me.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is important. On some level, she may have known…and fought it. You have to remember that. She fought it. Because she didn’t want to hurt you. Never forget that.”

  “She thought I wanted to kill her. She…”

  “She was scared. Do you understand? I have…a friend…who believes that’s what causes the…the problem…the distortion”—he groped for words—“the changes you saw. You know what I mean? Her face? Her body?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Trying to fight it, I mean. That’s what does it. She, my friend, she tries to help people.”

  “Like my sister?”

  “Sometimes they turn out to be very special, to have special abilities.” He watched the boy carefully. “They can make things move with their thoughts, though they don’t control it. You understand? And sometimes they know what people are thinking. Do you know what I mean?”

  The blood had drained from Perry’s face. “Where are we going?”

  “We’ll walk to the ferry. Once we’re back on the mainland, I’m going to rent a car. If anyone wants to know, just say I’m your father.”

  “Will you tell me something?” Perry’s whole body seemed to tighten. “I mean, will you tell me the truth?” His thin frame shivered. “Am I one?”

  Steve let his gaze swing out over the water again. “So calm today. Doesn’t seem possible.” Sunlight flickered hypnotically on the surface, and he let himself sigh deeply. “What did you use the knives for?”

  The boy made a noise at the back of his throat like a twig snapping. “When she got loose, I could always find her, and…”

  “How? How could you find her?”

  “I…just knew where she…” He shook his head dazedly, and his hands went to his face. “Like I could hear her.”

  “Go on.”

  “And when I found her…she would listen to me. Sometimes. She’d come home. Later on, it got harder. But I only have to tie her sometimes,” his voice faltered. “Had to. Tie her. Stella.” He started to choke. “I had to. Let her out sometimes. Was like she’d die if I didn’t. Sometimes.” Strangled sobs shook him. “Then…other times…she just got loose and…”

  Steve tightened his grip on the bony shoulder until gradually the trembling ceased. “The knives?”

  “I had to hide what she did. I couldn’t let them see. The scratches. And teeth marks and stuff. I couldn’t let them see what she was, and when I did it, they were already pretty much…apart. Pretty much. So I could get rid of…bury…hide…”

  “Or throw them in the wa
ter.”

  “…scared…”

  “Yes.”

  “Scared they’d take her away. Like Ramsey. Then I’d be alone.” From somewhere nearby, they heard an automobile engine. “It’s all of us, ain’t it? The whole family.”

  “Are you warm enough in that jacket?” Beneath a sky rinsed clear of clouds, they walked on. “It’s getting chilly again.” His fingers moved deftly, as though by instinct, to turn up the boy’s collar. “We’d better hurry.”

  Heading for higher ground, they rounded a bend, startling a gull into flight. Wing tips slapped the sand, but still the bird barely rose. Then the wind took it, and it soared, swinging out over the water.

  “Perry, that morning at the pond, remember? When I first saw you? What were you searching for?”

  “Her gold chain.” Shell particles and pebbles rained down the embankment, and the boy stared at his shuffling feet. “Daddy gave it to her. It had a charm with her name. She was gone all night that time. First time she ever got out without my knowing. When I got her home, she didn’t have it and if they found…”

  “You shouldn’t have worried. They did find it, but they thought it belonged to the other girl, the one in the pond.” He stepped onto the road surface. “Are you ready to tell me what happened to your father? Don’t look away. It’s all right. I think I know.”