The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

by Robert Dunbar

  "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.

  XXX

  Wind shoved her to the edge. Below, a flotilla of debris, mostly timbers torn from the pier, rushed and receded. The cold knifed through her.

  A breaker spumed, and she fell, thudding hard against the dock. As she struggled to rise, the retreating water pulled, and she slid, clutching at slime. Suddenly, the dock pitched, and splintered wood jutted over the water.

  A single rail bridged the two halves of the broken pier, rusted spikes poking from where crossbeams had been. It was the only way across.

  If a wave comes now...

  With a convulsive shiver, she clutched the rail with both hands and began to crawl, wary of the nails. Don't look. She gripped the beam with frozen fingers, squeezing it with her thighs as she inched forward. Stay focused. Her jeans snagged, and she tugged, grunting when she felt blood trickle warmly on her knee. Balance. Water slapped at her, stinging her stomach, and she crawled faster. Slow down. Her hand slipped, and she lurched to the side. Feeling the revolver slide, she grabbed at it but missed.

  It vanished silently into the sea. Foam drew patterns on the surface, kaleidoscopic striations that seemed to hint at a bewildering design. She had no name for the color.

  The beam vibrated, slanting as she clambered off. "Help me!" On the other side, she pulled herself into a crouch. "Steve!" Again she sprawled, her hands clutching frantically at slick wood as the pier groaned to a violent angle, miniature cascades draining across it. "...help..." Somehow, she stumbled to her feet.

  Just ahead of her, the pier ended abruptly, smashed away. On the jagged point, the creature whirled and screeched, the boy a motionless heap across its shoulder. It shrieked again with a voice like the storm.

  She struggled to reach them.

  "Listen to me, Stella." He kept the revolver trained on it. "Listen to my voice. Try to understand." His voice held only weary anguish. "Try to hold on to my words."

  Kit staggered closer. Spray from the waves battled back a wall of mist. Were those wings that curled from the creature's back or plumes of spray? Tentacles that writhed or lashing froth?

  The clenched travesty of a female form shrieked again, and its rage--a gust of sheer fury--billowed at them. Lips rippled away from snarling teeth. Straining muscles twisted as its body swelled with savage dementia, and it hoisted the boy above its head.

  "Put him down, Stella. There's no place left to go."

  It shivered, breasts glistening with seawater.

  "Don't fight the seizure. Let it ride over you. Think. It fades. You know it passes. You'll be all right again, I promise. Then I'll take you someplace, you and Perry. Someplace good. Someplace you'll be safe."

  A tremor shook it. Slowly, the creature began to lower the boy.

  "You have to trust somebody," his voice pleaded.

  Another wave struck, and Kit slipped, clutching at Steve's arm. The creature snarled, seemingly aware of her for the first time. It whirled the boy. For a moment, they seemed to waltz, while the convulsing sea slung plumes of water into a blaring sky.

  "Stella! Don't!"

  It tossed the boy at them. He hit the wood and rolled limply, like a discarded rag doll.

  "Don't make me shoot!"

  With a wild shriek, it stomped at them. He fired once into the air. The thing halted its charge, backed away.

  "Listen to me," he shouted. "You. Whatever you are. Whatever any of you are. You can't run. It only makes it worse when you try to run."

  "Kill it!" She grasped his shoulder. "For God's sakes, shoot it!"

  "Get back, Kit!"

  "Give me the gun! I'll kill it!" She grappled with him.

  "Stella! No!"

  The creature rushed to the boy again.

  "Get away from him!"

  It groped with a gnarled claw, then jerked the boy overhead, clutching the slack body with both hands.

  "Put him down! Down, Stella!"

  The creature's head swiveled toward the ocean, and the muscles in its arms bunched.

  "No!"

  Kit let go of Steve's arm and pushed forward. "Stella, don't."

  "Get back, damn you, Kit." He grabbed her. They stood close enough to hear the creature's grunting breath. The boy's head lolled in their direction, mouth slack.

  Kit saw the breaker first...and moaned. With a spitting snarl, the creature clutched the boy to its breasts as the huge swell struck the edge of the pier. Frothing white, it crashed over the creature's head, and the monster screamed once, a very human cry of despair. An instant later, the water struck Steve and Kit, and the cascade staggered them backward, reaching blindly for one another. Bracing himself around a piling, he caught her arm. An instant of wrenching pain then, gasping, they sprawled on the broken dock...alone.

  There was no sign of Perry, no sign of what had been his sister.

  From across the heaving waves drifted the terrified wail of a small boy.

  With leaden arms, Steve crawled forward.

  "...no..." Kit writhed toward him.

  His head jerked in her direction.

  "...don't..."

  For an instant, hopeless longing clouded his face as he gazed at her. Then he slipped off the edge.

  "You can't save him!" She cla
mbered to the shattered brink. "No! Somebody, help me! It doesn't end like this!" Waves seethed, swelled even higher, plunging at her. "I won't let it end like this." She forced the shout through her tortured throat. "Where are you?" Salt stung painfully at her. "Steve, swim to me!" Coughing and sobbing, she grabbed onto an upright post and hung out over the jagged boards. "Come to my voice!"

  Angry grayness rushed around her. In the boiling madness, a pale area bulged. A head emerged. Shoulders.

  "Here!"

  It thrashed wildly.

  "Steve! Come...!"

  The creature faced her from the water.

  "No!"

  The eyes were full of terror.

  Almost before she could think, Kit had stretched out her hand.

  The water rolled massively, the satin muscles of the sea protuberant with force. The wave heaved toward the pier.

  The mountain of water pounded down.

  Trying to wrap herself around the post, Kit felt herself torn away, rolled. Her lungs filled with frigid seawater.

  Something stopped her movement. She choked, flailing as the breaker receded into foam. Another wave exploded. The whole pier lurched as rafters cracked, and she squirmed away, tremors of wood rattling through her bones.

  She couldn't stand, could barely crawl, but she turned her head toward a hint of movement.

  The legs twitched. At the end of a shattered piling, the monster hung, impaled through the chest and abdomen. A long splinter of pointed wood extended through the stomach, and crimson fluid gushed away in the foam. A black cavity spurted where the face had been.

  She watched a log lurch in the water, rolling closer on the next wave. It struck, smashed one of the hanging arms to grisly fragments.

  Spray pummeled her. She crawled away across the planks. Beneath her, the pier shuddered, groaning loudly, and her teeth rattled in her head.

  On all fours, she teetered back across the rocking surface, water sucking at her arms and legs. She started across the gap too quickly.

  And dropped.

  She hung, a nail spearing her palm. Saltwater and splinters rained from her clothing. Grunting, she pulled herself across the beam. At last, she collapsed on sodden wood.

  From this more solid remnant of the pier, she surveyed the world. Black shale glistened where sand had been, and the shattered boulders seemed to roll as waves seethed up around them. Below the boards, thunder murmured. All gone. The surf seemed to whisper. Dead. Drowned. Waves stretched onto the nearer streets, swamping the ruined cottages, claiming them.