Cry for the Strangers

the beach, driven on the wind.

He saw something, something that had been buried on the beach but that was being revealed by the storm.

Curious, he climbed down from the driftwood and uncovered the object.

He recognized it instantly. It was Scooter, Missy and Robby Palmer’s tiny puppy.

It was still warm.

Its neck had been wrung.

As the storm broke upon him, Chip turned to the woods, suddenly frightened. Carrying the tiny body of the puppy, Chip once again climbed the driftwood, but this time he crossed it and went into the woods.

Robby Palmer felt the first drops of rain splash on his face and was glad. He’d been waiting for the storm all afternoon and now it was here.

With the storm would come the excitement.

And with the excitement would come the shapes and the voices.

He hadn’t told anybody about the things he saw on the beach now. He was sure they wouldn’t believe him — none of them except Missy, but they hadn’t be-believed her, either.

He still wasn’t sure exactly who the people on the beach were, or why they were there.

Usually they danced strange dances that always ended with them burying someone on the beach — someone who didn’t belong. But it didn’t frighten Robby because he knew he belonged. He was part of the beach and the beach loved him.

It was the strangers who didn’t belong.

The strangers who came and took the beach from the people who belonged and betrayed them.

As the storm grew the dance began, and Robby watched it from the forest. Then the voices began, telling him to join the dance.

But he didn’t know how.

You will know, the voices said.

Robby suddenly became aware of a figure making its way over the driftwood.

Betrayal, the voices whispered. Betrayal.

The figure came closer, and the voices whispered again.

Vengeance. Vengeance.

Robby didn’t quite understand the word, but he knew what to do.

He picked up a heavy stick and crept behind a tree.

He waited, and listened to the voices.

The full force of the tempest broke over the coast, lashing at the trees as the tide surged forth, marching before the thunderheads like a harbinger of death.

As the surf crested, Robby Palmer, his eyes seeing nothing of the storm, emerged from the forest to pick his way carefully over the bleached bones of driftwood littering the beach.

He was among them now, and as their ceremony came to its climax the storm dancers reached out to him, sang to him, pled with him to join them in their cry for the strangers.

Uncertainly at first, but then with a sense of all things being right, Robby Palmer gave himself up to them.