Wearily, he got up again, pacing, his movements about the room growing disjointed, purposeless. Is this all there is now? Twice he opened and closed the same drawer; then he wandered into the bathroom. The clumsily rigged shower resembled a trap in which the claw-footed tub had been snared. So this is my life? He looked behind the shower curtain, then returned to the bedroom and checked the tight closet. It felt as though every cell in his body craved rest. Should do some work. He swayed for a moment before falling back into the chair as though shoved. He picked at knotted laces with dead fingers, then kicked off a shoe and watched it roll toward the bed. Pulling himself up with a grunt, he heaved himself onto the mattress just as the wall sconce buzzed and went out. Swell.
The bedside lamp had been manufactured to resemble something roughly crafted from a jug. He switched it on, even that slight movement causing the bedsprings to protest like angry crickets. The lamplight made a perfect circle on the ceiling where the dust-thickened remnant of a cobweb trailed. Have to stay awake. Again he scrutinized the room. Both the wooden nightstand and the dresser had been painted white too many summers ago, and even in this light, wide swathes of glossy red still showed through. He examined the only picture, a seascape with gulls that sailed stiffly over greenish waters. It squarely missed obscuring a stain on the wall. The lumpish waves and the wings of the birds achieved crude symmetry, and despite the mediocrity of execution, something threatening seemed to lurk in the swirling tide. Letting my imagination work overtime. With a shiver, he turned away. Don't need to invent monsters.
He still felt dizzy. Can't come down with something now. He covered his face with his hands and felt heat throb beneath his eyelids. Damn. Only gradually did something like warmth seep back into his arms and legs. Can't get sick. Not now. A cough shuddered though him. But it never gets warm in here. The day he'd arrived with his suitcases, D'Amato, the proprietor, had bled air from the radiator for over an hour, running up and down the stairs and shouting to his wife, who'd clanged on a pipe somewhere below. The siphoned-off end product had been a pint of evil-looking fluid that smelled like liquid dust. Fetid and catlike, the smell lingered still. Never warm. Tonight, his body ached for a hot shower, but he didn't feel up to enduring the pounding whistle of the pipes. Maybe I'll take a bath later. Generally, that involved slightly less racket.
He closed his eyes. Don't. He leaned his head back against the wall. Don't sleep now. Pulling his legs onto the bed, he stretched. Get the work out.
After a moment, he felt under the bed. Go on. Straightening with a grunt, he shifted his legs and set the case on the bed before him. Get on with it. Solemnly, he tapped on the lid, then fished a key out of his wallet.
In a clear plastic bag, the boy's backpack nearly filled the suitcase, but other things had been crammed in around it. Next to his camera case lay a stack of Polaroids, bound with a rubber band, and beneath them bulged two cardboard folders. He pulled out the thicker folder and adjusted the lamp shade so that light spilled onto the bed.
Opening the folder, he glanced at the first newspaper clipping....torso found...He set it aside, extracted another....evidence of sexual mutilation...He examined each yellowed clipping as though he'd never seen it before....police sources say they have no information regarding...Searching for any detail he might have missed, he scanned the words, feeling the muscles of his face stiffen and grow numb--an old and familiar sensation. He fumbled for his notepad. On the first page, the name 'Stella' had been underlined twice.
If anything happens to me, so long as they find this, somebody else could take up the search. He found the notion oddly comforting. Leaning back against the wall, he paged through lists of names and dates, many crossed out or with check marks beside them. Some pages began with the names of towns in block letters at the top. Rock Harbor, Wildcrest, Leed's Point. Many towns he could barely remember, the names blurring together in his mind.
It seemed he'd spent his life in this realm, perhaps the strangest and most unnatural-seeming terrain ever to exist. The countless white sand trails of the Pine Barrens had at last given way to 'construction.' In just a few years, most of the old shanty towns had vanished, a whole way of life disappearing as residents packed up and headed south, some to settle in the Appalachians, others to join the migrant labor force. And the landscape of parking lots and strip malls verged always closer, merging one into the other, desperately drab, broken only by the dismally uniform 'developments,' encroaching on both the sad, shabby resort towns and on the affluent private beaches, on the ghettoed horror of Asbury Park to the north and on the ghettoed horror of Atlantic City to the south. A bizarre world. Different time lines seemed to overlap in this landscape, blanketing one another. He'd seen it everywhere--roadside stands sold homegrown produce beneath buzzing neon.
At last, he turned to a fresh page and, gripping the pen, carefully printed EDGEHARBOR. He stared at it a long time, then began scribbling in an erratic combination of print and script. Strange, even for this part of shore. Old. Turn-of-century buildings, but falling apart. Some sort ruined factory-type (?) structure near water. Cordoned off, near abandoned dock. Cannery? And tenement buildings middle of town, probably for workers. Empty now. He paused and read over his words. Marina other side of peninsula. Deserted pretty much. Looks like tried convert tourism. Too small for resort. No easy access from highway. Some cottages by sea. Small boardwalk but almost no beach. And the woods creep into the streets.
Snapping the notebook shut, he replaced all the wrinkled clippings, then tossed the folder aside and dug into the suitcase again. Articles in the thinner file had been drawn from much less reputable sources--supermarket tabloids, digest-size publications with titles like Strange Facts and Psychic Phenomenon--but even the underscored passages in these dog-eared pages he studied. Teenager Stirs Up Poltergeist Panic. Maryland's Bog Monster Unmasked. Finally, these too he put aside, suppressing a yawn.
From the bottom of the suitcase, he scooped up sheets of paper torn from a legal pad and gave a cursory glance to the rough charts. Feeling around in his jacket, he drew out a road map and hunched forward, spreading it across the bed and trying to smooth down the bunching wrinkles. The paper rattled loudly in his trembling hands. The map depicted most of south central New Jersey and part of the shoreline. Circles and X's in red ink pocked the pinelands region, clustering where the woods encroached on the shore. Edgeharbor. He studied the tapering wedge of the peninsula until his vision blurred. Enough. Laboriously, he refolded the map and tossed it on top of the papers. Won't find him on any map. He stacked the folders, carefully replacing everything in the case before shoving it back under the bed.
Just rest my eyes. Stagnant air lulled him. Just a little. The drowsy chill made him yearn to pull up the blankets, and he considered switching off the lamp, then threw one arm across his face and let a sudden flush of weariness take him. I miss her so much.
Wind rattled the window with a sound like ice cracking on a frozen river.
A brick wall blocked the street lamp, sinking the alley in darkness. Like a garish phantom, black and gray and orange, one ear tufted with white, the brute of a cat flicked in and out of the light. It stalked along the fence toward a spot where a snarl of dead weeds sprouted like straw through the concrete. Suddenly, the beast froze into taut stillness, only the tip of the tail twitching.
A grimy knot of life scuttled across the alley.
The cat trembled then burst forward, ripping into the tiny creature, lifting it and hurling it against the wall.
The mouse lay motionless. Already its life sapped away in agony. The cat inched closer, crouching, even the whipping of the tail stilled.
In a gray streak, the tiny rodent darted for the pile of debris. It left a mottled trail.
Leaping, the cat landed on the other side of the trash pile and halted again, ears flattened in consternation. The prey had vanished. A cardboard container lay on its side, slightly open at one end. The cat lowered its head quickly, but nothing moved. One paw struck loudly. Inside the container, something skittered. Then the claws began
