He dropped the fork and slowly, as though it required immense effort, he stepped closer to the blaring television. A photograph of a young woman flashed on the screen: a mass of curls and a pretty face caught with just a trace of a grin. Then a man in a suit answered questions while lights flashed.
He turned down the sound. 'While this is frying, I'll bandage your wrists for you.' The channel dial clicked rapidly. 'Maybe I can find some cartoons or something. I wish you'd stop doing that to yourself, Stell. No reason to hurt yourself.'
He had killed her, that woman on the screen. She knew it. Terror paralyzed her brain. All thoughts of resistance faded, all plans for escape, however inchoate, melting. Tears blurred her vision so that for a moment he resembled a small, leering gargoyle, reaching for her with one clawed hand.
VIII
Along the edge of the salt marsh, night winds howled like angry ghosts. The fat man's footsteps grated, a mushy whisper, solemn as death, and the reek of the bay nearly choked him. Just ahead, partially hidden behind a bank of withered reeds, a mound of sand seemed to phosphoresce slightly as he approached it.
After studying it a moment, he nodded slightly to himself. He'd been sure he would find this if he just kept looking.
The blade bit deeply into the pile, the first stroke jarring something brittle underneath so that, with a dry snap, the whole mound shifted stiffly. Dropping the shovel, he used his hands to brush away the loose soil. Within seconds, he had the first of them uncovered. He whistled through his teeth as he again picked up the shovel: the boy had been busy.
The darker pile grew, sand and harder things, as the shovel blade broke pieces away from what had been hidden. Many had been there a long time, collapsed and pressed together by the earth, and flattened skulls seemed to shriek silently. Grunting, he leaned on the handle. Wind hissed through the barred teeth at his feet, and again he nodded, satisfied with this discovery.
After a moment, he smiled and began to cover them up again.
'You hear it as well? I suspected as much.'
Kit edged closer to the window. 'Hear what, Charlotte?' Outside, a high-pitched moan soughed through the rocks, like the whine of a demented dog. 'The wind?'
'I can tell you hear it.' Twisted fingers brushed away a strand of gray hair. 'It dies away just when you listen hardest...as though it knows somehow.'
'Don't start with your ghost stories tonight, all right? It gets dark way too early as it is. Besides, we both know what you're hearing.'
'And what would that be, dear?'
Kit tried to laugh. 'The ghost of the town clanking its chains,' she said in her best spooky voice. 'Am I right?'
'Ah. This again.'
'For one thing, half the shops on our poor excuse for a boardwalk didn't even bother to open last summer. You'd know that if you'd only let me take you out of here once in a while.'
'Those days are over. At my age, what need I see beyond this house? Listen. There it is again.'
'Charlotte...'
After a moment, the older woman turned her face from the window. 'You've had one of your premonitions again, haven't you, dear? I can always tell.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'I suspect you do, Katherine. I suspect you know perfectly well. If you'd only stop suppressing that entire side of your nature this way.'
'Stop, please.'
'But you do hear it. Truly. You know you do. Of course, one becomes accustomed to hearing things in a shore town. Ask yourself--what does the ocean sound like from a block away? Voices, murmuring in the next room. Ask anyone who ever lived by the sea. Voices whispering continually, so that one can't quite make out the words. It's worse off-season somehow.' Her voice trailed away. 'More personal.'
Kit sighed. 'This town is dead.'
'You came back. You stay.'
Kit contemplated her friend's features. Wrinkles draped the delicate bones, but the intensity in that face had never dimmed. 'And every year, storms take more of the beach,' Kit went on. 'How much did the government spend trying to replace it? Just two years ago? And you can hardly find a trace of sand now.' She sighed again. 'All right, so I came back. Why can't I ever win an argument with you?'
'Do we argue, my dear? I never noticed.'
'It doesn't prove anything. That I came back, I mean. Except that I'm crazy. When you grow up in a place...oh, I don't know. Shit.'
'I wish I could swear like that, dear. I never could. It just doesn't sound right somehow, coming from me.'
'My memories of Edgeharbor had a...a kind of halo. I thought it would be--must be--some little island of sanity.'
'Peninsula, dear.'
'Whatever. No crackheads. No gangs. I thought I could mean something here,' she almost whispered, 'make a difference.' With a sudden gesture, she drew the curtains wide and laughed. 'You really ought to start charging me for these therapy sessions.'
'I never help you. Sometimes I suspect you only talk to me in order to hear what you're truly thinking.'
'Charlotte...'
'For my part, I'm simply pleased you have a reason to come. It would be terrible if you received nothing back from our friendship.'
Kit held up a hand to stop her. 'I get plenty.'
'Are you going to tell me now?'
'Tell you what?'
'My dear, you should see your face. Do you think I could know you all this time and not be able to tell when something's troubling you? Has something happened?' Charlotte blinked. 'Or have you been dwelling on thoughts of that young man again?'
'Thoughts of...? Oh. No. Not really.' She considered how much to tell her. Her friend didn't own a television, never listened to the radio, and in a real sense, Kit provided her sole link to the outside world. 'There was a killing. But I don't want you to worry.'
'How terrible. Someone local?'
'No. They...we think maybe the body was just dumped here, but I think it's a good idea if I come and stay with you for a few days.'
'I know you mean well, dear, and I do appreciate your consideration. Truly. But I'm afraid I can't accept that offer. Please. Don't press. I can't explain just now. It's simply important I be alone here. More so now than ever. But is there something you're not telling me? Is there some danger?'
'There's no reason to think that.'
'Then I'll be fine. Is this what you wanted to talk about?'
'Of course.' Kit looked away.
'I sometimes suspect that young man's suicide affected you more than you let yourself realize.'
'You make too much of it, Charlotte. Besides, it was a long time ago.'
'Not so long.'
'And anyway it wasn't my fault.'
'Of course not.'
'That has nothing to do with anything.' She chuckled. 'What do you say we talk about your life? Just for a change, I mean.'
'My life ended long ago. Now don't argue. And I don't refer to this wheelchair.' Charlotte's attention flickered
