The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

Planting her suede boots firmly, she imbibes the scent of the sea. It smells impossibly ancient, like vapors from the dawn of time. Hypnotized by faint luminescence, she stares at the waves. She tokes on the joint, then squeezes out the tip, as the wind prowls through rocks to pounce, whirling the mass of black hair around her face like a satin veil. The cold sears her ears, lashes the long coat between her legs. She must be crazy, she decides, to be out tonight without a hat or gloves...to be out tonight at all. The next gust draws tears.

For as long as she can stand it, she lets the wind scour away all thought. Finally, feeling hollowed, almost weightless, she turns her shivering back to the wind and paces along the water's edge, her boots crunching dully across pebbles.

Like shattered bones through the flesh of the earth, boulders break the surf, and spent waves pulse over the stones at her feet. Some of the rocks resemble emerging bodies, hunched and fetal, inchoate, and she steps onto the first boulder, hugging herself against the chill. A sudden trace of mist blurs her vision. The sea is liquid darkness.

Ragged clouds surge apart, and moonlight bursts in the swells, rolling silver lines across the beach. Suddenly looming, an obelisk startles her. So close, yet she hadn't seen it. A drowned lighthouse--decades abandoned probably and half sunk in the tide. Now she can even make out the chain link fence surrounding it in the water. From somewhere, a foghorn groans mournfully. Again, the wind whips her coat as the clang of a buoy drifts to the rocks.

Enough, she decides. But she lingers an instant longer, freezing and letting the wind buffet her. Then she steps off the rocks onto the softer earth. Taking her hands out of her pockets, she blows on them, rubbing at her numbed face as she hurries back toward the car.

It envelops her: a stench that makes her think of sewage lines and decomposing animals. She covers her mouth and nose.

On the rocks behind her, pebbles rattle.

She jerks around.

A shadow bulges. '...pretty...' Something like a voice hisses.

Panic jets, battering in her chest as she stumbles back. The heel of her boot slips, and she tumbles, sharp stones grinding into her palms.

A skittering noise rains down from the boulders.

'Who is that?' She scrambles backward on all fours. 'What do you want?' She struggles to her feet.

It slams into her back, ripping hotly through the coat, pitching her forward. 'Stop!' Terror burbles in her throat as she staggers for the car. 'No!' Cries drip from her in small cascades. 'Somebody, help me!' Yanking the door open, she tumbles in, jamming down the lock. Beyond the windows, blackness pulsates.

'Oh Christ oh my God.' Writhing into the seat, she fumbles at the key. It feels slippery in her fingers. 'Oh sweet Jesus.' Both her hands feel wet. They look black, and warmth trickles at her back.

With a crackling hiss, the window on the driver's side goes white.

'No!' She twists the key, and the engine sputters. 'I'll run you the fuck over. I swear to God!' Shrieking, she pounds on the horn and flips on the high beams, but only mist rushes forward, claiming the light.

As the car lurches, she wrenches the wheel, trying to swing around in a wide circle. Fog swirls everywhere. 'Where's the road?' The sea yawns before her.

Cold grips her. She peers up at a moon-cloven sky, as something like a hand gropes through the torn roof. Fingers tangle in her hair, and another hand grips her coat. The steering wheel tears from her arms. Her legs plunge and kick.

Like the cries of some night-flying seabird, her gurgling screams mingle with the surf. The empty car rolls to the rocks. Glass tinkles, and darkness presses around.

Waves gush against the rocks, and nothing moans but the wind.

I

In splintered shadows beneath the pier, waves caressed the pylons, sliding between them in a plunging, receding rhythm. Wind rippled the surface, and light sank in pillared striations, while from the timbers above, susurrations resounded.

On the beach, wind grated across sparse dunes and rattled dead grasses, and a damp chill settled from a dull white sky. Gulls hung motionlessly above sand the color of wet straw.

The rusted mouth of a huge drainage pipe yawned jaggedly at the surf. A man crouched within. Winds hissed, mauling him, and he drew back, his breath clouding. Pulling off his gloves, he blew on his hands and rubbed them together, shivering. He barely had enough room to stand in the pipe, and again he leaned past the lip of the metal tunnel, letting his gaze drift to the far end of the beach: scrub pines straggled near the rocks. Perhaps a century earlier, those boulders had been plowed from the sand. Now they formed a rough wall that crashed deep into the surf. Even from here, he could see spray lash up. The gulls rose.

Still nothing. And the light almost gone. The thought of returning here at night stabbed an icy chill deep into him, and he risked another glance toward the pier. Clouded waves lapped the pilings.

As the wind died away, he drew his head back. Tugging the gloves on, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket. Straight ahead, the ocean heaved smoothly, silken weights rolling beneath the surface. Languid hills rode each other, until endless repetition, maddeningly torpid, stirred him to twitching somnolence. As the sand crunched softly, he shifted his weight, clumped gravel scratching the soles of his shoes. Soon, he thought. The one he waited for would come soon. He shuddered, his very heartbeat seeming to fuse with the pulse and rhythm of the tide. Between waves, the hush grew so quiet he imagined he could hear things moving beneath the sand, hidden things, secret things.

At the mouth of the pipe, a vein of black splayed through the wet sand. Broken boulders littered the shore, and waves gouged through crevices in granite...like slow acid.

A sound drifted across the beach--the softly grating hiss of footsteps.

He stiffened.

The sound grew louder, and he crouched, breath stalled in his throat, fingers curling within the leather gloves. Warily, he peered through a corroded hole in the metal.

On the granulating mud beneath the pier, foam glinted in an oily sheen, sliding ever back into the water. With a backpack slung over his shoulder, a boy emerged from the dimness. He looked about fourteen. Perhaps a bit older. He wore a brimmed cap, tugged down over his ears, and his cheeks had flushed a deep pink as though wind had scoured away layers of skin. The boy took large strides. Straddling the dry rim of sand, he would pass within a few feet of the pipe.

A ripple of sensation spurted across the man's hands, a warming pain, like the twitch of a long-dead nerve. Just a little closer...

Tongues of wind rasped along the beach, and waves curled over the rocks like talons.

The boy shielded his eyes from the blowing grit and tried to push back the pale hair that trailed from beneath his cap. Even with two sweaters under the denim jacket, he felt the cold flow right through, and his thin shoulders trembled as he shifted the backpack. Almost against his will, his gaze skimmed out over the sea. He stopped walking.

A gull shrieked.

The sun had not really come up at all today. Swells tumbled sluggishly, and shades of gray blurred together where the horizon should have been. With a jerk of his head, he forced his attention from the bleak seascape to resume his scrutiny of the beach. Beyond the sewage pipe, a boulder protruded from the sand, then another farther on and another until a rock barrier ended the gravelly strip. Either he would have to go back or cut straight across the beach, here at its widest point, a risk he hated taking.

The wind soughed, and a brutal gust scorched his face. Lowering his head, he trudged on, kicking at broken