The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

shells. Bird tracks, webbed and hooked like the spoor of tiny dinosaurs, splayed everywhere, and lumps and whorls in the damp sand seemed to mirror the choppy pattern of the surf.

The boy saw only a blur of movement from the pipe. He pivoted. Big hands grazed his back, groping for a hold. Lips pulled taut, the boy's mouth opened in a silent cry as he leapt. His sneakers slipped on white pebbles, but he kept his footing, running hard.

He raced along the edge of the water, straining for the rocks. Footsteps slapped across the mud behind him, louder than his, faster than his. Outstretched hands clutched.

He sprinted with all his strength. Ahead lay the rock wall, and already his pursuer edged to cut him off from the beach.

The boy whirled, sliding toward the water. Surprised, the man passed him, cursing, and the boy glimpsed the pale snarl of his face, the fair hair. 'You!' Dread trembled in his legs as he darted back, angling across the beach. 'It's you!' His speed seemed to leach away as his sneakers pounded, and sand rose at his feet in slow spurts.

On the dunes, he heard only his own panting. Splinters of icy air gouged his lungs, and he began to think he had escaped. Then he heard a snorting gasp. So close. His sneakers dug deep into the sand.

The man grunted victoriously, lunging. A gloved hand tangled in the long hair at the boy's neck. With a gasp of pain, the boy ducked under his arm. The man rammed into him, butting him backward, then caught him solidly by the shoulders.

The boy flailed, realization twisting his face. 'You ain't my...!' Strong hands closed like a trap on his neck. As they grappled, the boy's jacket and shirttails pulled up, exposing flesh whiter than the frozen beach.

Gravel shaled down the slope as the man's shoes slipped. He toppled, clutching the straps to the backpack. Snagged, the boy shrugged it off, diving for a dark spot beneath the boardwalk. The man fell with a grunt, plunged at the boy's legs. He caught a sneaker. The boy kicked, slipping under the boards.

With a coughing snarl, the man scrambled to his knees and thrust his arm deep into the opening, groping until his shoulder scraped wood. He dug frantically, enlarging the hole. Sand crept up his sleeves and burned like powdered ice. Then he threw himself on his stomach and shoved forward.

Freezing blackness closed on him. The tight cavern smelled of damp wood, and he twisted around. An ovoid of thin daylight leaked from above, and he threshed farther in, grinding his hip against the underside of the boards. He could hardly move his arms, could barely turn his head. Sand gritted between his teeth, and the boards squeezed down on him. He felt empty space with his right hand and tried to writhe forward, but softer earth sucked at him. Twisting in the other direction, he slipped into darkness.

Glowing in a fine seepage of light, a plume of sand trickled down on him.

He was alone now. He knew it. Wind moaned through the cracks, and haze brightened in his vision as he managed to get his feet beneath him in the trench. The boy was gone. Despair coursed through him.

Icy sand filled his gloves as he clambered heavily up the incline. His shoes felt weighted with lead, and at the top, he struck his head against a beam. When he squeezed toward the opening, his belt snagged on a nail, and he squirmed, one arm pinned beneath him, his legs kicking at nothing. Wedged in, he thrashed back and forth, making his way by inches, until the wind tore at his face, and he crawled out. At last, he lay on the open sand, cold grit in his mouth. So close. For several minutes, he listened to the labored pounding of his heart, to the tumbling hush of the sea. Spitting dirt, he rolled onto his back and stared at the sky.

He tugged his gloves off with his teeth, rubbed at his beard-stubbled face. So close. Finally, the breath stopped whistling in his chest, and he heaved to his feet. He reached for the boy's discarded backpack. Heavy. No tags. He unzipped it, turned it over. A rolled towel dropped out like a stone.

Red wetness sopped through the terry cloth, and he prodded the towel with his foot. Lifting it gingerly by a corner, he let the things wrapped within clatter down. Sand caked on the dampness. His eyes moved first to the chisel, then to the small saw and the clotted hammer. Two carving knives lay darkly encrusted, and the center of the towel still glistened.

Fluids hung heavy and gelid in his stomach. Gulls slid across the sky.

The wind rasped myriad sounds over the low sand hills: the distant clatter of the pines, the hushed roar of the waves. The dull whisper held hissing cries that broke, pleading in his ears. Turning away, he leaned one bare hand against the boardwalk, and the frost bled into him. He began to sob, the wind dissipating the sound until he himself could barely hear it.

A stream of sand slithered into the tunnel at his feet, and all around him loose grit wound across the beach in stray currents of air. 'No!' He jerked his face up. 'You don't get away from me again!' Running for the boardwalk stairs, he shouted at the sky. 'I don't let you get away.'

He pounded up the steps. 'Do you hear me?' He sprinted across the deserted planks. 'I'll find you!' Empty shops stood silent and shuttered.

On the other side, he bolted down a ramp to a ragged field. 'I'll stop you!' But he moved with a jerky stiffness now, and under his tread, flat stones slid and crunched, slowing him even further. The sparse streets beyond the field looked as deserted as a moonscape.

Halfway down the first block, he halted, shoes scuffing heavily on the sidewalk. Empty dwellings have a distinctive look, like dead trees. Not one of the summery curtains twitched, and some of these cottages even had boarded windows. Leaning against a pole, he coughed and wiped at the grit that clung to his damp face. He tasted brine, felt sand between his teeth. At last, the coughing fit subsided.

The sidewalk curved back in the direction of the beach, and his footsteps scraped a hollow noise from the concrete. Dead grasses rattled at a fence where sand leaked between slats. My one chance. Dry leaves and yellowed newspapers clumped and drifted. He'll go to ground now. In a puddle by the curb, oil shimmered like a rainbow. I'll never find him. A creaking chorus filled the wind. Quaintly lettered ROOMS TO LET signs swayed in unison while SALE signs tilted from several of the tiny lawns. He saw only one car, an old gray Plymouth with flat tires near the end of the block. Even from here, the windshield looked opaque with grime.

Right now, he's running. Hooks of guilt dug into his flesh. And I can't stop him. He felt his feverish thoughts teem.

never stop him my fault never catch him in the open like that again so close my fault

He stumbled across the cracked ground. With a shuddering exhalation, he jogged to the end of the block. Never catch him. Around the corner, another boardwalk ramp rose. He halted, listening to the dull roar of the beach while broken sections of pavement slid underfoot, crunching.

The knives. His breath plumed. Got to go back for the knives. As though throwing off a dream, he shook his head and began to climb the ramp.

Beneath the incline, gusts moaned, and tangled in the shadows, debris shuffled rhythmically, as though stirred by the sigh of a sleeping beast.

II

Cracked by sun and wind, the flesh on the backs of his hands resembled drying mud flats. As he struggled to close the padlock, he exhaled heavily so that cigar smoke shrouded him. With his cane hooked over one arm, and the cigar tightly gripped between his lips, the old man grappled with arthritic fingers until at last he managed to jam the door shut. When the padlock on the shed clicked, he turned to face out over the bay.

Waves gurgled and sloshed, the pier swaying stiffly. He stared a long time. Nearly twenty years had passed with grinding tedium since last he'd gone to sea; still he came each morning, never dawdling over the short walk, to fix his Spartan breakfast over a coal stove. By the light of each dawn, he monitored the disintegration of his nets and inspected the progression of the rot that had long since claimed his boat.

A frosty breeze stretched across the bay to tousle the few whitish strands on his head, and still his gaze tracked across the water. Terns wheeled. Buildings on the mainland appeared feathery and vague, while pillars of smoke flattened into haze. Edgeharbor clung to a narrow strip of land that branched southward from the coast, but on foggy mornings, he could imagine with desperate longing that he lived upon an island...an island in another time. He scratched a wiry eyebrow with his thumb, and let his gaze sweep farther out to sea.

Clouds hung motionless, fissured with a milky light that seemed to leak away even as he watched. Today no