The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

Carried by the sea wind, snow winged past her face, circling and rising, to flow steadily up and over the shedlike structure. She slid the nightstick out of her belt as wind hollowed through the front of the shop. A window grate lay in splinters, shards of glass littering the display platform.

Beneath the broken glass lay a severed arm. And a leg. She made out another limb and several naked torsos in violent confusion. Hovering flakes reversed themselves, spinning upward to float, settling on stumps. The alarm kept screaming.

She blinked. Dismembered mannequins sprawled along the front of the T-shirt shop. Two of the mannequins boasted smooth doll breasts, while a third had been muscled like an action figure. In places, the flesh-colored surface had been gouged away to chalky whiteness, and a plaster hand pointed up, white stubs where the fingers should have been. On the boards at her feet, a blank head bled chalk.

She played her flashlight deep into the store. 'All right, come out of there.' Where the light swung, darkness melted. 'I said, come out.' She put her foot up on the window ledge. Something glinted, and a triangle of glass flashed past her face to bell at her feet. She tilted the light up to where a larger curving section wobbled. 'Don't make me come in there.' She took her foot down, angling the light. It reflected from gusting snowflakes.

Thick blackness filled the back of the shop. No reason to get spooked. Already, whiteness dusted the mannequins. Whoever did this is gone. Everywhere, it spiraled and glided in graceful chaos. Probably. She stepped back, heart still pounding. I suppose I'd better get that alarm turned off.

She barely saw it. At the edge of the boardwalk, something solid moved. She turned toward it.

A hellish vision coagulated: one clawed hand, reaching up from below to grip the crossbar.

What...? She blinked. It can't...

Horned fingers dug into the wood, and the arm muscles bunched.

Fat as bees, flakes hovered in front of her face, then swooped on countless varied courses. Through them, the malevolent face leered. A rope of saliva glistened from the mouth.

Demon. Melting darts struck her eyelids, clung to her lashes. Monster. Steve's words skittered through her mind. Whatever you want to call them. A wet shiver rippled up her spine and throbbed behind her face. I don't see this. Not really. With a practiced motion, she slid the nightstick back into her belt and drew the gun.

Blood hammered at the base of her spine. Nothing there. Snow swirled where the face had been, but the afterimage blazed in her mind: eyes bulging with rage, lips snarled back from dripping teeth. A mask? Did they sell masks in that shop? It must have been a mask. And those rubber hands kids bought at Halloween. Of course. They sold all kinds of crazy things in boardwalk novelty shops. Whoever broke in took a mask and...

Her fingers clenched hard around the butt of the pistol, and she shivered, the blue jacket suddenly binding around her shoulders. I saw...thought I saw...a monster.

A slow minute passed while snow settled. I really must be losing my mind. Forcing one foot ahead of the other, she crossed to the railing, and the revolver trembled in her grip.

She peered down. The roar of the surf smothered the shriek of the alarm. Snow lumped over whitening hillocks, caking on gravel. It frosted the tufts of beach grass, but even in the diffused light, she could see the footprints below. They had been made by bare feet. And what was wrong with them? She leaned over the rail. Did they look too broad? Did the toes hook crookedly?

She leaned there until a cramp trembled her leg. With one hand on the rail, she pulled herself to the stairs. All around her, gusts whirled one into the other, maddening, dizzying.

As she descended into the hush of the surf, sand and ice gritted on the wooden stairs beneath her boots. Whoever it was, he had to be hiding down here. She played the light through the gaps between the slats of the stairs. But what if he scuttled under the boards and came up on the other side? He could come down at her from above and...

The thought flickered too late.

Stench coiled around her like a draft from an open sewer. Behind her, a growl rumbled. A fist like a knob of bone struck her between the shoulder blades, and her head snapped back. She tumbled over the rail, arms flailing.

For an instant, she became part of the blizzard.

Thudding in the sand, she tasted red, and pain buzzed in her skull.

With a moan, she raised her face from the sand and fumbled for the gun. Where is it? Crystals glinted, and she felt a shudder as something heavy landed near her.

Flinging a handful of grit and snow, she rolled. The growl ripped closer, and she lashed out with her foot. Her boot connected, and she heard a grunting snarl as she slid over the edge of the dune.

Scrambling to her feet, she stumbled, agony flaring in her hip and shoulder. The ground seemed wildly uneven, vanishing beneath her and suddenly reappearing as a soft ridge that left her boots scuffing at empty air. Icy sand mushed underfoot. She fled blindly, hoping to lose herself in twisting flurries. Splinters of pain sliced into the moist tissues of her lungs, and her chest crackled as she whirled around. Run! Get off the beach! Banners of white snapped. Where's the boardwalk? Chaos sifted down steadily, striping the air. What direction?

Something hissed at her ankles. A spent wave sputtered across her shoes, plunging over the mud. Black foam seethed, and the sea wind circled at her back, sighing right through her heavy jacket.

Her teeth clicked together, and it seemed her brain began to work again: she became conscious of the muted grumble of the surf, of the grainy texture of the freezing mud into which her boots sank, of the way the wind would groan away, allowing snow to sink in shifting forays. She stared. A mosaic of movement--pillars of white seemed to topple as the creature emerged through veils of motion.

No! She absorbed a fleeting impression of nakedness and hulking deformity. Nothing can look like that.

It lurched across the beach.

She stepped back into the water, and the wind slashed. Nothing! Snow flew horizontally, blasting endlessly from sea and sky. With numb fingers, she brandished the nightstick.

Swirls of sudden crimson pulsed in airborne layers. In a smear of light and noise, the dunes blazed, and the bright splotch of the spotlight altered like an amoeba as it rushed across the beach, pursued by the blurring humps of the high beams. The horn blared steadily. The siren wailed.

'Kit!'

Light struck her. The club dropped from her numbed fingers, and she lashed with both hands.

'Hey, no!' He caught her. 'It's okay, Kit, it's okay, babe, I've got you, it's okay.'

'Run!' Her eyes tracked wildly as she shivered. 'Get back in the jeep!' She flinched violently when his arm encircled her back. 'It's here! It's right...!'

Waves of snow rolled over them as he guided her to the jeep. Remnants of beach fence dangled from the fender. He opened the passenger door for her, and she clung to him when he tried to let go. '...coming...saw it...'

'You're okay now. Lock the door. Do you hear me? Lock it.' He pried her hands away and slammed the door.

She covered her face.

Moments later, he got in the other side, his shoulders heavily dusted with white. 'I don't see any sign of it.' She didn't appear to be listening, just sat very still while her teeth chattered viciously. 'What's in here?' He reached for a thermos on the floor. 'Coffee?'

After a moment, she trembled, barely getting the word out. 'Cocoa.'

He poured some into the lid. 'Here.' She shook her head with a jerky motion. 'Come on.' He steadied her hands while she gulped it.

'How...?' She choked a little. 'How did you get here?'

Taking the lid from her, he set it down. 'I heard the alarm, found the jeep with the motor running. I just went tearing up and down the beach.' He rubbed her hands briskly, then poured more chocolate into the lid. 'So you've