The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

'...besides, they probably think we all got out. So we're stuck here for...'

'You going to open up or what?' He peered through the wires that meshed within the diamond-shaped window.

'Oh. Yes, just...' She jerked the key in while his stare probed the structure. A corner property, it might have been any sort of business, except that nesting up against it, blocking the sidewalk and part of the side street, sat a modified trailer on cinder blocks, with heavy grills covering the window vents.

'Holding tank?'

'What? Oh. Right. We don't use it much.' The door popped open. 'One other thing I heard on the radio that you should know--we're not a peninsula anymore.'

His eyebrows went up.

'Right. An island. Temporarily anyway.' She seemed to guard the entrance. 'So he stays here till help arrives.'

As Steve maneuvered him through the doorway, the boy sagged. 'Knock it off!' Steve shook him.

Suddenly, the boy wrenched around, scratching.

'Knock it off, I said, or I'll break your arm!'

'Steve!'

'Get out of the way, Kit! Here. Help me with him. Take his other arm.'

'I've got him. It's all right. He stopped--ease up, Steve.'

At the end of the short corridor, a desk and several folding chairs filled most of a small room. Bleeding away color, a floodlight near the ceiling streaked the cinder block walls and banded a cement floor from which gray paint had mostly worn away. Shielding his eyes against the glare, he looked around for somewhere to deposit the boy.

Catching Perry around the shoulders, she pulled him along like a puppet. His feet moved feebly. 'Okay, here.' She steered him to a seat, knowing he'd hit the floor if she let go. 'Sit down.' She shoved him gently. 'Stay there.'

He coiled back into the chair.

'Don't be afraid,' Steve told him.

The boy cringed, his hair matted and dripping, his whole body shuddering.

Steve reached for him. 'I won't...'

Perry grunted, his stomach and chest beginning to rise and fall convulsively beneath the sodden jacket.

'I'm not...not going to...'

The boy watched him with eyes the color of pale, polished oak, his terror like a tangible force in the room.

'Here.' Kit stepped closer. 'Look at me.' She'd unzipped her thermal jacket but kept it on. 'Your name is Perry Chandler?' One glimpse had taken in the whipthin frame, his long legs and bony hips. 'Are you hurt, Perry? Why are you holding your arm like that?' Her hand hovered above his shoulder. 'You don't like to be touched, do you, Perry?'

He trembled. Without warning, he bolted from the chair and dodged past her.

'No, you don't!' Steve blocked the exit.

Perry plunged backward, flattening himself against the wall.

'No one's going to hurt you.' She barely gasped out the words.

Brushing away her touch, he grunted like a wounded animal and molded his body to the corner.

'Get away from him. Don't argue. Now stay behind me.' Steve pushed her aside. 'Stop that, you. I said, stop it.'

The gurgling sob in the boy's chest choked to silence.

'You're safe. No one will touch you. No one but me. You understand? But right now you have to deal with me.' He righted the boy's chair and shoved it at him. 'First, get out of that damn corner!'

'Steve, you're both shivering. There are some blankets in the lockup. Let me...'

A look of feral alertness flashed across the boy's face as quick eyes darted to the door.

'Don't even think about it,' Steve told him. 'Now, sit down, I said. Time to answer some questions. Where's your sister? Answer me--where is she?'

The boy's lips drew back, exposing his teeth in a desperate grimace, and a swelling rattle began in his throat.

'Stop that!'

'Steve, what's wrong with him?'

Crouching farther into the corner, Perry bashed his head back against the wall, a yowl gurgling out until Steve grabbed him by the collar.

'Those scars on the back of your hands--how'd you get them?'

'Make him stop!'

'You've never seen the kind of marks that ropes leave, have you, Kit? How about the kind of scars a strap makes?'

'Don't!' She caught at his arm.

'I'll bet if we looked at his back we'd find some really interesting souvenirs.' He wrestled the boy into the chair. 'They control them that way sometimes. For a while.'

'You're terrorizing him.'

'Him?'

'He's just a little boy.' She stared at the bedraggled hair plastered to the thin face, at the clothing that clung so darkly. 'He looks so fragile.' The terrible noise had stopped, and he sagged against Steve's large, clutching fists. 'I'm going to get the blankets,' she said, imagining she could almost hear the boy's heart pounding beneath his shirt. 'Did you hear me, Steve?'

Full of terror, the boy's gaze followed her.

'And don't touch him while I'm gone, Steve. Do you hear me? Don't touch him.'

Hard knots bit deeply into sore wrists, and sharp pain surged up her arms. Somehow she'd managed to twist her hands around in front of her, and again she threw her weight against the closet door. It felt like the air was almost gone, and she could barely fill her lungs. But the door didn't budge. Again her bound hands rasped at the tape across her mouth, loosening a corner and finally ripping it away. Gasping deeply, she hit the door and rebounded, tripping to strike her head against the wall. No more, please, no more. Huddled in the darkest corner, she began to sob. Let it end.

A vibration slid in the wall by her head. Faintly, it throbbed again. Pushing as far back as she could, she bit her lip to keep from whimpering.

The doorknob rattled; she tasted blood.

The door jarred. Perry! Help me! She slid to her knees in terror, as the door leapt in its frame. Who is it? What's happening? At the last instant, she recognized the explosions of noise as hammer blows against the lock. He was telling the truth, oh God, the truth all along, they're coming to get me, they're here! The monsters!

The noise stopped. With a soft click, the door swung in, and she blinked. In the trickle of light, a countenance swirled: slowly, it coalesced into the face of all her oldest nightmares.

It smiled.

Ripping from the bottom of her belly, the scream hurt coming out.

The boy sneezed again. Then the man sneezed.

Perry's hair glistened like metal as it dried, falling forward over his face, and he stared fixedly at the floor. A pair of thin blankets around him, he hunched forward, his bony knees jutting bright crimson. Periodically, he mouthed at a paper cup full of water. A slow pattering provided the only real sound in the room as his sopping clothes, wrung out and hung across the back of a nearby chair, dripped onto the newspapers beneath them. Earlier, he'd stiffened when she'd tried to get the clothing off, silently flailing his arms and legs like an infant, but she'd gotten him dried as best she could. When she'd pushed the darkened tangle back from his face, she'd expected him to be hot, but he'd felt cool to the touch, the sharp bones delicate beneath her hands.