The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

drawing her down. 'It's so cold. Hurry.' His teeth chattering, he pulled harder until something in her face stopped him.

As though in a trance, she stared down at the water. Her long hair hung motionlessly around her face, and as the wind howled up into the room, her cheeks twisted as though her face were melting. Slowly, she swung one leg forward. Moving like a sleepwalker, she descended into the lapping waves.

'You have to bend down here. Then just keep...'

The thunder of the sea claimed them.

Kit sat alone in the shack. She was alive--that thought alone seemed to rattle in her skull. She was alive. A plume of water rose at the lip of the opening. 'Steve.' She choked out his name and then screamed with all her strength. 'Steve!' It felt like an explosion of blood in her throat.

The rusted latch rattled, and the door burst at the hinges before falling inward. Steve waved the gun, water rushing in around his ankles.

'Get me the fuck out of here,' she gasped. 'I'm freezing to death.' She barely recognized her own grating whisper. 'Damn you. What took you so long?'

He stepped warily inside. 'Where...?' Following her gaze, he rushed to the trapdoor. A thin ripple stretched after him to trickle over the lip of the opening, seawater joining seawater.

'Now. Please.' She shook against the ropes. 'It hurts.'

He flicked his knife open. 'I didn't really believe I'd find you.' The ropes came away, and as she slipped forward he caught her. Somehow her arms went around him, and he pressed her face to his chest. 'I didn't believe.'

'They drowned themselves,' she whispered and felt his body stiffen. She lifted her head.

From the doorway, Perry stared fixedly at the trapdoor. Beyond him, gray chaos raged.

'The boy didn't run away,' Steve said in a wondering voice.

'...know where they went.' Spinning, Perry fled.

'Wait! Wait a minute!' He rushed to the doorway, then whirled back to her.

'Go,' she told him. 'I'm all right now. Go on. Stop him. Save him.'

'No! Come on!' Shaking with urgency, he grabbed at her. 'I'm not leaving you here.'

'Steve, I can't walk. I...'

'Get up!' He yanked her to her feet and wrapped one arm about her waist. 'Put your arm over my shoulder.'

She stumbled feebly. 'My legs don't work.'

'That's it.' He dragged her through the door. 'You're okay.'

A wet mist billowed with each lash of wind. When she saw how close the giant waves heaved, she screamed in terror. The world stunned her, blinded her. Gray light filtered from everywhere, from nowhere, and everything glowed, the water more brightly than the sky. No beach remained, and just this one tilting section of boardwalk still stood. A flat, foaming surface rushed beneath the pilings.

He pulled her along. Through the mist, she tried to make out the rest of the boardwalk: rocks and splintered pilings poked from the water. A trail of seaweed and pulverized shell sediment covered the sodden boards they slipped across, and the wind staggered them. 'My God,' she moaned. Huge waves curled, flinging plumes of foam with each collision. 'My God!' A breaker heaved across the dangling rail ahead of her.

He held on to her. 'Must have gone this way.' He dragged her toward the ramp. 'Do you see him anywhere?'

'No! That's the ocean!' Leaning on his shoulder, she tensed as he pulled her down the ramp. 'We can't go that way!'

XXIX

The sky churned. Clapping in the wind like a gull, one yellow pennant still trailed from a high cable. Beyond the remnants of the boardwalk, the amusement park sank in a murky tide, and ruined metal structures protruded from the mud like dinosaur bones.

As they splashed into the lot, she leaned heavily against him. 'What is this?' A twisted loop of metal blocked the path.

'Used to be a Ferris wheel I think.' He pulled her along. 'They can't be far.'

Something zinged past them; then an explosion echoed faintly. 'Get down!' He shouted into the wind, but she heard only a garbled flurry of words. 'Stay there!' he barked, shoving her behind a tilting barricade.

She sprawled in the muck. 'You jerk!' She spit brackish water and sand.

'Shut up and stay down!'

'Don't tell me what to...!' Her anger dissipated into the general haze along with her clouding breath. 'Do you see them?' Her wrists still flamed where the blood pounded back.

Crouching beside her, he peered over a sheet metal partition, the other end of which ribboned out of the earth to wave in the wind. 'Keep your head down, I said.' Beyond the barricade, one of the cars on a broken ride spun continuously in the wind. 'What? I can't hear you.'

'I used to love the tilt-a-whirl.'

'Shut up. You're hysterical. And keep still.'

'I know I'm hysterical. And stop telling me to shut up.' A shiver began in her stomach, and what little strength she'd been able to muster seemed to drain from her limbs. She let her gaze roam over the ruins of the arcade. Behind them, a fragment of a carousel sloped into a deep pool: galloping animals frozen in panicked flight, drowning. A wooden horse reared, patches of gilt paint still shining, exposing corroded teeth in a silent scream.

Another shot echoed. It sounded faint, harmless.

'Steve?' She had to shout above the wind. 'Can you tell where it's coming from?' She peered over the edge.

'He's back there,' he yelled, pointing to the edge of the sunken field. Between a pair of concrete outbuildings, a delicate line of white smoke hung briefly in the air. 'Keep your head down.'

'Can you see the boy?'

Clutching the gun, Ramsey hazarded a peek around the corner. He couldn't risk wasting more bullets, but if he could just hold them there long enough for him to find Perry...

Movement! He saw the man leap behind the carousel, and something flashed, bright as an acetylene torch. The bullet spat against the wall by his ear, and particles of concrete lashed his cheek. He cowered. 'I don't know who you are, I must admit,' Ramsey called out. 'But I know what you are, what you've become.' He pulled the trigger, and his own gun jerked in his hand, roaring, the stench of sulfur blazing into his lungs. 'You hunt the boy,' his voice murmured, becoming part of the wind. 'Would you even exist without him? Without the hunt? Ask yourself. And what wasteland do you go to now? Look around you. Does not this--at long last--resemble a final destination?' He turned away, staying low. Pressing his bulk against the wall, he slid around the corner. 'They're right out there,' he told her. 'We shall have to flee.'

One hand on a drainpipe, the girl hid her face in her arms.

'Do not be afraid, my Stell.'

She trembled, seawater dribbling from the nightgown that clung to her legs.

'My poor Stell. You might get sick now. You could even die. After all this, I might yet lose you.'

She let her arms drop. Her lips had gone blue, and nothing of sanity remained in her expression, as though terror had reduced her to something barely human.

'It will be over soon. I promise.' Fury contorted his face as he whirled away. 'Come out to me, Perry! I've got Stella here. We will all be together.' He panted loudly, like a wounded animal. 'It's your fault she's like this! I know where you are. Do not force me to come for you.'

Wind slapped wetly along the ground, echoing the pounding rush of the surf, unseen yet all around them. '...why...?' An exhausted pleading drifted on the wind. '...want to hurt me...?' The wail seemed to fall from the empty sky. '...hate me?' The words clapped hollowly against empty buildings.