Lindsay decided to go inside and put a locked door between herself and the freak. She stood, but a second later a sharp click sounded in the night. She turned quickly to the source of the noise.
On the porch of the house next door, a tiny flame flickered. In its dancing light, she saw the face of Mark’s other guardian, Doug. The tall, bald man was lighting a cigarette, and he was looking right at her.
Terrified, Lindsay raced inside.
7
The Redlands Mobile Home Park was half a mile south of the house Lindsay’s uncle owned. Farther south, rocky outcroppings broke the beach with jagged black ridges, jutting out into the frothing surf. In the early morning hours, a white Jeep owned by the Redlands Beach Patrol rolled over the sand in this area, doing a nightly sweep. Sometimes they caught teens making out, drinking, or carrying on so loudly the patrol was forced to run them off. Often enough, they found nothing.
Tonight was terribly different though. As the Jeep approached the shore, its headlights fell on what one of the patrolmen initially thought was a pile of wet clothes. It only took him a few seconds to see the arms poking out from beneath the soaked fabric, and what he’d mistaken for a damp woolen sweater was actually a knot of thick knotted hair, covering the head of a young man. Always hopeful, the patrolman considered the possibility that this young man had fallen asleep on the beach, and was perhaps too drunk to notice the tide coming in to douse him. He finally accepted the dreadful truth when he noticed a group of crabs climbing over the boy’s bare legs and feet like large armored spiders, already at work on him with their pincers.
The patrolman parked close and leaped from his Jeep. He ran to the body and shooed away the horrible crabs. He reached down for the boy’s arm, lifted it, checking the wrist for a pulse, but found none. That was when he noticed the cross carved into the boy’s palm.
In the morning, again woken by bright sunshine, Lindsay dashed from her bed to the window seat. She couldn’t help herself. She looked down into the yard, scoping the sand to see if one or both of Mark’s guardians were there. They weren’t. She looked at his window, and her heart sank. The black shade was still drawn behind the glass.
“We’re going to the beach this morning,” her dad said when Lindsay went downstairs for her coffee. “Gonna stake out a good place before all the riffraff take over the shore. You interested?”
“Maybe,” Lindsay said. “I promised Ev I’d hang with her this morning. But I think she might be hurting today. We’ll see.”
“Sure, honey,” her dad said, his Winnie the Pooh happy-face changing to a look of concern.
In her room, Lindsay took her coffee to the window seat. The shade was still drawn over Mark’s window. She thought about calling Kate. Talking about Mark might be a sufficient substitute for seeing him, but it was way too early, especially if her friend’s party had been a success.
Where is he?
Lindsay opened her laptop and powered it up, casting quick glances at the house next door as she waited for the machine to boot. She sipped her coffee and heard her parents moving around in the hall at the top of the staircase.
She settled in to read through emails when her dad knocked on the bedroom door. He waited for her to say “Come in,” before poking his head in the room.
“Just want to make sure you’ve got everything you need before we head out.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“Oh, and I want you to be careful if you decide to go swimming. A young man drowned last night.”
“You’re kidding?” Lindsay said, horrified. “Here?”
“Down the beach by the rocks,” her dad replied. “The news made it sound like he was some kind of druggie, and he just got caught in an undercurrent or something. Couldn’t fight it because he was high. Anyway, just be careful.”
“I wasn’t planning on swimming anyway. But thanks. You and Mom have a good time.”
“Well, we’ll have your mom’s cell.”
“Dad,” Lindsay said, smiling and shaking her head. “It’s not like you’re going to Canada or anything. The beach is like five feet away.”
“I just thought that if you changed your mind, it’d be easier to find us.”
“Easier than stepping out on the porch and looking for the biggest dork on the beach?” she asked, just joking.
“Hey,” her dad said. “You shouldn’t talk about your mom that way.”
“You can leave now,” Lindsay said with a laugh.
Alone in the room, Lindsay felt a pleasant kind of sadness. She knew this feeling had a name but couldn’t remember what it was called.
As she glanced out at the house next door, she remembered her childhood visits to the beach. Back then the vacations were exciting. Despite her uncle’s noisy friends and his smell, she really liked the family trips. In the mornings they all sat around the table and ate a big breakfast of pancakes or eggs with tons of sausage or bacon and lots of English muffins just waiting for gobs of jelly. Pleasantly stuffed, she went with her parents to the beach and played in the sand and surf, building little fat castles and digging ditches to create medieval landscapes for her dolls to roam. In the afternoon her parents would take her shopping or to a movie at the theater in town. And every night, just around sunset, while her mom and her uncle cleaned up the dinner dishes, her dad took her hand and led her back to the beach, right up to the shoreline to collect shells and pretty rocks. Once she’d had boxes of the souvenirs tucked under her bed at home.
She tossed most of those out last year, except for three really cool shells that sat on her bedroom windowsill. Like her anticipation of the vacations, her interest in the souvenirs had faded.
Already this morning, she’d received six emails from Kate, three from Trey, and several from other friends. Apparently, Kate’s party had turned into a full-on crisis. Four of the popular boys from school, including Nick Faherty and his brother, got so drunk they were puking in the kitchen sink. Kate got into a big fight with Constance Turner, who was making out with Chad Olivieri on Kate’s bed. Of course, Kate liked Chad, so that made it blow all the more. Matt broke a lamp—“which is totally irreplaceable”—and Funkster, Kate’s terrier, got out and disappeared until morning. The police even showed up because the Jacksons next door complained about the noise. In later emails, Kate wanted to know where Lindsay was and why her cell phone was turned off: “I so need to talk to you!!!”
Trey reported on the party as well. He thought it was the coolest party EVARRRR! But of course, he didn’t have to clean up the house or endure the wrath of Kate’s parents.
Lindsay looked away from her computer, and her heart beat faster. Kate and her party were forgotten.
The shade was up in Mark’s room. He stood in the window, looking at her.
Waiting for Mark’s guardians to leave was like teetering on the edge of a cliff. She busied herself with emails and spent thirty minutes putting different outfits together on the bed. It was nearly an hour after first seeing Mark in his window before Lindsay heard the car next door pull out.
Excited, she ran downstairs and out the front door. In the alley of sand between the two houses, she slowed her pace and smoothed down the fabric of her blouse.
At Mark’s window, she noticed the strange metal corner pieces driven into the wood again. This time, she touched one out of curiosity. It felt ice-cold to the touch, despite the fact it had to be ninety degrees outside.
“Hi,” Mark said. He still wore the distressed jeans and the black shirt that hung loose from his shoulders.