Once, when he was nine or ten, he’d brushed against the tree accidentally and knocked off some tinsel and a blue sparkly bell, one of her favorite ornaments, that shattered when it hit the floor, and she heard the noise and came running in and screamed at him, “You clumsy little shit. Why can’t you watch where you’re going? Well? What’s the matter with you, standing there like that? Clean it up! How many times I got to tell you to clean up your messes?”
Bad memory. He didn’t like thinking about his mother, long dead and gone and unmissed. Or any part of growing up in that hardscrabble West Texas town. He’d come a long way since he left when he was eighteen to join the army and he wasn’t ever going back, not for any reason.
The highway straightened again into a long reach. Ahead on the seaward side, the land stretched out to a wide, flat-topped promontory like a fat handless arm reaching into the ocean; a ribbon of blacktop traced over to a parking area and lookout, and there was a sign at the intersection that said Scenic Point. He’d gone out there a couple of times. Nice view from the lookout; you could see the contours of the shoreline for quite a distance in both directions, and just offshore a massive hunk of shale shaped like the prow of a ship reared up out of the sea.
A car was parked on the lookout, facing seaward. Tourist taking in the view? Not too likely, this time of year and this late in the day. Somebody with car trouble, maybe. If that was it, he might be able to help. He braked and turned off onto the blacktop.
Low-slung sports car, he saw as he neared. Porsche, looked like. He didn’t much care for cars like that, or the kind of people who drove them. Too fast and reckless, no regard for anybody else’s safety, like that asshole tailgater. This one was black and had familiar lines, but there were a lot of them like this zooming up and down the coast highway.
His headlights washed over the other vehicle; the driver seemed to be the only occupant. Sitting there quietly—looking, waiting? Or doing something else, like swilling booze, getting ready to smash a bottle on the asphalt or the rocks below or throw it at a sea creature like that drunken motorcycle rider on the Navarro River?
Friend—or enemy?
He pulled up a few yards away, transferred the 9-mil Glock from the glove compartment to his coat pocket, and went to find out.
E L E V E N
NIGHT.
A martini for Shelby and half a glass of wine for him while good jazz played soft in the background—Macklin’s CD choice this time, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. Crab salad, leftover sourdough, half a bottle of chardonnay. One of the DVDs from Ben’s collection, his choice again—a farcical boy-meets-girl comedy that was watchable if not particularly funny. Quiet time again, more wood on the fire, the last of the wine from dinner in Shelby’s glass.
The combination of heat and music and food had relaxed him for the first time in days. Again he watched the firelight play over the smooth contours of Shelby’s face, the familiar curves of her body. Tenderness welled in him. And, inevitably, desire.
He said, “Remember that trip to Big Sur right after we were married? The cabin in the woods?”
“What made you think of that?”
“Sitting in front of the fire like this.”
She was silent.
“That’s not all we did in front of the fire,” he said.
Still silent.
“There’s plenty of room in front of this one, too. I could go get a blanket from the bedroom …”
“No,” she said.
“Just like that? No?”
“Not tonight, Jay. I’m not in the mood.”
One of the burning logs dropped off the grate, sending up a shower of sparks that glowed bright red before winking out; his desire died just as quickly. “Seems like you’re not in the mood a lot lately. It didn’t used to be like that—you used to be horny all the time.”
“A lot of things used to be different.” She stirred out of her chair. “I think I’ll take a hot bath.”
“You don’t have to lock the door,” he called after her. “I won’t come in and try to wash your back.”
Bed. Shelby turned away from him, the cold, rhythmic sound of the rain on the roof adding to his feeling of loneliness. Sleep was a long time coming.
And when it did—
Dark place, warm, safe. Sleeping.
Not sleeping anymore. Listening.
What’re those noises? Loud, weird.
Thump. Grunt, slurp, screech, squeal. Thump thump thump.
Something’s out there.
Something … terrible.
I have to find out what it is. But I don’t want to. I’m afraid.
Squeal, howl, slurp. Thump thump thump thump thump.
Oh God, what if it tries to hurt me?
Stay here, don’t move.
No, I can’t, I have to find out what it is—
Dark place, cold. Walking.
Long tunnel, shadows crawling on the walls, faint glow from somewhere that lets me see where I’m going. The floor feels like it’s made of ice, I start to shiver from the chill. Walking straight, turning right, walking straight, turning left—
Light ahead, so bright it hurts my eyes. The noises come from behind it—grunt, slurp, thump thump squeal thump. I want to stop walking toward the light, I’m afraid of what I’ll see, but I have to find out what’s making those sounds.
Closer. And into the light, through the light.
No! No!
Monster.
Horrible, hairy thing and what it’s doing, what it’s doing—
Slurp, thump, slurp slurp.
It’s feeding!
I make a sound, I can’t help myself, and the thing rises up from the carcass of whatever it’s eating, its open mouth and yellow-spike teeth dripping crimson. It looks around at me, then lets loose an ear-splitting roar and leaps up with long sharp claws slicing the air and comes lurching toward me spitting fire.
Run! Hide!
And I run out of the light into the shadows, run through the tunnel, I’ve never run faster … but I can’t run fast enough, the thing is close behind me, I feel its fire breath and hear the pounding click of its claws—
Dark place again, and I’m down on all fours crawling into another dark place. Trying to make myself smaller, squirming like a worm into a hole, hide, hide!
Too late.
The thing is there, looming over me, I see the awful twisted shape of it as it bends down and … oh Jesus it wraps a claw around my arm and yanks me upward. Pain erupts, then wild panic as it drags me close to its red drooling mouth.
It’s going to eat me!
But first it shakes me, hard, my teeth rattle like bones, I smell the hot stink of its breath in my face. Spiraling terror makes me pee on myself. The thing roars again and shakes me harder, and then it—
—rips my arm off and hurls it on the floor—