Cry for the Strangers Page 0,1

window in bright denial of the recent storm, and the child smiled happily as he looked out at the clear blue sky. It would be a good day for the beach.

The beach.

The night came back to him, a dark confusion of shapes and sounds. He remembered the storm, and waking up. He remembered counting the seconds between the flashes of lightning and the thunderclaps. But the rest was all fuzzy, like a dream.

He dimly recalled going down to the beach and seeing something.

Dancers, burying two people in the sand.

And the tide coming in.

The boy shook himself. It must have been a dream. It had to be.

He began listening for the sounds of morning. His father would be gone already, working the woods. His grandmother would be bustling around the kitchen, and his grandfather would be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading out loud to nobody in particular.

But this morning there was silence.

He lay in bed for a long time, listening. He told himself that if he listened long enough, the familiar sounds would begin, and the nightmare would fade from his mind.

The silence terrified him.

At last he rose and started to dress. But his clothes, the clothes he had neatly placed on the chair the evening before, were scattered on the floor this morning, and wet.

It hadn’t been a dream after all.

He put on clean clothes, dressing slowly, hoping every second that the morning sounds would begin, that he would hear his grandmother clattering dishes in the sink and his grandfather’s voice droning steadily in the background. But when he was fully dressed the silence still resonated through the house.

He went to the kitchen. The remains of his father’s breakfast were still on the table. That was all right, then. But where were his grandparents?

He made his way up the stairs, calling out to them as he went. They must have overslept. That was it—they were still in bed, sound asleep.

Their room was empty.

The dream came back to him.

He left the house and began running toward the beach.

He paused at the edge of the woods and stared into the trees as if hoping that somehow he would be able to see through them to whatever lay waiting for him on the beach.

His face tightened with worry as he stepped into the woods. He almost turned back when he came to the driftwood barrier.

But he had to know.

He picked his way carefully through the tangle of logs, not so much because the way was unfamiliar, but because he wanted to prolong it, wanted to put off reaching the crescent of the sand.

Minutes later he climbed slowly over the last log and stood on the beach.

The storm had covered the beach with debris: kelp lay in tangled heaps everywhere, and a new crop of driftwood was scattered helter-skelter across the expanse of sand and rock.

The boy looked quickly around. Nothing unusual. His heart surged with relief and the worry on his face gave way to a grin. There would be good beachcombing this morning. With a little luck he might even find some glass floats lying in the seaweed.

Near the water he saw a huge mound of kelp and headed toward it. He walked eagerly at first, but as he approached the dark brown tangle, he slowed, his apprehension flooding back.

He began pulling at the tangle.

Either it was buried deep in the sand or it was caught on something.

He pulled harder.

The kelp gave way.

It hadn’t been a dream. From under the kelp, still buried in the sand up to their necks, two faces stared grotesquely up at the child, their features contorted with fear, the eyes bulging open.

His grandparents.

The boy stared helplessly back at them, frozen, his mind whirling.

He could see in their faces how they must have died, waiting helplessly, watching the surf creep inexorably toward them, lapping at their faces, licking at them, then withdrawing to mount another attack. It must have been a slow death, and a terrifying one. They must have coughed and choked, holding their breaths and spitting out the brine, screaming, unheard, into the wind and rain.

The boy looked once more into the eyes of, first, his grandfather, then his grandmother. As he stared, grieving, into the finely planed, dark face of the old lady, he thought he heard something.

Softly at first, then louder.

“Cry …” the voice inside his head wailed. “Cry for them … and for me.”

It was his grandmother’s voice, but she was dead.

The boy screamed and turned away.

But he never