Лорел Гамильтон - Strange Candy

My mother is a widow. Tom’s mother is divorced. All we need now is a corrupt Cupid, with a sweet tooth.

This is another story that I wrote when I lived in California for a few years. It’s the only time in my life that I’ve lived near the water. I’ve almost drowned four times. At one point I had my dive certificate. I thought it would help me overcome my phobias. Then I had a diving accident, and now I’m claustrophobic on top of being afraid of water. Oh, well. This is a very sensual story, and was the first peek of that side of me as a writer. But it is a melancholy story. The idea of it—that fear and longing that the ocean fills me with—will be visited at more length in an upcoming Anita book. Some of the characters introduced in Danse Macabre will be helping me explore some of the themes of this story in more loving, and even more frightening, detail.

A DRIA woke to the sound of the sea. She lay under the cool wash of sheets, wondering what had woken her. Moonlight spilled through the white curtains. The rushing hush of the sea poured underneath the balcony. It filled the bedroom with an intimate whispering noise. What had woken her? There was a sense of urgency, as if she had forgotten something.

She sat up, brushing strands of dark hair away from her face. She called out, not really expecting an answer, “Rachel?”

The only sound was ocean, a purring roar along the sand.

Adria slipped on a pair ofjeans that lay rumpled by the bed. Her nightshirt flapped almost to her knees, a man’s extra large. She padded barefoot over scattered fitness magazines and clothes. The living room stretched perfectly neat, like a magazine cover, where no one lived. Rachel’s neat and tidy hand was visible everywhere.

Adria’s hand brushed the music box on the end table. It sang a few forlorn notes. The music boxes were Rachel’s hobby. She called them her vice.

Adria walked across the thick white carpet to the short hall. It led to the bathroom and Rachel’s bedroom. The door stood ajar, moonlight spilling into the black hallway. Adria froze, pulse thudding against her throat. The urgency she had woken with turned to fear. They had shared the house for almost two years. In all that time Rachel had never left her door open. She had a habit of listening to music as she fell asleep. The sound would leak through the house if the door were open.

No sound. The rushing sea seemed muted in the hall. Adria paused, almost touching the door. “Rachel?” Silence. “Rachel, can you hear me?”

Adria touched the door; it swung inward. The bed was rumpled, pale sheets turned to silver by the moonlight. Rachel’s clothes lay neatly folded on the back of the room’s only chair. Even her shoes were toes out, heels touching, just waiting to be put on again.

The drapes flapped in the wind, cord slapping the screen. Adria jumped then laughed, but the laughter sounded wrong. So quiet. She walked to the window. There was always a chance Rachel had gone outside, though that was more something Adria would do than Rachel.

The beach was a narrow whiteness, heavy and pale under the moon. The ocean rolled gray and silver, white foam riding the waves, as it whisper-roared, eating away at the shore. Rocks gleamed dull black as the surf swirled and blew white spray up into the air. During the day Adria had jogged every inch of the beach but moonlight made it an alien place.

Adria heard something, a moan, a muffled cry. She wasn’t sure if it was the sound of pleasure or pain. Adria smiled to herself. If she went out there and Rachel had a boyfriend on the beach.. .Adria turned back to the room. No, there were no other clothes. If Rachel had undressed, so would he.

Rachel had only brought two men home in as many years. Both times, she had given Adria advance warning. Rachel was not a casual person in her surroundings or her relationships.

Adria checked the open bathroom, but she knew, could feel, how empty the house was now. She was alone, alone with the sea. And Rachel was out there somewhere. Adria began listening to her own heartbeat. It was impossibly loud. Something was very wrong.

She slipped on a pair of deck shoes and opened the sliding glass door that led down to the beach. She left it open behind her; a vague thought that she wanted someone to know where she had gone.

The night air was cool; she shivered in the thin shirt. She debated on going back and getting a sweatshirt, but no, she needed to find Rachel.

Rachel’s footprints started at the bottom of the steps. They led down near the surf, where the sand was firm, wet, and easier to walk in. Water swirled shockingly cold around Adria’s ankles. The water was crumpling the edges of the tracks, sweeping them away. Adria began to jog, hoping to trace the prints before the sea took them. She fell into a familiar easy stride, arms pumping, breath deep and even. It felt good. Her fear faded in the face of something so ordinary.

The only sounds were the rush of waves and the slap of her feet as she ran. Moonlight gleamed along the shore, showing everything in stark shadows and silver light. The footprints ended at the rocks. Adria touched a cold boulder and began to clamber over them. She slipped on a strand of seaweed and fell hard on one knee. The sharp pain forced her to lean against the damp rock and wait for the knee to move again. She could see over the rocks now, to the beach beyond. They were there.

Rachel’s long blond hair was spilled out across the sand. He lay on top of her, his nude body made up of muscle, pale flesh, and shadows.

Adria felt foolish, surprised, and relieved. She meant to turn away, to leave them to their privacy, but something stopped her. A wave curled up the beach and tugged Rachel’s hand up and down, loose, limp, unresisting. Adria watched for a few minutes, embarrassment swallowed up by fear. Rachel never moved, not a hand, not her head, not her leg. There was a limp quality to her as the man rode her that was more terrifying than any struggle.

The man buried his face in the sand, baring Rachel’s face to the sky. The face was totally slack, nothing.

Adria couldn’t breathe for a moment, couldn’t think. She screamed, “Rachel!”

The man looked up, startled. Adria had an impression of dark eyes, impossibly large, a sculpted face. Beautiful was the word that flashed in her mind. She scrambled down the rocks, not sure what she would do if he didn’t run. Had to try. She was screaming as she came. Someone would hear; someone had to hear.

He stood, and there was a tension to him. Adria stopped, panting, and stared at him across the sand, across Rachel’s body. She had seen a wolf once, while hiking in the mountains. It had turned startled eyes to her. There had been nothing human in its eyes. There was nothing human now.

A light flashed on at the nearest house. He jumped, startled, and ran, not up the shore, but toward the sea. He ran into the surf, and it cut him across the waist and he dived between the waves, clean and neat, vanished. She watched his head surface and then his arms as he stroked for deeper water.

Then he dived, and what splashed af ter him was the curving lines of a tail, like a whale, or a dolphin. He vanished under the waves.

Adria stood there for a heartbeat. She couldn’t have seen it. Could she? Adria glanced back at Rachel. She lay unmoving, horribly still.

Adria knelt in the wet sand. Her shaking hands couldn’t find a pulse. She pressed her ear to the chest and held her own breath. Adria had expected to hear a heartbeat. Even though she had thought death, she wasn’t prepared for silence. She pressed her cheek against Rachel’s slack mouth, nothing, no breath. “Oh, God, oh God.”

A man’s voice called from the house where the light had flashed on. “Is everyone all right down there?”