John Saul - Cry for the Strangers

“Of course it does. But you have to be reasonable. It would have happened whether we’d been here or not. Two days earlier or two days later, and we never would have known about it You’re acting as though it’s some kind of — I don’t know — omen or something. And that’s nonsense.”

“Is it?” Elaine said softly. “Is it, really? I wish I could believe that, but there’s something about this place that gives me the willies.” She stood up suddenly. “Let’s get out of here. Maybe the sunshine will help.”

Brad paid the check and they made their way out of the café and down the stairs. In the tavern the same elderly men were playing checkers, as they had been the day before yesterday. Neither of them looked up at the Randalls.

“Let’s walk up the beach,” Elaine said. “Maybe by the time we get to the house Whalen will be there. If he isn’t, I suspect we can get in by ourselves — it didn’t look capable of being locked.”

They retraced the path Elaine had taken the previous morning, but to Elaine it all looked different now. The sun had warmed the afternoon air, and the crackle of the morning freshness had long since gone. As they made their way across the point that separated the harbor from the beaches, Brad inhaled the scent of salt water mixed with pine. “Not like Seattle,” he commented.

“There’s nothing wrong with the air in Seattle,” Elaine said defensively.

“I didn’t say there was,” Brad grinned at her. “All I said was that this isn’t like the air in Seattle, and it isn’t Is it?”

Elaine, sorry she’d snapped at him, took his hand. “No,” she said, “it isn’t, and I’m being a ninny again. I’ll stop it, I promise.” She felt Brad squeeze her hand and returned the slight pressure. Then she saw a flash of movement and pointed. “Brad, look!” she cried. “What is it?”

A small creature, about the size of a weasel, sat perfectly still, one foot on a rock, staring at them, its tiny nose twitching with curiosity.

“It’s an otter,” Brad said.

“A sea otter? This far north?”

“I don’t know. It’s some type of otter though. Look, there’s another!”

The Randalls sat down on a piece of driftwood, and the two small animals looked them over carefully. After what seemed to Elaine like an eternity, first one, then the other returned to its business of scraping at the pebbles on the beach, searching for food. As soon as the pair began its search, four smaller ones suddenly appeared as if they had received a message from their parents that all was well.

“Aren’t they darling!” Elaine exclaimed. At the sudden sound the four pups disappeared and the parents once again turned their attention to the two humans. Then they, too, disappeared.

“Moral:” Brad said, “never talk in the presence of otters.”

“But I couldn’t help it,” Elaine protested. “They’re wonderful. Do you suppose they live here?”

“They probably have a Winnebago parked on the road and just stopped for lunch,” Brad said dryly. Elaine swung at him playfully.

“Oh, stop it! Come on, let’s see if we can find them.”

Her vague feeling of unease — what she called the willies — was gone as she set off after the otters, picking her way carefully over the rocky beach. She knew it was no use, but she kept going, hoping for one more glimpse of the enchanting creatures before they disappeared into the forest. It was too late; the otters might as well have been plucked from the face of the earth. She stopped and waited for Brad.

“They’re gone,” she sighed.

“You’ll see them again,” Brad assured her. “If they’re not on this beach they’re probably on Sod Beach. It’ s the next one, isn’t it?”

Elaine nodded and pointed. “Just beyond that point If you want we can cut through the woods.”

“Let’s stick to the beach,” Brad said. “That way I can get a view of the whole thing all at once.”

“Sort of a general overview?” Elaine asked, but she was smiling.

“If you want to put it that way,” Brad said with a grin.

They rounded the point and Brad stopped so suddenly Elaine almost bumped into him. “My God, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She came abreast of him and they stood together surveying the crescent that was Sod Beach. The sky was cloudless and the deep blue water and the intensely green forest were separated by a strip of sand that glistened in the brilliant sunlight, highlighted by the silvery stripe of driftwood sparkling next to the woods. The breakers, eight ranks of them, washed gently in, as if caressing the beach. Brad slipped his arm around Elaine’s shoulders and pulled her close to him. With his free arm, he pointed.

“And that, I take it, is the house?”

Elaine’s head moved almost imperceptibly in assent. For one brief moment she wished she could deny it, and instead say something that would take them forever away from Clark’s Harbor and this beautiful beach with its bizarre past. For an instant she thought she could see the victims of the Sands of Death buried to the neck, their pitiful wailings lost in the sea wind and the roar of the surf that would soon claim them as its own. Then the vision was gone. Only the weathered house remained on the beach and, far off at the opposite end, the tiny cabin.

“Well, we won’t have many neighbors, will we?” Brad said finally, and Elaine had a sinking sensation in her stomach. Brad had already made up his mind. She pulled free of his encircling arm and started moving up the beach.

“Come on,” she said. “We might as well see what it’s like.” Brad trotted silently after her, ignoring the negative tone in her voice.

They had walked once around the house when Harney Whalen arrived, appearing suddenly out of the woods.

“Didn’t think you folks were here yet,” he called to them. “There wasn’t any car out on the road.”

“We walked along the beach,” Brad replied, extending his hand to the approaching police chief. Whalen ignored the gesture, instead mounting the steps to the porch and fishing in his pocket for keys.

“It’s not in very good shape. I haven’t even had it cleaned since the last people … left.”

Brad and Elaine exchanged a look at his slight hesitation, but neither one of them commented on it.

“The place seems to be sound enough,” Brad remarked as Harney opened the front door.

“All the old houses are sound,” Whalen responded. “We knew how to build them back then.”

“How old is it?”

“Must be about fifty or sixty. If you want I suppose I could figure it out exactly. Don’t see any point in it, though.” His tone said clearly to Brad, Don’t bother me with foolish questions.

But Elaine plunged in. “Did your family build it?” she asked. Whalen looked at her sharply, then his face cleared.

“Might say we did; might say we didn’t. We sold the land the house is on and my grandfather helped build the house, then we bought it back when the Barons … left.” Again there was the slight hesitation, and again the Randalls exchanged a look. Brad wondered how much more there was to the story and why the chief didn’t want to tell them all of it Then he looked around and realized that Whalen hadn’t been kidding when he said the place hadn’t been cleaned.

If it hadn’t been for the layer of dust covering everything, Brad would have sworn the house was inhabited. Magazines and newspapers lay open on the chairs and floor, and the remains of a candle, burned to the bottom, sat bleakly on a table. There wasn’t much furniture — only a sofa and two chairs — and what there was had obviously been obtained secondhand.

“They left in a hurry, didn’t they?” Brad asked.

“Like I told you, skipped right out on me,” Whalen said. Then, before Brad could comment further, he began telling them about the house.