Charles De Lint: Dreams Underfoot

“Let’s go walk on the beach,” she said.

Reece nodded, following her outside after she’d paid the bill. The lemony smell of eucalyptus trees was strong in the air for a moment, then the stronger scent of the ocean winds stole it away.

6

They had the beach to themselves, though the pier was busy with strollers and people fishing. At the beach end of the long wooden structure, kids were hanging out, fooling around with bikes and skateboards. The soft boom of the tide drowned out the music of their ghetto blasters. The wind was cool with a salt tang as it came in from over the waves. In the distance, the oil rigs were lit up like Christmas trees.

Ellen took off her shoes. Carrying them in her tote bag, she walked in the wet sand by the water’s edge. A raised lip of the beach hid the shorefront houses from their view as they walked south to the rocky spit that marked the beginning of the Naval Weapons Station.

“It’s nice out here,” Reece said finally. They hadn’t spoken since leaving the restaurant.

Ellen nodded. “A lot different from L.A.”

“Two different worlds.”

Ellen gave him a considering glance. Ever since this afternoon, the sullen tone had left his voice. She listened now as he spoke of his parents and how he couldn’t find a place for himself either in their world, nor that of his peers.

“You’re pretty down on the sixties,” she said when he was done.

Reece shrugged. He was barefoot now, too, the waves coming up to lick the bottom of his jeans where the two of them stood at the water’s edge.

“They had some good ideas—people like my parents,” he said, “but the way they want things to go

... that only works if everyone agrees to live that way.”

“That doesn’t invalidate the things they believe in.”

“No. But what we’ve got to deal with is the real world and you’ve got to take what you need if you want to survive in it.” Ellen sighed. “I suppose.”

She looked back across the beach, but they were still alone. No one else out for a late walk across the sand. No booger. No Balloon Men. But something fluttered inside her, darkwinged. A longing as plain as what she heard in Reece’s voice, though she was looking for magic and he was just looking for a way to fit in.

Hefting her tote bag, she tossed it onto the sand, out of the waves’ reach. Reece gave her a curious look, then averted his gaze as she stepped out of her skirt.

“It’s okay,” she said, amused at his sudden sense of propriety. “I’m wearing my swimsuit.”

By the time he turned back, her blouse and skirt had joined her tote bag on the beach and she was shaking loose her hair. “Coming in?” she asked.

Reece simply stood and watched the sway of her hips as she headed for the water. Her swimsuit was white. In the poor light it was as though she wasn’t wearing anything—the swimsuit looked like untanned skin. She dove cleanly into a wave, head bobbing up pale in the dark water when she surfaced.

“C’mon!” she called to him. “The water’s fine, once you get in.”

Reece hesitated. He’d wanted to go in this afternoon, but hadn’t had the nerve to bare his white skinny limbs in front of a beach full of serious tanners. Well, there was no one to see him now, he thought as he stripped down to his underwear.

The water hit him like a cold fist when he dove in after her and he came up gasping with shock. His body tingled, every pore stung alert. Ellen drifted further out, riding the waves easily. As he waded out to join her, a swell rose up and tumbled him back to shore in a spill of floundering arms and legs that scraped him against the sand.

“Either go under or over them,” Ellen advised him as he started back out.

He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but the water wasn’t too deep except when a big wave came. He went under the next one and came up spluttering, but pleased with himself for not getting thrown up against the beach again.

“I love swimming at night,” Ellen said as they drifted together.

Reece nodded. The water was surprisingly warm, too, once you were in it. You could lose all sense of time out here, just floating with the swells.

“You do this a lot?” he asked.

Ellen shook her head. “It’s not that good an idea to do this alone. If the undertow got you, it’d pull you right out and no one would know.”

Reece laid his head back in the water and looked up at the sky. Though they were less than an hour by the freeway out of downtown L.A., the sky was completely different here. It didn’t have that glow from Godknows-howmany millions of lights. The stars seemed closer, too, or maybe it was that the sky seemed deeper.

He glanced over at Ellen. Their reason for being out here was forgotten. He wished he had the nerve to just sort of sidle up to her and put his arms around her, hold her close. She’d feel all slippery, but she’d feel good.

He paddled a little bit towards her, riding a swell up and then down again. The wave turned him slightly away from her. When he glanced back, he saw her staring wideeyed at the shore. His gaze followed hers and then that cold he’d felt when he first entered the water returned in a numbing rush.

The booger was here.

It came snuffling over a rise in the beach, a squat dark shadow in the sand, greasy and slick as it beelined for their clothing. When it reached Ellen’s tote bag, it buried its face in her skirt and blouse, then proceeded to rip them to shreds. Ellen’s fingers caught his arm in a frightened grip. A wave came up, lifting his feet from the bottom. He kicked out frantically, afraid he was going to drown with her holding on to him like that, but the wave tossed them both in towards the shore.

The booger looked up, baring its barracuda teeth. The red coals of its eyes burned right into them both, pinning them there on the wet sand where the wave had left them. Leaving the ruin of Ellen’s belongings in torn shreds, it moved slowly towards them.

“ReReece,” Ellen said. She was pressed close to him, shivering.

Reece didn’t have the time to appreciate the contact of her skin against his. He wanted to say, this is what you were looking for, lady, but things weren’t so cut and dried now. Ellen wasn’t some nameless cipher anymore—just a part of a crowd that he could sneer at—and she wasn’t just something he had the hots for either. She was a person, just like him. An individual. Someone he could actually relate to.

“Can—can’t you stop it?” Ellen cried.

The booger was getting close now. Its sewer reek was strong enough to drown out the salty tang of the ocean. It was like something had died there on the beach and was now getting up and coming for them.

Stop it? Reece thought. Maybe the thing had been created out of his frustrated anger, the way Ellen’s friend made out it could happen in that book of his, but Reece knew as sure as shit that he didn’t control the booger.

Another wave came down upon them and Reece pushed at the sand so that it pulled them partway out from the shore on its way back out. Getting to his knees in the rimy water, he got in front of Ellen so that he was between her and the booger. Could the sucker swim?

The booger hesitated at the water’s edge. It lifted its paws fastidiously from the wet sand like a cat crossing a damp lawn and relief went through Reece. When another wave came in, the booger backstepped quickly out of its reach.

Ellen was leaning against him, face near his as she peered over his shoulder.

“It can’t handle the water,” Reece said. He turned his face to hers when she didn’t say anything. Her clear eyes were open wide, gaze fixed on the booger. “Ellen ... ?” he began.

“I can’t believe that it’s really there,” she said finally in a small voice.