Parker's day at the beach-- Part 2

Did you think I wouldn't?

Note: PART 2! I’m pretty sure there’s some typos and some other fumbling, bumbling shit mixed in. Like I said, I’ve been staring at that blinding beach for so long, I can’t see it anymore!!

Anyway. Sunscreen? Water?

Check? Let’s go!

---

Dusk painted the beach in a series of ever deepening shades of blue, the hand of a fretting artist making pass after pass. Erasing, instead of adding.

Parker shivered. With the sun’s departure, the breeze had picked up, and his burned skin promoted the tepid sigh to a brisk gale. It was still strong enough to carry loose sand and grit that stung and scoured. He wished he had another towel to use as a blanket, but Ashley had used the last ones erecting Bee’s shelter.

The ocean sighed, exhausted after its recent climb. With the day’s heat gone, panic scrabbled at the edges of his thoughts, creating a maddening carrousel he was powerless to stop.

How—

Why—

If—

When—

More than once, a chuckle turned to sobs. He told himself to get a grip. It became a bitter chuckle, which devolved into another series of sobs.

When he had calmed down a bit, his eyes crossed off the usual landmarks, insisted on pausing in the empty space where Black Bathing Suit had languished all day. Parker would’ve had to turn his head to keep her in the mix. He decided against it. After a while, the beach bar was a black smudge against the darkening sky. The incline had been erased long before then, so he settled for Pink Bikini. Dusk had progressed enough to swallow the woman’s deep tan, making it seem as if the brightly colored pieces hovered in the air.

Haunted bikini, he thought. Ashley’ll love it. Parker let out another chuckle, little more than a groan, although this one didn’t crumble into sobbing.

Took a trip to the beach to turn me into a horror geek.

And why not? They were in a fucking horror story! He recalled Ashley’s standard reply whenever he made fun of her reading habits. You’re gonna be glad I’m around if we ever end up in the slaughterhouse, mister hey-let’s-stop-and-see-if-we-can-lend-a-hand. Cue eye roll.

Yeah? And what about strange

—say it say it—

tentacles crawling up from the sand? What about it, Ashley? Your shlock fare skip over that one, or?

Parker’s sigh blew away sand. What was the point? It was just another variation of the rewind game. His mind trying to get past this frustrating reality literally rooting him to the spot. He felt confident Ashley would’ve figured it out before him, a truth too terrifying— too vast— for his American Lit imagination to entertain. But—

Black Bathing Suit had been moved. And during the sunset mania, while people tore at tethers he didn’t need to see to know were there, his own restraint had… twitched. It had been subtle. It had also been unprovoked. It was something that hadn’t happened before. His gaze had returned to the distant struggling figures and he hadn’t really needed Ashley’s soft moan to confirm she felt it, too. The involuntary reflex of something bracing, trying to ground itself to stave off unexpected resistance. And the terrible understanding had risen, slow and relentless, that the things holding him and Ashley and Bee and everyone else on the beach, were not separate entities, but one and the same. Part of some great, impossible creature. The realisation had sent his mind reeling, proportions growing and expanding until his insides turned to ice and his bladder loosened, and he might’ve lost it then, if his brain hadn’t already been fried.

In the distance, the bikini floated. What if it had been Pink Bikini, instead of Ashley? Would he have ended up here? He doubted it, seeing as how the vacation was his idea. Off season, cheap rates. Quiet. Made possible because of Bee. A sensible, economical decision. A Parker decision. Sure, the woman was here, too, but maybe— if they’d ended up together— she wouldn’t have been. They might’ve settled on, say, Paris, or Barcelona—

Stop. Just stop.

He started crying again. It was no use. He was here and so were Ashley and Bee, and he loved them both, more than life itself, even if his wife was obsessed with things no sane person could ever hope to understand, like the books she’d filled their house with. Guaranteed to give Bee nightmares one day. Books he wouldn’t use to—

Parker started. The tentacle holding him did as well, gave a lazy squeeze. He ignored it, pawing in the sand. For a few frantic beats, his heart stuttered, convinced it was gone. But then his fingers struck something hard. Blind fingertips trembled, digging. His lower lip quivered when he pulled back, clutching the cheap paperback against his chest— a drowning man holding on for dear life.

A string of seconds passed before he allowed himself to cast around for the shorts. He was sure they’d be out of reach, blown away by the fickle wind. But they were still where he’d left them, draped across his shoes. Only when his fingers patted the side pockets and found the familiar outlines through the slick fabric, did he let out his breath.

Hope, that terrible creature, began to rail against the bars of its cage and he almost gave in. Almost. Parker was by no means a smart man— he’d made more than a few mistakes that day, and he would make a few more— but he wasn’t stupid. Sand gritted as he turned his head. The light was almost gone now, the poles dark, ancient stones against the dark blue velvet of onrushing night. The neon pink of the bikini had paled, a faint blemish in the gathering shadows. Only the beach remained, the color of old bones, and even it would be wrapped in darkness before long. And then there was the stiffening breeze, stirring sand and grass in dry whispers, almost shushing.

With effort, Parker backed away from his impulse, and began to wrap the paperback in his shorts.

Tomorrow, he thought. Parker gave a shivering nod as he settled on his cooling, shifting pillow of sand, and prepared to face the darkness.

---

Parker jolted from a light doze at the bottom of a black pit. The knot around his leg slipped tight. It was a reminder he didn’t need. It kept tugging at the mildest movement, preventing him from sinking down to something resembling sleep.

Bee was crying.

Adjusting, the bundle slipped from his arms, and for a moment, he was confused. Then his heart slammed on the brakes. Pawing it back against himself, Parker made sure everything was still in place. It was. Closing his eyes, he let out a breath of relief, and set about the desperate task of calming Bee, when he heard Ashley murmuring.

Lowering himself onto the sand again, Parker hugged the bundle to his midriff. His wife’s comforting noises mixed with the soft sigh of low tide, and for the first time since they’d settled on the beach, he felt a new pull. Its grip every bit as strong and undeniable as what held him in place as it dragged him down into the sweet embrace of sleep.

---

Even his dreams were filled with screams and shouting. In them, he was fleeing through the dunes, stiff grasses and brush crunching beneath his heels, flying sand spray of buckshot scattering against though growths. He was being chased, unseen figures hollering, yelling for him to stop, giving unseen others updates about his position. He almost had it, until he fell, breath escaping in a huff and then he was tumbling, rolling down the dunes onto the beach, the fucking beach again—

The spinning was nauseating, and even when he came to a stop it was as if the sky above was still moving, slipping back over his eyes and he groaned and tried to steady the world by gripping the earth itself, but even it refused to stay in place, parting between his fingers in a rush, first soft and silky, then cold and rough; the sound of a ravenous maw that opened and opened, and never closed.

---

Predawn sketched tentative, granular. All shapes and outlines. The waves roared and rumbled. But the poles dug themselves out of the darkness first, marching up and up into the lightening sky. Parker could smell them, the miasma of age and slow decay buried deep in the gums of the weathered wooden teeth, black and thick. The day roughed out their crusted surface, layering detail with rising confidence.

Parker saw none of it. His gaze held the expanse. The muscles around his eyes twitched, restless. A beat before the cracked lips pulled back from his teeth again, his hand came up and blocked his sight. The pulse working through him was caught by the abdominal muscles, stretched hard and sore against sustained blows.

With a shuddering breath, the hand fell away. There was some sniffling, a spasm or two. Then he grew still again. Bee’s didn’t. Her cries had turned to hysterical shrieks. Parker knew he would have to do something about it at some point. But for now all he could do was watch the blanket of night roll back across the sea.

Beside him, Ashley did the same. With silent wonder, she watched as the dawn rose in the sand-crusted mirrors of her eyes.

---

Parker had a secret, one he’d been keeping for months. It would’ve surprised him to learn Ashley knew all about it. She’d been perceptive, another thing she would’ve chalked up to her years of reading thrillers and horror fiction. She’d also had a strange turn of mind. Which was why she’d played dumb whenever Parker came up with another vague excuse to go out at night. Ashley had enjoyed toying with him perhaps a little too much, but had suspected the extra jobs she gave him whenever he went out to the garage, the additional stops she improvised whenever he went to the gas station, took some of the pleasure out of his secret smoking, and she’d been right. They were almost never worth the effort she’d stacked against them.

This one was no different. Dehydrated, his throat thick and raw from crying, the smoke grew hooks as he pulled it down. But he powered through.

He’d struggled into a seated position, the foot of his free leg planted firmly in the sand. It had taken some doing. The tentacle’s patience, worn thin in the wake of the morning’s revelations, had sent him back to go several times, the cords on his neck standing out as the vice around his ankle narrowed to a bone-crushing press. Between it and Bee’s hysterical crying, he’d almost lost control, his hands itching to tear the monstrous root up from the soil. But he’d made it. So far, so good.

The view had changed, and not for the better. Almost as soon as he’d opened his eyes, he’d realised his dream hadn’t been a dream— not entirely, anyway. The ocean had jumped closer, the high tide line a scant ten yards away. Behind him, drag marks traced their progress down from the dunes. The inside of the trail was dusted with rust-coloured sand. So were his legs and feet. He wasn’t sure if it was him fucking up the tourniquet or the tentacle hauling on a leg already hanging on by a thread, but he read a terrible truth in the fact she hadn’t woken them up screaming while they travelled down the beach.

He had no idea what time it was. The phones had been left behind along with the cooler and the rest of Bee’s makeshift shelter. But it had to be past nine. High tide was crawling up, a good half of the wooden comb submerged. The seagulls had returned with the dawn. They lined the top of the dark poles. A cluster of them floated ten degrees to the left, marking the spot where Black Bathing Suit had slipped beneath the surface. Before she had, the birds had made the most of it. Blister-eyed, Parker had watched how the speeding flat sheets crept back, pulled her outline along in dribbling smears— a chalk drawing after a rainstorm. Watched how first rush of the tide made her flesh snap and wave and drift. All the while, the beaks had plunged and torn and screeched, squabbling surgeons in a gruesome slapstick. Parker hoped once the waves retreated, the woman would be gone. More than that, he hoped he wouldn’t be around to make sure.

Parker brought the cigarette to his lips with shaking hands, sucked the sandpaper smoke down his swollen throat, then blew the cone back to life.

Where the previous day had ended with questions, this one had begun with answers. After—

After, Parker had taken in his new surroundings and had realised no one would be coming to their rescue. There were a few familiar sights scattered along the beach. Like Pink Bikini, partly visible through the screen of crusted beams. From his new vantage point, he could see people strung along the loose sand further up. People he knew hadn’t been there before. None of them wore beach attire, for one. Two of them lay head to toe, the man’s outstretched hand almost reaching the cooler Parker had lugged onto the beach an eternity ago. Confusion had been short-lived once his burning eyes moved to the beach bar and found the deck was no longer deserted.

Behind the glass, now clean and clear, a crowd had gathered. Lining the deck from one end to the other, they pressed closed. The distance made it impossible to discern faces, but Parker thought he recognised one or two of the still figures. It had come to him then. The ridiculous rates. Laughable, even for a two-week stay during off-season. The broken AC. Even the road crews. They’d been corralled, driven up the chute. And these others—

Parker had had a powerful mental image of the townspeople going around after dark. They would have a list, of course. A list of names and faces, courtesy of the rental company.

Why? Parker had screamed. Why, why, why? The faces behind the glass had only stared down and after a while, the tentacle had screwed tight, and Parker had fallen silent. Meanwhile, others had taken up the call, offering hoarse and brittle cries filled with such desperate hope it made him burst out in tears again.

He might’ve given up then. Part of him wanted to. Waking up to find the woman he loved was gone, their precious two-year-old bolted down next to her corpse without food, without water or shelter, while the air around them grew hotter with every passing minute, Parker had found himself wishing the thing had just dragged them below the high tide line during the night, as it had the woman in the black bathing suit. It wouldn’t have been easy, but waiting for it was worse, watching the relentless rise and fall of the ocean, a swinging blade lowering in slow twelve hour turns.

What had changed his mind was the sudden clappering noise above him. It shook him from his stupor, stunned even Bee to silence. Both of them had stared in surprise at the seagull perched on Ashley sunburned chest, until Parker’s face broke and he lashed out with all his strength. The wrenching pressure the tentacle inflicted had been almost worth it to see the bird knocked clear in a drift of feathers, struggling to stay aloft as it set off down the beach.

The feeling of satisfaction hadn’t lasted. Not once he’d become aware of the clouds of seagulls to the northwest, and realised why they were still around.

The cigarette came up again.

Despite the early hour and their proximity to the churning waves, the air hung heavy and breathless. Parker could feel sweat prickling, oozing through the broiled surface of his skin. In another few hours, the heat would be monstrous. The sun would beat them down against the sand and hold them in place until sunset. Without water and shade, Parker doubted either one of them would make it that long. Least of all Bee. Sweet Bee with her soft, marzipan skin and her pale, golden locks, so like her mother—

His face worked. Parker swallowed what came up, chased it with another drag from the trembling cigarette. It was almost gone now. He picked up the other one, and shoved it between his lips, used the butt to puff the other alight before pitching it between the poles.

Sniffing, Parker hugged the knee of his free leg tighter, rose a little higher. The tentacle gave a warning. Just a little one. Beneath his right buttock was the book still wrapped in his shorts.

It was weird. For as long as he’d known Ashley, he’d judged her for her unfortunate reading choices. And yet, it was her incessant talk about horror stories that had given him the idea. Every monster, not matter how powerful, had to have a weakness. A chink in the armor. And sure, yesterday had been another scorcher, and it hadn’t made much of a difference. But what if— What if—

This, Parker thought, reaching past his knee to touch the cigarette against the grey knot tied around his leg.

The band twitched. Twisted. Squeezed. Parker clenched his teeth and bore down, his stare so intense it was as they made the smoke curl up from the tough grey band. It wasn’t covered in scales, as he’d assumed, but rather a stiff, grooved hide, beneath which, Parker felt loose flesh quiver.

Seconds passed, both creatures locked in a battle of wills, and when the restraint grew tight again, Parker’s jaw muscles bunched and he grunted, close to giving up and howling it out, when the knot unravelled. The sudden loss in pressure was so unexpected, it took Parker a beat to digest it.

And then he was on his knees, crawling. One hand clutched the bundle. In the other fist was the lighter. The cigarette was still between his fingers, a bent stovepipe, the top few inches stained black. There was another one tucked behind his ear. He’d meant to light it ahead of time, but this part of the plan had fallen apart before it even had a chance to start, because in the depths of his heart he’d never expected it to work. So when he reached Bee, red-faced and crying, his fingers trembled so bad he almost threw the cigarette when he removed it, almost snapped it in half when he shoved it between his lips. The lighter had a button, thank christ, not a wheel, but it still wouldn’t go; sand was packed into the hole.

Slapping it against his palm, the ground moved. A slow roll pushed up from the right, lifted Ashley’s a few stiff inches. When she fell back, a deep burp issued from her throat, and Parker let out a yammering cry, another one when the subterranean wiper passed underneath him. He was still fumbling with the lighter. The cavity was clear, although his hand shook so bad he couldn’t be sure. But still the thing wouldn’t give a spark. Sensing his rising panic, Bee wasn’t crying anymore. Sensing his rising panic, she’d gone into hysterical mode again. The strangled shrieks had turned her face beet red.

“I know, baby,” he heard himself mumble around the unlit cigarette. Click. “I know.” Click. “I know.” Click. His heart stopped, catching the faint lick of blue before the flamed winked out.

Again, again, his mind screamed. The next button press sprang to life a weak, fitful flame. It lit a quarter of the cigarette’s tip before it gave up the fight.

Parker began to puff.

The ridge of sand was returning, creeping back in their direction in a slow, inexorable wave. Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff. The cigarette was heating up, the paper sucking back against the packed tobacco in loose creases.

When he plucked it from his lip, the filter peeled a triangular piece of skin of his lip, the meat below the raw, glistening red of a grapefruit. The wound began to bleed as jabbed the cigarette against the tendril, not gentle this time, but insistent, all but crushing it out on the hateful creature’s hide.

Parker had prepared himself for another squirming, squeezing struggle, braced himself to hear Bee’s hysterical cries as the tentacle dug in. Already his hand was on her chubby upper arm, meant to provide a mild strain against the thing’s hold. But as he tugged, he found the band only resisted for a beat, the flesh beneath rippling… and then Bee slid free with an ease that sent Parker flat on his ass. A split second later, the rolling sand bumped him up as it rushed by. It clear another few feet before it faltered, changed its mind and doubled back.

By then, Parker was up on unsteady legs, Bee up on his hip and the bundle clutched to his chest. He stumbled forward. The sudden blood rush made him dizzy, dragged him to the right, up the beach, just as the tentacle made its pass. When it burst from the sand, it tore out from beneath Parker’s left foot. Light-headed and off-balance, he was driven sideways again, up a sudden rise, and almost went to one knee. If he had, he wouldn’t have found the nerve to try again. As it was he tripped and struggled his way through a handful of unhinged paces while the grey whip lashed the beach behind him, until he was able to course-correct and make for his intended refuge.

Only one way to deal with an enemy too strong and dangerous to confront out in the open.

You make for the tree line.

---

The chyrons formed a colonnade where life and death met. Drifts of dead and struggling sea life was tended to by skilful scavengers. Flies boiled around the crusted bones of the poles. The wood drank the sun rays, radiating a sickish heat that made the air too heavy. Bent over his work, Parker was surprised to find he still had enough moisture in his body to produce sweat; his skin was slick with it. Every now and then, a drop fell from his chin into the nest on the ground before him. Even Bee was too stunned to keep up her hysterical crying. Sitting on the ground with her legs curved in a pincer, she watched his labours in silence, her stare wide and dull. With every other breath she took, she swayed a little.

The poles had saved his effort, as he suspected they might. The tendrils moved sand and humans with ease, but Parker hadn’t seen it mess with the wood once, and when the woman in the black bathing suit had threatened to reach them, the creature had stopped her. Permanently. And yet, they had only received warnings whenever they tried to escape. Even— If she had only listened—

On the third day of their stay, they’d gone for a walk in the dunes to north of the village and come up on a sign detailing the construction of the gulf breakers. The chyrons were anchored deep into the earth, and a number of them had foundations made up of pebbles and mortar, capped with a curved shield of cobblestone. Like the one they were currently sitting on. While the sun dipped toward the horizon yesterday, Parker had watched the waves spray across the glistened humpback of stone, watched the vile birds gather along its length, and figured the reason it avoided the pole head was because its fortification presented a significant obstacle.

Still, when the ground between the poles had exploded with writhing tentacles, Parker thought he’d made a grave miscalculation. While he shrank back from them up the narrow alley, they’d begun to slap and rubbed the sand-covered stones, and Parker had stared in horror as one of the grey vines wound itself up the encrusted wood, its base widening as it slid up from the sand until it was as thick as a his thigh. But it hadn’t taken him long to notice there was an aimlessness about the effort. Most of the questing tendrils had kept to the same general area: the spot where Parker had stepped onto the stones. After a while, the squirming mass had retreated. The monstrous growth around the pole had bulged, the wood gave an alarming creak, after which it withdrew with palpable reluctance.

In hindsight, it was obvious.

The creature had to be able to detect motion, either through vibrations or some other, more subtle form of sensation. It was how it had been able to ensnare them in the first place. Parker thought it was the former, which also explained how it knew when it was time to move its victims down the beach. It could feel the heartbeat— or absence thereof. It meant the space between the pillars was one of relative safety. Once they set foot on either side, though, it would be another matter.

But he would have no choice.

For a while, he’d considered staying put. Judging from the lack of response, Parker surmised the beach wasn’t safe for the townspeople either. It was the 26th now. Worst case, it was another four days until the summer people started rolling in. The actual summer people. With some doing, Parker figured he could produce some food, and although the answer to the issue of hydration didn’t come as readily to him as it would’ve Ashley, desperation had a way of stimulating creativity. But even as he started to map it all out, he’d started to see why his action had sparked no reaction. It required none. In between the wooden stakes, the water crept up higher than it did along the beach. When the next tide rolled in, Parker would move on his own.

And things would get interesting.

Backhanding the sweat of his forehead, Parker looked up the length of the alley. The poles marched up the beach, terminating a scant ten yards from where the incline steepened towards the dunes. Parker wanted to believe their protection would last the entire way, but the poles sank deeper and deeper beneath the sand as they went. The last ten yards, only the tops cleared the beach. As for the stonework— Even where he crouched, it had been erased, tucked beneath the grey, pockmarked sheet left in the wake of high tide. Parker held out hope the curved shield buried somewhere beneath their feet would hold up. But he knew they would have to move beyond the poles at some point. Once they did, all bets would be off.

From the ribbon of sand snaking off between the double crooked fence, his gaze crept up, up, to the jutting jaw of the beach bar. Through a gap in the poles he could see the crowd still pressed close against the curved glass partition. Parker wasn’t sure if they could see him, hunkering down in the sweltering heat, and he didn’t think it mattered. Not yet, anyway.

His eyes remained on the still faces, unmoved by the horrors unfolding below them. He was past caring about the reason for it all, which was just as well, because with each rip of paper, he came closer to erasing what might’ve passed for an answer. Without looking down, another page shrank in between his closing fingers. Slow and deliberate, he crumpled it into a ball, while his pounding heartbeat shook his frame.

---

Before he hauled her up, Parker reached out and passed a hand across Bee’s face, the tip of his middle finger tracing her soft forehead, her nose and lips. It’s something he’d been doing for years, something he knew he’d lifted from a movie he couldn’t remember. What he did remember was there was love and deep affection in the gesture, as there was in his. Bee, his daughter, the half she carried worth more than the whole of him, and what he did now felt broken, too. Half prayer, half goodbye, and he wished the moment could be as it had been in the movie he couldn’t remember, a serene, prolonged sharing. But she was crying again, and the heat was enough to make his own head swim. There was no time. His quivering lips pressed a dry kiss to her forehead and he whispered he loved her, more than life itself. Then he sat back and produced the lighter. The flame sprang to life with laughable ease. Parker moved it to the bundle, now grown in size, and touched it to the crumpled paper poking through one of the fold in the shirt. Once smoke turned to flame, he tucked the cotton in place again. Parker sat and waited, even when the air above the shirt began to shimmer, blue-black tendrils wafting in his face. Only when the first orange tongue licked out did he lift Bee off the ground with his left arm, while holding the kindling torch of his right out as far as he could.

Parker didn’t wait before they reached the sand to start running. After tearing up the book, he’d spent some time warming up his muscles. It didn’t help much. Bee was heavy, an awkward bouncing weight upsetting his balance. Overcompensating, he struck off one of the poles on the other side, the crusted surface tearing flesh from his arm and ribcage. Parker clenched his teeth and pushed on, well aware of what he had tied around his hand. He’d used the shorts to wrap his fist, because he didn’t think it would burn. But the insulation of crumpled pages packed in between the shirt and it definitely would. It wouldn’t take long for the rising warmth to become nerve-melting torture.

They were halfway up the packed sand when he caught the first movement to his right. One of the tentacles pushed up, didn’t even manage to clear the soil before they bolted past. He didn’t care. Parker shot a look up to the beach bar, where he could see movement now. The crowd stirred, several of the faces turned away. Parker returned to the path in front of his feet. Poles crept past. Too slow. Every stride shuddered up his bones, made his teeth chatter.

Looking back down, he saw he was almost out of sure footing, the sand ahead untouched by the spring tides. The next glance up the ridge showed movement to the right of the building, figures rushing into the dunes, preparing to meet him.

The lack of chaos behind the glass told him they’d been expecting it. For his animal fear to freeze him in place or send him bolting up the easy road, the straight road, mistaking it for an exit instead of just another chute leading to the same slaughter, and his heart seized. Parker dug deep, feet chewing through sand, eyes fixed and burning, burning along with his right hand and then they reached it— not the hill, but the gap in the drunken teeth on the left. He didn’t even slow, only rolled Bee inward best he could as he ducked between the leaning bones, grunting as the sharp scabs tore more flesh off his shoulders. And then he stumbled from the safety of the chyrons and made for the soft incline down which they’d traveled onto the beach a lifetime ago, which had been his target all along.

Thirty yards, a straight shot across the churned, rolling landscape. But it would be more up in the dunes, where the path twisted and turned, and the loose soil would fight them every inch, ensuring there would be no shortcuts. Parker thought he had a fair chance of beating them to it.

Ashley would’ve laughed.

---

At the top of the incline, Parker paused and shifted Bee up on his arm. When he did, the muscles in his other flexed and he froze, a shudder working through him and out between his clenched teeth. The warped and blistered claw still smoked. He’d been right about the shorts: they hadn’t burned. They had melted. Fused with his flesh in searing, sooty red tears that had dribbled almost to his elbow.

But it had worked.

Parker took another hopping step, the purpled, poorly stuffed sausage of his right leg dragging along. And then another. His stooped shadow crept along beside him.

Where the sand fanned across the asphalt, a silent crowd watched his approach. Men and women. Even children, pressed in between the adults’ legs. A few were carried on arms, like Bee. Some faces were hard and lined and weathered, others were smooth and soft and open. But all carried the same shadow around the eyes, and all wore the same grave, unsmiling expression.

Beneath the blistering gaze of the sun, they waited.

After another three struggling steps, the crowd parted. Parker looked up to see a young woman. A lock of ash blonde hair had escaped her bun. It curved along her oval face, the fair skin rouged along the delicate nose and cheekbones. She had a mouth made for smiling and Parker thought the lines around it were new, and hard won.

Yes, I can see it, he thought, a beat before the woman held out her hands. In her eyes, a tide of remembered fear and the hard glint of reproach pushed and pulled, told him this outcome had been, not just hoped for, but expected.

His breath caught when the burden was lifted from him. The hand that was still a hand trembled in her wake, his mind desperate for some parting words. But Bee had fainted and the woman didn’t wait, stepped back through the curtain of crowd, which closed behind her. It didn’t matter. Bee wouldn’t remember. This day and all that had come before it would be washed away. This town and its people would be all she’d ever known. It would be her face pushing up against the glass next time, her voice joining the chant of the advancing crowd.

The sea provides. The sea provides. The sea provides.

As they dragged him back to the edge of the beach, Parker knew she wouldn’t question the soft rise and fall of the words, so like the sighing of the retreating ocean, because it would be the way things had always been, and always would be.

And she would live.

She would live.