Shadow on the Sand

Chapter II Doorway

Jerry Raymond, stripped down to swimming trunks, stared at the watercolor block and grunted with disgust. He sat crosslegged on a dune a hundred feet from the water’s edge. He had wanted to get the effect of the afternoon light on that lonesome strip of sand and brush with the deep green water beyond it.

But how was it possible to do anything right when Fran had been gone over three hours with that supposed friend, Quinn French?

He turned and stood up, peeling the spoiled, botched watercolor off the block, staring back up the coastline to where the lighthouse at Port Isabel was a tiny projection against the deepening blue of the late afternoon sky.

His wife, Fran, had claimed that there was shopping to do. Only after Jerry had indicated that he would stay behind had Quinn French remembered that he had some errands of his own. Three hours — more than enough time to drive into Harlingen.

He shook out the brush, picked up the cardboard box of tubes and the plastic pallet and walked slowly back to the house. It had been built long ago by a fisherman. The gray wood had writhed away from the rusted nails. Four rooms and modern inconveniences — but ample for Fran and himself.

When the company doctors had discovered that the infected skin rash had come from the new compound he had been working on, the company had authorized a six months’ leave of absence with pay. It could have been the best time of their lives, he thought dourly. Sun and sand and Fran and moonlight across the quiet Gulf water, protected by the outlying reef.

He had never been completely sure of Fran. She was too lovely and too alive to be sure of. Then Quinn French had shown up. “Surprise!” he had shouted.

Fran seemed glad to see him. And two became three. They could both out-swim him. Quinn French was built with enormous shoulders, honey tan slanting down across broad chest into flat belly and slim hips, then bulging out again into the convexity of thigh muscles and thick calves. His laugh was a deep boom.

Jerry Raymond was forced to admit that when he saw Fran and Quinn walking along the beach they made a spectacular couple. He wondered if Fran felt the same way. And Quinn, of course, would never have to work a day in his life. When they swam out, so far that he could barely see their heads, he knew that they swam too close together. He thought of Quinn touching her and hate made him feel faint.

Ever since the skin rash — and now it was almost gone — Fran had acted a bit odd. He had sensed the restraint in her, as though he had become something distasteful to her.

Fran and Quinn were too much together. And so Jerry had eagerly agreed when Quinn had tentatively suggested asking another guest down, a girl. She would arrive from New York within the week. Jerry had seen the glint of anger in Fran’s eyes when Quinn had suggested the fourth member of the party.

He stood and looked down the road, hoping to see the sun glint on the chrome of Quinn’s convertible. Why were they staying away so long?

Before marriage he had never minded being alone. But now whenever Fran was away from him he felt incomplete. They had said that after a year or so of marriage some of the spice was gone. But here it was, nearly three years. And still the thought of her mouth, sun-sheen on her misty black hair, round length of thigh, insolence of breast, made him feel faint and even ill when he dwelt on them too long. I’ll with the need for her. Ill because somehow she never quite ceased to be a stranger.

Where would they be? Side by side in the car? Or had they stopped? Had they driven down one of the sandy tracks to a secret part of the long coast? Could it be that, even as he thought of it, the two of them were... He made a small anguished sound and struck the outside wall of the house with his fist, then studied the reddened knuckles.

The yellow of the sun was taking on a reddish hue as it set behind the house. Sandpipers ran fast-legged in the gentle wash of the small waves. A gull chuckled harshly, balancing, pivoting to sweep down toward the troughs.

He went down to the sea and swam out fifty yards slowly, floating for a time on his back. Then he swam in, harder and faster, disappointment shrill in him as he saw that the convertible was not yet parked beside his five-year-old sedan. He stood naked under the outside shower, toweled himself, dressed carefully in gray slacks and a white nylon sports shirt. He combed his dark hair carefully and studied his thin nervous face in the mirror as though it were the face of a stranger.

He would get in the car and look for them.

He stepped out of the house. The sun made the shadow of the house long. It stretched almost to the water’s edge. There was an odd oblong projection from one edge of the shadow. It puzzled him. He went out and looked back at the house. There was nothing that would cause the irregularity.

He turned and looked at the shadow and the hair prickled on the back of his neck as he realized what was wrong with it. Instead of stretching itself flatly along the ground the way a proper shadow should, this one stood upright.

He shut his eyes hard and opened them again. Some trick of the light, some vagary of the setting sun.

Also, the color of the shadow wasn’t quite right. As an amateur artist, Jerry Raymond had studied color. Shadows are not black. They are deep browns and purples and blues and greens. But try as he might he could see no color in this upright oblong shadow. It stood roughly eight feet tall and half that width. The edges were geometrically clear, with no fuzziness whatever.

He smiled without humor. It was like some damnable doorway.

Quinn French’s big hands made the steering wheel look frail. The car skittered on the edge of control on the curves. He was conscious of the woman beside him and when he had a chance he glanced over at her, taking in that fraction of a second the new heavy-lidded look of her eyes, the complete relaxation of the way she sat, her hands loosely linked in her lap, her body slumped so that her head rested against the back of the seat.

“Too fast?” he asked.

“No, Quinn. We stayed away too long. Much too long.”

“Sorry?”

“Not really.”

“Letting the air out of the spare was a stroke of genius, kitten. Are all women devious?”

“I don’t know about all women. I only know about me.”

The road curved again and flattened out. In the distance, in the clear grey dusk, they saw the house, the roof at its familiar crazy angle.

“Okay, kitten,” he said. “We make merry and laugh like everything.”

He bleated a fast rhythm on the horn. Shave and a haircut. He slewed into the parking space and cut the motor. She gave him one quick warm smile before getting out.

“Jerry!” they called.

He blatted the horn again. “Jerry! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Jerry, darling!” she called.

He had left the house open. They walked a mile down the beach. No Jerry. They walked a half mile in the other direction and then it was too late to go farther. She had found the crumpled watercolor and had examined it critically.

“Not very good, eh?” he said.

“Never very good, dearest. Never. There’s something cramped and little about his soul. It comes out when he tries to do this sort of thing.”

It was full night. Still no Jerry. The night was cool and the driftwood burned in the hearth. He did not come back. She cooked quickly and with competence, and they ate. He helped her clean up. When by accident their shoulders touched in the small kitchen she leaned heavily against him for a moment, turning away as he reached for her.

She had him light the other lamps, even put a Coleman lantern outside where its hard brilliance made deep shadows across the sand.

“He didn’t drown,” she said, “unless he went in wearing his new slacks and shirt. And Jerry is a man who would drown neatly if at all.”

“It’s a lonesome country back of here. Maybe he got lost.”

“That doesn’t sound right either. I don’t understand it. If Jerry is anything he’s predictable. Everything according to plan and according to schedule. Ugh!”

“Poor darling,” he said softly.

She sat on the cot under the windows. He stood by the fire, his elbow on the mantel, the dead pipe in his hand. She looked at him. He slowly and carefully put the pipe on the mantel and looked at her. Slowly her head drooped as though it had become too heavy for her. He saw the swelling of her lips and he took a slow step toward her.

“No!” she said. “Not here. Please!”

But her head remained heavy and she kept looking at him. He took another step toward her.

Outside, the harsh radiance of the lantern was a dot of light on the long coast. The sea, strengthening, moved slowly against the sand. A log collapsed on the hearth and for a time the embers pulsed red.

Jerry was pulled along the corridor. He tried to set his heels. They slid on the opalescent floor. For the first few seconds there was the clear idea of being pulled along the beach and then that was lost.

“Hey!” he said. “Hey!”

A man pulled by his wrist can attempt to twist free. A man pushed from behind can attempt to turn away from the thrust. But he was being pulled along without being touched.

Jerry Raymond detested physical violence above all else. He treasured his dignity and his rights as a citizen. The wonder of there being this lighted corridor beyond the odd shadow was lost in the anger that he felt.

“Leave me go!” he squealed, reverting to childish spite. “Leave go!”

He tried to sit down. If he had managed it he would probably have drummed his heels on the floor and sucked his knuckles. But the pressure didn’t admit of any sitting. All he could do was set his feet and slide. The man walking ahead of him was naked except for an abbreviated, lemon-yellow kilt, pouched on either side with pockets that swung as though they contained items of considerable weight.

Jerry Raymond decided to catch up with that man and grab his shoulder and swing him around. He trotted forward and found that he could not exceed his predetermined pace.

“Let me out of here,” he bawled. “Hey!”

His voice was deadened by the corridor. Anger was slowly overlaid with dread. His teeth chattered and his arm-pits ran moisture and his legs trembled.

The interminable journey continued. “They’re going to kill me!” he screamed. That scream was directed at his personal gods, at the president of the chemical company in Gulf City, at the FBI, at Fran, at the Governor of the State and at his own mother who had been dead for over eleven years.

None of the parties so addressed heard the cry for help.

She leaped from deep sleep to full consciousness in one bound. Through the open doorway of the bedroom Fran Raymond saw Quinn French sprawled on the couch, heard the deep rhythm of his breathing. Even in her panic she found it possible to like the look of him.

But Jerry was not here. He had not returned. When she made certain of that fact she came back in and sat down, weak-kneed.

Quinn sat up and stretched. “He isn’t back, eh?”

“No. I’m frightened, Quinn.”

“And I’m starved. Come on, cookie. Start rattling pots and pans out there. And don’t look. I’m going to take a fast dip.”

They sat on opposite sides of the small table for breakfast. He lit two cigarettes when they had finished, handed one of them over to her.

“We’ve got to report it, Quinn. Maybe we should have reported it last night.”

“Honey, how many people have wandered by here since you and Jerry have been living here?”

“Why — no one!”

“Are you beginning to get the idea?”

“What are you trying to say, Quinn?”

He shrugged. “Jerry wandered off. Okay. Nobody knows when, do they? So why worry? You can run in for groceries every few days and work him into the conversation. Martha won’t get here for four days. Old Jerry wandered off the night before Martha arrived.”

She shivered. “No. We can’t do that, Quinn.”

“Okay. Fill the area up with cops.”

“But if he died or something and they find him they’ll know that he was gone longer than that.”

“There’s risks to everything pleasant, honeybun.”

“Quinn, I can’t—”

“Sorry, baby. I guessed wrong. I thought you had nerve.”

“Well — all right, Quinn. But if there’s trouble you’ll stand by me?”

“What did you expect?”

The horror of it was that nobody seemed to notice him. It was a table made of cool metal, so curved that his head and feet were lower than his middle. It gave him a vulnerable feeling. He could not forget the inhuman strength of the man who had placed him on the table, shoved his feet into the stirrups, his arms into the hinged tubes that now clamped them firmly from wrist to elbow.

Of course it was some kind of psychology they were using. The childish business of pretending to be too busy to pay any attention to him. After the bite of the needle in the side of his throat most of the discomfort went away. Of could he could not roll his head from side to side. He could not even control his breathing or swallow or make a sound.

He tried to think. It was a big room. He got that impression during those violent seconds when he had been placed on the table. The equipment was strange. He could see a little of it at his left. Hinged arms like the things dentists had, only too big, of course. More psychology. Make him think that they were going to cut him up.

It would all be over as soon as he explained that he had nothing to do with the top secret work at the chemical company. They could check easily.

He could hear them moving around. In a small mirror-like surface of one of the elbow joints almost above him he could see the fattened distorted image of his face — but nothing else.

He realized with shame that he had acted like a child when that — that force had pulled him through the upright into the glowing corridor. Well, who wouldn’t? Right on a stretch of deserted beach!

Jerry wished they’d hurry up and start the questions.

Almost as though in answer to his wish a hand reached across his face and pulled a piece of equipment forward so that it was over his face. It was a bowllike object lined with round objects like lenses. It was lowered carefully and centered. There was a sharp metallic click from the apparatus and then it was lifted and swung back out of the way.

He grinned inside his mind. “A thing like that isn’t going to bother me,” he thought.

They were talking to each other, several of them. He puzzled over the sounds. The language was thick with R and L sounds, with the vowels given a guttural coughing emphasis. Not Russian — he’d heard Russian — though it might be a Russian dialect. It sounded the way he thought Arabic must sound without ever having heard any.

They adjusted something on the head of the table, on either side of him, close to his ears. The sudden blue light dazzled him. He blinked, the only voluntary physical movement left to him. In the dim backwoods of his mind a child was playing on the wooden steps of a porch in Youngstown, Ohio.

The child’s impressions came to him and he realized with sudden shock that this child was himself. Yet he could not halt the progress of recall and it was almost total recall, bringing back even such details as the bars of the crib, the flaw in the windowpane, the soiled pink rabbit with the ear missing.

They were touching his head. He looked up and saw his image in the polished elbow. No, it was some sort of trick. They couldn’t do that! They couldn’t cut back that great flap of scalp while he was conscious. Then he felt the tiny teeth and saw the great circle of bone cut free, saw it pulled gently away, baring the moist greyness.

Silently he screamed and screamed.

The ovoid black mass, jellyfish slick, was fastened over the naked brain and the silver wire ran through it, winding slowly on the spindle. The fat black little machine chirped and clucked and clattered and memory went on despite his every effort to turn his mind to other things.

Panic was a thing that ran with frightened pattering feet around and around the walls of his mind. He could neither see nor feel the others who, with quick skill, flayed him quite completely, fitted his body into a rubber-like sack, tight around the throat, filled with warm circulating saline solution.

They did the head last and by that time Jerry Raymond was beyond focusing on his reflection in the mirrored surface above him. All he knew was that suddenly it was impossible for him to close his eyes.

The pump tubes were inserted in nostrils and the mouth was sealed. They removed the rubberized sack and placed him in one of the deep vats that lined the far end of the room. The liquid was dark and settled unknowing to the bottom. The shining wire emerged endlessly from the surface of the dark fluid and the pump tubes pulsed in the cadence of breathing where they entered the fluid.

Down in the unknown wetness the soul of Jerry Raymond screamed while he remembered and remembered and remembered, hearing no longer the busy chirping and clucking of the thing that sucked at his brain.

The technician pressure-hosed the skin, dried it under warm air and walked out with it over his arm. It looked like a Halloween suit that had been made a bit too cleverly.