The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

Beach Head by Daniel LeMoal

"Are you still alive over there?"

Alvy's voice sounded weak, but it retained the bong-huffing tonality that had been his hallmark since he hit puberty. It grated at me almost as badly as the grains of sand coating my teeth. In my darkness, I could hear the sound of approaching water.

"C'mon Jim," he continued. "If you can't talk, just open your eyes for me."

I opened my eyes, and was immediately blinded by daylight. When my vision adjusted, I found myself staring at a stretch of deserted beach. The seemingly decapitated heads of Alvy and Mikey Burdy lay before me, propped up in the sand.

"What the fuck?" I croaked, as both of my crewmates blinked tiredly at me.

"It's about time you woke up," Alvy said. "We've been deep-sixed."

The ocean wind picked up suddenly, blowing more sand in my face. When I tried to raise my hands to shield my eyes, I found myself unable to move. I finally realized that my arms and legs were frozen in place, packed in sand that felt as heavy as concrete. Of course, I panicked.

"Save your energy," Alvy said, after watching me struggle for a while. "They probably tied your hands too."

"Don't fucking tell me," I groaned, feeling a sickness rising in my stomach. "Don't tell me it was Rody."

"The good news is that they buried us too far from the water," Alvy said. "The tide already came and went-fucking idiots."

The "they" that Alvy was referring to was likely our former trawler crew. For the better part of three years, we'd been running drugs, guns and assorted unmarked parcels for Colin Rody. It paid well, but Rody was taking the lion's share with little contribution on his part. I was sick of it, and Alvy was too.

We'd purchased our own cigarette boat less than four months prior, and had only used it for two freelance runs up the coast. Just a bit of cash on the side, while we kept up appearances with Rody. Neither run was a major haul, but someone obviously tipped him off.

My first suspect would have been Mikey Burdy. He was Rody's chief enforcer, a vicious prick who kept people looking the other way. He also policed the crew, in case anyone got too greedy or turned Fed. But there was only one problem with that theory: Burdy was buried up to his neck less than five feet away from me.

"Mikey," I began, choosing my words carefully. "Do you have any idea what this is all about?"

"Quite a few," Mikey said, pausing to spit sand out of his mouth. "You two are either feeding the cops… or you decided to become greedy fuckers. All the same to me. You're as good as dead."

"Fuck you, Mikey!" Alvy snapped. "Then what are you doing here, huh? Please tell us."

"Rody's made a major mistake," Mikey fumed, closing his eyes to another gust of wind. "He may as well have cut off his right hand."

"Well, it looks like you weren't all that indispensable," Alvy said.

I felt an overwhelming urge to laugh. Given our circumstances, Alvy and Mikey's tough posturing seemed ridiculous. They looked like a pair of obscene lawn ornaments.

"Let it go, Alvy," I interrupted. "Let's concentrate on getting out of here."

"We're not getting out on our own," Alvy said, looking more downcast. "I don't know about you, but I can't even feel my arms and legs anymore."

There were still sharp pains in my arms, but my legs could have been miles away. A friend of mine had once lain on his arm for an entire day in a heroin-induced stupor-he lost use of the limb entirely. Taking the moral of that story to heart, I made a mental note to try and flex my arm and leg muscles at regular intervals.

"Do you know where we are?" I said, scanning as much of the shoreline as I could. My forced line of sight only let me look in one direction down the beach; the other half of the shore lay hidden behind my head. The beach curved sharply towards the ocean, ending in a rocky point about a mile ahead; further inland, the white sand gave way to rocks, scrub brush and a wall of tall grass. "Were either of you awake when they dumped us here?"

"Nope. They must have put us under with something heavy-duty," Alvy said; he was buried facing me, enabling him to view the other half of the shoreline. Mikey was buried slightly further inland, facing the ocean. "The sand doesn't look anything like the mainland-too fine. Could be one of the Carrier Islands, maybe… "

"Wherever it is, it's off the main drags," Mikey Burdy said, barely audible over the waves. "I've been watching the water since I woke up, and I haven't seen one boat."

I tried to recall my last waking memory. Alvy, Mikey, Thornton, Swayne and I were readying Rody's trawler-the

Angelcake-for a midnight run up the coast. The cargo was a few boxes of pills, nothing huge. So when Rody showed up right before our launch, I was immediately suspicious. But with Mikey and Thornton on board for "security," there was no chance of an easy exit.

I tried to stay on my toes during the run, but got distracted when Alvy came out of the hold with a large hypodermic needle sticking out of his neck. Before I could even react, Thornton's fist hit me in the temple. I was out before I hit the deck.

As the sun climbed in the sky, we kept quiet. I was beyond thirsty, and didn't want to waste a breath until I saw a boat. Then I would scream louder than ever.

For a few hours, Alvy occasionally hollered, hoping to catch the attention of someone further inland. Every time he shouted, the entire situation seemed increasingly hopeless. With the roar of the water and the high wind, we were quickly out of earshot. Someone would have to trip over our heads to actually find us.

Meanwhile, Mikey appeared to be resting his eyes, or asleep. He was another worry. A shark's head is still capable of biting you, even after it's severed from the body; I half expected Mikey's ugly lid to roll across the sand and tear into me with its teeth. If Mikey found a way out before we did, Alvy and I were both in trouble.

And then there was another part of me that was actually afraid of being found-afraid of seeing Rody, Thornton and Swayne walking across that beach, ready to finish the job.

There was no point in getting emotional about it: we were fucked.

The sun had reached its full height, heating the sand to a torturous temperature. I felt the skin on my nose and forehead slowly burn, and tasted nothing but sand on my tongue. Several death scenarios ran through my head: dehydration; blood clots; exposure during the night; or perhaps a drowning death after all, at the peak of a mid-summer storm.

"Jim," Alvy finally said, as he surveyed his half of the beach. "I don't believe it… HERE! OVER HERE!"

Mikey Burdy broke from his sleep, his eyes widening immediately. Although I couldn't see what had grabbed their attention, I saw hope in their eyes.

"Alvy," I said. "Someone's there?"

"Yes, yes… walking up the beach… HEY! HEY!"

Mikey Burdy and I both joined in with Alvy, screaming our lungs out with joy.

"It's okay," Alvy said. "He's coming, He's seen us."

At last, a long shadow drifted over the sand, covering my head in its cooling shade.

"My God, buddy, you have no idea how glad we are to see you," Alvy said, close to tears.

To my surprise, our rescuer stepped right over my head-a hairless set of legs in worn-out running shoes. It turned out that our stranger was no more than a boy, probably not even a teenager yet. His skin was baked brown from the sun, partially covered by a red bathing suit and a ratty old t-shirt. A mop of tangled brown hair obscured the top third of his face.

"Can you dig us out, little man?" I asked the boy. "Someone's played a nasty joke and left us out here."

"Dig me out first," Mikey suddenly jumped in. "My friends have sun stroke. I can help you dig faster."

"Don't listen to him kid-he's delirious," I snapped back. "Why don't you get one of us out? He needs medical attention."

"Christ you guys, be quiet," Alvy intervened, before trying a different tack. "My name's Alvy Fullerton. This is Jim Leach and Mike Burdy. What's your name?"

The boy didn't answer. Instead, he hovered over Alvy, staring down at him intently.

"Maybe he's French or something," I said.

"Kid, please, listen to me," Alvy said, ready to break down after an uncomfortable minute of silence. "We're close to dying here… dig us out."

The boy knelt in front of Alvy and picked up a handful of sand. Opening his fingers wide, he let the grains blow away in the ocean wind. Mikey Burdy had reached his limit.

"Are you fucking retarded?" he yelled, gnashing his teeth. "Stop fucking around and get me out of here. Now!"

The boy stood again, this time towering over Mikey's head. If the kid was scared or angry, I certainly couldn't tell. He was tough to read.

"I know you understand me, so I'll say this once," Mikey said, narrowing his eyes. "Use your hands, grab a stick or something. I don't care. Just know that if you don't start digging, I'm going to find you when I get out. I'll kill your family, and then I'll kill you. Very slowly."

Alvy and I were both dumbstruck by Mikey's stupidity. The boy casually walked away from us, disappearing in the tall grass behind the beach.

"Mikey, you fucking idiot!" Alvy shrieked, with an anger I'd never seen before. "If you've scared that kid off… HEY! COME BACK! WE'VE GOT MONEY… HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!!!"

While Mikey boiled in his own blood, Alvy and I desperately scanned the scrub brush, searching for the boy. We continued to call out for help, hoping to coax the boy back to us, but to no avail. Alvy lost it.

"I don't blame him for taking off," he cried. "He's probably never seen such a bunch of rat-fucking-scumbags in his whole life."

"Alvy, relax," I said. Further down the beach, I could see the boy, emerging from the brush. "He's coming back. It looks like he's carrying something."

"It'd better be a shovel or a shovel-shaped stick," Mikey exploded. "Or I'll snap that kid's neck right on this fucking beach."

"No, no… it looks like… golf clubs."

Mikey was still breathing, but in shallow gasps that were becoming less frequent. His head was an island, surrounded by a shallow pool of his own blood. Every once in a while, he would let another one of his teeth dribble down his misshapen jaw.

"Is he still here?" Alvy blurted, twisting his head several times in either direction. He seemed to be in deep shock, even though the boy hadn't laid a finger on either of us.

I hated Mikey Burdy. I'd seen him kill close to a dozen people, and had spent the last few months worrying that I would be next. But Alvy and I had both begged for Mikey's life, while a twelve-year-old kid beat his head to a living pulp. Through the entire ordeal, not a glimmer of emotion crossed the boy's face. When the deed was finished, he tossed the rusty clubs into the ocean and slid back into the cover of the tall grass.

"I think he's gone away for a while," I whispered, as the sun disappeared from view. Mikey Burdy wasn't breathing anymore.

Whereas the sun was unbearably hot during the day, night on the beach was a hundred times worse. A deep chill entered every cell of my body, even before the wind grew stronger. I was so drained that I could have closed my eyes and never woken up. But Alvy and I both kept our eyes open, waiting for Mikey's young killer to return.

Hours passed without incident. It appeared more and more likely that the beach would take us after all.

"I have to shut my eyes, Jim," Alvy said, speaking for the first time in hours. "I just can't stay awake anymore."

"Go on then-I'll let you know if I see him," I said. Over the water, a full moon lit up a cloudless sky. A perfect evening for a midnight sail.

I stared at Alvy as he fell immediately into a deep sleep. I can't say I ever felt guilty very much in my life. But there it was, adding to every miserable second.

" You're smart boys," my dad told Alvy and me once. "But you're rotten to the core. You can have all the brains in the world-but if you don't got a heart, you may as well be stupid."

My dad was only half right. Alvy was a good person. His only mistake was following me around for most of his life. I'd finally gone and pulled him into the toilet with me. All we had left to do was to wait for someone to flush.

"I'm sorry, Alvy," I said, as loud as I could manage. If Alvy heard me, he didn't answer back.

In what may have been several hours later, I woke to the thud of footsteps in the sand. All I could do was to react in the same way I would to a noise under my bed: I kept my eyes closed and tried to pass off the sound as imagination. Then I felt a wet towel engulf my face.

"Nooo!" I yelped, snapping my head backward. I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the face of a wide-eyed, runny-nosed little girl. She was wrapped in several beach towels, probably to insulate against the wind. My reaction had startled her.

"Don't go away… please," I rasped, as she took several steps back. "I need help."

My dehydrated voice cut out completely after that. I tried to speak, but no sound would come. To my relief, the girl came back to me. After all, I was only a foot tall and hardly much of a threat.

I watched the girl as she fumbled inside a small plastic cooler; she was probably only seven or so. A dark bob of hair topped her dirt-smeared face, while her legs were covered in scabs-the typical battle scars of summer.

The girl cleaned away the dried blood from my face with the damp towel before bottle-feeding me with a can of warm orange soda. As I guzzled the soda, I noticed she had already covered Mikey's head with a beach bag.

Once I had completely drained the can, I pointed towards Alvy with my lips: "Could you see if my friend's all right? You'll have to dig him out first-he's really sick."

The girl was padding toward Alvy when a noise distracted her; it had come from further down the beach. In the moon's luminescence, I saw a familiar tangle of hair and gangly legs. She saw him too. Her sarong of beach towels dropped to the sand. The boy had started to run.

"Get out of here," I barked at the girl. "Run and get help. Now!"

The girl didn't need to be told twice. She sped off towards the cover of the brush, kicking sand as she ran. Within seconds, the boy ran past me as well, silent except for a few measured breaths.

"Keep your fucking hands off her," I screamed. "I'm back here! I'm right here, you sick little fuck!"

But neither the boy nor the girl came back. I raged and struggled in my shallow grave, still unable to break free.

The next time I woke up, I felt the heat of sunlight on my face. But the sun was screaming.

I opened my eyes and was nearly blinded by a bright ball of fire. It was as though the sun had dropped from the sky and landed on the beach in front of me. But it was night-and the screams were coming from Alvy. His head was rocking back and forth in a blanket of flames, his skin already blistered, black and hissing. A short distance behind Alvy, I saw the boy, illuminated by the fire. A small jerry can dangled from his fingers.

"No!" I tried to scream, but all that came out was a dry whisper. My lips continued moving in a silent, incoherent fit of obscenities.

As Alvy slowly died, I was overcome by the smoke and the stench of burning flesh. The boy stood and watched for some time. In the flickering light, I could detect his faint look of boredom-before that hateful face disappeared in a wall of black smoke.

I wasn't sure how long I had passed out for-but when I awoke, the first signs of dawn were in the sky. I realized that I was facing heavenward; half of the sand had been pulled away from my living grave-and my hands were untied. To my right lay the girl, exhausted and clutching the hull of a broken toy boat.

As soon as she noticed that I was awake, the girl ran out of the small crater. In seconds, she returned with her tiny cooler, crammed full of juice cans and battered sandwiches. I wasn't able to eat the food, but swallowed the drinks she offered me. After a third can of pineapple juice, most of what I had drank came right back up again.

Despite the desperate look on the girl's face, we had to wait. She was in for a disappointment if she was expecting me to finish the digging. I was incredibly weak, and barely able to push the sand away from my legs.

Using the toy as a makeshift shovel, the girl resumed digging until I was free. Then all I could do was fumble on the sand, trying to coax the feeling back into my limbs. If our twelve-year-old sadist decided to return, I wouldn't have been able to defend either of us.

I tried to drink and eat a little more, as the girl and I stared out at the ocean. The sky above was overcast, but it glowed with a sickly yellow hue. Storm weather.

"Can you talk?" I eventually asked her. "Did he hurt you?"

I knew absolutely nothing about children. The girl could have been in shock or was simply unable to speak at all. The waves started to pick up, and she became agitated again, scanning the beach and the higher ground. When we finally locked eyes, I understood her immediately.

Let's move.

Before we left the burial site, I armed myself with the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle and covered Alvy's head with a towel.

"I'll be back, Alvy," I told my oldest friend. "I won't leave you out here."

Even though I was exhausted, I felt almost high. Minutes earlier, death had seemed to be just around the corner. Now I had a fighting chance. I would have to go into hiding, without a doubt-Rody had connections far and wide; and he wouldn't take kindly to me showing up alive somewhere.

Rather than risk being spotted on the beach, we walked under the cover of the tall grass, sticking to a well-worn path that snaked through the foliage. I let the girl lead, trying to keep up as best as I could. I was hesitant-and worried about being surprised along the trail.

Although the girl looked underfed, she had surprising energy, often running up the trail to make sure the coast was clear. When I lagged too far behind, she would run back to me and grab a firm hold of my index finger, pulling me up to speed.

At one point, while the girl was far ahead of me, the brush became more tangled. I ended up veering off the path, taking an artery from the main trail. Before I knew it, I was back on the beach. The unmistakable hum of countless flies filled the air. Closer to the water, there were three dark mounds, each obscured by a thick cloud of insects.

I only recognized one of the corpses; all of them were buried neck deep, in a far-too-familiar manner. Rody was immediately identifiable by his tattoo-an octopus on his neck. A bow saw was imbedded in the middle of his head-as though someone had given up halfway through the grisly task. The other bodies, I assumed, were Swayne and Thornton. Blood was everywhere, and I was immediately sick.

But I didn't say anything until I saw the wreck of the

Angelcake. The main fragment of the ship was imbedded bow-first in the sand, like a jet that had taken a nosedive. Smaller pieces of the wreck were strewn across the beach-including our illicit cargo; red and white pills dotted the sand everywhere I looked.

Whatever had happened to us, Rody wasn't behind it. And I was getting the feeling that the competition wasn't involved either. There was no decent explanation for any of it.

"This isn't real," I told myself . But then I felt that small hand grabbing my pant leg; the girl's wide eyes pleaded to me once again, urging me to move onward.

Back in the cover of the brush, we followed the trail up a steep incline. The grass and bushes started to give way to rocky terrain, with boulders the size of automobiles. Out of breath, I stopped and turned for a look back. From the higher vantage point, I saw that the "coast" was actually either the tail end of a narrow island, or perhaps a long strip of peninsula. The grassy ridge ran like a spine down the landmass, dividing two strips of beach. I had been a sailor for eight years along the East Coast, and none of this looked remotely familiar.

The girl's progress slowed considerably as she crept around the larger stones. The wind was stronger here, whirling between the boulders. As we came to the last cropping of rocks, I heard distant wailing; at first, I thought it was gulls. The girl immediately crouched down in a crevice of rock, motioning me to follow suit. The sound, on second thought, was too low-pitched to be birds.

"What is that?" I asked her, dropping to my knees. The girl put a filthy hand to my mouth; she was shaking, and wouldn't move an inch further. She pointed towards the opening at the end of the crevice. I crawled forward on my hands and knees, still unsure of what I was hiding from.

From this new vantage point, I could finally determine that we were on an island. The landscape declined sharply towards a rock-littered beach, much rougher terrain than where I had been imprisoned with Alvy and Mikey. The wailing had become much louder.

I looked more intently and realized I was staring at a crop of hundreds of human heads. It was the hair that confirmed everything; some of the people had longer locks that whipped in the ocean wind. Many of the prisoners kept their mouths open, in a constant wail; the others were either sleeping or dead.

"God," I exhaled, overwhelmed by the sight before me. Then I saw the boy.

He was at the edge of the island, walking between the rows of heads. His hands grasped a broken oar, which he used to absent-mindedly whack across the odd person who was in his path. Behind him, the waves were starting to roll in with greater force, submerging some of the screaming faces.

I climbed to my feet and balled my fingers into two weak fists. Immediately, the girl grabbed my arms and pulled me back into hiding. Far down along the shoreline, the boy had taken to the air.

At first, he floated several feet above the sand, discarding the broken oar and stretching his arms outward. As he climbed higher into the sky, seemingly invulnerable to the wind, the prisoners' moans grew louder. The waves became increasingly violent, and more of the prisoners disappeared underwater.

The boy was far above us now, as though touching the clouds; but he didn't appear to have noticed us. Instead, he cast his eyes out to the ocean. There, almost lost in the rolling waves, was a fishing boat that was only slightly larger than the

Angelcake. It bobbed and spiraled in the water, drifting closer to a jag of half-submerged rock.

"I can't look," I told the girl, but found myself unable to turn away. The boat's erratic course made it appear as though the entire crew were asleep-perhaps as the crew of the

Angelcake had been. Even if anyone on board had seen the rocks, they weren't able to stop the sickening collision that followed.

The boy had waited for the moment like a bird of prey. He rapidly descended to the surface of the water, where he retrieved a limp body in each hand.

Meanwhile, the storm was fading almost as fast as it had begun. As the waves subsided, the wreckage of several different boats rose to the water's surface. Amidst waterlogged boards, clothing and luggage, I saw the intact spine of an overturned lifeboat.

There wasn't much time. As the boy flew out for a second batch of victims, I scrambled down the rocky decline, pulling the girl's arm so hard that I thought it would come off in my hand. Thankfully, she followed without much protest, dragging her plastic cooler by its broken handle. I heard many voices as we ran across the beach. Some begged, some threatened, some wailed in defeat. I ignored them all.

With a minor struggle, I managed to upright the overturned lifeboat. Further down the beach, the boy had already accumulated a considerable pile of human beings. Some of the fishermen crawled weakly across the sand. The window of opportunity was closing.

I lost the girl for a moment; she was crouched beside the head of an elderly woman, who was miraculously still alive. The girl was digging madly with her bare hands. She may have been small, but that girl put up quite a struggle when I pulled her towards the lifeboat. I purposely avoided all eye contact with the old woman. The guilt nearly came back for a moment-but like so many other times in my life, I turned it off in seconds. Just like flicking a switch.

"There's no time, kid," I told the girl, who still flailed as I flipped her into the lifeboat with her cooler. "I'm sorry."

I pushed the boat until the water nearly reached my waist. As I pulled myself on board, I cast another glance down the beach. One of the fishermen was fighting back. After a brief struggle, the boy took to the air once again, grasping the fisherman by his neck.

"Row," I told the girl, as I removed one of the small oars from its clips and handed it to her. The boy was almost lost in the clouds before he dropped the fisherman to his death. I turned away before the body hit the beach and began to row as best as I could. The water was glass now, a photograph of a dead ocean. The effect was broken slightly by the wrecks accumulated along the rocks-several more fishing boats, and the barely submerged husk of a sizable yacht. Maybe the girl recognized one of the boats as her own.

I paused briefly to properly mount both oars, and then took over the rowing entirely. I never took my eyes off the boy after that. He likely saw us as well-but I think he had greater atrocities to commit that day. Even after the island disappeared from view, he still burned brightly in my mind.

We've been at sea for over a day now, moving where the current takes us. Micheline spoke this morning-long enough to tell me her name and pass along one other bit of information: "I'm hungry."

I wish I could help her there. We should have taken more food. The little bit we did bring with us may have to last quite a while.

Neither of us has spoken since then; we should conserve every ounce of energy. So instead, I think about the beach, and try to decide what exactly I saw floating miles above the sand. But I won't get too philosophical about it. Angels, devils, police, criminals, they all have it in for me.

But they're going to have to wait.