Fangtooth (4 page)

Chapter 8

Shazam barked eagerly as she ran along
the beach for the driftwood Bruce had thrown for her. He watched as she splashed
into the surf, snapping at the small waves that broke against her legs.

A warm day; there was already a heat
haze on the horizon and Bruce had built up a sweat with the three-mile jog he’d
undertaken after breakfast.

Jack had still been in bed when he
left–probably still annoyed at moving out here. With the house being in such a
state, Bruce had erected camp beds for them to sleep on until they were sorted
out. Jack had complained as usual.

A couple of kids were making sandcastles
at the water’s edge while their parents lay on beach towels. Bruce was
surprised how quiet the village was considering it had such a wonderful little
beach, but he supposed most people opted for the new resort further along the
coast, where the kids could be more easily appeased with arcades and amusement
parks.

From where he was, he had a good view of
the harbour and the houses clinging to the hillside beyond it. There were a
couple of small dinghies setting sail, and a couple of trawlers moored up. The
tide was out, which literally grounded the big boats. Bruce couldn’t imagine
being controlled by the tides of the sea.

A dog howled somewhere in the village
and the sound carried across the bay. Shazam cocked her ears and barked in
response and the dog howled twice more then fell silent. Bruce remembered
reading somewhere that if a dog howls three times; it signified someone was
going to die. He guessed the thing with superstitions was they had to have had
some basis in fact somewhere.

When he reached the end of the beach,
Bruce walked onto the path at the side of the road. The sand to his right had
given way to rocks, and now the tide was out, numerous rock pools remained.

Recalling Jack’s comment about the
house, he headed for the bar to ask Duncan about its history.

When he reached the harbour, he spied
the woman Jack had given the light to in the bar. His heart did a little
flutter at the sight of her, which made him feel guilty. Not that Veronica
would have wanted him to become a recluse; she had made that perfectly clear on
her deathbed. It had been eight months, but he felt almost as though he was
being unfaithful. He realised he was unconsciously revolving the wedding band
around his finger so he released it.

The woman was talking to a man on one of
the trawlers. She laughed, and the sound carried across the harbour. Bruce felt
his cheeks flush with colour and he clenched his fists.

This is stupid. I don’t even know her
,
he thought.

Ordering Shazam to heel, he walked
around the harbour. It wouldn’t hurt to say hello.

When they drew close to the woman,
Shazam barked.

The man on the boat and the woman both
turned.

“Hello again,” the woman said, smiling.

“Hi,” Bruce said, looking from the woman
down to the man.

The man on the boat nodded and continued
unravelling the nets, stringing them across the deck like a web.

Shazam growled from the back of her
throat. “Shush,” Bruce said. “I don’t know what’s got into her.” He shrugged
apologetically. “Away. Go and lie over there if you can’t behave.” He pointed
to a spot by the harbour wall about twenty feet away. Shazam whined softly and
then licked Bruce’s hand. “You won’t get around me like that.” Tail between her
legs, Shazam walked away. “Lie down,” Bruce said. Shazam obediently dropped to
the ground, resting her head on her front paws, ears pricked as she watched her
master.

The man on the boat looked at Shazam and
chewed his gums. “Perhaps she doesn’t like the smell of fish.”

Bruce nodded. “Yes, that’s probably it.”

“What’s the dog’s name?” the woman
asked.

“Shazam.”

“Strange name.”

“Long story.”

“Perhaps you’ll tell it to me sometime.”

Bruce blushed again. He hoped she
thought it was only the heat. “Yes, I’d like that.”

“I didn’t introduce myself the other
day. My name’s Erin McVey.”

Bruce shook her hand. “Bruce Holden.”

He looked down at the man on the boat,
noticed what appeared to be a look of green-eyed rage that disappeared almost
immediately.

“Trent Zander.” He nodded curtly and
returned his attention to his nets.

“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Bruce
asked.

Erin laughed softly. “No, Captain Zander
here was trying to convince me to go for a drink with him, that’s all.”

Bruce felt another flush of jealousy.
Zander looked up, his blue eyes unreadable. Toughened by the elements, his skin
looked like leather, and his stubbled chin and angular jaw gave him a rugged
appearance. He reminded Bruce of a young Clint Eastwood, so he wouldn’t be
surprised if Erin accepted and went out with him.

“You on holiday?” Zander asked.

Bruce wondered whether he should post an
ad in the local paper. “I’ve just moved here.”

“Was that your son you were with
yesterday?” Erin asked.

Bruce nodded.

“And Mrs. Holden?” Zander interrupted.

Bruce swallowed. He still felt raw
having to explain. “She’s dead.”

He noticed Erin glance at the wedding
band on his finger. Women always noticed these things.

When neither Zander nor Erin apologized
or asked further questions, Bruce found himself explaining anyway.

“She died of cancer eight months ago.
Since then, it’s just been Jack and me.” He looked at Erin and smiled sheepishly
as though apologizing. He noticed Zander staring up at him venomously “What
about you two? Do you live around here?”

Erin reached into the pocket of her
baggy grey pants and withdrew a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, which she
held up for inspection. “I came prepared today,” she said as she lit a
cigarette. She exhaled slowly. “I’m a marine biologist employed by a deep sea
mining company to ascertain the ecological implications of their drilling, so
I’m just a visitor.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows. He was
impressed, but it made his fear of the sea seem childish.

Zander paused
mending his nets. “If I had my way she’d move here permanently. The village
could always do with more pretty girls.” He shot Bruce a glance and then winked
at Erin.

Clive Dunn wiped
sweat from his brow. It was damned hot today.

He pulled his sunglasses down from his
forehead to shield his eyes and sat up on the beach towel. Sweat trickled down
his chest, navigating a course through the sand that had stuck to the suntan
lotion.

“You two be careful,” he shouted to Ben
and Jane as they splashed at the water’s edge. Kids! They seemed to have no
fear.

“Now that you’ve woken up, would you rub
some oil on my back?” his wife Gaynor asked.

“What makes you think I was asleep?”

“Because you don’t usually snore when
you’re awake.”

“You got me there.” He leaned across and
picked up the bottle of oil. He opened it and squirted a liberal amount onto
his palm. Gaynor held her blonde ponytail out of the way to allow him to rub
the oil onto her back.

“You could have wiped your hands,” she
said. “It feels as though you’re rubbing me with sandpaper.”

When he looked down, he noticed the
sensual act of applying the oil had given him an erection, and he was glad the
kids were too far away to see. He ran his hands over the thin string holding
the blue bikini together; knew it would be a cinch to undo the bow before
Gaynor could complain. Testing his luck, he circled his hands to the edges of
her back, and then quickly slid them forwards and underneath the cups of the
bikini and squeezed her breasts.

Gaynor let out a little squeal, turned,
and playfully slapped him on the arm.

“The kids might see,” she said as she
readjusted her top. Then she noticed his erection and she gave him a quick
kiss. “What do they say, only mad dogs, Englishmen and horny middle-aged men go
out in the midday sun?”

He winked.

Clive leaned back on his elbows. Since
the new resort had opened, the village of Mulberry had dropped off people’s
radar. Having holidayed here for a number of years, he remembered when you
couldn’t move on the beach. Now it was deserted. Life didn’t get much better.

The sun was at his back and the shadows
of the cliffs to his right were thrown across the sand and into the sea like a
fisherman’s net. In the distance, he could see a tanker moving slowly towards
the horizon. As a kid, he’d always dreamed of sailing around the world,
visiting exotic locales. The dream persisted until he left school, but then he
met Gaynor and the dream was put on hold. He settled down, got a job in the
local branch of a chain of supermarkets, worked his way up and was now the
youngest manager in the company.

Occasionally the wanderlust returned,
only now it was going to have to wait until the kids had grown up and left
home–which would be at least another eleven years. But as he’d waited this
long, he could wait a while longer.

“So what do you want to do tonight?”
Gaynor asked as she lay back down.

“Do you really need to ask?”

“Well, that takes care of three minutes,
but what about the rest of the evening?”

“Very funny. I’ll have you know I’m a
sexual athlete.”

“More like a sexual deviant.” She
chuckled.

Clive grinned. “We could take a drive to
that restaurant we went to the other year. The one a few miles along the
coast.”

Gaynor frowned.

“You know, the one where we had sex in
the parking lot before the kids were born.”

“Oh, you mean the one that we hadn’t
noticed had security cameras.”

Although he was wearing sunglasses, he
couldn’t help noticing his wife blush.

“As long as they don’t remember us,” she
continued. “Probably have our pictures on the wall of shame.”

“Great.”

“Or perhaps the film made its way onto
the internet. Look what happened to Paris Hilton and those other celebrity
tapes.”

“We’re not celebrities.”

“Perhaps we are now.” She laughed, then
pulled a T-shirt over her face. “Anyway, it’s your turn to watch the kids while
I snooze.”

He looked up and saw Ben and Jane were
building a sandcastle, letting the incoming sea fill the moat they had dug
around it. Satisfied they were okay, he picked up his Richard Laymon novel and
began to read.

After fifteen minutes, the words started
to blur as sweat rolled into his eyes, stinging. He reached across and grabbed
a towel from the top of the bag Gaynor had packed. After wiping his eyes, he
took out the bottle of water. He unscrewed the top and took a sip. It was warm.
He was going to have to invest in one of those cooler packs. He would kill for
an ice cream right now. Then he remembered they sold them in the village shop.

Deciding to take the kids for a walk
while Gaynor slept, he looked towards where the kids were playing and saw Jane
was on her own. He quickly scanned the beach, but couldn’t see Ben.

Panic flooded his body; felt like a cold
icicle piercing his heart and flooding his veins with ice. He jumped up.

“Jane, where’s your brother?” he
shouted.

Jane looked up from where she knelt at
the water’s edge, a collection of seashells in her hand to adorn the
sandcastle. She shook her head. “He was here a minute ago.”

“Clive, what is it?” Gaynor asked as she
sat up and pulled the T-shirt from her face.

Clive didn’t answer as he jumped to his
feet and scanned the beach. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ben,” he
shouted. He shielded his eyes and looked towards the cliffs, then towards the
rock pools on the way to the village, but there was no sign of Ben. He wouldn’t
wander off without telling them … when he found him, Clive was going to give
him such a smack. He shouted his son’s name again.

He ran down the beach to Jane, the warm
sand oozing between his toes. “You must know where he’s gone,” he said when he
reached her, a tremor in his voice.

Jane shook her head.

“Where’s Ben?” Gaynor asked as she
arrived at his side.

Clive felt a lump in his throat. He
looked out to sea. Thought he saw something floating about thirty feet out.
Liquid nitrogen superseded the ice in his veins. Ben?

Without hesitating, he ran into the sea.
Despite the heat of the sun, the water was cold and gooseflesh spread from his
legs to his torso. Bits of seaweed floated around his legs. The further out he
went, the colder the water became. The seabed sloped quickly and he was soon up
to his waist. He started to swim, heading in the direction he had seen the
object. Saltwater stung his eyes. Panic fuelled his strokes, and before he knew
it, he reached the spot where he thought he had spied something, but there was
nothing there. He trod water. Looked around. Small swells caused him to bob up
and down.

Suppose Ben was underwater?

The thought
chilled him even more. He took a deep breath and dived. Visibility underwater
was difficult, like looking through Vaseline, the saltwater stinging his eyes.
Using his arms, he searched the area like a blind man, probing into the depths.
Something brushed past his leg, making him squirm. He reached out and grabbed
it, only to find it was a piece of seaweed.

He didn’t know how
deep he was, but he hadn’t touched the bottom. He kicked with his legs,
spinning in circles, a human whirlpool. He was going to have to head back up
soon, but he had to find Ben.

His lungs felt as
though they were burning. He needed to reach the surface, take another breath
and then dive back down.

He kicked and groped
at the water, forging a path back up. Bubbles burst from his nostrils as he
started to exhale.

Seconds later his head broke the surface
and he gulped in a deep breath. His breathing was rapid, his heart beating
fast. He hadn’t exerted himself this much since betting his best friend Alex
that he could beat him in a race to the bar. He’d lost.