The Other Side of the Beach

"It goes so far down," Dean mused, standing at the edge of his towel and shading his eyes against a nonexistent sun. It was not a good day for the beach, and the limited others scattered about on the sand attested to this. The air was cold as a witch's tit as it scoured the ever-expanding bald patch on the crest of his head- but not as cold as the brief look Pam gave him before adjusting her own towel and unfolding her chair.

"What are you on about now?" She settled down, placing a chunky romance novel on her lap that she wouldn't read, and began the real work of skimming through a couple of text conversations on her phone.

"The beach," he said, only now realizing how lame he sounded. "It's really long."

He didn't know why she always had to give him attitude. He wasn't wrong: there were several feet between them and their closest neighbors, and all five groups here were spaced out exactly like they were replicating that social distancing bullshit from a few years back. But the beach itself stretched much further than that, what looked like miles of gray sands disappearing over the horizon beyond the abandoned lifeguard’s chair, like the chair itself was a dividing mark beyond which society had decided it wouldn’t extend.

"Have you been drinking already?” Pam asked, looking at him over her sunglasses. “What's in that mug?"

“Give it a rest,” Dean snapped, looking down at his empty coffee. “I’m just making a simple observation.”

"This is one of the smallest beaches in New England," Pam said as if to refute him, sending off a text and sighing. "Jess is going to be late. She's having some trouble wrangling the kids.

Jess was the only child their disappointing union had produced. From the beginning, she'd been a depressing replica of her mother- endlessly chatty and over-obsessed with things like political correctness and pointing out absolutely anything anyone else was doing wrong at any given time. The kids were all right, twin girls, but he guessed that wouldn't last forever when Jess had her way with them. It wouldn't have killed her and her stiff of a husband to have a boy- as it was, Dean was drowning in estrogen. He got great mileage out of that joke- 'I'm drowning in estrogen here!' but Pam had started to use it as an excuse to bring up how he hadn't minded seeking out more of the stuff at any opportunity- a reference to an old office affair she’d probably take to the grave and use to indict him at the pearly gates.

Dean looked down the beach again, where the clouds seemed darker and heavier, weighted with the promise of moisture.

"It looks like it's going to rain," he said. "Maybe we should call it off, just meet for lunch or something-"

"There's no rain in the forecast, so I have literally no idea where you're getting that from," Pam said. She had pulled off the lace cover-up that Dean thought made her look like a doily, though the sight underneath wasn’t much better. She had gotten fat as fuck in the last couple of years, and what was worse, she seemed to have no decent shame about it. There was a time she would have corrected something like that for him. There was a time when being attractive to her husband was important to her. Now she used words like "curvy" or "plus-sized" as well as 'empowerment' and 'misogynist' (this last was her favorite word to use on him- she'd gotten all that new-age gibberish from Jess.)

Everyone else on the beach was sitting reading or talking, except for a teenage boy and a dog, who ran back and forth through the tide, throwing around a rubber floating ball. Dean noticed that the kid would run about to the place where the beach stopped being occupied- where the lifeguard's empty roost stood- and turn back, retracing his steps. This seemed more unconscious than intentional, almost as though he didn't realize there was still more space to run.

"Do you think there's a snack shack over there?" Pam asked. She was stretching her hands over her head, lying back in her chair, sunning her bloated white middle. It was as if she'd heard his disparaging thoughts about her body and was rubbing it in his face.

"Over where?"

"You know. Up by the lifeguard’s post. I thought I saw something coming in.”

Dean wanted to make a snide comment about how she was already hungry again after breakfast, but he was feeling something himself. Maybe he'd get a burger, or at least some chips. A beer would really hit right about now- or several, to survive the family fun coming down the pike- but he couldn't get his hopes up.

"I'll go check," he said, starting to make his way towards the lifeguard post. There was indeed a small shack nestled to the left of the chair, right beside the entrance to the beach. But once he’d plodded over there, sand flooding into his flip-flops with every step, he saw that the windows were dark and the door appeared to have a padlock on it. It figured- plumb out of luck. He stared sourly at the little building for a moment and was disconcerted to find that he felt someone staring back.

No sooner had he had the sensation- the familiar, prickly kind that was so singularly unique to having someone else's eyes on you- than he heard a sound, a sort of metal creaking, as if someone was sitting on a rusty chair and had just adjusted posture, craning perhaps to get a better look.

Dean spun in a quick circle, but could see no one in the immediate vicinity. He turned back, and his eyes caught this time on the towering lifeguard structure, now only feet from him. Up close, he could see that it was painted what must have once been red, faded to pink from the sun. The paint was flaking off in chips, revealing rust beneath.

Dean slowly scaled his eyes up to the top of it, half-expecting someone to be hunched up there, looking down at him. But there was no one, only what looked like an old, circular life-preserver, the kind with the red and white stripes, hanging from a frayed rope just below the seat. As he watched, the chilly breeze batted it back and forth again, causing it to clink against the skeletal structure.

Huh. So that was all it was. Immediately, he felt stupid for the thought. What else would it be? He shook his head in disgust at his own fancifulness, at the same time noticing that though he'd ruled out the chair, his distinctive feeling of being watched had not actually gone.

Dean scanned the area again, and that was when he saw her. Beyond the old lifeguard's roost, on the side of the beach he'd previously thought unoccupied by any day-trippers, stood a girl. No, not a girl, exactly, a woman. A very, very young woman, younger than his daughter, certainly. And unlike Jess, she did not wear a preemptive scowl when looking at him; instead, a slight, curious smile curled her full lips. She lifted one arm and waved, a little shy motion, and without thinking about it, Dean raised his own and waved back. She appeared to be all alone over there. She was wearing a blue swimsuit that hugged her curves in a way nearly agonizing to behold. The woman’s hair was dripping wet, as if she'd just come from a swim in the ocean. As he watched her, she turned away from him, cupping her palms over her elbows and shivering.

Dean turned back and walked back to where Pam was still lying like a beached whale. As he bent down to pick up his towel from where he'd spread it beside her chair, she slit an eye open at him.

"So?"

"No luck."

"Damn. Well, Jess has probably packed some snacks for the kids at least."

Dean made a sound of assent and threw the towel over his shoulder.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," he said. Pam had already shut her eyes again. She had a single earbud in, and some podcaster's voice was chirping tinnily at her. The podcasts were also Jess's doing. Dean didn't get the rage or why anyone treated the hosts of their favorites like revered gurus. Seemed to him all you needed to qualify to start one of the damn things was a microphone, a pair of lips, and an unhealthy desire to listen to the sound of your own voice.

.

The woman was still right where he'd left her, arms wrapped around her torso, lips tinged blue. As he closed the space between them, what little sun there was seemed to disappear behind a cloud.

"Here," he said. "Don't want to catch your cold."

The woman took it from him, throwing the drab gray length of it almost fashionably around her shoulders.

"Thank you," she said, staring up at his face. "What brings a man like you here today?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't really live too far off," he said. He'd been on the edge of something like 'family stuff', but he'd stopped himself in the nick of time. He was sure she'd seen him go over to Pam, but if she hadn't, no need to chain himself down. He looked around. Not only had this woman not brought a towel, but she hadn't brought a chair or a bag either. Only gray sands and grayer sky surrounded her as if she were part of some Surrealist painting.

"What about you? Are you...er...local?"

She quirked the side of her mouth up like he'd said something vaguely amusing. "I've been here quite some time, yes," she said.

"I've never seen you before."

"Maybe you haven't been looking hard enough."

He looked deeper into her eyes. Blue, the color of deep dark water, like her swimsuit. Except when his eyes roved over her body again, this time appreciatively, flirtatiously (after all, she'd initiated, hadn't she?), he saw that the suit wasn't blue at all, but a dusky peach. That couldn't be right.

"Who is this?"

Dean snapped out of his confusion to see two other women making their way across the beach from the unpopulated horizon, as if they'd materialized there. If he had been paying enough attention, he would have noticed they left no footprints across the sand behind them. But Dean had never been observant like that.

One of the women was brunette, hair hanging past her waist, and her companion had a curly nest of red curls. As they crowded in closer, he could smell their scent, a sultry perfume with undertones of sea salt. They were wearing swimsuits of their own- a strappy golden bikini for the brunette and a sea-foam green thing that looked more like lingerie on the redhead.

"This is my new friend," ocean-eyes said, wrapping his towel around her shoulders, practically purring the words. “Dean. He’s local.”

The two newcomers laughed, the sound tinkling and near otherworldly, though Dean couldn't discern the joke in the words. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable, despite the impossible beauty and interest of these strangers, despite the erection straining against his swim trunks. He was certain he hadn’t told them his name.

He looked behind him, back to the opposite side of the beach, and saw distantly that Jess had arrived, holding the hands of his grandkids, one to each side of her as she walked to meet Pam, who rose a hand in greeting. He willed her to look over. He willed any of the people on the beach to look over, but it seemed to him now that none of them noticed him, as if passing the lifeguard's chair had thrown him into some strange no man's land. At the thought of the lifeguard's chair, he looked back at the thing, and nearly doubled over, his arousal draining out of him like a sudden, vicious rush of air leaving a mattress.

There was someone there, sitting straight up. Even seated, it looked impossibly tall, skin gray like a statue or a corpse. It was staring directly at him, eyes like two ragged dark holes, some hidden murky kaleidoscope turning in their depths. As he watched, the thing smiled slightly, as if it were watching a vaguely amusing show.

"Who...what?" he choked out, pointing to the chair. The redhead put a hand on his shoulder, and he spun to look at her, beginning to feel terribly disoriented. She had changed now, too, her hair straightening out in only slight waves. Her hand was cold. It shouldn't be that cold, should it?

"You're warm," she laughed, as if she could hear the thought. "A girl could get used to a man like you.”

The brunette beside her pressed in closer. She now looked like Dana, the woman he'd cheated with in the office years back. Exactly. He gaped, trying to make mental contact with his legs, but they wouldn't move.

"How are you doing that?" he whispered, voice strained.

"You like?" she asked, giggling like a schoolgirl, and as if the words were an inside joke between her and the others, they all began to laugh.

"We can show you," the first woman he'd seen said.

"Yes," the Dana-lookalike said. "Let us show you."

On the other side of the beach, Pam and Jess were embracing. Dean shouted out to them, the sound embarrassingly strained in his throat. The distance wasn't so far- they should've been able to hear, but they didn't turn. No one did. This is one of the smallest beaches in New England, he heard Pam say absurdly in his mind.

The redhead playfully put a finger to his lips.

"Shh," she said, “Come with us.”

“Yes,” the lookalike said. “You’ll like it. You’ll see.”

The original woman he’d met crossed her arms. Her ocean eyes had gone icy, crowded with storm-peaked, white-capped waves. “You saw me,” she said. “You came over. Now you’re ours. Those are the rules.”

“He wanted it,” the redhead giggled. “Those who see us don't need to come over.”

"No," the Dana-lookalike agreed. "He chose this. Men like him always do."

"You chose this," ocean-eyes reiterated, whispering into his ear, and she latched onto him, pulling. She was strong. She couldn't possibly be that strong, but he felt himself moving with her all the same, his legs dragging uselessly against the sand. The other two clustered up close to him, pushing as she pulled, their frigid breath up against his neck, like the frosted air you felt when you got up too close to a window in winter. The perfume on their bodies was dissipating, and the sea-salty smell grew until it was suffocating, rank, the smell of rotting seaweed and dead things on the surf. Dean screamed again, this time as loudly as he could, frantically pushing, hitting, smacking against them, but they were implacable, eyes glowing, plump lips curving up to show long, pointed white teeth. Dean looked desperately, longingly back at his dumpy, normal, perfect family as Jess threw back her head and laughed, as Pam capered with the kids. His feet hit the water, and it was cold, too cold for the season, rendering him numb immediately, immobile. With one last strangled shout, he looked back at the lifeguard's chair on high and saw that thing, that human-shaped darkness watching him, that cursed smile on its face broader now, eyes hollow as judgement day as he was dragged out to sea.