The Beauty of Death Vol.1

Breaking up-2

She swallowed, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know, Mitch! I can’t remember!”

“f*****g battery is dead.” He got out of the car and slammed the door.

She followed him out. “Why don’t we just wait in the car?”

“Do what you want,” he said, heading back to the beach.

She chased after him. “Please don’t be angry. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

They returned to the blanket. Still no sign of Paul or Marni.

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

She sat cross-legged at the edge of the blanket and prodded the smoldering fire.

“Tide’s moving in,” he said, and again, the beach looked smaller.

“I didn’t know it moved in this late,” she said, staring curiously at the water, almost hypnotized by its movement.

He shrugged. “I dunno. I guess.”

“I think I can get this going again.” She added twigs, touching a match to them. “This is romantic, isn’t it?”

He sat beside her and frowned. He licked his lips and shook his head as if trying to choose a gesture. “I guess. Under different circumstances.”

“Come on.” She pulled him toward the blanket. “Maybe they’ll come back. Let’s just lie down. You can hold me, keep me warm.”

He scanned the area one last time, guided by the moonlight reflecting off the dunes. There was no sign of life for miles.

He lay on his side, his knees pressing into the small of her back. He draped his arm across her shoulder, slipping his hand up beneath her sweatshirt.

She snuggled closer to him. “This is weird, isn’t it?”

He said it was.

“It’s funny what the water can do, isn’t it?” she asked softly, her breathing steady, as if close to sleep. “Play tricks and all.”

“Uh huh,” he said breathily, slowly lulled into semi-sleep, but then his eyes opened and he asked, “What do you mean?” They gently closed again, and he was mesmerized by the sounds of an endless ocean, lulled by the gentle tone of her voice. Invisible fingers stroked his hair…

“The dunes,” she said sleepily. “Seems like there’s more of them.”

His eyes opened and he frowned, thinking for a moment. “You noticed that?”

“Mmm…” She didn’t exactly answer. The rhythm of her breathing slowed, evened out.

He rubbed his hip, which had begun aching. “What are we lying on?”

“Hmm?”

He climbed to his knees and she rolled onto her back.

“Help me move this blanket,” he said.

“Can’t we just smooth it out? I don’t want to move it. The fire’s keeping my feet warm.” But she got up, and they tried to smooth out the lumps.

“It’s not working,” he said. “Move over.”

He pulled the top of the blanket down. “Look at this. No wonder. It’s like lying on a lumpy mat—” He suddenly pulled back his hand.

“What is it?” She gasped.

He laughed. “Just a chunk of wood. For a second…”

“What? For a second what?”

He smiled. “Nothing.” For a second it felt like an arm…

He pulled her back into his arms, and she lay on her side, her head resting on his forearm. He stroked her hair, mesmerized by her scent, like baby powder and sunbaked wildflowers. For a moment he wondered why he wanted to break up. It really wasn’t her fault, he considered in a moment of kindness and clarity. Being tied down was a problem for him, and even with someone wonderful, it was still a noose around his neck.

He was young, and he wanted his freedom. Does it matter? he thought. Even if he was going to break her heart, did it matter? They were eighteen, the lot of them. No one gets serious at eighteen.

He closed his eyes and stroked her hair, breathing in her smell, the softness of her skin like a security blanket. He nuzzled her ear and pulled back when grains of sand tickled his nose. More sand spilled over his face, and he opened his eyes.

An enormous sand dune had formed.

Mitch glanced at it. This was impossible. There was a breeze, sure, but not enough to create a six-foot-tall wall of sand. It stretch out about ten feet in either direction. He would have heard movement if it had been Paul and Marni building this thing to play a trick on them.

He was suddenly too afraid to move, and he found that ludicrous. This was the stuff of low-budget horror flicks, not something that ever really happened.

“Kathy?” he whispered, but she was sound asleep. Why had he whispered? But when he opened his mouth to shout, nothing came out. His brain refused to cooperate, refused to allow him to raise his voice.

He stared at the dune, and it remained transfixed…but if he looked away for the briefest second…it seemed to move toward him. As crazy as that was, the damned thing seemed to be approaching. Tired eyes, he thought, rubbing the sleep out of them one eye at a time. But even then the dune remained unchanged, didn’t fade back into the beach, didn’t collapse like a no-longer-needed golem.

The dune stood between him and the path leading toward the parking lot. Away from the beach.

Mitch slowly climbed to his feet, trying not to blink. He tried to call Kathy’s name again, but his mouth was as dry as the dune.

This was impossible. Things like this didn’t happen. Not really. Wasn’t there always a reason for everything, no matter how anfractuous? Nothing was ever as it seemed, not really. Maybe he could blame this on a trick of the light, something wrong with his eyes, on moonbeams and rising tides. Something. There had to be a reason.

He tripped over something and landed hard on his a*s, his eyes briefly shutting. He quickly opened them.

The dune had shifted again.

Now it was half a foot from Kathy.

“Kathy?” he croaked, still leaning toward decency, toward rescuing his girl despite the insanity playing out before him. Part of him wanted to pull her into his arms, away from the beach, away from dunes, away from the ridiculous situation at play.

But she wouldn’t answer. Goddammit, she just lay there! How was he supposed to rescue her if she didn’t cooperate? No, this was her fault now, not his. He tried. He did everything he could. He—

“Mitch?” Kathy stirred, raising her head, looking from side to side. “Honey?” She tilted her head backward, craning back over her own neck, and for a second…for a second it was an optical illusion…for a second Mitch saw her head severed from her body, a flawless, bloodless cut, and he swallowed hard. It burned from the effort. Grains of sand danced down his throat.

“Ka…,” he croaked, not even able to finish saying her name. His throat was dry but his armpits and hands were damp. He slowly reached out to her, but he didn’t move.

Neither did she.

She seemed transfixed, as if on some level she knew to stay still, though that made no sense to Mitch. Unless she sensed something, sensed trouble.

She moved a bit, leaned forward, now resting on her hands and knees; she c****d her head as if to hear him better. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You okay?”

He slowly shook his head.

“You’re scaring me.” She moved to stand up.

The dune shifted with her.

“Wait!”

She stopped, clearly startled. But now she looked annoyed, likely wondering what sick game Mitch was playing.

“Don’t move,” he urged, begging her with his tone. The frustration had built so intensely he wanted to scream, to shriek, to smash his fists against a wall. Adrenalin filled his veins and froze him to his spot.

She looked around for something out of place, anything to indicate Mitch’s strange behavior. He could see the expression on her face, and he didn’t know how to explain to her what the danger was. Just don’t move, he thought. How could he explain this? He’d think of something. After all, he was the man. He was supposed—

But she took a step toward him.

“No!” he cried, taking half a step toward her.

She froze, a reaction to his command. The sand from the dune cascaded gently around her feet, just a small hill of sand spilling down its own side…something so innocuous…nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here.

“What’s that?” Kathy asked, pointing a few feet from Mitch. She still wasn’t moving, but now it seemed she had a different reason to stay away from him.

He glanced down. A human hand stuck out of the soft dirt, exposing long, thin fingers, the nails painted a bright neon purple. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

He backed up several steps.

“Is it Marni?” she shrieked. “Is it Marni?”

Sand slid away, as if a giant fan had suddenly been switched on. It drifted away grain by grain, slowly cascading outward, revealing the body piece by piece. He peered into the shallow grave and discovered it was indeed Marni. And lying just below her was Paul.

Kathy fell to her knees.

Neither moved for several minutes. He wondered if the sand had settled now…if it would let them leave. Let them. He shuddered and looked up again at the dune. It had spread a bit, not as high, but it was wider, and it formed a semicircle around Kathy.

It almost seemed to challenge him to approach.

I can’t, he thought. I can’t do this.

It wants me to come closer.

He had no idea why he thought that.

If he could reach Kathy, maybe he…maybe he what? There was no way around the dune to the parking lot. The ocean was behind him. He could leave. He could leave Kathy.

He took half a step back, and she cried, “Don’t you leave me!”

He stopped. “Then come here! What the hell’s your problem?”

She looked down at her feet and back up again. “I…I don’t know. I’m scared.”

Now full of bravado: “Of what? Don’t be a chickenshit. Come here.” Come here. Oh GOD, come here! He forced a smile. But a small voice inside him whispered, No, don’t. Just stay.

She took a step toward him, hands reaching, fingers desperately trying to connect with his even several feet away. Her breath caught in her throat as she sank just a tiny bit with every effort she made.

The sand quickly began to swirl, and rippling jetties formed beneath her feet. Small pockmarks puckered the sand, quickly grew into sinkholes, and her feet were slowly swallowed up by the forming black holes.

“Mitch!” she shrieked, trying to lift her feet, to move toward him. With every step she sank a bit lower.

“Stop moving!” He had nothing to use as a rope, nothing to offer her, like a tree branch or towel, nothing for her to hold on to.

“Please, Mitch!” she sobbed.

He watched the dune consume her. Watched the sand spill over her body, great waves of dirt covering her, a dry drowning. He watched the terror in her eyes as the dune moved in, engulfing her, taking her inch by inch into the black hole it had formed. It wrapped her in a great wall of sand, like a lover’s embrace, caressing her almost lovingly, tenderly, laying her down gently, stroking her hair with fingerless hands, pulling her beneath the surface so she could rest eternally with her new lover.

“Kathy!” But he knew he’d overstayed his welcome. He turned to flee, taking advantage of the death of his girlfriend, turning from his dead friends and from the car, from the dead battery, thinking now of the ocean, forgetting the road to safety that was anything but. He was a strong swimmer. He could swim for it and pray the sharks wouldn’t get him. He could do this.

He whirled around to face the water, to retreat in that direction, to jump into the ocean, to escape the dune.

But the water was gone from sight now, replaced by an enormous wall of sand.