Bad Day at the Beach (in-progress)

Bad Day at the Beach


Scene One

         The Silverado lurched a bit as it rolled to a stop on the dune above the beach.  Sally put it into park and killed the engine.

         There was a couple on a blanket with a kid half a football field away to the south.  A man was walking a Golden Lab the same distance to the North.

         Ah, four hours of solitude on the bay side of the Cape.  Everybody else go to the Atlantic side.  But the sun is just as good here.

         It was May 3rd, the 'season' at Cape Cod doesn't really start until July.  But, Sally has booked her rental every Spring for the last 3 years.  Same times, May and June.

         With her beach tote slung over her shoulder, she took the lawn chair and cooler out of the truck bed and walked 40 steps over the loose sand to the firmer beach below the high tide mark.

         She set up facing due west wanting to get an even dose of sun.  It was 75 degrees (warm for this early in May), cloudless, with a mild breeze drifting parallel to the beach.

         She laid the towel from the tote over the chair.  Then unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off, same for her jean shorts, and stowed them in the tote.

         Her bikini was last year's model, tiny, yellow, and almost a size too small.  She made the mistake of actually getting it wet last Fall and it shrank some...

         She put on a lot of SPF-35 oil.  This was her first sun this spring.  She knew she was going to burn.  All blonds burn in the Spring.  May as well get started with it.  I have two months to even it out before I have to get back to DC and get serious about finding a job.  No reason to miss good beach time just because I lost my job.

         She laid on her tummy first exposing the most tender (burnable) areas of her backside and legs.  I can gage this better before starting the book.  When I get into a novel I lose my since of time.  She was finally getting around to reading Dan Brown's "Deception Point."

         She turned on the radio, positioned it so the sun drenched its solar cells with power and tuned in WRKO.  She was normally a Baltimore fan.  But during her Cape Cod days, she followed the Red Sox.  Mainly because she couldn’t pick up the Orioles’ broadcasts.

         Being single and 34 has its advantages: no kids, no mortgage and no one she’d have to share a bank account with.

         Of course there were disadvantages too: no family, no house and no 2nd wage earner to help over rough spots... like between jobs.

         On the bay side of the cape, there are minimal waves.  Boats going by fifty yards out made bigger waves than anything natural.  Well, that’s not really true.  Storms over the bay had enough fetch to create the dunes.  But that’s usually a winter event.

         She was just starting to toast when the walker and his dog came into view not far from the couple on the blanket.  The couple was involved in animated horizontal activity and the kid, a girl of five or six, was building a sand pile nearer to the water.

         The dog padded over to the girl, tail wagging like a flag.  She started petting it.

         The walker stood watching the dog and girl for a minute, then turned and approached the embracing couple on the blanket.  He stopped a few feet away, pulled something dark from the rolled towel under his arm, and held it like an offering to the couple.

         Two puffs of gray came from the object and the couple stopped moving.

         The walker gave a whistle to the dog, which bounded over to his side and they walked up over the dune and disappeared.  The girl had resumed working on her sand pile.

         In a few seconds, the breeze carried an acrid smell past Sally, from the direction of the couple.

         Sally raised up on one arm and shaded her eyes.  She studied the couple... they remained motionless.

         Sally shouted, “Hay, you okay?” and waved.

         The couple ignored her, but the little girl waved back to Sally.

         Nice to be in love and oblivious.

         Sally retrieved her book from the tote, turned over to her back and started reading page one: Prologue.

         When she got to page 33 she noticed the little girl was standing next to the couple, pushing on the man’s shoulder.  The man was still on top of the woman, just as he was half an hour ago.

         Sally sat up, folded over a corner of the page she was on, and put the book back into her tote.  She got out of her chair and walked over toward the couple.

         The little girl was crying and said, “Mommy and David are sleeping.  But I’m hot and I want to go in the ocean.  Mammy told me to always wait for her.”

         Sally looked at the couple and could see they would be sleeping for quite a long time.  There was a hole between the man’s shoulder blades and a small amount of blood had flowed over to his side.  The woman had a hole in her forehead just below the hair line.  Most of her blood was on a splatter beneath her head and out of sight.

         Sally picked up the girl and said, “Let’s make a phone call.  You see mommy ever use a cell phone?”

         “We don’t have one.  Mommy says they are bad for you.”

         “Well, maybe so, but I have one that won’t hurt you.  Let’s go use mine.”

         Sally carried the girl back toward her tote.  As she slogged through the sand, the girl said, “You don’t have much clothes on.”

         The little girl was in a one-piece swim suit made of far more material than what Sally as wearing.  Sally said, “I like the sun.”

         “Sit here while I call someone,” pointing to the chair.  The little girl sat down while Sally retrieved her cell and dialed 9-1-1.

         While she talked to the dispatcher she pulled on her shorts and blouse, scanning the dunes for any sign of the walker.



Pages:    6
Words:  1053

Bad Day at the Beach


Scene Two

         “That’s right, Pratt’s Beach, about a quarter mile after the turn off.  My blue pickup is parked on the dune near them.”

         “Sally,... Sally Short... Yes, I’ll stay, if the guy doesn’t come back.”

         “I don’t know.  He was walking a dog.”

         The girl said, “Laddie.”

         “Ah, there’s a little girl here.  I think they are her parents...”

         To the girl, “My name’s Sally, what’s yours?”

         “Tabatha.”

         “You have a last name, Tabatha?”

         “Griffin.”

         “Tabatha Griffin...  No, I never met them.  I was a bit up the beach.  I just got here about an hour ago, they were already here.”

         Tabatha stood up and started to walk toward the couple.

         Oh no, Tabatha, don’t go back there.  The less you remember about today, the better for you later.

         Sally vaulted the chair and took Tabatha’s hand.  “Tabatha, sweetheart, please sit right here.  I have to talk to the policeman.”

         Tabatha said, “I’m going to wake my mommy.”

         God.  How do you tell a kid her mommy is dead?

         A distant siren wailed from the northern beach.  A dune buggy was racing toward them, sand and spray kicking up as it clipped bits of the water and dry sand.  The tide was coming in.

         “I can hear them...  Okay,” and she closed the phone.

         “Let’s let the policeman talk to your mommy first...  Okay, Tabatha?”

         Sally continued holding Tabatha’s hand as the Beach Patrol buggy neared.  Sally waved her other arm to attract the driver’s attention.

         Tabatha didn’t want to sit down, so Sally picked her up and held her on her hip as the buggy slid to a stop in front of them.

         Sally pointed to the blanket, “Over there.”

         “Stay right here, ma’am,” the driver said, and gunned the engine again.  He pulled up 20 feet from the couple’s blanket blocking Sally’s view.

         “He’ll see about your mommy,” Sally said.

         The driver, dismounted the buggy and while talking on his radio, walked around to the couple.  He disappeared from view while he examined the two bodies.

         Sally asked, “Is that your daddy with your mommy, Tabatha?”

         “No.  That’s David.  I don’t have a daddy.”

         Another siren approached from the dune road.  In no more than five minutes there was an ambulance, a Sheriff’s cruiser, two more buggies and a Coastguard outboard beached beside Tabatha’s sand pile.  The tide was slowly dissolving the pile.

         The original buggy man, dressed in cutoff shorts, sleeveless muscle shirt and sneakers walked back over to Sally and Tabatha.  He looked like a surfer, long semi-blond hair, and deeply tanned, even though there is nil surf on this side of the cape.  Other than the huge, stainless, 357 Magnum on a web belt, you wouldn’t know he was a cop.

         “Are you Sally?”

         “Yes, and this is Tabatha.”  Sally let her back down to the sand.

         “Hi, Tabatha, I’m Officer Boyle” as he stooped down and rested on one knee in front of her.  “There is a real nice lady named Martha, who will be along in a bit.  She would like to be your friend.  Would you like that?”

         “And be my mommy’s friend too?”

         “And your mommy’s and daddy’s friend too.”

         Sally said, “That’s not a daddy, it’s a David.”

         The officer looked up at Sally for a second, stood up and retrieved a note pad from his belt.  “You know these people?”

         “Can we wait until ‘Martha’ takes care of Tabatha?”

         After a short pause, looking down at Tabatha, “Sure, maybe that’s a good idea.”

         “But, he had a dog, and the tide is taking their tracks,” Sally said pointing at the pile.

         “Geeze, thanks,” and he hoofed off toward someone with a camera.


Pages:    4
Words:  614

Bad Day at the Beach


Scene Three

         Sally waited with Tabatha next to her beach chair for about half an hour.  I’ve got to keep her thinking about happy things.

         Sally asked, “Are you an artist?”

         “No.  What’s an artist?”

         “A person who make pictures or sculptu— ...statues.  Or someone who plays beautiful music.”

         “Oh,” Tabatha said, looking back at the blanket.

         Com’on Sal, get her attention off the blanket.

         “What were you making in the sand?”

         “A mountain.”  Tabatha turned farther to look at the ‘mountain.’  “Oh, the ocean is on my mountain.”

         What was left of it was slumping into the waves.

         “They moved the ocean.”

         “That’s the tide, sweetheart.  It comes and goes twice a day.”

         “Why?”

         Let’s see now; moon, gravity, inverse-square law, angle of the moon’s orbit off the ecliptic,... “Just because.”

         “Oh.”

         “You had a good start on a mountain before the tide came in.  Was it fun?”

         “Uh-huh.”  Tabatha looked back at the blanket.

         Sally said, “Tabatha, do you know what brave is?”

         “When you pull a bandage off, mommy says be brave.”

         “Does it hurt anyway?”

         “Uh-huh.”

         “Tabatha, sometimes it hurts down inside you, not like a band-aid pulling off your skin, but a hurt that makes you sad.  Real sad.”

         “Uh-huh.”

         “Sometimes being brave is for one of those kind of hurts too.”

         Tabatha stood perfectly still looking into Sally’s eyes.  A middle-aged woman was approaching from the dune parking area.

         “You will have to be brave soon, Tabatha.”

         Panic flashed in Tabatha’s eyes.  She turned and broke for the blanket screaming, “Mommy!”

         Martha intercepted her and lifted her off the sand. 

         “There there, Tabatha.”

         She squeezed her close as Tabatha tried to escape, screaming, “Mommy, mommy!”

         Martha scowled at Sally, “What did you say to her?”

         Sally could only look back in disbelief, put her fingers to her forehead, and cry.


Scene
Pages:    3
Words:  313

Bad Day at the Beach


Scene Four

         Officer Boyle returned as Martha took Tabatha toward the dune.  “When did this happen?”

         “It must have been about 30 minutes before I called.”

         “Why did you wait?”

         I didn’t hear anything.  So I didn’t know what he did.  It wasn’t until I saw Tabatha trying to get their attention that I remembered the smell.”

         “Smell?”  Boyles eyes hesitated at her chest before returning to his note pad.

         “I smelled the discharge after he walked over the dune.”  Sally quickly buttoned her blouse, forgotten at the moment of her 9-1-1 call.

         “No sound at all?”

         “Nothing.  And I was sitting right here.  You can hear your friends over there talking now.  But I didn’t hear a thing.”

         Scribbling, “He?  You sure it was a man?”

         “I think so.  He was wearing a hat and I didn’t see any hair.  Also, a long beach shirt.  Covered most of him except for his legs and arms.”

         “A guess at age?”

         “Old.”

         “Old?  How old?”

         “I didn’t really look at him.  But he wasn’t a kid.  Maybe middle-aged to elderly.”

         “How about the dog?” scribbling quickly.

         “A long-haired kind.  Maybe a lab.  Yellow.  Did you find the tracks?”

         “Some, just before the water covered them.  By the way, thanks again.  Ah, you involved in law enforcement?”

         “No.  Had an interest many years ago.  Took some courses, but things changed.”

         “Everything changes.  Where can I reach you, Miss Short?”

         She gave him her cell and rental address.  Too bad it’s just for business.


Scene
Pages:    2
Words:  257



Totals
Pages:    15
Words:  2241