Read The Shore for Free Online

names blurring together in his mind.
    It seemed he’d spent his life in this realm, perhaps the strangest and most unnatural-seeming terrain ever to exist. The countless white sand trails of the Pine Barrens had at last given way to “construction.” In just a few years, most of the old shanty towns had vanished, a whole way of life disappearing as residents packed up and headed south, some to settle in the Appalachians, others to join the migrant labor force. And the landscape of parking lots and strip malls verged always closer, merging one into the other, desperately drab, broken only by the dismally uniform “developments,” encroaching on both the sad, shabby resort towns and on the affluent private beaches, on the ghettoed horror of Asbury Park to the north and on the ghettoed horror of Atlantic City to the south. A bizarre world. Different time lines seemed to overlap in this landscape, blanketing one another. He’d seen it everywhere—roadside stands sold homegrown produce beneath buzzing neon.
    At last, he turned to a fresh page and, gripping the pen, carefully printed EDGEHARBOR. He stared at it a long time, then began scribbling in an erratic combination of print and script. Strange, even for this part of shore. Old. Turn-of-century buildings, but falling apart. Some sort ruined factory-type (?) structure near water. Cordoned off, near abandoned dock. Cannery? And tenement buildings middle of town, probably for workers. Empty now. He paused and read over his words. Marina other side of peninsula. Deserted pretty much. Looks like tried convert tourism. Too small for resort. No easy access from highway. Some cottages by sea. Small boardwalk but almost no beach. And the woods creep into the streets.
    Snapping the notebook shut, he replaced all the wrinkled clippings, then tossed the folder aside and dug into the suitcase again. Articles in the thinner file had been drawn from much less reputable sources—supermarket tabloids, digest-size publications with titles like Strange Facts and Psychic Phenomenon —but even the underscored passages in these dog-eared pages he studied. Teenager Stirs Up Poltergeist Panic. Maryland’s Bog Monster Unmasked. Finally, these too he put aside, suppressing a yawn.
    From the bottom of the suitcase, he scooped up sheets of paper torn from a legal pad and gave a cursory glance to the rough charts. Feeling around in his jacket, he drew out a road map and hunched forward, spreading it across the bed and trying to smooth down the bunching wrinkles. The paper rattled loudly in his trembling hands. The map depicted most of south central New Jersey and part of the shoreline. Circles and X ’s in red ink pocked the pinelands region, clustering where the woods encroached on the shore. Edgeharbor. He studied the tapering wedge of the peninsula until his vision blurred. Enough. Laboriously, he refolded the map and tossed it on top of the papers. Won’t find him on any map. He stacked the folders, carefully replacing everything in the case before shoving it back under the bed.
    Just rest my eyes. Stagnant air lulled him. Just a little. The drowsy chill made him yearn to pull up the blankets, and he considered switching off the lamp, then threw one arm across his face and let a sudden flush of weariness take him. I miss her so much.
    Wind rattled the window with a sound like ice cracking on a frozen river.
    A brick wall blocked the street lamp, sinking the alley in darkness. Like a garish phantom, black and gray and orange, one ear tufted with white, the brute of a cat flicked in and out of the light. It stalked along the fence toward a spot where a snarl of dead weeds sprouted like straw through the concrete. Suddenly, the beast froze into taut stillness, only the tip of the tail twitching.
    A grimy knot of life scuttled across the alley.
    The cat trembled then burst forward, ripping into the tiny creature, lifting it and hurling it against the wall.
    The mouse lay motionless. Already its