Nailed by the Heart by Simon Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

the foot of the seawall steps. Come down the steps
a bit. It's okay. I'll make a little rush at you and you run
shrieking and giggling up the steps. Come closer. I want to play with
you. Come on ... Water's soft. I can't hurt you ..."

    "Dad.
You said the door wouldn't open."

    He
looked down at his hand as if it didn't belong to him. He was
gripping the brass handle and rattling the thing, trying to force the
door open. He shook his head as if waking from a deep sleep.

    He
coughed. "I was just seeing if I could free it. Come on, it'll
be dark soon. Let's see a bit more before it gets too late."
They left the big room. "It's a great place, isn't it, kidda?"

    "Sure
is, Dad." David charged along the corridor in the direction of
the next flight of stairs up.

    Chris
followed. Why had those thoughts about the sea run through his head
like that? It was almost as if they had originated outside his skull.
Even recalling them now gave him an odd sensation. He shivered and
licked his dry lips. Do the early stages of insanity feel like this?

    "Come
on, Dad!"

    David
had reached the steps. He climbed them, quickly disappearing from
sight.

    Chris,
rubbing his face, followed. The excitement of moving in, he supposed.
He was tired.

    "What
do you want, Dad?"

    David's
voice drifted down the staircase.

    "What
do you mean, what do I want?"

    David
appeared at the top of the steps. He looked fragile against the dark
void above him.

    "Dad
..." David assumed the voice that told his parents he was
becoming exasperated by their slow wits. "Da-ad. You shouted at
me."

    "I
never said a word."

    "Did
... Fibber." David added the mild insult for emphasis.

    "You're
imagining things again."

    "Am
not."

    "All
right, David. It must have been the wind or an echo you heard."

    Or
did you call him, Chris? You senile old nutcase. Take two Paracetamol
and lie down in a darkened room.

    He
looked up at the little boy looking down at him. It must have been
the perspective or the light or something, but David looked further
away than he could possibly have been. And above him was that black
cavern-just a whistling great emptiness.

    His
mind flicked back to those holidays in Scarborough when he would
watch children on the seawall steps as the sea, hissing like a great
shapeless beast, swelled up against the walls, swallowing the steps
in a gush of foam. They would run up screaming with glee, not
realising how dangerous their game was. He found himself imagining
David playing the same game. Running, chuckling, down toward the
shifting mass of dark water, then running back up as the next wave
rose up to eat the steps one after another. Of course, David would be
too slow. The muscular rush of water would shove him off the stone
steps and into the body of the ocean. He would hear David's cry, "Dad
... Dad ... Get me out!"

    David's
face disappearing beneath foam. Chris's agony at his helplessness.

    If
the sea pulled David out into deep water he would drown beneath the
heaving ocean. If it swept him back to the seawalls, his body would
be smashed against the stone blocks.

    To
jump into the sea there to try to save him would be suicide. No one
could swim in those waters.

    Would
he try? Without hesitation, he knew the answer.

    Of
course he would.

    The
inevitable electric trickle of fear prickled across his skin.

    "David.
Stay there." He kept his voice calm, but he was climbing the
steps quickly. "Don't wander off."

    "Okay."

    There
was nothing particularly alarming about the upper floor after all.
Anyway, the seafort was strongly built of good Yorkshire stone.

    No
harm would come to them here.

Chapter
Nine

    As
he had done every evening for the last ten years, the big American,
Mark Faust, locked the door of the shop and walked down to
Out-Butterwick's seafront.

    There
were a dozen or more people there. One or two nodded a greeting, but
most looked out to sea.

    By
this time the tide was sliding in over the beach, lifting the few
small coats off the