C4 antho - Chamber Four

~246~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
Munro, Sharon had been ready, she guessed, and that was all
there was to it.
The next thing. You may not do the smart thing, Wanda
said. You may not do the best thing. You may not do the right
thing. But you will do the next thing.
Sharon turned her head. Two men were on the beach
with them, one down the sand to their right, one to their left.
Each of them stood perhaps a hundred feet from Sharon and
Munro. The men weren’t swimmers. They wore khaki
trousers, and they wore leather shoes. Their shirts were untucked
and hung loosely. They walked around on the beach
from time to time, to the water and back, but they didn’t
leave, and they didn’t come closer to Sharon and Munro.
“Who are they?” Sharon asked.
“Who?”
“Them,” Sharon said. “Those two. Can’t you see them?”
Munro leaned forward in his chair. He narrowed his eyes
and looked where Sharon pointed.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Couldn’t you see them?”
“Not at first. I forgot my glasses.”
“You don’t wear glasses.”
“Maybe I’d better start.”
“Maybe you’d better. Who are they, though?”
“We’ll ask Patrick,” said Munro.
A few minutes later they left their chairs and made their
way over the sand toward the trees and the house. Munro
went slowly, painfully. His knee had begun to hurt him
again, he said. He leaned on Sharon, and she took him
around the waist, at first helping him, then practically holding
him up. As they came up the path, Patrick left the house