His route would for the greatest part be along the Pacific Coast Highway. Even in territory that was only growing in familiarity, this was a road he had only seen once on the initial journey that had taken him to the Croteau’s.
When he had fled West Virginia, Santa Monica was deemed as the safest place to be. It’s generally safe he was able to assuredly determine before setting off alone. Of the several safe spots that he could determine, and although this one lay farthest from him, he had convinced himself that it was the safest due to the clearance radius he had seen on the map. Of course, there was no current way to know if he had been right. Even if it isn’t entirely safe, I’m likely to find a boat, he remembered thinking on the voyage across America he took.
After a week lodged at the Croteau’s, he gathered that there were no suitable boats left in the area. They were all gone, stolen or transformed into burnt husks in the water just off the shoreline. After two weeks, he no longer had the ambition to search and had subconsciously started thinking of the Croteau’s as “home”, although it wasn’t a thought so embedded that it was recognized.
Now he wanted to walk across the highway on its reverse side. It was going to be a scorcher of a day, with little shade from cloud or tree. He thought of burning boats and how that wood and paint smelled, even through sealed car windows. The sky was growing pale as the sun took its place and climbed. He had once again left the Croteau’s, not before giving Kevin a solemn pat across his backside. Blistering, sweaty and (on one foot, anyway) toenail-cracked feet traced a pre-drawn line his mind had drew one step after another. Adrian swiveled his head to look for red spray paint. He hadn’t walked this way before, ever, but that wouldn’t stop his radar-like mind from knowing where to go. With a “hup” he shouldered a slipping duffel bag. It was going to be a long walk but something flew around inside his stomach like butterflies. Not the feeling of butterflies, exactly. Not as pleasant. He thought of them as moths, knowing it would only make sense to himself. A great part of him asked with the urgency of common sense to simply go home. The scary part to Adrian was that this felt like the smarter option. But here he was.
Left foot and then right foot. Again. Again. The sun was laboring now and soon he had a light sweat on his brow. Another smaller part of himself felt a tingle of excitement. Well-versed hands trembled, and it seemed his throat had a never ending supply of lumps to be swallowed.
Adrian rounded a bend and walked the road westward now, not yet able to see the ocean but already able to smell salt in the air. It was an odd but not unpleasant smell. Briny. Very briny. Adrian had been to the ocean before, although the nearest to him back home was a six-hour drive away and, in his opinion, not worth the trip. The smell was a sharp accent around this bend, not traveling as strongly at the Croteau’s. It only heightened this sensation of moths.
He still couldn’t see the ocean, but the moths told him that he would soon. Adrian kicked loose stones and made sure the items on his person were strapped and secure, resisting the nervous pull his hand felt to grab that toad-headed cane. To be prepared and have it battle ready.
Remnants of his dream back in West Virginia floated in his head like old cobwebs on a fresh breeze. To be honest, Adrian forgot a long time ago what happened to his cell phone or that of the man, who never did get back his dropped belonging. His piece of the future, or wherever he got the device from. The feeling of a glass screen beneath fingerprints was a faint recollection for him, one that almost brought on homesickness. Almost.
Still he couldn't think of that moment, that day without looping back to Douglas. Sweet, intelligent Douglas. His scabbed heart cracked and bled a gush of sorrow. Tears flowed inevitably, although Adrian wasn't necessarily crying. He wiped his eyes, wiped away his brother's memory for another day, and picked up his pace.
He glanced around, scanning the environment as much for a distraction as for his safety. It was a massive road compared to the ones he had driven his whole life, buildings and homes were dotted here and there. There was so little around of note that Adrian, for perhaps the first time this entire year his passivity slipped into boredom.
It was a stale feeling, even in its relative newness and it was one Adrian did not enjoy. With a physical presence that built up, it became an uncomfortable sensation in his lower spine and shoulders, one that made him fidgety. Suddenly, he wished powerfully that he was back at home. And he was surprised that that was how he thought of the Croteau’s now. As home. Yesterday he would have called it for what it was, the random building that Adrian had shacked up in. But with the addition of a pet it gave him a responsibility to something other than his own human maintenance, he felt heartstrings that had grown old and loose in such a short-time becoming taut. And this was an unshakeable feeling. Perhaps he could make the Croteau’s into a home.
So he walked on without distraction nor the comfort it could provide. Homesickness, loneliness and reluctance walked beside him and matched pace.
It was with great relief that the horizon peaked above the slow loping-downwards hill he had been walking. A grey-blue the width of a piece of string appeared, grew thicker, and then was discernible as the sea. Adrian, although no expert, thought that the ocean looked ill. It had a ghastly, dull glow to it in accordance to the early morning sun beams bouncing off of its surface. Out in the not-so-distant distance was a charred back half of a larger boat sticking ass-end up. It was nothing more than a black isosceles triangle from where Adrian was, but he recognized it from eight months prior. He thought it had drifted considerably.
As dull and melancholy as it looked from afar, the sight (and the dirty-salt smell) of the waves put invigoration in his muscles. Feet that dragged began to march. Limp arms took a more rigid form that suited the motion of walking. And it wasn't long before Adrian had met the bottom of the slope, and could see the oceanfront spread out before him. He thought it was beautiful.
More than that. He thought it was out of this world. The waves formed with salty sea bubbles, swelled, lapped and then slapped its own surface or the rocky shoreline. It produced a very bitter and sharp smell that was a tinge acidic on his tongue. Gulls flew in pointless circles and dipped here and there, singing their song of animal moans. They were a blot of ink on a perfectly fresh piece of paper, and Adrian tried to tune them out.
Adrian bounded left around a small intersection. The highway snaked both ways, to his right he could see trees, pavement and water. To his left was much the same, with the addition of the tops of buildings that proclaimed the city of Santa Monica. Despite the distance it looked like death, quiet and unmoving. If cities can be described as breathing things, this one had taken its last and was stale and deflated. The tallest building had rows of windows, and although the sun was of no helping factor, Adrian could see that as many as half of them had been popped out or shattered. He thought of a giant’s version of an advent calendar before waving it off, not in the mood for humor.
Once more. Left foot, and then aching right foot. Litter collected itself on the curve of sidewalks, crushed cans and odds and ends. Wet-but-drying cardboard was sprawled like area rugs here and there. Adrian lifted a piece and a family of insects scurried for new shelter. He guiltily laid it back down.
Adrian glanced up the slope to his left, the sharper one that housed trees and grass and was a sort-of wall against the coastline. Nothing was there to be noticed, but Adrian supposed that that was what he was looking for. He slapped a hand on a rusting two-door car that, even with no mechanic skills or knowledge, he knew would never start up again no matter what maintenance was put into it. A wet, light and sticky dust lifted and fixed to his hand. The environmental conditions made it nearly viscous, and it left a smear when he wiped it on his pant leg. Great, he thought.
As he had passed it, though, Adrian had scanned the innards of the vehicle and saw it had been picked clean; the seats were realigned and leaning forward, a couple of maps and open canvas bags were strewn wildly. On its outside, the back left tire was slashed. It hadn't popped, the slash mark was clear and visible and Adrian felt a bubbling sensation of anxiety. He had hoped, although now he saw it for the foolish wish that it was, that the highway would be a forgotten and unexplored thing. Now he couldn't shake the feeling that he was a sitting duck.
You're working yourself up, Adrian thought. Like seeing ghosts, thinking about it creates the feeling, you dunce. Be a man.
Adrian swallowed a lump of apprehension and tried to be a man. He straightened his spine, squared his shoulders and scanned the horizon. A parking lot with a building on the side closest to himself was now within inspecting distance. A good dozen-and-a-half cars were sporadically parked, only one in every three or four were parked between the lines. There were more open doors then shut. Luggage spewed out of trunks, while the undesirable engine parts were rudely and briskly piled at the front near open car hoods. Two had hit one another.
It took only another minute to get to the angle that was required to see it, and he had noticed it only after noticing the swinging, broken main door and the battered and empty window frames and the blackened corner that spoke of fire, most of which had been hidden until Adrian got to this specific angle. And it was standing in this spot that he saw the most dangerous part of it all: a red “X”, drips of paint making cryptic waterways. He choked on spittle that flew back into his throat with a shocked gasp. Hacking it back up, he worked up a nervous sweat. Now he not only felt like easy prey, but like he was hunted. And I'm out in the fucking open standing about!
Stiffly, he hunkered down by another rusty vehicle. He let a couple of breaths pass by, and then a few more that passed in a slower and more calm measure. He checked his pulse and wasn't surprised by the steady tempo. For the next two full minutes Adrian did nothing but listen and focus and relax. The crescendo of water in motion, the soft rattling of wind-through-plants, and off in the distance he could hear the arrhythmical pop-poppa-poppoppop-TING of a soda can making its own crusade down the PCH. Adrian listened underneath these sounds, trying to pick out any oddities or intricacies. But the night was, aside from the aforementioned, as silent as a phantom. The building's loose and broken door swung noiselessly and piteously.
Considering his options, Adrian wondered if going inside the building might not be a bad idea. Surely by now it was either obviously occupied, or (more likely, Adrian thought) it had been picked clean with a fine tooth comb and vacated just as promptly. But then what? It's not like he could stay in there, hidden away from some unknown threat that might be long gone. Or worse, coming back.
And it was with that that Adrian stood, surprised by how quickly fatigue was seizing the muscles of his limbs. A surge of exhaustion that almost sent him back down helped him remember that it wasn't quickly, it was building over time. What little sleep Adrian had gotten in the past twenty four hours wasn't restful, and he thought the pain might fade if he could lie down on the Croteau’s mattress for a day, maybe a day and a night. God knew he felt like he needed it.
But he trudged on, what other choice were there? Die here or die later, he supposed--
Adrian jerked back, his momentum caught by the shoulder. Fear bubbled up and then melted into quick, hot frustration. He looked over his back and saw what he had taken for an attacker striking was no more than the strap of a duffel bag being snagged on a particularly rusty and jagged piece of car. Always one to make hasty and regretful decisions in moments of aggravation that he found intense or overwhelming, Adrian pulled when he should of stepped back to loosen it. A dumb look grew on his face as he heard the rip of fabric, and he jostled to a stop to inspect it as any and all anger was replaced with worry. He had been foolish, and now he felt like it.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
But luckily, the duffel bags strap was intact and perfectly usable, although Adrian would find a new one if he could to replace it. It had gotten twisted during Adrian's brief relief, so he pulled it free carefully as not to damage it further. Upon further inspection he decided that this might be the first and last trip he makes with this duffel bag. A glint of white on the pavement below the car caught his eye.
He could see a single suitcase which had likely belonged to this car, now splayed directly outside its trunk. Mostly hidden by this, Adrian could see a box. A box of medium size, and he could see tiny metal hinges with speckled dots of maroon rust. Long fingers attached to hands on long arms reached for it and stroked it. He applied grip and pressure and slid it slowly to himself. He saw another red “X” but this one brought relief, not horror.
Adrian had required a first aid kit, something that even the Croteau’s with all of their pre-planning had not had on hand. Or maybe they took it with them when they left. This thought was to the side as Adrian clicked open the metal box and rifled through its innards. Neatly stashed were bandages, gauze, safety pins and medical tape. He saw packets of pills for pain relief and vitamins and saw creams and ointments for burns and cuts. A small pair of scissors was tied tightly with thread to a small pair of tweezers. Lastly he saw a tiny spool of thread, and a needle stuck through one of several cotton balls. Adrian could not believe his luck. Kevin, he thought, I can help Kevin with this stuff.
The kit was stashed in the duffel bag that wasn't ripped, for safekeeping. Once it was away, he remembered that he had felt hunted and the feeling came back. But what else could he do? Adrian walked away from his hiding place and back onto the open highway.
A seagull cawed. It cawed again, and again. Adrian picked up a rock and threw it at the bird. It sailed well under it and the creature gave its low repetitive call that sounded too much like bird laughter for Adrian to ignore.
What's more, this fucking thing was following Adrian like a vulture around its dying next meal. He threw another rock, closer to the target but the gull nimbly banked left and easily avoided it. It grated out another piercing bird laugh. Adrian hated it and wasn't able to ignore it. He walked on, and any feeling of anxiety was gone. If anyone else was around, Adrian was certain that this squawking winged rat would of aggravated them away.
His stomach rumbled, a lump of hunger to digest well with the scoop of anger already fermenting. Adrian grimaced at another shriek outburst from above. He glanced up, the bird shit and he narrowly had time to sidestep it.
“This is unbelievable..” Adrian muttered. The joyful bird swooped and flew in circles, seemingly enjoying Adrian's company. Out of reflex he had swiped at it when it dipped low and cawed right near his ear. He missed, and the bird wasn't inclined to take offense from it. Instead it shifted its weight and moved so that it was flying above the water, parallel to Adrian still and well within hearing range. Now not even his best thrown rock would intimidate the beast. He sighed, a thing born of misery and defeat.
CAAWWW-- it squawked again in its singsong way. Adrian stifled a whimper, he felt threads of sanity part. This was going to be it, undone by a stupid fucking seagull.
The bird landed in the water and was silent. First twenty seconds passed uninterrupted, then thirty. Soon a full minute passed and Adrian let go of the muscles he didn't know he had been keeping taut. His eyes rapidly began to feel less strain, and a small headache developed instantly. It was small possible to ignore. He picked up the pace, hoping to put distance between himself and the seagull. He passed by the last of the cars and the last of the parking lot to his right and thought I'll skim them on the way back, if it's safe and still light out.
Up ahead he noticed a couple of round garbage bins with faded neon trimming on its bottom and on the rim of the plastic tops. They stuck out like a group of three sore thumbs, although Adrian could almost tell from here that he wouldn't find anything useful amongst them. He shoulder checked and saw the seagull had lost interest in him and was bobbing in the ocean some distance away, facing the opposite direction. It screeched, but it was only a small annoyance now.
Adrian bent down to rub at the toe he had injured in his impromptu kickboxing match with the generator. It ached slightly with every beat of his heart. Adrian had never broken a bone, barely had so much as a sprain during his years. This stubbed toe was about as gruesome of an injury as Adrian ever got; his physical bad luck came in the form of consistent cases of pneumonia in the fall and winter. He made a mental note to find cold medicine, but he guessed that at this point in life he might as well of been asking for a pot of gold. He marched on, the city of Santa Monica looming in the distance. Adrian allowed himself a beam of hope to break through his otherwise stormy complexion.
He quickly inspected the garbage cans, and it was to his thinking: useless garbage remained, only for some reason these bins were better treated than most of the cars he had passed, the sparse number that that was.
A cluster of different colored and shaped automobiles that looked like miniatures built to some scale in size was nestled at the mouth of Santa Monica. From here he could discern a transport who's container had flipped during an apparent emergency brake, but the rest was too far away to make out any more.
The uneasy feeling of being watched wouldn't leave, but if someone was looking at him… from where? The foliage along the upward-slanting slope that forms a wall against the coast was thick but not dense, and there was clear sunlight to boot. He likewise didn't see how someone could be following him as he himself was walking in the clear open. If someone had been in that damaged building… that was possible. But no. Adrian had a feeling that whatever the red cross he's seen on buildings means, “abandoned" might be its key definition. Lootable might be another loose translation. He felt self assured that it was empty, and if it wasn't, the people in there would be the sort to want to stay hidden and unchecked-. As he would leave it.
Up ahead amongst the sand were rows and rows of poles standing some equal distance from each other. Adrian realized what he was seeing when a frayed bit of net blew in the wind on the fourth set of poles. Volleyball courts?
He left the highway to examine the frayed net. It had been cut, and not with much effort either. Quickly he made his way back to the road and went on, noticing how much more smoothly the other nets had been taken. He gulped, shivered, walked. Goosebumps were growing on his arms, even in direct sunlight.
He kept his hand ready to grab the ground-end of the cane (the part that made contact with the ground, and as the walking stick was resting upside down, this end was near his shoulder) that he wore sheathed so that it would unfasten from its two makeshift velcro straps that he himself had attached to some fabric, and then expertly sewn onto a recycled bookbag strap which was no problem for Adrian to put together; he possessed nimble fingers and could thread the eye of a needle with his off-hand.
Gently he palmed the bit of it sticking above his shoulder. The polished wood felt smooth below his fingertips and brought back memories of sanding wood crafts with his grandfather. Nostalgia overrode his senses like waking up to find that you've been thrown into a pool of water, and then it died with a stale little flutter. What good were these memories when the path they lead to and end at is not only broken, but unable to be properly crafted by Adrian's hands? That these people he loved might see him like this after how he left… no. No. He repressed the thought and filled his head with thoughts of nothing, or that tried to be.
Some small distance later he met and passed a lifeguard shack. He thought about climbing the ladder to check for water, maybe another first aid kit, but ultimately decided against it. It wasn't wise, he knew, but his heart couldn't stomach the effort. Depression made him feel exhausted with the effort it took to walk, and going up that rickety ladder was not unlike trying to climb a mountain right now.
Swiveling his head away from the small building on the beach, he came to see that Santa Monica's entrance was approximately five minutes away. The container of the transport, he could see now, was battered, dented and crumpled. Adrian's first impression was that someone with a baseball bat-- forget that, it'd have to be a whole team for this kind of damage-- deliberately smashed it until the warped metal bent inward, so much in some spots that he thought the sides might only be four or five feet apart as opposed to the original eight or nine he assumed there was. Standing up in it wasn't possible, Adrian assumed.
This would take one man a very long and violent day to do, and still an easy hour for a group.. and why?
Adrian didn't know. Curiosity overwhelmed his fatigue here, mostly because the transport was directly in his way. He put his hand on the vehicle's cool metal, not yet touched by rust but definitely touched by the sticky, moist dust that time and the ocean have left behind. It was considerably less dust than on the previous car he had touched. This one hasn't been here as long, he thought.
Although he wasn't an expert of cars or reading the paths they've taken, it was easy to tell that this transport was placed here due to emergency abandonment and not by choice. He could almost envision it himself, the driver hauling hard on the steering wheel and applying the brakes frantically. The vehicle must of came to a lumbering halt, and its body couldn't carry the momentum and spilled.
In the cab of the transport Adrian found a magazine he didn't recognize, but it was an issue on woodworking, coincidentally enough, and so he took it for himself. At the transports ass end, he saw the doors were closed even though the metallic beast lay on its side. Upon closer inspection, he could clearly make out bullet holes. Five of them, and they all pointed outward from the door. Adrian gulped the familiar taste of anxiety.
He tried for the lever that acted as a manual door release and found it wouldn't budge. Chains rattled from inside the transport, and Adrian had enough of the puzzle pieces now to give up and leave. “...Sorry. If you're there.” he said awkwardly. No one replied, and that made him feel sad. Not out of rejection, no… but Adrian was always one to put all of the pieces together. “...I'm so sorry.”
He walked on, full of melancholy. He did look in the cars as he passed, but they had all been looted, every single one. There were flowers at the mouth of Santa Monica, right by the turn off. They grew wildly, with weeds waiting to be maintenanced by staff. Adrian didn't stop to consider these, he marched into Santa Monica. He entered for the second time in his life, but it was the first time he noticed it.
Being so near to such tall buildings was confusing, after so long spent away from a city. Most roofs near the Croteau’s were one-story and you could climb onto them with a proper jump-and-grab technique.
He stared straight up at the gigantic structures, admiring them. These were works of art, to Adrian. Works of art that took hundreds or thousands of skilled hands to build, all manufacturing off of a few people’s designs. There was row on row of grey and black square dots, each a hole with or without a window respectively. From one window flew a white bed sheet, like a flag only tied at a single corner somewhere behind the wall.
Reggie's was up this turn off and somewhere ahead and to the right. That was all he knew of the area, and he didn't have a map to go by right now. Another twenty minutes of walking, thirty at most. Maybe forty-five if he got himself lost. Regardless, he walked up the turn off labeled as “W Channel Road” with some confidence and a lot less desire to care about whereabouts. Normally his instincts did the navigation work, but if it came to it, Adrian was more than capable of finding out where a simple grocery store would be, especially one that was described in its ad as, “so accessible-- tourists will LOVE it”. The newspaper had an image of the storefront, too, and Adrian's memory would serve him.
The turn off was a gradual slope upward, a paved and accessible version of what had been on his left during the walk on the highway. It added strain on Adrian's feet, and he felt that blisters might form even before this trip was out. Just another straw on the pile, and Adrian thought the pile had been overbearing for a while now.
The feeling of walking through a city again was awakening. How empty it was, even at its outer limits, reminded Adrian of walking through a closed down shopping mall or an empty parking garage. It was somehow hollow and mystifying. There could be any kind of surprise around any hidden corner, and somehow this didn't make Adrian feel any worse about the situation. Dare he say it… Adrian, upon rediscovering city life, felt optimistic.
But not happy. Not happy at all. He sighed and rounded some corner that truly introduced him to the city. Now it was on all four sides of him, the smell and the sound of the ocean replaced with rot mixed with sour wind that took old flyers, newspapers and other clutters of lightweight garbage as it went.
But he saw Reggie's. It wasn't hard to find at all, but it was tucked out of the way. Up one street to the left rested a “REG-” before getting cut off, but the text was recognizable from the newspaper ad. This was the building he wanted. He bounded toward it, saw the road it was on ended in a roundabout market area. A good location for the store, he supposed, although this road was its only access point.
Adrian froze solid, a shadow moved in the stores behind the gap where two sliding doors should be -- they were completely gone. It was just a gap where two automatic sliding doors should of been, making the store grin with missing buckteeth. Someone was inside of Reggie's.