AUTHOR'S NOTE: My first ever fanfic! Please be kind. This story has been rattling around in my head for quite some time. I wanted to explore just how it came to be that The Lost Boys and Max can stay in a town as small as Santa Carla and not be linked to all of the missing people. This is definitely not a romance. There will be sexual themes, but I'm writing the boys as bloodthirsty vampires with little regard for human life. Story takes place roughly a year before the events of the movie.

Also, the title comes from the Sylvia Plath poem.

PROLOGUE

Follow me into the endless night,
I can bring your fears to life.

- Lord Huron, "Meet Me In The Woods"

Vernon pushed through the crowd on the boardwalk in the direction of the girl's scream. Years on the job trained him to distinguish the squeals of excitement from thrill rides or kids hyped up on sugar to those of panic or fear.

Night was a strange time for the Santa Carla Boardwalk. It was as if the place slowly shifted into a higher gear as the sun dipped below the ocean. The lights on the rides flickered to life and gave the illusion that the rides were a little faster. The music was a little louder. The wholesome, kitschy, slightly rundown amusement park vanished and was replaced with something just a little more unpredictable…dangerous.

The scream came from the food pavilion at the far eastern end of the boardwalk. At this time of night most of the shops and food vendors in that area were closed, and in the summer it became a hangout for the older teens to congregate in the shadows to smoke, and do whatever else punk kids got did when they didn't have school or jobs.

Tonight, the loiterers were limited to a small group of young men clustered next to the stairs that led to the beach. A girl stood a few feet back from them under the awning. As he drew close, Vernon could just make out her flushed face in the dim light. She was crying.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Vernon addressed the group in his best "cut the shit" voice. As their features took shape in the darkness, he recognized them as one of the punk kid gangs that prowled the boardwalk at night. Each one had a gimmick. This was the one with the motorcycles and the crazy outfits.

The blonde gang leader's eyes were locked on the girl, who stared back at him without moving. After a moment, he slid his eyes over to Vernon. Despite the kid's ridiculous hair and outfit, Vernon felt a lurch of something like unease when he felt those eyes fall on him. The night was cold (the nights are always cold in Santa Carla) but the shiver that crawled down his back was not from the chill in the air.

Vernon felt there was something familiar about all of this this. Like déjà vu all over again, as Berra would say.

No one spoke, and the only sound coming from the girl's hitched breathing and the muffled sounds of the boardwalk in the distance.

Vernon had been a security guard long enough to know that most punk kids talked a big talk, but at the end of the day, the tough guy act crumbled in the face of an adult in a uniform.

Not so with this group. There was no fear the leader's eyes. Eyes that seemed a little too bright. A little too aware.

A breeze from the beach blew past the boys, stirring the leader's black duster and bringing the rotting smell of the ocean, and underneath, an electric smell like the air after a storm. The girl took a small step back under the pavilion awning.

Finally the leader smiled at Vernon, almost affectionately. It reminded him of the way an old man might smile at the antics of a child. I'm the adult here, Vernon thought uneasily. But why doesn't it feel that way?

"Nothing's going on here," the leader answered mildly. "We were just leaving. Right boys?"

The three long-haired boys nodded ascent, hiding laughter. The leader looked back at the girl as the others turned to walk down the steps.

"Stella?" His voice was soft, expectant. She stared at him, rapt, her tears catching the light of the bonfires on the beach. She took a step towards him.

Vernon put his hand on the girl's shoulder. She was trembling like a leaf. Or a rabbit staring into the face of a fox. She was a pretty thing, although she could do with a good meal and a night's sleep. The shadows under her eyes were deep.

"Do you want to go with them, sweetheart?" Vernon asked. "You don't have to."

His voice seemed to break whatever secret was passing between her and the leader. The girl started and looked up at Vernon, eyes wide.

"No. I don't want to go with them." Her voice was barely a whisper. She shook off Vernon's hand and took a few more lurching steps backward.

Something about her movements reminded Vernon of the times he'd find the odd spider in his bathroom. He would knock it into the bathtub, turn on the water, and watch it slide down the drain as it struggled to free itself from the current. The girl seemed to be struggling against a current that pulled her towards these strange boys and the blackness beyond.

"Stella."

The leader's voice was still soft, but the tone changed. A warning.

The girl (Stella?) let out a wild, barking sound like a cross between a sob and a laugh. Then she turned and ran down the boardwalk, her long dark hair flying behind her like a banner. The leader watched her until she vanished into the crowd. His expression was inscrutable.

Vernon wasn't sure what just happened, but he knew that girl was terrified of this kid. He was a goddamn adult and he was going to do his job. He refused to acknowledge the pull of unease (fear) in his own gut. He glared at the group of punks.

"Okay you little shit. If I see you and your friends on the boardwalk again I'm calling the cops." Vernon put his hand on his nightstick for effect.

The leader smiled again. That patronizing, ageless smile.

"No, you won't."

His friends had halted their descent on the stairs, and at this they turned around expectantly.

"The hell I won't," Vernon fumed. "I mean it. If I see your face one more time-"

"One more time? We've done this many, many times."

What the hell is this kid talking about?

But there was that tendril of familiarity again. Dark shapes were curling in at the corner of Vernon's vision. This conversation. A threat. Violence. This had happened before. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

One of the other boys, the small one with curly hair, hopped back up the steps to stand next to the leader.

"If we do this much more the old man's gonna to crack up. Shouldn't we just-"

"We will." The leader cut him off. "But not tonight."

Vernon's vision swam. His head began to throb, and he found standing upright to be incredibly difficult. It's happening again.

In a flash it all came back to him: one blinding moment of clarity in which he knew that this had happened before. In startling clarity he remembered all of the confrontations, all of the grisly discoveries. The time he found them leading a family of four off the boardwalk (and hadn't he seen their missing posters posted among all the others?) The time he caught the dark-eyed one in an embrace with a woman on a park bench, only to see the woman fall from his arms like a broken doll. The time he broke up a party on the beach and found so much blood…

…and at the center of it all was this smirking kid (not a kid) and his gang of mirthful companions.

As quickly as the revelation came, it began to fade, swallowed by the dark shadows creeping across his vision. He dropped to his knees, arms outstretched as though trying to find something to hold. I have to remember this time…have to….

"You won't remember."

The leader knelt so that his eyes were level with Vernon's. His tone was amiable, almost pleasant. As though they were two neighbors discussing the weather. "And that girl you thought you saved…?"

No.

"She's already dead."

Vernon looked out over the Santa Carla beach. No moon tonight. A few bonfires flickered here and there, but otherwise the beach was deserted. Although he couldn't see it, and he knew beyond those bonfires spread the black, cold expanse of the ocean.

He blinked slowly. How long had he been standing here? His head felt heavy, like every new thought had to swim through something thick to reach the surface.

Like a spider...

He looked back towards the main stretch of the boardwalk. People were filing out as the shop lights turned off. Closing time. Time to make his rounds.

As Vernon walked away from the pavilion towards the carousel, he heard the rumble of engines revving to life somewhere on the beach. Must be that gang of punk kids who prowled the boardwalk at night. The ones with the crazy outfits.