The Lost Boys powered through sand and rock, salt clinging to their jackets and fog rushing around them like dragon's breath, cruising away from Hudson's Bluff and howling together, giving a siren call and warning to anyone near the boardwalk who thought they'd left Santa Carla permanently. Not that most of the locals had any idea what they were, but when you saw a gang of the same teens cruising the same places practically every night for over twenty years...and continuing to be teenagers...for the more observant, it was a little unsettling.
"YEAH!" Marko shouted, shaking his mane of hair and laughing. The sound was carried away by the night air, as Dwayne overtook him on his bike. They competed together, racing, all five of them. The more distance Michael gained from the cave, the less 'watched' he felt. The less...scared. Was he scared? Maybe it was just the guilt of being too close to Star.
David always remained at the head of the pack, with Dwayne close on his tail.
It was strange, riding together with all of them. Feeling for a brief moment that there actually were a few good things about having a 'family' like them, though they didn't have the same warmth of his real relatives. Michael leaned forward, squinting in the fog, and wished (not for the first time) he could sneak home and see them again. Without David dragging him back to the cave, or Marko making veiled threats to tear Sam's throat out if he tried to talk to them and let them know he was 'okay'.
Thank god Sammy's weird friends had left Santa Carla, though. He was pretty sure he could keep mom, Sam, and even grandpa safe from the boys...but if the Frogs were around, Michael didn't doubt there'd be a lot of blood on the beach...and even as he thought this, he didn't miss a gleeful look of mischief in Marko's eyes. The little fucker was reading his mind.
Mind your own business, Michael mentally snapped at him.
Your business is our business, Mikey...Paul teased in his mind. God damn it.
When the pack had roared off on their bikes, a woman's silhouette hovered at the entrance of the Sunken Hotel, barely visible to the human eye. The shadow slimmed down until it was merely a wisp, and slipped back inside the cave, there to wait. And plan.
Thorn glared at it, licking at his jaws. His eyes didn't leave the spot over the bed in the lobby, where the shadow seemed to nestle among the bundle of musty blankets.
And deeper within the confines of the hotel, her body sharpened grimy claws on the walls of it's earthen prison.
"Are you sure you don't want to go to the concert with us, dad?" Lucy peeked into her father's workshop, smiling sweetly.
"Don't need no loud music to ruin my night, Luce. You go on with your boy. I've got to catch up on my tv guide anyways," he shrugged her away, turning around in his chair and lowering the peculiar looking-glass he wore on his face for finer detail work. The project of the week was a group of baby alligators crossing the Delaware. The Widow Johnson was running out of ideas for visits...and he wasn't about to push stuff into uncomfortable territory by actively visiting without a commissioned piece in mind. Even if they did have a little fun now and then anyway. The pretense kept the game fresh, and he was too old to be making active commitments outside stuffing rats and heavy petting.
"Do you want me to bring anything back for you? We're probably going to grab a burger or something afterwards...if anything is still open. I'm not really sure how long this concert thing is supposed to last," Lucy still hung at the door, pressing her father for conversation. Sometimes she worried he spent too much time working, even if it was 'great passion' as he liked to call it in his more enthusiastic moments.
"Luce, I'm fine. I got some cookies in the fridge...I can scrounge something up if I have to. I lived alone for years before you came back to Santa Carla, and I'm sure I can take care of myself for one night," he chuckled, the sound light and rasping.
"...Okay, I get it, I know you don't need me to baby you, dad. You're a grown man." Lucy threw up her hands and shook her head, crossing the threshold of the door to sneak up and give him a quick hug from behind. She was short enough that she really didn't have to bend over to do so.
He smirked, patting his hands on hers as they were wrapped around his stomach. "You have fun out there, and keep an eye on those boys Sam brought with him. Got a bad feeling about tonight..."
By the time Lucy had finally left, and pulling out of the driveway with Sam and the Frog brothers, Grandpa Emerson took a deep breath and let it out. Nanook padded into the room and placed his head on the old man's knee, gazing up at him in the soulful way only a loving pet can.
"Yeah, probably gonna have to tell them about that little mess you found outside, eh?" Grandpa Emerson looked down at the husky and scratched behind his ears. Nanook whined.
"Damn vampires coulda at least filled the hole back in," he sighed, looking back at his baby gator display. It was going to be a very. Very. Long. Week.
"Now you're gonna keep an eye on Sam, aintcha? Yeah. Course you are. You're a good boy...but stop trying to eat my oreos off the coffee table when you think I'm not looking!" He winked at Nanook, who pulled away and padded out of the room.
He shrugged and returned to his work, humming the tune to 'The Love Boat'. Tucked into the corner of his workroom, hiding beneath a tarp and a collection of squirrel guardians with large teeth and beaver's tails...a small television awaited him. There was a reason he didn't let Sam in very often. Grandpa Emerson had plenty of his own secrets to hide. His afternoon Love Boat tradition was only one of the many.
"That's Joan Jett." Edgar insisted.
"No, it's not. Her name's Jane Plane. They even said so when they presented her." Alan roughly shook his head.
"She looks like Joan Jett."
"She's a cover artist, she's supposed to look like Joan Jett. She's not Joan Jett."
"I think she is. This is some kinda cover, or something. I'm telling ya, that's Joan Jett."
Edgar and Alan bickered between each other, yelling above the music and cheering crowd as a short woman onstage cruised around singing and dancing. She was no Joan Jett, that was for sure.
"This is the kind of music you like, Sam?" Lucy asked her son, smiling and squinting up at the artist. She preferred Sinatra and Joni Mitchell, but she was trying to be supportive. Every generation had their own kind of music.
"Not really, mom," Sam shook his head.
"Then why didn't you tell me before we came!" Lucy exclaimed, worried that he wasn't enjoying himself, and the thought was clearly written on her face.
"No, mom, I mean...I like it. I just wasn't expecting it?"
"I thought 'cover-palooza' sounded fun," Lucy sighed. "Did I make the wrong choice?"
Sam shook his head and smiled, leaning his head against her shoulder and listened to Jane Plane sing a cover of a cover song, 'Fun, Fun, Fun'.
"She's pretty hot," Edgar shouted, and Sam was more than a little concerned when he caught the gruffer Frog brother looking at his mom when he said it, and not the backside of Jane Plane, as she circled and crooned around her mic stand. They were going to have to have a serious talk later. Trying to convince him to kill his brother in order to save his immortal soul was one thing, but lusting after his mom was not cool.
"Nah, she's too skinny. Needs bigger tits." Alan replied, and Sam was at least a little relieved to note he wasn't looking at Lucy too when he said it.
"Alan Frog! Language!" Lucy chided. She hadn't been paying attention to anything else they said, but the moment any of the boys said something inappropriate, she immediately noticed. It was like she'd adopted them.
"Ignore them, Molly, they're just a group of punks," a girl with a bright red perm and matching pumps whispered into her friend's ear as they marched by the boys on the boardwalk, who were leaning against their bikes. The game of the night was catcalling for Paul, with back-up vocals by Marko himself. Dwayne and David were mostly silent, but the amused little smirks on their faces made them just as bad as the others.
Michael, for his part, was a perfect gentleman. He may have been staring at their asses when those girls walked by, but he kept his mouth shut. In his mind, he was the model of chivalry. He'd had enough practice, too, so he knew just the right moment to look away if any of them suspected his roving eyes. He was pretty proud of himself, actually.
"The one with the brown hair is the worst. I don't care if he does look like Jim Morrison. He's such a pig," the girl, Molly, hissed into her friend's ear as they gained more distance from the boys.
"I know! Acting like he's hot shit. I saw him looking at your ass, Molly," her friend whispered back. They didn't think he could hear...but they also didn't know about the super-hearing.
"Nice one, Mikey," Marko snickered.
"Smoooooth," Dwayne added, shaking his head.
No wonder Star noticed you. Probably panting over her when you got your first eyeful, huh? Here I thought you were just making googoo eyes. David added, mentally, stoking Michael's irritation.
Michael rolled his eyes and stepped away from his bike. "I'm gonna go for a walk," he told them as he tucked his hands into his jacket pockets and began to stroll away. He really needed a break from all of the...just...them. Always with him. Always bugging him. Always teasing. It was exhausting.
"Don't go too far, Michael!" David shouted, grinning. He didn't need to put any hint of malice or threat in his words. It was always there. Even when he wasn't saying anything at all.