Forbidden Kings of Silver Strand

Fiction

Photo by Chirayu Sharma on Unsplash

           

*This is a fun, imaginative piece originally published online at Alfie Dog Press. From 2012.

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In Silver Strand Beach there is a warm wind: the Santa Ana’s—they blow through in only a day or two, like a secret night-ghost, as if they never really come at all, save for the restless youth like Zach Connelly who sneak out at midnight to feel them.

When his folks went to bed, Zach snuck out the back door. Wearing his beanie and hooded sweatshirt, he started toward the sand, seeing the huge white house on the corner, walls of glass encapsulating it from the world, a giant Christmas tree standing in the corner.

            Reaching sand he took a breath of air releasing slowly, afraid if he let it out too fast the bubble of his mind might pop and he’d wake up, as if from a dream. Sometimes he thought his night walks were dreams and they never really happened. He knew they were real when he woke in the morning with sand and mud on the bottom of his boots.

            Zach watched the ocean, his mind riding the rhythm of the lighthouse’s glow, every ten seconds, illuminating the same spot on the churning black water. The sea terrified him—its depth, man-eating sharks, the unknown. His science instructor said that humans knew more about space than they did about the deepest parts of the ocean. A shiver ran down his spine. He scanned a 360 degree circle.

            The beach bore a wide swath of sand dunes, large round mounds with thickets of thorny brush. Zach pulled up a clump of sand. It was cold and hard, not the languid powder he knew in summer. He tossed the sand and thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans. When the next illumination hit the water, Zach realized there was a ship off the coast, way out there. Out of nowhere a light came from the ship. Zach panicked.

“Hey, figured I’s the only one walked round here.”

Suddenly a boy’s face was glowing, a flashlight under his chin. Zach’s age but skinny. Eyes shining like the ship.

            “…The hell er’ you doin on my beach, huh?” the kid said.

Zach gulped. “I’ve never seen you before—who says this is your beach anyway?”

“A smart-ass, huh.” The kid advanced.

Zach backed up; his breathing sped. “I don’t want trouble.”

“You don’t know trouble, man!” The kid sped past Zach.

Curious, Zach gave chase. Strangely, they ran together, dodging the neon traps of the lighthouse and the ship, as if they might get caught and be captured by pirates or secret government officials. Cold hard sand came up in tufts as they ran along the water, past the dunes, past the houses linked side-by-side against the street. Zach’s heart was beating furiously. The kid was ahead as light sprang in front of them; he cut left, toward dunes.

“Hey, I wonder what’s on that ship anyway, huh? What if they got illegal weapons, or like, you know, missiles or something? I bet they got nuclear missiles!” the kid said, out of breath.

“C’mon, we can’t let them catch us; they won’t be able to see us behind these dunes. Think about it, our families wouldn’t even know what happened, where we disappeared to—we’d just be gone…that’d be so crazy!” Zach bellowed.

They stopped behind a dune, sat against its cold wall and slid down, breathing hard. Zach looked up at the sky, darkness surrounding the sliver of moon.

“Hey man, you…saved me I guess,” Zach said.

The kid frowned.

“Naw, I just made you realize; you’d have done it on your own.”

  Zach smiled; it looked like he’d made a new friend. An intense sweeping light cascaded over the dune, scanning above: the ship. Jumping up, they started sprinting.

“C’mon man, we can’t get caught—they’ll get us, c’mon!” the kid yelled.

Zach ran as fast as he could, watching the kid’s hooded sweatshirt, his silhouette against the moonlit tide. They saw the laser-ray coming. Trapped—with only once choice— they leaped onto sand like soldiers training in boot camp, Marine-crawling on elbows and knees, slithering along the water with perplexing ease, braced against all hope. The light hovered above but they were too low: they had escaped, had tricked the evil ship.

The kid leapt up and sprinted toward another dune. Zach followed. They scrambled to the top of a tiny mountain of sand and jumped up and down like forbidden kings, waving their arms in the air, kicking their legs in triumph. The ship’s beam flooded the entire dune. The kid froze. He put his hand to his heart, rolled his eyes upward until the whites showed, and collapsed.

Zach slid down the dune carefully and stood over the kid, staring at his unmoving body. He nudged the kid’s shoulder with his boot.

There was no response. Zach knelt down beside him. On television he’d seen a man press his fingers to another man’s neck to see if there was a pulse. Zach gulped; he thought of running home. The ship’s beam shot at them, hitting the top of the dune, where they had been standing. Zach studied the kid—pale face, short, skinny body, closed, serious mouth. The kid opened his eyes, half way.

“Hey Zach, be careful man, they got me, the light, it hurts so bad man, I can’t even tell you…”

“Hey…how’d you know my name?” Zach said.

Beams came again. The kid jumped up and started running.

“Jeeze, you don’t wanna get hit man, I’m tellin ya, it hurts. It’s like some kinda secret laser ray or something; I’ll probably get some crazy disease. Naw, I’ll be alright, it didn’t hit me that long,” the kid yelled out of breath as they bolted from the light.  

They ran along a few more dunes until they were close to the street. The kid put his arm around Zach’s neck and they walked along the houses, safe. No secret white laser-rays. No government officials. They went along in silence until arriving at Sterling Street.

“I live here, what street you live on?” the kid said.

“Gardner,” Zach said. “Hey, what’s your—”

The kid tapped Zach’s shoulder. “Hey—you live your life how you wanna, ok Zach.”

He watched the kid tromp up Sterling, one of the streets Zach had never explored. He stayed right in the center, walking on the yellow divider.

Zach was perplexed. Not even a name. It was as if the kid was the Santa Ana winds in human form, blowing through his life. He picked up a handful of the cold crushed quartz and let it slither through his fingers. The ship’s light had gone dark, as if it had been a secret show just for their enjoyment.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Zach headed home. He hummed, kicking at the sand as he walked, until he reached asphalt. His mother had warned him to never walk on the divider.

But he had a new desire, to walk in the middle of roads, to dodge dangerous light, to run from mysterious ships, to be like the kid. Stepping into the street he strutted in exaggerated steps, one leg stretched in front of the other, one, then two, then three. Zach stopped at Gardner. Maybe he would keep going, walk past the whole neighborhood, past the harbor, past the warnings of his parents, past all the boundaries of youth.

Zach began moving past his house, went for a few seconds, thought better of it, and turned.

The clock above the fireplace said one-thirty in the morning. His parents would have killed him. He poured a glass of milk, chugging. Taking off his boots he placed them on the mat. Reaching his room he took off his sandy clothes and crawled into bed. He tried to rest his head on the Spider Man pillow, to close his eyes and clear his mind. But every time he tried he saw the ship, the dunes; the kid.

He envisioned that yellow divider, walking along it, fearless—how he’d wanted to keep going, pass up his house, and see what was beyond.