Chapter Text
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. So went the sound on the rain of the roof of the car as it trundled up the thin little road. Pete Wentz watched, with quite a bit of trepidation, as the tip of the mountain grew larger through the rainfall and the vehicle shuddered with the effort of the climb. But the ride remained steady, even as the road turned away from the peak and onto a narrow cliffside trail. Pete heard a yelp from the front.
“Easy, easy,” Patrick urged from the passenger’s side and Joe sighed from the driver’s seat. Joe seemed pretty focused to Pete; his knuckles were practically white as they held onto the steering wheel. But this obviously wasn’t how he came across to Patrick who was obsessing over Joe’s driving technique. “Okay, now turn right...”
“Patrick!” Joe shouted suddenly, making the other three young men in the car jump. “I know what I’m doing! Your nagging actively makes it harder for me!”
“Alright, sorry…” Patrick said. He put his hands up in a mock defensive manner. “I just don’t want to slip off the road over a cliff and die or anything…”
Joe rolled his eyes. “That’s not going to happen, Patrick. Honestly, you worry too-”
The car suddenly swerved to the side, spurred to action by a puddle in the muddy road. Everyone shrieked as Joe quickly wrenched the steering wheel in the other direction just before it could crash through the flimsy railings. It was a split second with just the sound of the rain on the roof before he said, “See, I saved it. We’re not going to fall off a cliff.”
Patrick whimpered and rung his hands. For once, Pete could sympathize with his friend’s worry. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that this whole trip they were taking was an utterly insane idea. When he had first proposed this trip to his bandmates, he had framed it as a simple nostalgic holiday from their constant touring. And that was true to some extent. This was far from Pete’s first time at their destination, a place called Pink Seashell Village, though it was his first time in a while, such a long while that he had nearly no memory of when he’d been last.
The memories he did have were hazy. Vague images of his mother standing by him, her soft, dark hand holding his as they walked barefoot along the shore. Of the stories she’d whisper in that gentle, lilting voice of hers. Ones about the ocean and the magic contained within it.
For years, Pete wondered if he had simply dreamt it all. After all, he had been but four years old when his mother had passed, and his father had moved him over to the more typical Chicago suburbs. And he’d seldom spoken of her since. But recently, he’d given Pete a small cardboard box. It’d come with a short note explaining that the contents were things that had once belonged to his mother. Pete had opened it with a great sense of reverence.
Inside was a small and modest collection of items. The first Pete pulled out was a small clam shell, which he couldn’t open no matter how hard he tried to pry the sides apart. Then a post card depicting a place called Pink Seashell Beach. Pete had narrowed his eyes as he’d gazed at the blue ocean, white sand and rainbow-colored buildings pressed together in the distance. The card was blank, no picture of his mother to be found, but the image tugged at his mind and heart, anyway, giving him faint traces of long forgotten memories. After that was a map, hand drawn on a piece of graph paper of all things, leading to the aforementioned village.
The final item in the box was a necklace. It was nothing fancy, or even valuable looking, just a thin, silver chain with a small pink scallop shell on the end of it. This invoked memories too, but in a different way. Ones he could grasp and remember fully. His mother had worn the very same necklace in the past, he was sure of it. And now he remembered, he’d been to the place on the post card with her and she’d once shown him the clam shell herself. Though why, he still didn’t know. Perhaps it opened, once upon a time...
Pete had kept most of the box’s contents at home, the one exception being the necklace which he now wore round his neck. His hands went to it now, felt the rough grooves beneath his fingers, the sandy pink surface. He savored the sensation, tried to imagine his mother doing the very same thing. He failed, and not for lack of imagination. The truth was, Pete knew so little of his mother that it was very nearly like he didn’t have one at all. So, naturally, he came to believe that if he could figure out what the deal was with this necklace and this mysterious Pink Seashell Village they had once visited, maybe he could finally get to know her...
The car lurched again, throwing Pete out of his thoughts and into the seat in front of him (Patrick’s). Joe was forced to swerve again to avoid falling down into the raging ocean below. Yup. This was 100% stupid, idiotic and crazy.
“If it rains any harder it might be too dangerous to drive,” Andy observed.
“I think it’s already too dangerous to drive,” Patrick grumbled.
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Joe asked. “I can hardly stop in the middle of the road.”
That was a fair point though, Pete thought. And it wasn’t like there were any 7-11s or Royal Farms nearby they could stop at either, here in the mountains.
But there could be camping spaces! Or sight-seeing spots! Pete perked up. Maybe the band could find a safe space to wait out the storm after all! “Hey, who’s got the map?” Pete asked.
“Don’t think that’s going to be any help now, considering that we can’t see,” Joe said, squinting out the windshield. It was covered in rain, despite the fact that the windshield wipers were on the heaviest setting.
“Come on, just give it to me anyway. I think I have an idea.”
“What kind of idea is this?” Patrick asked warily, though he gave the map to Pete without waiting for an answer.
“A good one, you’ll see. Just trust me on this, it’ll all work out.” Pete opened the map and Patrick, Joe and Andy exchanged glances. Pete’s ideas had a reputation for being out there, to say the least. But they also almost always worked out. Silence fell over the car as the boys let Pete do his thing and form a plan.
Meanwhile, Pete pored over the map before him. It was hard to see inside the car under the dark, stormy sky, but Pete had studied this map long before they’d set off on their adventure. Why, the edges of the page were already beginning to tear, turning yellow and brittle under his constant scrutiny. This map wasn’t like other maps. Hardly anything was labeled save for the destination and a bright red line, drawn in pen through the mountains, indicated the path travelers should take. Pete ran his finger along it, accurately assessing where they were at the current moment before searching the map for anything else that had been marked nearby…
“There’s a stop right around here!” Pete exclaimed. “A place called… The Sea Shack?”
Joe burst into laughter that slowly tapered off as he was met with blank stares from everyone else in the car. He cleared his throat. “Sorry…” he said. “But if that isn’t the most stupid, touristy thing I’ve ever heard. Like anyone’s gonna be buying snow globes this deep into the mountains…”
“The sea is right there…” Andy pointed out, glancing towards the dark, violent ocean beneath the very cliff they drove on.
“Still…” Joe said. “It’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”
“As long as it’s real and we don’t have to drive in this,” Patrick said, looking at the rain. He furrowed his brow. “How far now, Pete?”
“About… twenty-five miles out,” Pete deduced.
“Twenty-five miles…” Patrick repeated. He had his brow furrowed and his lips pursed, as if he were calculating something. “Hey, Joe, you think you can last thirty more minutes?”
“Thirty minutes‽ Honestly, I’d rather swerve off the cliff than do five more!”
“JOE!!!” Patrick screeched, making everyone jump. Joe’s eyes went wide.
“Jesus, I was joking. Yes, I can drive thirty more minutes, Patrick. Just make sure you don’t have a conniption before we get there, alright?”
“Sounds like he’s already having a conniption,” Pete teased and he, Joe and Andy all laughed. Patrick crossed his arms and pouted.
“All you guys are the worst...” he grumbled.
In approximately that amount of time, the band came upon their destination. The Sea Shack was certainly a shack alright, with crooked walls and sagging roofs that looked even sadder in the rain. Even through the curtain of heavy precipitation the boys could see that the wood was rotted and the wispy curtains full of holes. Not a sliver of light emanated from the tiny window, nothing more than a slit in the door.
“Well…” Andy began after a moment of prolonged silence. “At least we’re not on the road.”
“I don’t get it,” Joe said. “There’s not even a sign!!”
“Are we sure this is The Sea Shack?” Patrick asked. He looked down at the map, which Pete had given to him so he could help Joe navigate in the rain. Pete looked out through the windshield at the sad heap of wood they had parked in front of. It didn’t look like a shop. A house abandoned by its hermit owners maybe, but a shop? There was no way.
“Well… we can’t just stay in the van until the storm passes, can we?” Patrick asked.
“Why not?” Andy countered. “It’s air-conditioned. It’s got heat. It’s got lockable doors and food inside of it.” The only food was chips, candy, soda and leftover McDonald’s but that was beside the point. Patrick glanced around, then shivered.
“I don’t know…” he finally said. “It’s just… the mountains? There’s something about them. They give me a bad feeling.”
“The mountains?” Joe echoed. “Patrick, their stationary landforms. They can’t do anything to you. Not unless you’re stupid and you fall off of one.”
“You IDIOT!!!” Patrick shouted. “I’m not scared of the mountains themselves! I’m scared of what hides in them!”
“What do you think is in them?” Andy asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“W-Well, I don’t know,” Patrick said, furrowing his brow. His arms were crossed. “Probably some hyenas or snakes or something...?”
“Well, if you’re scared of the hills imagine what’s in that shack,” Joe suggested, a mischievous smile on his face. “Look at that thing, there’s got to be a wild animal hiding out in there too.”
“A wild animal?” Patrick paled.
“At least,” Andy suggested, playing along. “And a ghost or something at most.”
“A ghost‽” Patrick gulped.
“Pete, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet,” Joe observed. “What do you think, should we go in?”
Pete looked through the heavy rain at the dilapidated wooden shack in front of them. Its quality seemed very questionable, to say the least. A parking space was one thing, but could it provide shelter from the rain? Would it collapse on top of them?
And yet, Pete was curious. This place had been on his mother’s map. When the only other thing on it had been their destination. Even if she didn’t draw it herself, there had to be a meaning behind that, right? This... shop? House? Whatever it was, it was important.
He had to go in there.
Pete smirked. “You know what I’m going to say, Joe.”
The boys groaned. They did, indeed, know all too well what Pete was going to say.
“Oh, come on, Pete,” Joe said. “You can’t seriously believe that place is even safe to go in. Let alone open to the public?”
“Why not? Aren’t you guys a little curious to at least know what’s inside?” Pete asked, turning up the charm. “I mean, an abandoned shack in the middle of the mountains has got to have a cool story behind it, right?”
“But… what about the ghosts?” Patrick asked.
“Pete gave a flippant wave of the hand. “Ghosts aren’t real,” he scoffed.
“You’re saying ghosts aren’t real, Pete? Explain to me the incident in the recording studio last winter, then?”
“That was different,” Pete stammered. “I had reason to believe there were ghosts in there! This…” he gestured to the shack beyond them. “Now, this is different.”
“How?” Patrick asked flatly.
“And even if there weren’t ghosts,” Joe began. “Look at this pouring rain. Are we sure this is the time to be exploring?”
“If not now, then when?” Pete asked. “Do you seriously think we’re ever gonna be back here again? Think about it. We got here by accident following a handwritten map to a place you can’t find on Google! This is our one chance to explore something that perhaps no one else has seen or will see in decades! Isn’t that at least a little bit exciting to all of you?”
This argument gave the other boys pause. None of them could deny that there was a certain sense of charm and charisma to Pete Wentz. The sort that allowed him to convince anyone to do anything. Notable examples included convincing Joe’s parents to let him join his band on tour when he was still a teenager, or every time he convinced Patrick that a particular lyric he’d written didn’t need changing. Now, all three of his bandmates exchanged glances, silently assessing whether their frontman was worth trusting this time.
Finally, Joe sighed. “You’re going to be the death of us, Wentz.” Pete couldn’t contain his smile. They were just as predictable as him, really.
“This better be the best abandoned shack in the mountains in the world,” Patrick snarked.
“To be honest, I don’t think there’s going to be much competition for that,” Joe said as he opened the car door. Not even the pounding rain could overpower the sound of the boys’ laughter.