Chapter Text
She was dreaming again. The sounds of fluttering leaves and singing birds surrounded her. The distinct feeling of grass beneath her body, and the sun’s heat on her face. Soft laughter, her hand being held in someone else’s. Sweet nothings whispered into her hair, I love that dress, it’s my favourite.
Emma had the same dream every single time she slept. Her mother was there somewhere, she could feel it, doing silly dances while hanging laundry, her laughter echoing sweetly through Emma’s dreamscape. What was her mother’s name again...? “…ma…” If she could just look away from the sky and towards her mother, just for a second… “…Emma…!”
The echoing laughter slowly changed, becoming darker and slowing down into dark, vicious chuckles. The sky darkened, and the grass beneath her disappeared and was replaced by rough, cold cobblestone. Something wet and sticky started to drip onto her from somewhere, she tried to lift her hand to her face to see what it was. Aw, I loved that dress, it was my favourite… It looked like…
“Emma!”
Emma jerked awake with a yelp. The intruder was right by her bed. On pure instinct, she rolled out of bed straight onto her feet, bent her knees and readied herself to – oh my god it was just Matt.
“Jesus, Matt, try knocking?” She walked up to the foot of the bed and smacked his chest roughly, earning a grunt from the tall man in front of her. He grabbed her arm softly and leaned down slightly. Dark brown eyes met her own.
“Dude, seriously?” He nodded down at her hand and raised an eyebrow, shaking his head with a smile. “You’re lucky it’s just me; you could seriously hurt someone with a smack like that.”
Emma huffed some of her dark brown hair from her face and glared up at him, not appreciating his sarcasm. She herself raised an eyebrow back at him as she snatched her arm back from his very weak grip. He was almost exactly a head taller than her, lean but still muscular around his shoulders and chest. His curly, dark brown hair fell heavily around his clean-shaven face.
“Shut up,” she muttered at him, turning around to grab her journal from her nightstand. Matt laughed and raised his hands in surrender.
“Ooo, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed! As much as I regret offending you, I’m sorry, Em. It’s nine o’clock. If you really want the chance to check the boardwalk tonight, we need to get going,” he chuckled and took a few steps back towards the door of her motel room. As much as she appreciated him getting her a room of her own instead of sharing, like they’d done at the last place, she didn’t appreciate him getting a spare key.
“Clothes. Bags. Car. You’ve got five minutes!”
Emma picked up the clothes that were scattered all over the motel room, stuffing them haphazardly into her old grey wool suitcase while finding clothes to switch out her pyjama t-shirt. Her favourite Black Sabbath t-shirt had been thrown on the floor the night before. She grabbed it, smelled it, deemed it fresh enough and pulled it over her head while kicking objects into the suitcase. Clothes, shoes, cassette tapes, cassette player… While she was jumping into her ripped mom jeans, she was reminded of Matt’s existence when impatient knocks on the door made her sigh loudly.
“Bro, I’m almost done! Stop nagging!”
“We’ve got like seven hours of driving ahead of us and I’m sorry, Em, but you slept way too long!” his muffled, dark voice grumbled outside the door. “I’m the one with the license, I’m the one who decides when we go and I want to go - like right now!”
White converse were pulled on and quickly tied, and Emma ruffled her messy dark hair and sprayed it with a considerable amount of hairspray. She paused a moment and went for her regular hair ritual of headbanging for volume. Hands clapped her cheeks and her finger touched the edge of a small scar on her left cheek – Aw, what a shame. Her hands paused while touching the small, raised bump. It’s not like she cared much about it anymore; she wasn’t even sure if people noticed it at a glance.
The same dumb dream every single time she slept. She knew it had to be a sign, something was wrong, of course. The hopes of Santa Carla being the place where she could sleep in peace kept her going. She hummed to herself.
Emma picked up the last of her things and stuffed them into her suitcase, fighting against the old zipper. One last thing. The by now slightly tattered Experience Santa Carla! brochure she had spent the last few days perusing with anticipation had been used as a bookmark in her journal. She had, in fact, never experienced Santa Carla, so the piece of paper was helpful. With a smile, she grabbed the journal and turned back to her suitcase.
Suitcase and journal in hand, she walked out and was hit by the California nighttime fresh air. Her twin brother leaned against their scratched and rusted light blue Honda Accord, spinning the key around his pointer finger. He was wearing a tattered and scratched up black leather jacket over his Whitesnake t-shirt and black jeans. With a tilt of his head to the side and a grin, Matt helped Emma put her bag in the back seat. Bags and boxes filled the backseat. Some of it were books, some of it were clothes or other necessities for a life on the road. The best box, however, was the smallest one in the middle. That one contained Emma’s favourite cassettes.
Runaways, some would call the pair. They went wherever they wanted but never stayed in one place for very long. Did whatever they wanted as well. Maybe some would assume that kind of life to be carefree. It wasn’t. A life on the road meant throwing stability away and replacing it with fragility and worries. They’d been on the road, on the run, the past five years. In Los Angeles, they’d stayed for almost six months. Life there had been fun, not very complicated at all. But then it was time to move on, as usual.
Emma jumped into the passenger seat and looked back at the boxes. Grabbing one of the cassettes from its box before stuffing it into the car’s cassette player, she grinned at Matt’s disapproving look when he noticed her choice. Ozzy Ozbourne’s haunting melodies and cries filled the car as Matt pulled out of the motel parking and turned left, towards Santa Carla. She put her feet up above the glove compartment and opened her journal.
Dear diary.
It’s Thursday the 28th of May,1987 today and we’re getting closer to Santa Carla. We’ve been driving north along the west coast for a couple of days, just taking smaller breaks to catch our breaths.
I don’t know why, but somehow, I’ve felt this pull north for a while now. It feels like we’re supposed to go to Santa Carla. Matt doesn’t know what I’m talking about, of course. Maybe it’s instinct to avoid the hard questions right now, maybe we should just drive and leave it all behind. Could we, though?
Her hands paused for a moment and she glanced over at Matt. He was focused on the road, reading signs to figure out where to go in the roundabout they were approaching. Emma looked back down at the journal and continued.
L.A. was great. The flashing lights, the people, the partying… I miss it already. Even though I have Matt, I guess I feel lonely sometimes. Maybe I’ll find someone, ANYONE, to hang out with every now and then in Santa Carla. The brochure makes it look like a fun place. Can’t wait to see the boardwalk!
We’re in the car now as I’m writing this. Me and Matt, on the road again. Whenever we take breaks from our travels, he’s always itching to get back on the road. He can’t find peace in temporary solutions and short-lived living arrangements. I can’t either. I don’t know how long we’ll stay. Maybe a week, maybe a year? Maybe, just maybe, we could stay longer.
I had the same dream as usual. Nothing more to note about it, but it’s annoying, it is exhausting and I want to-
“Wha- take your nasty-ass feet off my car, Em!”
She rolled her eyes and closed the book. This car-ride was going to take a while.
As it turned out, it only took four hours to reach Santa Carla. Looking pointedly at the clock ticking just past 1AM, Emma sighed.
“You’re such a time pessimist,” she muttered as her twin brother chuckled, drumming his hands on the wheel in beat with whatever was playing on the radio. The cassettes had been thrown into the back seat after Emma had insisted one time too many that Black Sabbath definitely was the superior band compared to Def Leppard. Her brother had then decided that enough was enough and that they now were confined to the randomness of the radio.
“Meet you all the way! Rosanna yeah~!” Matt sung along, earning an eyeroll from his twin sister. They were driving along the coast when they saw the colourful sign announcing their arrival in Santa Carla, and Emma couldn’t help herself letting out a small squeal of excitement. Then, they passed the sign, and she saw the graffiti on the back of it.
Murder capital of the world. Okay, that’s fine… Not weird at all…
“Um, Matt?” she mumbled while leaned back looking through the back window. He just hummed in response. “You didn’t happen to hear something about Santa Carla being the murder capital of the world?”
Matt cleared his throat and faltered for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Uh, no, actually. Why?”
She let the sign go and turned back to look out the passenger window and watch the waves in the moonlight, lightly chewing her lip in thought.
“Nah, never mind. They didn’t write that in the brochure,” she finally said, which earned another low chuckle from her brother. He gave her leg a pat and pointed forwards.
“Heads up, sis. There’s the motel. We could check the place out and see for ourselves if anyone is alive here,” he joked and pulled into a parking lot eerily similar to the one at the last motel, but much bigger. “I’m getting the keys for our new place tomorrow at my first shift.”
From the brochure and her first impression, she had gathered that Santa Carla would be a bit of a tourist attraction. A place full of experiences, joy, fun, people.
The car had barely stopped before she threw herself out to stretch her legs. She turned around to Matt and tilted her head with a pout.
“I’ve been longing for that boardwalk for days, could you fix us a room for the night, and I’ll just go for a short walk up there? You know I’ll be fine!” she pleaded jokingly, earning herself a deep sigh from her brother. He nodded slowly.
“Sure thing, Em. Just take it easy, okay? I’ll meet you there in a while” he put his hands on his hips and gave her a pointed look, but his smile ruined his attempt at brotherly authority. Emma grinned and made another happy squeal and immediately turned to strut towards the bustling boardwalk.
It didn’t take long to get there, just a couple of minutes as she decided to try to find a shortcut amongst several of the dark alleys of the town. Between brick buildings, she wove herself through a group of men who hollered after her. She barely noticed as she was completely focused on finding herself to the source of the increasingly loud chatter of a crowd. But oh boy, when she found it…
Stepping out from an alley between a small convenience store and a tattoo place, she finally joined the boardwalk crowd. There was a pier in front of her, and on either side of her were the boardwalk streets, filled with shops and restaurants, some tattoo shops, what seemed to be a small video store, and most of all – a huge crowd. On the wooden pier, she was amazed to see an actual roller coaster filled to the brim with young people screaming from joy. She also saw some typical carnival games – there was one stand where people were throwing darts at small balloons to win prizes, and another one where you had to pull strings to win prizes. All the sounds, sights and smells were almost overstimulating for a moment, after spending a couple of days in the car. It was like a nighttime carnival, with colourful string lights hanging over the pier entrance, several different food and drink stands, and oh my god that’s a carousel!
She was struck with how pretty the place was. Could it be that this place could be what she had been hoping for? A new place where she could be carefree, have fun, heal? Matt had already gotten a job at a bar off the boardwalk, and even fixed them an old, shitty apartment above the bar for them to live in while there.
First things first, though. She was very thirsty and itching for a Slurpee. Joyfully, she saw a hot dog-stand selling Slurpees and wandered over.
“Hi, can I get a cherry Slurpee, please?” she asked sweetly, handing over a dollar bill. The man working the stand smiled and took her money, exchanging it for her beloved drink.
“Are you alone?” he questioned her, looking around her with a frown. Emma tilted her head, furrowed her brows and let her smile falter. He didn’t give her a chance to respond, immediately continuing. “It’s not really safe this time of night for a pretty girl like you.”
She laughed and took a step back, shaking her head.
“Oh my god, no, I’m fine on my own! But my brother is joining me in a while,” she assured him as she turned and rolled her eyes. Being called pretty by a complete stranger wasn’t on her bingo card for the night, but she took it as a small victory. What a… nice man. She wasn’t a fan of how girls often were assumed to be small and weak, however. Emma would probably go so far as to say that she’s a relatively tough person, she rarely felt threatened when out at night. Although Santa Carla being called the murder capital of the world wasn’t really on the bingo card either, she supposed, and from the hot dog man’s reaction she could piece together that maybe this place wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Maybe there was some truth to the silliness of calling the place ‘the murder capital of the world’. Not that it mattered much to her when her plan mostly was to mind her own business.
She turned to lift her Slurpee at the man in a small ‘cheers’ motion and set her sights on a notice board by the pier entrance.
Somehow, despite her actually reading the sign on the way into town, and despite her interaction with the hot dog man, she was still shocked to see a whole wall of ‘missing’ posters. Where information about events and other fun things should’ve been, instead there were dozens of faces staring back at her lifelessly, dozens of pleas of loved ones and their phone numbers. Squirming uncomfortably, she chewed on the inside of her cheek and looked at the faces before finally mustering the strength to tear her eyes away and start moving.
That many missing people, that wasn’t a sign of a safe, nice town. That was a possible sign of trouble with a capital T. Emma shook her head and sipped on her Slurpee, relishing the taste while increasing the distance between herself and the notice board. All cities had their issues, she reminded herself. It couldn’t possibly be worse in Santa Carla than in L.A., and there was a lot of crime in L.A…
She walked around the boardwalk a while, trying to take her mind off the bizarre notice board, looking into the different shops to try to find a new t-shirt to destroy at the motel later. After one hour had passed, she started to wonder where her brother could be, feeling just a tiny bit nervous. This was a new place, maybe he had gotten lost? She had promised him to meet him at the boardwalk, so leaving to look for him would probably be a bad idea.
Finally, she tried on a Derek & The Dominos shirt and immediately saw the vision in her head – this one could be cut in different places to become another of her sweet shirt creations. Cut off the sleeves and make the neckline slightly bigger to show her collarbones, oh, and she could cut from the bottom to make wide strips up to her waist… Okay, creation would probably be a bit of a stretch, she just cut them up mostly to show her midriff and shoulders, it’s not like she was some kind of designer. She chuckled. I wish.
After paying for the shirt and putting it in a plastic bag, she exited the clothing store only to be hit with an extremely potent smell of cigarettes. Emmas’ attention immediately turned to the source of the smell – four (very hot) guys on their motorcycles. They were looking out over the boardwalk and not really acknowledging her until she passed them. She turned her back to them to walk the other way and see if Matt had arrived yet when she heard a snicker, followed by a quiet:
“Check her out,” and more quiet laughter from the group behind her. She turned around to look at them and met the eyes of four guys. They looked like quite an odd collection of characters. The four of them looked like they belonged in different fashion magazines. Three blondes and one with dark hair. She was struck first with one of them, his curly blonde hair framed his face in a way that made his eyes stand out. In a way, he looked baby-faced, a bit angelic. The other blondes had more mature face structures in comparison. One had very light blonde hair in a kind-of mullet, while the other one had hair that brought her thoughts to Twisted Sister. They each had a cig between their lips.
Her eyes lingered on each of the blondes, and she could feel the hairs on her neck rising. She saw that the curly-haired guy and Twisted Sister reject both were looking her up and down, sizing her up. The other were also observing her, although admittedly with less interest than the others. Twisted Sister reject leaned over the handlebars of his motorcycle and flashed a charming grin her way, tossing his cig to the ground.
“What’s your name, babe?” he asked, earning him a chuckle and some pats on his shoulder from the curly-haired blonde. Emma sized up the two guys, immediately noting that they both looked like more trouble than they were worth. At least for tonight. She laughed, turning her head.
“You know, babe’s not my name, and I don’t talk to strangers,” she said simply and walked away. Behind her, she could hear the curly-haired guy laughing hysterically while Twisted Sister reject ‘ooo’-ed loudly. She didn’t spend energy trying to listen to them; she had other things to do. Although it was nice to know the boardwalk seemed to have a supply of at least four attractive bad boys, and although it was nice to receive the attention, she kept walking and didn’t turn around. Not tonight, she reasoned, but definitely some other night…
Emma had almost forgotten about the interaction when she saw Matt further down the boardwalk, standing outside tattoo and piercing parlour. When she approached, she saw how his eyes were pasted on a cute blonde girl getting her septum pierced. She recognized the look in his eyes and decided to say something. “What ’cha looking at?”
He jumped slightly and turned to stare at her.
“You know I hate it when you do that,” he muttered. Emma laughed and shrugged.
“Can’t really help it if your attention span sucks,” she noted, which earned her a light push and a laugh. Matt pointed down an alley to the right of the tattoo place.
“Watering hole is down this way, sis,” he grinned and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they walked towards his workplace, completely unaware of the four pairs of eyes tracking their exit.