Hot, Open

[November]

Alucard sat on the wall that separated the sea of white sand from the low, flat gray concert of the board walk. The crowd moved at his back like the current of a river, laughing and talking and without a care for anyone else outside of their private little bubbles, a crowd of mostly exposed flesh lay out before him like dead bodies, toasting their skin to unnatural shades of bronze.

His bare feet dangled over the sand, his big toes hovering only an inch above the roasting warmth. His greying socks were tucked into his worn out leather boots that stood sadly beside him. His worn black jeans had long since faded to grey and his flannel shirt was tied around his waist. It's been too warm to wear most of the clothes he had. His fingerless gloves were packed away in the bottom of his rugged backpack, as was his long sleeved shirt. He hated tank tops, they exposed too much of him, but the heat had chased away the tee shirts as well and left him in a black muscle shirt, not quite as grey as his pants.

The tank top left the mat of scars across his throat and shoulders exposed. People pointed, stared, they didn't bother to whisper when they speculated that he was a victim of a dog attack, a car accident, a fire. He flinched and did his best to ignore them. He was going to enjoy this day, damn it.

[inkhorse]

Gram barely noticed the brazen sun beating down on his touseld black hair, and took scant interest in the throngs of people swarming around him. His attention was captured by the book in his hands, and he scarcely paid attention to where he was walking. Barely contained excitement made his fingers tremble, and Gram had to force them still to be able to keep reading. He was on to something, he knew it.

In the distance he heard the sweeping splashing of the waves, the hiss and draw of water over sand. The babble of people around him was muted, a dull roar against the background of his exhilaration. It seemed the constant agony of living in a human maze might finally be paying off. Gram snapped the book shut, digging in the pocket of his cargo shorts for a pen and a notepad. Scribbling frantically in a crabbed short hand, Gram hunched his shoulders against the blazing sun and shading the page. His feet unconciously carried him faster in his thrilling excitement, with little regard for direction. An aggravated grunt was his only response to the angry outcries from people he walked into with out noticing, and he left a wake of grumbling citizen's and bruised toes in his haphazard path. Suddenly he walked straight into a bulky middle aged man in a Hawaiian shirt. The angry, pot bellied beach goer shoved Gram, hard. He carreened to the side, felt something hard hit his midriff, and tumbled head first into the sand.

Groaning, an angry retort on the tip of his tongue, Gram picked him self up. He snatched his black rimmed glasses from the sand and stared about, furious, for the tropical bedecked idiot. Instead, he came to face to face with a blonde, skinny youth, and terror replaced the anger. That other part of his brain rushed to the forefront, and screamed incoherently at him to RUN, and keep running. Gasping as though from a blow to the stomach, Gram scrambled for control, to keep from sprouting hooves and antlers on the crowded beach. He didn't know why, but something about the scrawny kid before him made him nearly faint from fear. Slowly, he backed away, pen, book and notepad forgotten in the sand.