Bloodied on the Beach

Pain. Blood across the sand. The warmth of the beach and soft sand slamming hard into my body. But that’s getting ahead of myself. It all started Saturday morning. The first day of my beach trip.

The drive up to the beach always feels longer than it actually is. I don’t know if it’s just the anticipation, or if there is something actually there, but each of the three hours sitting behind the wheel feel like days. As I park outside the cheap beachside hotel, I can’t help but smile. Stepping out of my four by four, I stretch out once my feet are firmly planted onto the gravel of the parking lot. Moving around to the side, I pull my duffel bag out from atop my back seat. Heading inside the hotel, I shoot the woman at the front desk a thin smile. “Phil Lester,” I inform the desk.

She, clearly only half paying attention to my general existence, nods, checks something on her computer, then turns to the side where she types a sequence of numbers into a small machine and runs a card through it, before she looks back up at me. “Here you go. Room two-oh-seven. It’s going to be on the second floor, right by the stairs. Well, if you head to the beach through that door, right by the stairs,” she corrects herself as she gestures to her right.

I take the key card and nod. “Thanks,” I say, and head out to the beach following her directions. Stepping through the sand feels odd. Like I shouldn’t be wearing my boots. Uneven and each step sinks differently. It’ll do me good to get away from the city for a minute. Relax on the beach. Read a book. Maybe chat with some of the other weirdos around. I finished walking around to the beach outside the hotel.

From the layout, it feels almost like a motel, except rather than facing a parking lot, the open doorways to the rooms face out to the beach. This is more the front of the hotel than the doors that led to the front desk. I climb up the nearside stairs to the second of three floors, and sure enough, right beside them sits the room. 207. I insert the keycard, the door lock’s light turns green, and I head inside. Putting down my duffel bag, I sigh and head straight for the shower. I have tonight, tomorrow, and Monday, then Tuesday morning I’m back on the road to the city. In theory. Best make the most of it.

After the shower, I get more appropriately dressed, a bathing suit and T-shirt, as well as grabbing a pair of flip flops, rather than my work boots. I walk the room, checking the amenities. Microwave, with a rotating plate. Seems in working order. Coffee machine, one of those that uses a pod and has the styrofoam cups wrapped in plastic. Only if necessary. There’s an ironing board for some reason, but the iron is broken. From the looks of things around the closet, the iron’s been broken for quite some time. Which all point to me needing a different place to run my day through. This is just the place I’ll shower and rest. I head out on my fact finding excursion before evening comes. Closing my room’s door behind me, I wait and listen for the telltale whirring and faint click of the door locking. Only then do I head downstairs to the beach.

As I head out onto the sand, one of the doors opens on the first floor, and a family of five walk out. The mother is holding a baby, probably a couple of months old. The father is walking along with the other two kids, probably around seven and four. “Hey, odd time for a vacation,” the father says when he sees me.

I shoot him a pleasant smile and a nod. “I could say the same to you.” Then, with a chuckle, I add, “No, my doctor told me that I needed to get out of the city for a minute. So I took Tuesday off so I can have myself a nice long weekend at the beach.”

The mother laughs. “I try to tell him that all the time,” she says, “But he doesn’t listen.”

I shrug. “Maybe you should try to give him a doctor’s note,” I add, which elicits some snickers from the kids. With another nod, this one farewell, I walk down the beach and into town.

That afternoon, I found the two keys to survival in any place: a morning coffee shop and an evening diner, both within easy walking distance from the hotel. And more importantly, neither on the boardwalk. The diner is on the other side of the boardwalk, but I can head under the walkways or into the city proper and never need to deal with that mass of people. Heading back from dinner to the hotel after an evening wandering around the city, I smiled. A good day, as a whole. Not much actually happened, but that’s the point of this trip. To get away from the stresses of everyday life and just live a little. Heading up to my room, a woman is smoking a cigarette a few doors down. She waves. She looks young, probably about nineteen. “Hey, good to see someone close to my age. I’m Candice,” she informs me.

I shake my head. “I’m nowhere near your age,” I inform the kid.

She shrugs. “Closer than any of the family or the elderly couple downstairs. There’s also some chiseled looking guy on the third floor, but he hasn’t come down from his perch yet, so I can’t tell his age really.”

“I’m Phil. And that still doesn’t make me close to your age,” I counter.

She shrugs that off. “What are you up to, anyways?” she asks.

I shrug right back. “Killing time, resting. The usual things us old people do. What about you?”

“I took a gap year and am hitting up all the beaches of America on my way back home.”

“Sounds productive,” I joke.

She chuckles. “More than you.”

I shrug. “Not trying to be.” Then, after a moment, I correct myself, “Actually, trying not to be.”

“Well, Phil,” she says, “See you tomorrow then. An old man like you is probably out here past your bedtime.”

I chuckle, then look at the time. Eleven thirty is fast approaching. While it’s not past time that I get to sleep, it’s getting awful close. “See you tomorrow then,” I replied. And, after I changed into my sleep clothes, I passed out on the bed.

My ribs were sore Sunday morning as I awoke. Six thirty. Time to shower and move. I rinse fast, after all I didn’t do much yesterday after that shower, then pull on a different outfit that is much the same. A pair of swim trunks, and a new T-shirt. I grab my string bag that holds my book and a pad of paper, then I head over to the cafe I found. I have one coffee there, then get the second to go as I head back to the beach. Walking the beach, I find a nice warm spot on the beach out near the hotel, and lie down. Lying down on the hot sand hurts my sore ribs at first, but I power through, pulling out my pad of paper and starting to sketch. I sketch the faces I’ve seen on this trip. And after the first few sketches, my ribs don’t hurt as much.

The family says hello as they’re heading to the boardwalk around eleven. Candice joins me for a bit, around lunch time, reading her romance novel. Evidently the whole concept of smoking is an after dark activity only, because that’s when smoking cigarettes is the most aesthetic, according to the mind of the teenage girl. The elderly couple walk by to go back to their room around two. I add them to my book. Whoever the man is on the third floor does leave, at one point, but he heads straight into the city, not down the beach, so I don’t get a good look at him. Candice was right, though, from the glance I got, his features are really chiseled. Eventually, it comes evening and I put my things away and start walking down the beach, towards the diner. I walk around the boardwalk. There’s a traffic stop as a cop decides arbitrarily to pull over a driver. The pair’s disagreement over what occurred got heated, and loud, so I decided perhaps it’s best to head back through the shore. I go into the diner, where the family are eating. The father, Richard, waves at me. I wave back, but seat myself at the booth where I sat last time. The waiter comes over and asks, “Same as yesterday?”

I nod, the waiter nods back, scribbles something down, and heads into the kitchen. The parents, after they finish their meals, stop by the table. “Hey, Phil,” Nancy says, “did your drawing go well?”

I shrug. “I suppose. How about the minigolfing?”

“I beat the pants off of everyone,” the five year old informs me, loud enough to inform not just anyone in the diner, but also anyone walking by.

“You shouldn’t say pants,” Richard informs the kid, who immediately begins to pout. “But she is right, she did win quite handily.” This causes the kid to smile, though not fully stop pouting while she does.

I smile and nod, and seeing my meal coming, I add, “Well, hopefully the rest of your guys’ evening goes as well as that.”

“Thanks,” Nancy says, “You too.” and they head out.

After the meal, I thank the waiter and cook, and start to head back. Remembering the conflict and stress of walking through town, I take the seaside route. It had been relaxing the previous night.

Unfortunately, today that wasn’t the case. Four men were waiting. “You think you can get away with it?” one of them informed me, then referred to me as some rather vulgar insults as the four began to beat on me. They didn’t tell me why. Which brings me right back to the pain. Ribs rebreak. I can feel the stitched up wounds on my chest reopening. A hit to the face. Blood bursts from my mouth and nose, splattering across the sand. I collapsed. The sand, warm and soft, slams hard into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. Darkness. “That’ll teach you resp…” was the last thing I heard as it all faded away.

Eyes burst open. Everything is clear as crystal. The pain is everywhere. I was lucky. They were lucky. No call here, no pressure, so I’m still me. I was supposed to be safe here. Calm. Out of the way. Heal up. Pulling myself to my feet, I start to walk. I flick my tongue out and taste the air. I can only taste my blood, no one else’s. Whoever they were, they’re long gone now. I push myself back to the hotel. Not to my room. Not to rest. To my 4x4. As I force step after step, I feel around my rib cage. I feel the key. Digging my fingers in, I rip it out from the muscles I’d embedded it against. I can feel my bones, my extremities, starting to break and morph. To heal themself how my body is best capable. That would not be good for this nice beach tourist trap. I need to maintain control. I make it to the jeep. Climbing into the back, I feel beneath the seats for the keyhole. Pushing the key into it, I unlock the hidden lock and press up on the seats themselves. The base lifts up, revealing a small briefcase. I open the briefcase and pull out the injector within, stabbing it into my femoral, which I can feel changing under my skin. Opening up to aid in the fusions. And the pain begins to numb. The breaking stops. I can still see the world clearly, but I feel more in control. Closing the briefcase then locking the seat behind me, I pull out my sketchpad and begin to draw. I need to figure out who these guys were and what they wanted to teach me. And I likely should do that tonight. As I sketch their features from memory, I look at myself in the mirror. I almost look normal, save the bruises and one other change. The first thing that changes and the one aspect I often can’t repress. My white-less marbled orange eyes with a deep slit pupil from brow to cheek stare back at me.