Until Summer Comes Around

  GLENN ROLFE

  Until Summer Comes Around

  FLAME TREE PRESS

  London & New York

  For all the Lost Boys out there.

  Thou shalt not fall.

  Prologue

  I didn’t know what her arrival meant, not really, not then. I was just a lovestruck kid who became a shaky bundle of nerves when November Riley came to Old Orchard Beach. How was I to know she was a monster?

  It started the summer of 1986. I was fifteen. Unlike the vast majority of people in our small beach town, we, me and about six thousand other people, were year-round residents. That number easily doubled in the summer. We weren’t too far from Portland. In fact, the Amtrak Downeaster ran constantly to and from both Portland and Boston, delivering all sorts of summer people.

  We had plenty of things that drew the tourists to us like flies to shit. For the kids, there was Palace Playland, an old-school seaside amusement park, complete with roller coaster and Ferris wheel that stood seventy feet tall. Or they could travel fifteen minutes over to Saco to Funtown, the bigger, newer (if 1960 qualified as new) amusement park on Route 1. Funtown, however, lacked the carnival-like charm of our place. Plus, our dual arcades beat their one lame one every day of the week.

  If rides and games weren’t your speed, Old Orchard Beach was also home to the Cleveland Indians Triple-A team, the Maine Guides. The Ball Park, yes, that was and still is the actual name of the field, also opened up for rock concerts on the nights between games. My older sister, Julie, brought me to see Foreigner there at the end of summer in ’85. That first concert experience also supplied me with my first contact buzz from what Julie called Mary Jane. I had a smile for miles and wound up kissing a tall brown-haired girl up from Virginia. I can’t remember if I ever got her name, but I’ll never forget her kiss.

  For the grownups not wishing to headbang, go on thrill rides, or watch a ballgame, the pier offered a plethora of bars. Places like Duke’s, The Gin Rail, and Barbara Ann’s were packed full of rowdy drinkers from afternoon through well after midnight. I can’t count the number of times I was woken up by motorcycles and trucks cruising by my bedroom window out on East Grand Avenue. The loud blats of Harleys and big-wheeled Chevys stole me from dreams of flying, chasing ghosts, and kissing Heather Thomas or Madonna one too many times. I always envied Julie for choosing the room on the other side of the hall. She was up and ready for the day, while I met my cereal and cartoons bleary-eyed, and in a daze, as if I’d been the one partying on the pier all night.

  It was a morning after one of these long nights of listening to my Walkman in my room that I met the girl who would change my little seaside world. That’s the day I first ran into the girl of my dreams…or at least my girl of that summer.

  Chapter One

  Screams, cheers, and laughter rang out before eventually fading as the hours barreled toward midnight. By one in the morning, the bars near and around the square were the only sound. Rock music, motorcycles, and jeeps revving. Mustangs growling and bellowing through the beachside community as tyres squealed on the still-hot blacktop.

  The roller coaster and Ferris wheel of the amusement park had both gone dark for the night as their shadowy silhouettes loomed over the beach and pier like sleeping giants. The smells of fried dough, burgers, and fries lingered in the air, scents that he knew had a way of sticking around until after all the tourists and kiddies packed up for the season and went back to their normal lives.

  Craig Sheehan had been drinking since work let out at the shipyard. He couldn’t believe Darlene had dumped him. Darlene, his fiancée of the last two years, told him last night that she was done. They were finished. After five damn years of devotion, she’d had enough waiting around.

  Drown your sorrows. That’s what Craig’s old man had always said. And hell, the man practiced what he preached. Drank himself into the grave, gone three years now.

  “Like father, like son,” Craig said aloud.

  “What’s that?” Duke asked.

  Duke was a good guy. He was the reason Craig drove down here rather than going to one of the old haunts up in Bath. Duke was a stocky, tan, barrel of a man with a long black ponytail and a huge smile. The guy was straight out of Hawaii and drinking at his new place here in Old Orchard, surrounded by the tiki torches, the tables skirted in straw, the ukulele music; it made Craig feel like he was in an episode of Magnum P.I. Plus, Duke really was a great dude.

  “Nothin’, Duke,” Craig slurred. “Just nothin’.”

  Duke walked over, wiping down the bar as he did.

  “Let me call you a cab, huh, Craig?” he said.

  “I ain’t got enough money for a cab back to my house.”

  He didn’t want to go back home. There was too much of her there. Everywhere. Her Snoopy coffee mug, her uncomfortable wicker sofa, her flannel sheets.

  He was crying before he knew it.

  “Shit, Craig,” Duke said. “I’ll take care of the fare.”

  Craig shook his head and then downed the rest of his beer. “I don’t…I don’t want to go home tonight.”

  “Why, bud? What happened?” Duke asked.

  “Dar…Darlene….” He sobbed like a child. “She left me, Duke.”

  Duke leaned down and gave Craig’s forearm a pat. “Hey,” he said. “Let me finish closing up, huh? I’ll put you up at my place for tonight. Sound good?”

  Craig clamped his lips tightly to keep himself from bawling and nodded.

  After a few minutes watching as Duke put the chairs and stools up for the night, he felt tired. So damn tired. He just needed to put his head down for a minute.

  “Okay, bud,” Duke said, startling him awake as he patted him on the back. “Let me go take a leak and then we’ll head out, okay?”

  Craig nodded.

  As soon as Duke disappeared into the bathroom, Craig climbed off his stool and stumbled for the door. It wasn’t Duke’s job to take care of him.

  No, it’s – it was – Darlene’s.

  Craig hurried down the pier, passing a few drunk couples necking. He managed to make it to the ramp before his stomach rejected the last three beers. He heaved over the railing. Knowing Duke would be looking for him, he forced himself onward. He shuffled down to the beach and found a cool place in the dark beneath the pier. Duke might come looking for him, but he didn’t think the guy would come all the way down here. Nice guy or not, he’d probably figure Craig had drifted off in the dispersing crowd and stumbled down the road.

  As if on cue, he heard Duke calling his name. The voice never came close and only faded, until he stopped calling completely.

  Craig dropped down onto the cold sand, briefly wondering if the tide came in this far. He couldn’t recall. He doubted it but wouldn’t that be something, to pass out now and wake up dead in the sea?

  * * *

  His eyes shot open. The water hadn’t come for him yet. He listened as the waves lapped the shore. He must have passed out. Luckily, his stomach hadn’t revolted again. He climbed to his feet and realised he was still hammered drunk. He braced himself with one of the pier posts and rested his forehead against the back of his hand.

  Outside of the waves, there was nothing but silence. The pier, the beach, the whole damn town had retired for the night. For all he knew it could be nearing morning. Wondering what the hell he was going to do now, he regretted not taking Duke up on his offer.

  When he lifted his head and turned around, he nearly screamed.

  A tall man with long black hair stood there, gazing at him behind dark eyes.

  “Hi,” Craig managed. He couldn
’t think of anything else to say. A chill raged down his spine. He felt his skin break out in goose flesh. There was so much about this person standing here that wasn’t right. Where the hell had he come from? Had he been there the whole time? Had he been watching him? Was he homeless? A beach bum? No. The fancy long coat and boots said he was probably well off.

  “If this is your spot, I’m sorry. I’ll juss be on my w—” Craig started.

  The man came at him fast. So quick that Craig hadn’t even seen him move his legs. As if he had glided like an evil Peter Pan across the sand.

  Evil?

  The man’s hand was on his throat. Craig tried to fend him off, batting at his arm. It was as useful as a toddler trying to break free from a parent. The man had yet to make a sound. Not a breath, not a sigh. Even now, lifting Craig from the ground with one hand, he did so in silence.

  “Puh-puh, pleeease,” Craig managed.

  “Yes,” the man said, his voice smooth as silk. “Beg.”

  And with that, Craig was pulled to the man. Pain exploded in his neck as the man bit into his throat. He felt the guy sucking on him. Drawing from him. Craig’s limbs grew weak, his breathing slowed. A strange sense of peace washed over him. His heart seemed to fall in line, beating with each pull from this man’s mouth, and swooshing with the waves.

  Craig had just enough time to think of Darlene when she’d still loved him. And then, he would have laughed if he’d had the time or ability as the word vampire crossed his dying mind.

  Chapter Two

  Rocky wiped the drool from his cheek and covered his head with his pillow. Those friggin’ bikers, man, when the hell did they sleep? Try as he might to fall back into the dream of the random blonde taking him someplace only she knew about, it wasn’t happening. He lifted the corner of the pillow and reached for his watch on the nightstand.

  “Argh,” he growled. Eight in the morning. And on the second week of summer vacation, that was just wrong in so many ways. He put the watch back on top of his new Superman comic and slipped his feet out from under the covers.

  His back brace stared at him from in front of his bureau across the room and he glared back. He should put it on, but he didn’t want to. Not yet.

  It can wait until after breakfast.

  He’d been diagnosed with severe scoliosis in fifth grade and that uncomfortable, hard plastic torture device was his grand prize. His mother and father liked to remind him of the alternative – surgery. Two steel rods fused to his spine.

  On second thought.

  He picked the lightweight brace up and squeezed it around his ribs and hips. The pinched nerve in his hip that never seemed to go away made him wince and curse as he reached back, pulled the straps tight and Velcroed them in place.

  Breathing a sigh that was equal parts depression and submission, he pulled on a Journey Raised on Radio t-shirt and crossed the hall.

  Julie was singing some lame Madonna song. Madonna was hot, but her music sucked. He pushed his sister’s door open.

  She spun around, placing her arms over her chest.

  “Jesus, Rocky,” she said. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

  Julie turned her back to him, snagged a t-shirt from the top of her bureau and pulled it on.

  “Sure, but I figured you must have your headphones on. You sound like a dying cat.”

  “Screw you,” she said.

  Julie actually had a good singing voice, but he loved messing with her.

  “Are you working today?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m leaving in, like, half an hour. Why?”

  “Can you bring me with you?”

  She had a job at the Maine Mall. He normally only went to Portland once a month. He preferred the square, but he’d been out there every day since vacation started.

  “I can’t. For one, Mom and Dad would kill me for leaving you on your own all day, and besides, I have a date right after work, so you’d need to find a way home.”

  “What? You mean you’re seeing Brick again?”

  She reached for a bunch of jelly bracelets and chucked them at him.

  He dodged them and they landed in the hallway.

  “You know I’m just kidding. I don’t care if you guys are trying to be the real-life Nick and Mallory.”

  She reached for her canister of Aqua Net and held it back over her shoulder like she was going to chuck it.

  “Kidding,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Honestly, I just need to get out of here.”

  “It’s not happening,” she said. She lowered the Aqua Net and looked at him with sympathy. “Maybe I’ll bring you in tomorrow. I have the day off and need to do some shopping anyway.”

  He smiled.

  “Now get out of here,” she said. “Let me finish getting ready.”

  “All right, all right, don’t have a conniption fit,” he said. Rocky smiled as he made his way down the hall.

  After relieving himself, Rocky checked his face in the mirror. His nose was a little on the big size and had a slight bump on the right from when his sister broke it by slamming the front door in his face two summers back. His teeth were crooked, especially the bottom ones. Paul Bilodeau once called them Freddy Krueger teeth. His earlobes were long, not circus-freak long, but he could tuck them in his ear if he tried. Axel thought it was a neat trick, but it wasn’t the sort of thing to impress a girl. He wet his face with a handful of cold water from the sink and slicked his floppy hair back from his forehead. He wasn’t a total monster or anything, but he certainly didn’t have the charisma it took to get a girlfriend. His back brace only added to his ever-growing list of anxieties.

  He sighed and headed to the kitchen.

  He grabbed a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and a Pepsi from the fridge and plopped down in front of MTV to wait for a Twisted Sister or Ratt video. He’d just have to suffer through Wham! and Duran Duran first.

  Julie came out singing along with Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. She was messing with her hair, trying to make it taller – her bangs were at least half a foot high – as she stepped next to the couch.

  “Have you talked to Mom about setting up your driver’s test yet?” she asked.

  He swallowed and said, “Yeah, she’s still worried that I’m too young, but she said if I do good when we go on the highway this weekend, she’d consider it.”

  “Well, that’s cool. You’re gonna do fine,” she said. “You do have the best teacher.”

  “Thanks, sis.”

  “No problem. I’ll see ya.”

  He couldn’t complain about his sister. She’d been taking him out driving behind their parents’ backs since he got his permit. She’d always been super cool to him, minus the slamming door incident, but she’d become even nicer when they’d found out his scoliosis was bad enough to warrant the back brace.

  Rocky decided that if he was going to be up this early, so was Axel. He took his bowl and empty bottle of soda to the kitchen and called his cousin.

  His aunt answered, said Axel was still asleep, but that she’d wake him. His cousin’s groggy voice came on the line. “Hello.”

  “Hey, cuz,” Rocky said. “Meet me out front in, like, fifteen minutes.”

  They lived three roads apart.

  “Why? Why are you up already?” Axel asked.

  “This damn street, man. I can never sleep in except on Sundays. All the bikers must go to church. You gonna be ready?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Want me to grab some quarters?”

  They would need to start the morning off at the arcade.

  “Yeah,” Rocky said. “I’ll see if I can scrounge some cash for snacks.”

  * * *

  Axel came down the street in his neon green shorts and Motley Crue t-shirt. His long dirty-blond hair was mussed like he’d just gotten out of bed and didn’t kn
ow what the hell a brush was or how to use one.

  “Got the quarters?” Rocky asked.

  Axel raised the near-full mason jar and shook it, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Whoa, that’s awesome,” Rocky said. “Where the hell’d you find all that?”

  “It’s supposed to be my money for England,” he said.

  “Man, summer is gonna suck without you here,” Rocky said.

  “I told my mom I didn’t want to go,” Axel said. “Told her that I could stay with you guys, but she said no. We’re going as a family. My dad’s parents and family are all there and they can’t wait to see us.”

  Knowing his cousin would be gone most of the summer also made the need for Rocky to get his driver’s licence a matter of life and death. At least then he could cruise to the mall or shop the record stores in the Old Port.

  “Well, let’s get to it, man,” Rocky said.

  * * *

  Rocky used the ten dollars he’d made helping his Uncle Arthur rip down an old porch last week on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, M&Ms, Andy’s Hot Fries, and a six-pack of Orange Crush.

  They picked the arcade closest to the beach to start. This one had Ms. Pacman and the brand-new racing game, Out Run. An hour later, they were forced to take a break from Out Run after two Frenchies the size of Andre the Giant and Big John Stud, and greasy as the oil bins at Lisa’s Pier Fries, hovered over them, muttering a bunch of foreign threats.

  * * *

  “Well, shit,” Axel said. “Should we head to the beach and watch for babes?”

  “You read my mind, cuz.”

  They found a spot near the crabgrass, sat down and popped open a couple of their orange sodas. This spot gave them full view of the beach and any bouncing beauties that might be strolling around and showing off their assets.

  “I’m gonna miss this,” Axel said.

  “Yeah, do they even have beaches in England?”

  Axel sipped his soda, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “Dude, it’s gonna blow. They don’t have girls like we do. They watch Benny Hill and Doctor Who. I won’t have anything to talk about even if I can find a babe to talk to.”