H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath

It's A Dry Heat

PART 1

The Desert

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway." - John Wayne  

1

It's a Dry Heat 

2015, Arizona

Erika pulled back the throttle and urged her dusty machine to go faster. Her long, dark hair flew behind her, twisting and twirling in the hot wind. It would be ratty by the end of the ride, but knots in her hair were a small price to pay for the feeling of freedom.

She slowed only slightly to round the wide curve in the center of Ajo and kicked it into a higher gear as soon as the road straightened. Erika enjoyed the feel of the motor’s vibration beneath her. She shifted gears only when the whine of the engine threatened to pierce her eardrum. It was nearly sundown but still the road was like liquid tar, shimmering like black glass from the day’s heat. As she rode, Erika imagined following the straight line of the asphalt east. She’d ride until the road gave way to the ocean. Erika had spent her life landlocked in the desert. Thoughts of her future always included tide and waves. She yearned for wet sand instead of sunbaked dirt.

But Ian was expecting her so she steered her bike to his small, slump-block house passing boarded up businesses and at least a dozen empty houses on her way. The gravel crunched beneath her tires as she pulled into the semi-circle driveway. Erika stayed put on her bike and honked her horn. The tinny sound still hung in the air when the screen door opened.

Ian allowed the door to slam shut behind him. His short, dark hair was wet and his deeply tanned and rippled torso glistened with water. Whether it was sweat or water from a shower, Erika couldn’t tell. While most of the girls at school openly drooled over Ian, Erika was not the least bit attracted to him. She preferred a guy less concerned with his own looks. And even if Ian had appealed to her, Ian was more interested in the players on the opposing football team than in girls. Ian pulled a heathered blue T-shirt over his wet head as he walked toward her. “Ah, my fair lady has come to rescue me from doing more manual labor for my dad.”

Erika smiled and thrust a helmet into Ian’s hands. “Yeah. I’m your knight in shining armor,” she said.

“Why do I have to wear a helmet and not you?”

“Because I’m not going to be responsible for the star quarterback’s brains oozing out all over the pavement, that’s why. Passengers wear a splat hat.”

“I don’t want to see your brains splattered over the tar either.” Erika knew it was reckless and probably stupid of her to not wear a helmet. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it some day. But she could not stand to feel the constraint of the heavy plastic around her head.

If her dad were still alive, he’d have grounded her permanently from riding if he’d seen her without a helmet.  But he was gone and there wasn’t anyone besides Ian to chastise her for her foolhardy behavior.

Ian strapped the helmet on and tried one more time, this time taking a different approach. “Do you want me to sweat to death?”

Erika rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored his argument as she had ignored his complaints about her helmet rule countless times before. “Where to?” she asked.

“Everyone’s meeting over at big rock tonight.”

“Like who everyone?”

“You know. The team and the entire senior class.”

That meant close to fifty people. It was at least forty more than Erika would have liked.

“Will he be there?” Erika’s stomach leapt at the thought that Jack may be at the party. She wasn’t sure if her belly began to bubble with joyous excitement or fear of how he’d react to seeing her.