First Staked (Alan Frog/The Lost Boys)

Chapter #2: The Frog Brothers

By car, it only took my mom and I ten minutes to get down to the boardwalk from our house. When we arrived, the place was already bustling with people - surfers with their boards running towards the beach, hippies clad in several colors walking about and some people were playing instruments for tips. Just looking at all of the different faces made me feel wildly out of place.

Fortunately, my mom took my mind away from this feeling when she handed me $20.
    "In case you feel like buying yourself something - hopefully nothing here is too much of a rip-off. Let's meet back at the car in...we'll say two hours?"

I gave her a small grin and nodded as I pocketed the money.
    "Okay, sounds good, mom. Good luck on your job searching!"

Mom grinned at me.
    "Thanks, honey! Good luck to you with your friend finding...and your boy hunting!"
She winked at me after saying this and I knew that was my cue to leave.

Turning away from my mother, I inhaled a breath and began to venture off into the crowd of people. I took in all of the new faces and sights as I walked along the boardwalk, every way I turned having something to see. Reading the signs above every shop, I could tell that there was just a bit of everything here - food of all kinds, clothes and souvenirs, surf and fishing supplies. It seemed like the shops were mainly on one side of the boardwalk and the carnival rides and games were scattered throughout the other. Along the middle were small kiosks that sold all kinds of things; from clothes, to tattoos and piercings, to handmade knick knacks - I smiled at the vendors as I passed them, but didn't buy anything. By this time, I had been walking for about fifteen minutes, and I finally came across something that really piqued my interest.

A comic book store!

A tiny grin formed at the corners of my mouth as I looked up at the store sign. "Frog Comics" - maybe I could find some new horror comics for my collection! I didn't need much more self convincing than this to begin walking into the shop.

Upon entering, I was met with several shelves lined with hundreds of comic books, even the walls were stocked top to bottom. The song Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi blared from MTV on a television set in the back - whoever the owners were definitely had good taste. I began perusing over the comics, passing over various super hero issues; Superman, Batman, Aquaman, which were never my style.

As I kept looking, I couldn't help but notice the shop's ceiling; strings of garlic were hanging from hooks in various spots. One of my eyebrows arched at the absurd sight, my nose crinkling as well. Why did the owners have those hanging around? What the hell purpose could they possibly be serving?

Eventually, I found the horror comics on a shelf in the middle of the store. Skimming over their covers, I saw a lot that I'd never read or seen before - I would get to add to my collection more than I'd expected! Scanning back over my options more closely this time, I finally picked up a comic about werewolves - the art on the cover was one standing upright with a foaming, white mouth. Standing where I was, I started to look through it - finding that the comic was about hunting werewolves and giving the facts about how to kill one, even though there really was only one way. A silver bullet was all that would work, not that we'd ever need to actually use one - werewolves didn't exist. The comic was still pretty good though.

Before I knew it, ten minutes had gone by of just me reading, but I was too invested in the book to really notice - it's not like I had anything else to do at least. I had finally almost finished it a few minutes later, but something took me out of my focus - a strange feeling. The feeling like someone was watching me...

Slowly, I lifted up my head from the comic book and almost instantly my eyes locked onto someone a few aisles in front of mine. It was a boy, probably around my age...staring directly at me over top of the shelves! He had shaggy, light brown hair with a red bandana wrapped around his head. His brown eyes were studying me as if I had just landed here from Mars.
I raised both eyebrows at the boy. Was he checking me out or something? I'd admit, I didn't have the worst body on the planet; curvy waist and no overhanging stomach, I couldn't complain. But if that's what Bandana Boy was looking at, then he should just take a damn picture - it would last longer.