Leather, Sand, and Blood

The Beginning

Santa Carla: a beach town in California. It was best known for its boardwalk with an amusement park, live concerts, lighthouse, and being the murder capital of the world. Back in the 80's, Santa Carla was a place where people went to be forgotten; runaways littered the streets, drugs and alcohol arrests were at a high, and the amount of missing person reports that turned into cold cases were insane.

Mary and Chris Green had grew up in Santa Carla, high school sweethearts that later on got married. They were in Santa Carla thought out the 80's and were able to tell the tale of how it went from Murder Capital to average town in the matter of 10 years. Originally, Mary had wanted to get out of the beach town once they were married; Santa Carla in her mind hadn't changed since they were in their teens and it was no place to raise children. She wanted to live in a place where her kids could walk around the block and she wouldn't have to worry if they would make it back for dinner. Chris, on the other hand, loved the little beach town. He grew up smelling the ocean air and walking the boardwalk at night and he wanted his children to do the same. Besides, the beach town hadn't had a murder since the late 80's, and even then they weren't sure it was an actual murder. A family was there one moment then the next, gone, disappeared without a trace.

But after they were married, Chris ended up buying them their first home and getting a job at a local university teaching Urban Legends studies and Mary ended up settling into a position at the local library. Before she knew it, Mary was pregnant and it was past the point of leaving their small little town, at least for the time being.

The clearest memory Lorelai had of Santa Clara was not the most pleasant. Her family had taken her to the boardwalk as a little family outing. She was 12 years old, so old enough to walking around by herself, granted her parents wanted her to stay in their line of sights, not that she really minded, it still gave her the feeling of freedom. The past few weeks, her parents had been fighting about petty little things, making them unbearable to be near, but this outing was even worse than when they were home, not because of the fighting, but due to the lack of anything. The entire drive over was silent as ever, and as they were walking, they weren't even looking at each other. Now Lorelai had no clue what they were fighting about, but she knew that once the silent treatment started, she would be used as a messenger between the two of them and that always turned ugly. Lorelai wanted to enjoy the nice night without her parents making things awkward for her, so when she realized that her parents weren't paying any attention, she ducked into the large crowd waiting for tickets, wiggling her way through the people and emerging on the other side of them, well out of her parents sights.

Although she loved being in the lights of the boardwalk, Lorelai really didn't want to be around people. Honestly, what Lorelai really wanted was to be curled up in her bed, sobbing into her pillows. If her parents would have put their differences aside, then maybe the boardwalk would have been an amazing outing, but of course they couldn't put on an act, even for their daughter's benefit. So she climbed under the metal railing that marked the edge of the boardwalk, checking to make sure that no security guards were looking before dropping down onto the cool sand. Lorelai took a glance at the underside of the boardwalk, shivering when she saw how dark it looked, light only shining through a few places were the wooden planks were chipped or uplifted.

Lorelai wanted to stay in the lighted part of the beach, which was only a foot or two away from the boardwalk, but that would have meant that she would be in plain sight for anyone looking out to the beach, which defeated the whole point of her venturing out. So she took a deep breath, walking out closer towards the crashing waves, farther into the darkness. It was a half moon that night with a relatively clear sky, which meant that the moon was giving off just enough light where she could make out shapes in the darkness, but no one would be able to see her from the brightly lit boardwalk. When she finally reached the water, she walked where the sand was still damp from the waves drifting up, but not completely soaking her legs, the water gently went over her flip flop covered feet, sending chills up her legs.