I don't know how long I've been walking. It could be hours, or even days. I know it's been awhile. The trees block my view, but I am certain that the sun has not moved at all. It is still late afternoon, and if anything it is getting warmer.
The trees are thinning now, and I can hear a new sound. Are those waves?. Am I near a coast? Maybe this is California, or Washington? Oregon maybe? It's definitely getting warmer as I move forward.
It is a beach; the forest ends suddenly, and I almost trip as I make one step from firm, dark soil onto soft, tan sand that almost seems to try and suck my shoes from my feet. I must be on some peninsula, or something, because the sun is not out over the water, but down at the far end of the beach creating a halo of light around a large, old-looking house at the top of a cliff. It looks funny though.
The beach looks like it should for a quiet summer afternoon; there are towels, chairs, umbrellas, and beach balls littering the sand here and there. The one thing that isn't here is the people. In fact, now that I look more carefully, it looks like people left in a hurry; some of the chairs and umbrellas are overturned.
Is that... is that blood on the sand there?
Blood be damned, I need to sit down. I shrug off my pack, letting it drop onto the warm sand, right the nearest overturned chair, and drop down into it.
I dig into my backpack, and pull out can of Zing Cola, but before I open it I realize what seems off about the sky; it's behind something. I look around and it's everywhere over me. It's as if the beach is in a giant greenhouse.
When did I enter something like this? I know the sky did not look like this at the house where I woke up. I look back over the trees at the edge of the beach, and the greenhouse extends over the forest for as far as I can see. I look out at the water, and see that it seems to come down into the water a fair distance out. I think I would have noticed entering a structure this big..
I turn my head to see over my shoulder, and look up to the edge of the beach. I can see a parking lot with some strange vehicles parked it; they look similar to that car with no wheels I saw a while ago, but not the same; still science-fictiony though. Across the parking lot there is a road, and houses across the street with large windows to afford large views of the water to justify to undoubtedly large amount of money it costs to live in them.
My pondering of how I came to be inside of a giant snow globe is interrupted by the sound of music. It seems familiar, but at the same time I don't know it. The refrain seems to consist of the the phrase “When the morning comes” repeatedly.
I look around and see a structure further up the beach. It looks like a large shed made out of white boards. The music sounds like it is coming from there. I drop the soda back into my pack, zip it up, and head up the beach.
The shed has a sign over its closed shutters: “Da Snak Shak!”. The music is definitely coming from inside here. I knock on the shutters, and find that what looks like weathered wood is really just some type of plastic made to look like wood. No one answers.
“Hello?” I say. Someone must be playing the music, right? I still get no response.
I pull the gun-shaped device from my belt, and grip it tightly, hoping that it does not turn out to be a novelty lighter, or a video game controller, or something if it comes down to needing a weapon, and gently pull on the shutter. It moves.
I lift the shutter with my left hand, and point the gun in with my right. The lights are on inside the shack, but I don't see anyone. I can hear the music quite loud now; I think the song has started over again.
“Hello?” I say again, feeling both scared and foolish, and again I get no reply except for the singer telling me to run like hell when I hit the ground.
The inside of the shed goes along with its name. Through the Plexiglas window I can see packets of cookies and crisps, a cooler full of sodas, juices, and waters, and something which I assume is a freezer based on the words “Frozen Delights!” written on its door. Unfortunately the Plexiglas only has a hole large enough in it to reach my arm through.
I drop the shutter, and head around to the back of the shack to try the door. Not only is it locked, but there doesn't even appear to be any place to put a key. How is someone supposed to get in there?
I look around again to confirm that I am all alone on the beach, and then kick the door. Unfortunately that only works in movies, and after the sixth kick, my leg starts to hurt. I give up and walk back around to the front of the shack.
I stuff the gun back into my waistband, lift the shutter again, and decide to help myself to what I can reach. I wish I could get one of those cold drinks though. I take crisps, candy bars, and cookies; the sort of food a growing boy needs, don't you know?
My eye catches on a rack of postcards at the edge of the window. It's a strain, but I manage to stick my arm through the opening far enough to snag a few of them. They feel unusual; like they are made out of plastic instead of paper. What they are made out of is the least odd thing about them though.
On the front of the first card is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge with Alcatraz in the background and the words “Greetings from San Francisco” across it in big, friendly letters.
San Francisco? Am I in San Francisco?
I look at the second card. This one shows a girl in a bathing suit lying in the sand in front of a surf board with the words “San Francisco: Where Summers Never End for Us” floating above her.
The summer never ends in San Francisco? That does not sound right. My memory right now may resemble a wedge of Swiss cheese, but I know that San Francisco is not known for being summery.
This one shows a large, transparent dome, and inside of it I can see the Golden Gate Bridge and a cityscape that looks like a science fiction future version of the city of San Francisco full of gigantic skyscrapers; I can see the point of the Trans America building dwarfed between two of them.
This isn't right, None of this is right.
I flip over the second postcard to look at the back, and I am not very surprised to find the words “Don't Trust The Darkness” written in familiar, and very sloppy, handwriting. I think it may be my own, but I don't see a pen handy to test that theory out with.
The music stops with the singers exclaiming “When the morning comes!”
I think I'd better get moving again; I'm not so tired anymore.
I sling my pack onto my shoulders again, and begin to slog my way down the beach towards the setting sun, towards the house on the cliff, towards the edge of a dome that I don't think I'm going to actually find . I can feel the warmth of the sand through my shoes, but still I shiver as I walk.