Zak Rider: Teenage Monster Hunter

Chapter Two: Beckham Doesn't Love London

"Demons? Really? That guy is a lunatic!" Zak says as soon as they get out of the bar.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Officer Walters asks. Zak says nothing. "That's what I thought!"

Zak sulks the entire car ride back to the station. Once they pull into the parking lot, Officer Walters turns to him and says, "Look I know it's a stretch, but it's all we've got right now. Well just let Kellin do his thing and see where we end up."

Zak reluctantly agrees and exits the car. He crosses the parking lot to his own car, a Chevy pickup that was literally falling apart. The bumper was barely holding on and there was a massive dent from where a moose ran into his passenger side door while he was sitting at a stop light a few months back. He didn't even think there were that many moose in Wisconsin but with his luck, one walked right into his truck.

He hops into the truck, waiting for the heat to reach him. The truck was old so the heater took a while to get going. Once the cab reached a reasonable temperature, he backed out of the parking place and headed for home. He only lived a short distance from the station, only a ten minute drive with no traffic. Even though he was only 17, he had graduated high school last June and shared a flat with an art major who attended the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay with him. Zak was majoring in psychology but was working to also get a degree in criminal law. That was one of the primary reasons Officer Walters accepted his application just hours after he submitted it. Since he was studying psychology, he could read people almost uncannily. He seemed to know who was lying, who wasn't, who knew more than they were letting on, who was honestly just a bystander confused with the whole situation.

Zak parks the truck and hurries over to the automatic sliding glass doors. He walks through them and greets the doorman, Jerry, and then heads up to his flat. Once he reaches his floor, after climbing seven flights of stairs, he puts the key in the door and unlocks it. He turns the knob and is hit in the face with the pungent scent of oil paint. He wrinkles up his nose at the unpleasant smell and then calls out, "God, Beck! Open up some windows in here before I die from paint fumes!"

A mop of golden brown curls comes around the corner. Beck flashes him his signature grin, full of white teeth before turning to the windows and cracking them open, letting in the freezing Wisconsin winter air. "Sorry, Zak, I have to finish this piece by tonight. I've gotta turn it in tomorrow and I really need a good grade after the last test I took in there," Beck says, grimacing at the the thought of the 34 he had received on the test on history of quadratura painting. He had mixed it up with fresco painting, but seeing as a quadratura painting was a type of fresco, he hadn't been off by that much.

"Can I see it?" Zak asks, curiously wondering what his roommate had painted this time. Beck was a painting prodigy. There never seemed to be a moment where there wasn't a paint brush or pencil tucked behind his ear. His parents had wanted him to be a soccer star, even naming him after David Beckham. They put him through seemingly endless hours of training, camps, and travel seasons of the sport. They wanted Beckham Riveraz to be a household name in the world of soccer. When Beck told them about his secret passion for art, they cut off all ties with him right then and there. He ended up moving out and crashing at a friends place to finish out high school before getting a full ride to the University of Wisconsin.

"Sure!" Beck replies, leading Zak into the closet, turned art studio. He flicked the light on and Zak's eyes took in the piece in front of him. It wasn't a very happy image, but then again Beck's paintings never were. There was a little boy sitting in a corner of a room, knees pulled up to his chest, head tucked down. Shadow figures were swarming around him, trying to take over every possible light space. The painting was done in all blacks, greys, and whites, with no color except for the boy's shirt, a David Beckham jersey, which was bright red with white lettering across the front and back.

"Still haven't called you?" Zak asks. Beck shakes his head, his curls bouncing from the movement. He stares at his feet and Zak wraps an arm around his shoulders. "Let's find us some food," he says taking him into the kitchen. Zak releases Beck's shoulders and starts to search through the pantry. "Alright so we've got some peanut butter," Zak says, putting the jar on the counter. "Some Goldfish, and some Oreos," he adds, placing the other two items beside the peanut butter.

"How old are those Oreos?" Beck asks, eyeing the cookies suspiciously.
Zak flips the container over upside down, looking for an expiration date. "No idea, but they can't be too old, right? Oreos don't last a week in here!' Zak says, turning the container back over and peeling back the seal.
Before Zak can pick up an Oreo, the phone rings. The two boys exchange glances, wondering who in their right mind would be calling at 11 o'clock at night on a Monday. Beck picks up the phone and cautiously answers,

"Hullo?" After pausing for a moment while the person on the other line speaks, all color fades away from Beck's face. "May I ask who's speaking?" he says. Beck then walks into his bedroom and closes the door, leaving Zak along, standing in the middle of the linoleum kitchen floor.

Zak takes the food with him and flops down on the couch, flipping through TV stations, looking for something good on.

Halfway through Shark Tank, Beck emerges from his room, red eyed and pale. His hands tremble as he puts the phone back on the receiver. "You alright, man?" Zak asks, looking at his shaken roommate.

All Beck can muster is a quiet "Bloody Hell,", his British accent resurfacing, as he sinks into the couch beside Zak. He brings his knees up to his chest and leans his face into them.

"What's going on, Beck? Who was that on the phone?"

Beck takes his face out of his knees, fresh tears streaming down his face.
"London!" he says, his voice full of pain and agony.

"London?" There was only one possibility when it came to calls from London.

"My-my parents' lawyer," Beck says as he tries to regain composure, but failing miserably. "They- they-they," he stutters, finding it hard to get the words out. Saying out loud would make it a reality.

"They what?" Zak says patiently, giving him time to choose his words.

"They disowned me, with legal documents and everything," he says before adding, "I don't have any parent's anymore, mate. I don't have any bloody parents." His accent was getting stronger by the sentence, just frustrating Beck farther, he had lost the British accent a couple years ago when he moved to America.

"You'll get through this man, you don't need them anyway. They were jerks and didn't realize how awesome their kid is," Zak says, comforting him. Beck cracks a small smile but the pain is still evident in his watery eyes.

"I was going back to London for Christmas and while I was there, I was going to see if we could make up. I guess that's gone out the window now," Beck says, his British accent just hinting on a few syllables and vowels. It was just barely there that you couldn't recognize it immediately, but you could tell it wasn't right.

"We can spend Christmas here. We'll get a tree and everythjn this time!" Zak says, remembering their sad little light up plastic tree from last year. It had only had maybe three ornaments on it and only a few presents under it.

"Alright, sounds like a plan," he replies.
The boys spend the rest of the night watching TV, eating all the junk food they could get their hands on, watching as snowflakes drift lazily from the dark clouds in the Wisconsin night sky.

AUTHORS NOTE:
Thanks for reading yall! Picture on the side is what I picture Beck to look like. Song on the side is "Lullabies" by All Time Low, check it out! It's good! All votes and comments are lovely!
~AboveTheGlory