Avery lowered the flashlight, a bit wary.
The first thing he noticed was the car. It was a beat up red pickup truck with mud sprayed on the wheels. If Avery looked a bit closer, he could see the delicate heads of flowers peeking out from the dry mud. Its headlights were heavily clouded, the dull yellow glow fighting through the thick fog.
The man looked like his car, if that made any sense. 'Weathered' came to mind. He had creases lining his face like roads on a map. The deepest were the ones between his eyebrows, a set of apostrophes on the root of his nose. The man looked kind of Asian, though Avery couldn't exactly tell from where.
Just like the man's face matched his car, they both matched his voice. Deep, thick, and had scratches at the beginnings and ends of words. It seemed to come from somewhere deep inside.
"Hey, you ok? Lookin’ a bit lost there."
Avery's voice sounded pathetic in comparison.
"I guess. But my bike isn't in the best condition-" at this, he directed the beam of light at the stated object "-and I need to get somewhere."
He stopped himself dead after that sentence.
'Get somewhere'? Where? Did he have any destination in mind other than a cabin in the woods somewhere? Or a hotel?
He literally had no clue what expression the man had on his face, but it shifted a bit. The creases got a bit bigger.
"Uh." Avery wore a nervous smile, glad the light beam was away from his face. "Where are you going?" he asked.
Nice.
He shone the light in the other's face. Yep, Asian or something. Or Polynesian. He sucked at telling ages, so the man could be anywhere from thirty to fifty, for all he knew.
A soft tendril of air whirled around them, fanning the car's scent in Avery's direction. It smelled like rain and the musky fumes of car exhaust, something he had never smelled together. Avery had the strong belief that the man smelled the same way.
Based on the vehicle, and the guy's general aura, Avery would have assumed that the man was a yard worker. But something about his face told him otherwise. A yard worker, or any worker, really, would have an urgent expression on his face. A willingness to go back to what he was doing, to get away from this kid. But the man didn't look like any of this. He looked like he wasn't doing anything.
Odd.
He didn't know what to make of this strange, unreadable, petrichor smelling, maybe Asian man. So, he fumbled with the straps of his helmet. The plastic buckle snapped open with a barely audible noise. He slipped the helmet off his head, his curls springing all over the place like a small army of jack-in-the-boxes.
