1
Wasthisthe right road?
Would it kill the Florida roads department to put up a sign or two?
Ryan knew he was in the middle of nowhere, but this wasridiculous. His GPS told him he was within a few hundred yards of the place he was supposed to be, but every road he turned down seemed to loop back on itself or finish at a dead end. All he could see for miles around was… swamp. Broken up by marshland. With just enough identical trees and bushes that it was impossible to get his bearings.
An alligator looked at him as he paused again to check the map on his phone, which did at least have a signal.
“What’s it to you, buddy?” he asked, safe in the knowledge that alligators probably couldn’t break into cars no matter how sarcastic he was to them. Outside the car, he wouldn’t have been nearly as willing to share space with one.
The alligator looked away, already bored of the newcomer disturbing its nap.
Alligators. Great. Ryan hadn’t eventhoughtof those.
Moving out here had seemed like a great idea at the time. Maybe, if he everfoundthe sanctuary, it would be.
Right now, he was starting to think he’d end up as one of thoseFlorida mannewspaper headlines.
As in,Florida man wanders into swamp and gets eaten by alligator.
He wasn’t even from Florida. New York didn’thavealligators, or swamps, or stupid back roads with no signage and spotty GPS coverage. Or, well, maybe it did, but he’d never been out to the middle of nowhere before.
There were flying insects the size of small mammals out here.
His phone, thankfully, showed that thiswasthe right road, somehow, and he just had to keep driving down it to arrive, in four minutes, at the Wild at Heart Animal Sanctuary.
Coffee. There was almost certainly coffee at the sanctuary, and right now he would have waded through the swamp to get to it. Even the thought was enough to conjure up the scent in his nose, as if he was just about to reach out for a cup.
That was motivation enough to try and find the sanctuary again.
He started the car, gave the nosey alligator one last furtive glance, and headed further down the road, the squelch of mud under his tyres making him wince. The last thing he needed was to get stuck when he couldn’t even tell a tow company where he was.
At least if he was living here he wouldn’t have to worry too much about finding it again. Supermarkets delivered. He’d be fine.
The rusting sign for the wildlife sanctuary loomed overhead, once-cheerful letters in desperate need of a paint job.
The place had seen better days. Ryan had more or less expected that. Animal sanctuaries weren’t exactly known for their profitability. He was going to be one of three paid staff, not counting his Aunt May, who’d offered him the position here and a place to stay.
She owned the land the sanctuary was built on. It was in the middle of nowhere, perched on dubiously-reclaimed swamp, but the sheer size of it meant it was worth a small fortune. It’d been in the family for half a dozen generations or more.
Being here should have felt like coming home, he thought, but he’d never lived in Florida. His mom had moved away before she’d even considered the possibility of having kids. He’d never even visited the sanctuary before. Hell, he hadn’t been in thestatebefore now.
People said New Yorkers were weird, but they had absolutely nothing on Floridians. The last two days had been some of the weirdest of his life.
Getting to the end of his cross-country drive was a relief.
He stopped the car on a bare patch of gravel off to the side of the weatherboard house, complete with peeling, chipping white paint. There were three other cars in varying states of disrepair, because again—this wasn’t exactly a well-paying gig.
Not that Ryan cared about the money, not really. The chance to get away from his life and his ex and not have to worry about finding a new job and a place to stay were what he was here for.
He was grateful, really.
It’d just been a long few months, and he wastired.
But that was the point of this place, wasn’t it? It was a sanctuary. Somewhere to rest and recover when the world knocked you down.
Hopefully, that’d work for humans as well as it did for animals.
