by Lauryn April
With a low chuckle, he set his chin on his hand, his sharp nose and smooth lips lingering over me. “So if I start believing in Santa again, he’ll bring me a new X-Box for Christmas?”
I rolled my eyes. “Santa doesn’t exist.”
“But vampires do?” His eyes danced in amusement as they always did when we were on the subject. “I don’t get it. Why are you so obsessed with this stuff? You hate those chick flicks.”
I huffed, the idea of vampires being romantic and lovable irritating. “You’re right, I can’t stand them, but my belief in vampires has nothing to do with the movies.”
Okay, that’s not totally true. My online friend “Vhunter” said Thirty Days of Night best portrayed real vampires out in the wild. I shivered at the thought of running into one of those insane, blood-thirsty creatures.
“God, you’re crazy, but I love you,” Gavin whispered, pressing his lips to mine.
His hands grazed from my waist up, caressing my skin before settling on my face. Excitement vibrated through me with his touch and expert kisses. I responded with my own persistence, savoring the way our mouths fit together, the way our tongues worked in sync the way they had so many times before. As my fingers twisted at the short curls on the back of his head, I was glad he skipped the hair appointment his mom made the day before.
My thoughts grew wild with how much I wanted more of him. I wasn’t sure if it was because his musky cologne was driving me absolutely crazy, because the excitement of the amazing night we already shared, or because my heart was pounding with such raw fervor that it felt as if it could explode.
One minute we were all alone, Gavin’s hands up my shirt, my lips trailing along his neck, and the next he flew off me and disappeared into the darkness.
His scream came out of the darkness somewhere on my left. Horrible raw, gut-wrenching sounds of torture. They streaked right down to the pit of my stomach, releasing an inherent fear unlike anything I had experienced before. I ran blindly to him, screaming his name, tears streaming down my cheeks. A cluster of white smoke tendrils appeared in the distance, curling around the tree trunks and growing like a cancerous weed before sucking inward and disappearing. Everything went silent.
My chest rose and fell hard. I ran to where the white haze had been.
And froze.
He was no more than two hundred feet away, torn as if he had been mauled by a grizzly.
“Gavin?”
His beautiful eyes stared up into the starry sky, dull and lifeless.
“Gavin?”
My knees hit the soggy soil.
He was...
Staring up into the sky.
He was...
“Gavin.”
Never to blink again. I remember blood still oozing from his wounds as I numbly pressed my hand to his chest, praying for the murmur of a heartbeat that never came. Blood oozed from between my fingers, saturating his shirt, saturating my hands, saturating the forest.
The police were summoned to the woods with my incoherent 9-1-1 call. Although they found Gavin lifeless in my arms, my sweatshirt and hands smeared with his blood, I still wasn’t ever considered a suspect. For weeks after that night I was repeatedly questioned on what happened, even though I didn’t have much to tell them and never thought of anything more to add. They basically wrote off every oddity I recited about that night, saying I was “in shock”. The details of his death were never released to the public at the request of his mom, and no one ever spoke of it again. Sometimes it feels as if the attack never even happened.
Call me crazy, because pretty much everyone does by now, but I know something inhuman killed Gavin. And I know there are sinister beings out there, hiding in the shadows, waiting to feed on humans or rip us to shreds, like the thing that murdered Gavin.
Whether anyone believes me or not, I know deep down that whatever took Gavin from me that night wasn’t human, and I won’t stop searching until I can prove it. By now it’s not only about clearing my name of Gavin’s demise, but finding actual proof that I’m right—that there are things in the dark to be afraid of.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L A U R Y N A P R I L
has been writing all her life. She is currently studying Psychology at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where she also lives and continues to write exploring the intricacies of the adolescent mind; and how feelings of loneliness and judgment affect young adults.
http://laurynapril.blogspot.com