by Molly Snow
She leaned forward and emphasized, “Gordon, you are pretty cool.”
The boy blushed… a lot. He looked up to her and sort of bat his eyes. “Stella, will you… go on a date with me?”
Whoa. That was completely unexpected. Stella was sure she blushed a bit, too, but out of embarrassment. Had she led him on? She opened her mouth to automatically say no thanks, but bit her tongue. Here was a genuinely nice guy for once asking her on a date. She squinted her eyes and studied his hope-filled expression. Every single guy she had ever been attracted to, who showed mutual interest, had turned out to be completely wrong for her. Maybe she owed it to herself, and owed it to Gordon, to give him a real shot. “Oookay,” she squeaked out.
“Really?” He perked up.
“Sure. Why not?” She cleared her throat and told herself to be mature and open-minded.
“This is great,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll take you to the best restaurant. Your choice. And you can eat whatever you want from the menu. I’m not cheap. I have already set up a 401k for retirement and invested in stocks and bonds.”
Stella wanted to giggle to that. He was so super excited, which was endearing. And really, he was a dork. But again, an endearing dork.
“So tonight, at seven?”
“Whoa, wait a minute. Tonight is a school night. We just got home from our first day of school.”
“Precisely. Which is perfect, if you think about it. No teacher gives homework the first day of school. Well, unless you are Mr. Stein, but I don’t have him this semester, and neither do you since you are a year ahead of me.”
“Okay, Gordon. Just a hint, though. You’re not supposed to sound this eager for the first date.”
“Oh?” He turned white. “I’m sorry, am I being too eager?”
“It’s okay.” She smiled. “I’ll see you at seven.”
“See you then.” He nodded, popped up from his seat, and walked with a spring in his step to the door. “Bye!”
Stella went back upstairs, sat up in bed and got on her laptop. After meandering around a bit, she visited Gordon’s blog. A banner with a cartoon of Bigfoot spread across the top. Gordon posted just once since their trip. It was another picture his camera caught of something in the woods. She clicked the image and zoomed in on it. In the background, she was certain there was a red jeep. She X’d out of the picture and read the blog:
“Good evening, fellow Bigfoot seekers:
“I spent an adventurous weekend down in California, as some of my readers know. I brought my PES, Paranormal Energy Scanner. It didn’t disappoint. While lying in bed one evening, I had a sudden sixth sense urge to flip the machine on. The red light flashed, telling me a creature was near. When I got out of bed and stepped away from the window, the red light flashed slower, which meant one thing: the creature was outside.
“I braced myself for what evil could be lurking in the woods. First I put on a black sweater and dark jeans, and then found a beanie lying by my roommate’s bedside. I put that on too. I left the scanner on my bed, and flipped it off, knowing the red light could identify my position, and stealthily snuck out the window.
“The one piece of equipment I didn’t leave behind was my camera. I turned it on, and crept around the perimeter of the Inn. Then I saw it. Some beast walking upright, tall and with a silhouette of fur. He wasn’t alone either. Soon, another met him, and then another, and another. Each one, by what I could perceive with the light of the moon, could pass for Bigfoot.
“My heart thudded like a hammer to my ribs. I felt faint for a moment, but quickly recuperated by putting my head to my knees. All my research, all my hopes, would not be in vain. When I looked back up, I only saw one, and flashed my camera as fast as possible, before dashing back to my room.
“I had kept the incident to myself, knowing those I traveled with were skeptics. So the next morning, I did some further investigating. I studied the location the beasts were caught congregating. In the dirt were these footprints:”
Stella clicked the image to enlarge. The prints looked like the ones their group had found the first morning of their trip, during their hike.
“This was a puzzling discovery. For those who know, as you can see, they match the prints of werewolves. Do werewolves walk upright like us? Could Bigfoot be indeed a werewolf? According to other alleged Bigfoot eye witnesses, his prints are even larger and more flat-footed. But who’s to say after all, what is what? Could it be that all these Bigfoot sightings are werewolf sightings, and not some primate?
“I do not have the answers to these questions. Still, I will search, and have hope I will find my answers, sooner than later.”
Stella snapped the laptop shut and gently tossed it to the foot of her bed. She then screeched open her side-table’s wooden drawer. Lying there, next to some toe-socks, was the werewolf romance. She picked it up and stared long at the cover. A werewolf dressed like a sexy pirate, down to its hoop earring, pressed a scantily clad woman to his hairy chest. She feathered the pages across her thumb in thought, before chucking it into a metal little trash can. The receptacle clanked and fell over.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Gordon was on Stella’s porch at seven on the dot, with some daisies in hand. “I wanted to get you something different from roses,” he said nervously.
“I’m glad you didn’t get me roses.”
Her mother quickly took the daisies in delight right over to a vase, and trotted back with a word of caution. “Gordon, don’t stay out too late with Stella. Also phone me when you two are on your way back. I don’t know if she has told you or not, but there’s a crazy stalker after her. I’ve given her a can of pepper spray and an air horn. Would you like something for yourself?”
“Mother.” Stella squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment. This is why she didn’t introduce her mom to her friends.
“Don’t mother me. If it were legal, you’d have a gun strapped to your garter, you understand?”
“You have a garter?” Gordon said, eyes wide.
That was the last image Stella wanted in Gordon’s mind. “No.”
“Just her mama has one.” The woman proudly hiked up her skirt to show them the glistening gun secured by a red-lace garter.
“Let’s get out of here.” Stella grabbed Gordon’s arm.
On the way to the car, Stella said with a sigh, “You’d think my mother was the one from Idaho, but Dad is.”
Gordon opened his Trans Am’s passenger door, and Stella entered with interest. The dashboard resembled some sort of space craft with multiple buttons, lights, and gadgets. “What’s this all do?” she asked once he entered.
“Mostly nothing. But it looks fun, doesn’t it?”
After eating at an authentic Italian restaurant, Gordon drove Stella to a secluded area overlooking the city lights. Awkward wouldn’t even begin to describe it. Still, Stella had to give him credit for his confidence. “Um, Gordon,” she started.
He turned on the radio to a romantic tune, as if not hearing her, then proceeded to roll down the windows, letting in the cool mountain air.
“Gordon?”
“Yes?” He turned in his seat with a hopeful look.
“What are you doing? What are we doing here?” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Oh, are you cold?” He glanced to the goose bumps that prickled up her little arm-hairs. “Here, take my jacket,” he said, immediately pulling it off.
She put a hand up to refuse the offer. “I’m okay.”
“Okay, darling,” he said, and threw it on the back seat. A finger pressed one of the many buttons on his dash, and suddenly a tiny disco ball lowered from a hatch above them. It spun and glittered. It was official: this was the strangest date Stella had ever been on.
Not taking her surprised expression as a hint to back off, Gordon closed his eyes. His lids looked huge through the thick lenses. He slowly leaned toward her with lips nearly puckered like a fish’s mouth during feeding time.
She could
n’t do it. Accepting the date was already a big leap for her. She did not owe him a kiss. So… plastering her back against the door and squeezing her eyes shut ended up being a bad idea. The next moment, Gordon’s mouth was on hers, wet and mushy like a jellyfish.
She had been jellyfished.
Stella firmly pried him off of her, and wiped her mouth. “This isn’t right,” she burst.
“What? What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Gordon, I gave it a shot,” she reasoned, pulling her long hair over a shoulder to nervously fidget with the ends. “I went on this date with you, but you’re nothing but a friend to me. And that’s all you’ll ever be.”
His eyes went wider than ever before, and his jaw dropped. Could he really be that surprised? she wondered. A finger went over his lips. “Shhhh.” Then she realized his eyes were fixed on something else, something behind her. She felt for her pepper spray, and pulled it out of her dress pocket just in case.
Gordon quietly opened his door, readying himself to exit. Stella turned to look over her shoulder. There was a figure by a tree maybe twenty feet away. She could hardly make it out in the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Stella turned back to Gordon, worried. “Stay inside and lock the doors,” she whispered frantically.
He locked the doors, but still exited. “Sorry,” he mouthed.
“No, Gordon.” She tried to stop him, but it was useless. What was he thinking anyway? Sure he had saved her life when it came to the Mrs. Partridge zombie, but dealing with Billy was a whole other matter. She didn’t care if the kid was a black belt in Karate.
Stella rolled up her window, and stared through the glass. Gordon was creeping up on the figure that was now further away. Oddly enough, she not only felt fear but anger, like she wanted to chase down her date and give him a swift kick in the butt. Instead, she stayed put, fuming, watching helplessly as Gordon closed in on the stranger. Then there was a pop sound, and something that looked like a blast of light. What… the… heck? It was followed by a smaller flash of light.
Gordon bolted back to the car. He pulled at his handle in a frenzy before Stella reached over and opened it.
With a swift turning on of the engine and shifting into reverse, they were outta there.
“What just happened?!” Stella felt for her seatbelt, making sure she was secure.
“I got it,” he said.
“Got what?”
Gordon continued speeding down streets, whipping them around corners, not answering.
“Slow down!”
He didn’t listen.
“Slow the freak down!”
Gordon reluctantly shifted into a lower gear.
“Now talk to me. What did you get?!”
“A picture.”
“Of what? Oh no—Bigfoot?! You took me to a place to hunt down Bigfoot?!”
“Not completely for that purpose,” he said, some sweat glistening across his forehead.
Stella narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “And the other purpose was to make out with me?! Bigfoot pictures and make-out time with Stella. That’s what it was about? Gordon, you were supposed to be different from other guys.”
“What do you mean?”
“You knew, from our conversation earlier, that I didn’t want to ever see another paranormal creature in my life, and what do you do? You take me right up to one. And after you try making out with me.”
“So, I like Bigfoot… and I like you. I’m sorry, Stella.”
“Whatever,” she said, shaking her head in her hands.
They soon pulled up to her house. When he put it in park he pulled a couple things out of his pockets.
“What is that stuff?”
“Nothing. You’ll just be mad.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
He showed her a device that looked kind of like a Wii remote. “This is a Taser.”
“You Tased the thing?”
“Y-yeah,” he said hesitantly.
“You’re lucky it didn’t come back and attack you.”
“Well, it was set to a really high voltage, so I doubt that could have happened.” He then showed her the camera. “And in here is the picture. I know you are upset, but I finally got a close up picture of this Bigfoot character, and I really, really, really hope my nerves didn’t ruin it. I hope it isn’t blurry.” Right away, he turned the camera on and it lit inside the dark car.
Stella was ready to exit, mad over it all, but Gordon said, “Oh no.”
“What?”
“Um. Nothing. Nothing.”
“Give me the camera.” Stella yanked it from his hold, and looked at the image. “Damien?! You Tased Damien?!”
TWENTY-EIGHT
It was like a semi-truck had blasted into him. Damien could still see stars, and was still resigned to lying flat on his back in the dirt. That’s what he got for wanting to sneak out just one night. But the werewolf in him was tired of being caged. Plus, he started hearing voices, and didn’t want to go completely mad cooped up in his bedroom.
When he came more to his senses, he wondered if maybe he got shot. He looked down to his chest, and felt around. There was no blood. But… neither was there fur. What had happened? He remembered a surge of light and wildly convulsing out of control. A strange elation came over him over the thought of possibly getting struck by lightning. Was he cured? He forced himself to stand, in spite of the pain that cut through his muscles.
Come to think of it, it couldn’t have been lightning. Not one rain cloud hovered above in the sky. Millions of stars shone down in complete clarity. Whatever blessing came down to him from Heaven, he would take it, and take it gladly. He let out a giddy laugh that sounded foreign to his ears, then took off running out of the little wooded area and down toward the beach. He was still fast, just not as fast. It didn’t matter. He was free of the beast!
When he saw Tyler and the rest of his friends a ways off with their bonfire and surfboards, he dropped to the sand and kissed it in thankfulness. But as soon as he stood up, he thought of someone else. He had to see her as soon as possible. Running back into town, however, he realized a few things: One, he didn’t know where Stella lived. Two, it was pretty late out. Three, he was really sweaty and possibly smelled like dog.
Damien took a moment to rest, wiping the sweat from his hairline. When he looked up, he couldn’t believe his luck. There was Stella. Exiting a car. He was so close, he could hear her firmly say, “Don’t get out. I’ll go to the door alone.” A date gone bad? he wondered with hope. The sports car sped off, and Stella’s heels clacked against the cement path to her front porch. She was wearing a cute little dress, and the moonlight shimmered off her hair.
He quickened his steps to meet her. “Stella,” he said.
She whipped around and sprayed something at his face. It felt like acid rain eating his eyes right out of his sockets. The searing pain! He immediately fell back and affixed his palms to his now tear-filled face. “Ahhh!” His eyeballs were actually spasming. This was twice tonight his spirit felt like leaving his body.
He felt Stella splash cold water over his face. Eventually, he lay sprawled out in resignation, and he dared to test his sight. Over him, close to his face, was Stella looking at him in concern. In her hand was an empty water bottle. He asked, “Is… your hair a different color?” The long strands flowed down and settled on his t-shirt. For a moment he forgot about what he had just gone through. She was so pretty.
She continued staring down at him with her beautiful green eyes. “I’m really, really sorry,” she said.
“What happened?”
“I pepper sprayed you.”
“You what?” he croaked.
“You crept up on me.”
“I wanted to say hello.” He rubbed his eyes again, and could now sense the cool grass through his t-shirt and tickling his neck in refreshing contrast.
Something cool swept across his cheek. He could hardly believe that when his eyes opened, Stella’s ha
nd was caressing his face. Her eyebrows moved together in sympathy, and he could feel the energy of a first kiss coming on. “You look awful,” she said.
A laugh escaped his lips, though he felt a pain in his heart over the remark. “I didn’t expect that,” he confessed, and took in a deep breath.
“What did you expect?”
His heavy arms spread across the blades of grass in surrender. “Honestly, a kiss.”
Stella’s thick lashes fluttered in surprise. “I um. I thought you wanted me to stay away from you. You made it very clear actually.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You changed your mind?”
“Yes, Stella,” he said, still lying there, feeling the desire for her grow by leaps and bounds. If she were his girlfriend, they’d be locking lips already. If she were any other girl, they’d be locking lips already. “I want nothing more than to kiss you. If I have to beg, I’ll beg. I want you. I want to kiss you. Please. Pretty please.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
“…With a cherry on top?”
“This is not the Damien I’m used to seeing.” She hesitated.
“I know.”
“You were so certain of yourself at the beach.”
“I was.”
“You broke my heart.”
“I’ll do all I can to fix it.”
“You said I was wrong about you.”
“Things are different.”
Skepticism flooded her expression. “Damien, you haven’t even really talked to me since the beach. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. Why right now? Why tonight?”
There was no response. Just a sigh.
“I need to go inside. My mom is expecting me.”
Another, deeper sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said.
With a shake of her head in seeming disappointment, Stella stood up and walked away, leaving him there to himself.
The front door creaked open and he heard, “Stella, why didn’t you call? Everything okay?”
Getting struck by lightning, or whatever it was, was bad. Getting pepper sprayed, possibly worse. Stella refusing to kiss him, undoubtedly hurt the most.
*
After finally convincing her mother that she really was okay—under the circumstances, she didn’t phone on the way home—Stella went upstairs to go to bed. On her way to the master bedroom, she paused and changed direction. She went and peeked through some blinds, and looked down to Damien Capernalli still lying on her lawn. He didn’t move a muscle but to scratch his nose.