Since today was going to be another lonely day in my house, I decided that I wanted to spend it with my best friend on the beach. Here I live in this six-bedroom house, and I am an only child whose parents are never home. Most kids would be happy to be in my shoes, but if you asked me, it was terrible. So instead of moping around the house by myself, I decided to pull out my phone and call Izzy, the one person in this world who could make me feel better no matter what. I didn't know what I would do without her in my life. After three rings and a groggy “hello?” from my favorite person, I asked Izzy if she wanted to spend the day with me in the sand.
“A healthy dose of skin cancer you say? You know that I am always up for anything that brings d**h sooner!” Izzy replied with her voice cleared of sleep. Don't get the wrong idea about Izzy; she isn't crazy. I guess you would call people like her emo, but without the constant moaning and groaning about how much life s**s. She doesn't really want to die anytime soon; d**h just interests her.
“Good. I'll come and pick you up.” I told her while I crawled out of bed to put on my purple bikini and wrap a towel around my waist. I headed to my bathroom and brushed out my brunette hair as I stared into my green eyes. I hated that my hair was too straight to curl. I envied Izzy's waves. One positive thing about it though, I never had to worry about frizz because my hair was a healthy oily and laid flat.
After my bathroom preparation, I walked down the spiral staircase and headed out the front door to my car. Actually calling it a car is kind of an insult. My parents got me it for my fifteenth birthday because they thought a Porsche would make everything better. Even though my car is my baby, it still doesn't make up for the fact that my parents are never around. I would much prefer their company, but their jobs seem to be more important than me. It is a good thing I have such close friends like Izzy. Her parents are just as absent as mine. If we hadn't met in Mrs. Daisy's preschool, I would probably have ended up in a gang or something without her.
I headed through the crowed city to her house, and when I pulled into her driveway, I was prepared to wait. Izzy likes to take her sweet time getting ready because she is always on the prowl for a new boy toy. Especially since her last one, Myles, broke up with her, and that was something she wasn't used too. Today though she only took three extra minutes, which I am pretty sure was a new record for her.
“About time you got here; I have been waiting on you!” Izzy exclaimed as she got in the pa**enger seat, and all I could do was giggle. She had to take her time because she was wearing a mini skirt over her bikini and a pair of heels. Her outfits were always ridiculously skimpy, even for the beach. I swear that if she turned around too fast, her b**b would fall out of her yellow top.
It irritated me a little bit that she felt that she had to look like this to get attention from a guy because she was gorgeous without showing everything off. I really hated Myles some days for breaking up with Izzy. He wasn't a douche about it or anything, but it still messed up Izzy's perspective on herself. She was used to using others, which is why Myles walked away; he didn't want to be another notch on her belt when all was said and done. She had promised him that she had changed, but once he realized she hadn't, he bounced.
“You know Izzy; we aren't going to a club,” I said gently. “Why do you always wear such revealing clothing? If you want to find a good guy, make yourself look more respectable. Plus those heels are going to get ruined in the sand.”
“Today we are going hunting, okay Shay? I really need to find me some fresh meat before next semester starts, and there is only four days left.” Izzy took a breath and looked at me when I didn't immediately reply. Her face started to show signs of panic. “Are you listening? We only have four days until next semester. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, Izzy, I know what that means. It means that we will be officially starting our junior year, and you need a new man at the beginning of every year. When will you learn that you don't need a guy to make all the other girls jealous? They already want to be like us, so why make them more miserable. There is all year for doing that. You are not queen of the school, and you don't need to act like it.” I took a glance her way, and she looked hurt. I felt bad for chewing her out, so I went on. “Okay, you are queen of the school, but you are not the only one.”
After I said that, she cheered up, and started laughing. I really wasn't that shallow, but sometimes you tell your friends what they want to hear to keep them happy. Did we act as if we ruled the school? Of course we did. I, however, tried to be as nice as possible about it, but I'm not perfect. It was moments like these when I could tell Izzy was emotionally fragile that I said almost anything to keep her happy. As long as she was happy, I was happy.
“Of course I am not the only queen; a single queen equals a lonely queen. If I did all the work myself, I wouldn't have any fun.” Izzy smiled at me and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulders. When she looked at me with that happy glint in her blue eyes, I knew I had said the right thing.
Our conversation stopped right as we arrived at our destination. I sat in my seat for a moment to enjoy the view, and to unstick my legs slowly from the black leather seat. The sun was high in the sky with a few clouds trying to block its rays. These were the best times to come out here because the temperature was slightly cooler than normal and my skin wouldn't instantly turn red. The beach was packed today, which wasn't very surprising. Most of the kids that occupied the beach were from my school. Like us they were trying to enjoy the last of our two week summer vacation. See, I go to one of those private year-round schools that don't give the students a three-month summer vacation, so we enjoy what we get, while we can.
As I got out of the car, I grabbed my tote bag careful not to scratch the blue paint on my door. Izzy and I headed over to our favorite spot. Our small plot of sand has rocks surrounding all sides but the one facing the water. I am not talking tiny rocks either; I am talking about rocks that insure our privacy. We loved this spot because here, we were in our own world. Here, we were in the comfort of our grey walls and blue water, and just the shade provided by the clouds. After we finished setting up our towels, we laid out and applied our tanning oil. I loved the smell of bananas that radiated from the bottle.
“Race you to the water.” I looked over and dared Izzy.
“Yeah right, like you could beat me!” She yelled back at me as we sprinted to the ocean.
I dove in headfirst. Izzy was right on my tail. I swam deeper, so she wouldn't see me. Then I grabbed her leg from behind and pulled her down with me. I let go and went to the surface of the water to find that she was freaking out. I busted out laughing.
“What's wrong Izzy; did a big bad sea creature get you?” I said in a taunting voice.
“Shay I am going to k** you for that!” She screamed, her face turning red with embarra**ment. She turned and swam towards shore now in a huffy mood.
“Oh come on, you act like there is actually something scary out here. You really need to lighten up.” Following suit, I headed back to our towels to start frying. There is nothing that I love more than roasting in the sun. My pale skin needed all the help it could get, and if I didn't tan at least twice a week, I couldn't hold any color. Izzy sprawled out on her towel next to me, but not before, she smacked my back.
“Geez, what was that for?” I gave her a dirty glare.
“Pay back,” she said with a co*ky grin.
“I didn't actually hurt you though. Now I am going to have a bruise.” I put on my best pouty face, and looked at her with sad eyes.
“Well, let's see scaring me half to d**h is a form of hurting me.” She started, ignoring the look I was giving her. “You know I could be scarred for life now because of you. I may never swim in the ocean again.” Izzy started to babble just like her older sister, who was majoring in psychology. Diana, Izzy's older sister, likes to talk about everything that she is learning, and this week she is learning about phobias. Of course, this meant that I was as well.
“How about you shut up and stop acting like Diana or I will throw you back in the water.” I said and punched her on her arm. We started laughing all over again.
***
We had only been sunbathing for about twenty minutes when I heard a strange noise. I looked up from my towel to find Myles starring back down at us with a hungry look in his gray eyes. His face didn't look right, and his blonde hair was messier than usual. I found this to be very odd because he was always so neat with his appearance. Myles and I had known each other for years, and I had never seen him with a single strand out of place. His mother was very uptight about looks, especially since her husband was a very important man, the CEO of a business I could never remember. I really believed that her biggest fear was her family making a fool of themselves.
When his look started to make me uncomfortable, I began to ask him what he was doing, but by the time, I opened my mouth he was on top of Izzy biting into her neck. I had no reaction to what was happening in front of me. My mind and body completely shut down. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; what he did was just to savage for a human. I tried mentally shaking myself because I thought I was in a dream, a very bad dream.
I knew I was in reality, however, when Izzy let out a piercing scream. All I could think was no one would hear her. After all that is one of the reasons why we chose this spot. We like quiet. We come out here far from the main beach, so that if everyone there is yelling or playing loud music we won't hear them.
My blood was running cold through my veins as I tried to put a coherent thought together. It was nearly impossible since my mind was repeating, “No one can hear her, so no one would hear me. There is no help. There is no help.” A tear leaked from my eye as I blankly stared ahead.
Was he really drinking from her? No that can't be it. A rabid animal must have bitten him, and it is making him crazy. Wait. Does that happen? Does rabies make you bite people? All these thoughts rushed in at once when he looked at me with blood covering his face. Though my mind was slowly warming back up, all I could do was stare at him, and watch as his throat moved with the a single gulp. When I finally made eye contact, shame covered his face. The look he gave me screamed, “Please forgive me.”
Before I realized what I was doing, I reached out to pull Izzy away from him. My arms were shaking and my hands drenched in sweat. I was attempting to move slowly, so that I didn't startle him because that's what you do around wild animals. Right? Unfortunately, I was too late. I never got a chance to help Izzy because he was gone almost as fast as he came and the damage to her was beyond repair.
More tears spilled on my cheeks as my brain wrapped around the concept that Izzy was dead. My best friend was lying dead in my arms as her blood pooled around us forever dying the sand. What did I just witness? I pinched my arm while sending a prayer that this was a dream. I needed to wake up. I needed Izzy to be okay, and I could tell her about this awful nightmare. She would laugh and tell me that it was hilariously awesome. “What a cool way for me to go out,' she'd say. I didn't know what else to do, so I wrapped my towel around her neck attempting to stop the bleeding.
No one is going to believe what really happened, I told myself. She was my best friend, but I knew how this looked. I couldn't just leave her because her parents knew she was with me. If I told the truth though, people would think I was crazy. I would be placed in an asylum or prison for murder; I was old enough to be tried as an adult. This looked brutal enough to put me away for sure. Normally, I wasn't so self-centered, but if I actually thought about what the issue was, I would go insane.
I had to do something besides sit here though, so as I kept one arm wrapped around Izzy, I called 911.
I thought about what I was going to say as I waited for the police to arrive. I knew that if I told them about Myles they would send me to the crazy bin faster than I could say ‘loony'. Therefore, I had to make something up, but it had to be something believable. I wanted to make sure that I didn't look like I was lying, so to hide some of my nervous shaking I started heavily crying. Which wasn't that hard to pull off considering I had my best friend in my arms, growing colder by the minute.
The ambulance arrived first and loaded Izzy onto a stretcher. One of the men started CPR while that other asked me what happened to her neck. I kept my eyes focused on his suit as I told him that a type of wild dog did it, but I was too terrified to register what it was. After a many rounds of chest compressions with no success, they pronounced her dead at the scene.
By then the cops had showed up, but they were busy discussing Izzy's cause of d**h with the paramedics to notice me at first. One of them told an officer that I had been here when it happened, so the tall bald one walked over to me and a female shortly followed him. His blue suit sent shots of panic through my body.
“Hello miss, my name is Officer David Jones and this is my partner Candice Baker. Why don't you start with your name and then tell us what happened here.” The officer said to me as he looked over at Izzy's corpse. He was intimidating, but I guess all cops are at first.
“I am Shay Thompson. That is Izzy Keeser.” I pointed with a vibrating hand to the red and white ambulance. “We were just tanning when a wild dog must have jumped from the top of that rock there and attacked her. I was afraid and I didn't know what to do. Obviously, we don't have anything here to fight it off with, so I just started picking up rocks and throwing them. When that didn't work I went up and kicked it in the belly. It ran off and I tried to stop her bleeding with my towel. I didn't… I didn't know what else to do, so I called 911.” I told them as calmly as I could. My voice stuttered but to them it would only seem like I was frightened. They would have no idea that I was making the whole story up.
“Do you know what kind of dog attacked Miss Keeser? Was it a stray or possibly a wolf?” Officer Baker looked at me skeptically.
“No, no ma'am I don't. Like I told the paramedics, my brain didn't register what kind. I was more worried about getting it away from her than, what it was.” I silently hoped I was coming across as believable.
“Did she try to fight back?” Now it was Officer Jones' turn to ask a question.
“She must have fallen asleep because she didn't scream until it bit her. I was facing away from her, staring out at the ocean, so I didn't notice the creature either until it she screamed.” I replied more naturally, I was finally starting to calm down on the inside.
The officers asked me a few more questions and told me that they would call her family and explain what happened. I just nodded and started walking away from them when they told me I could go home. While I was walking away I heard them whispering to each other about reports of other wolf attacks in this area, and how strange they thought that was because wolves aren't native to this area. Now that I thought about it, we don't have wolves around here, so I was a little shocked that there were other stories as well.
The drive home was silent. I didn't bother rolling down my window or turning on music. I sat surrounded by her left over perfume. It was strange how I never noticed before that she wore too much of it. My senses were on hyper-drive and everything about her was registering. Every little thing that I hadn't paid attention to before was now scrolling through my mind.
You know when you drive somewhere, but you don't actually recall the drive. You don't remember the turns you took or if you stopped at the stop signs. This was one of those kinds. When I finally made it home, it only took five steps towards the door and I was on the ground bawling. The full effect of Izzy's d**h had finally hit me. I now just understood what that meant. I was never going to see her again. I was never going to hear her laugh anymore. We weren't going go to school together for our first day as juniors. She wasn't going to be prowling around for boys with me behind her shaking my head.
An half an hour later, I pulled myself up from the hot ground. I was thankful for our gated community, but sad when I realized my skin was burned from the ground. Izzy would have lectured me about how fragile I was and that I needed to be more careful. Just like that, I was crying again. With no other options, I went upstairs to my room and curled up in a ball on my bed. I drifted into a restless sleep as I sobbed. My dreams filled with the scene of the crime. My mind reeling with questions, but they would have to be answered another day. Today, I was just going to lay in bed and mourn the loss of the greatest person in my world.
***
When I woke up, I realized that only a few hours had pa**ed because the sun was still up. I wasn't sure what woke me until I looked towards my desk and saw someone sitting in the pink armchair. I was still groggy, so at first I thought I was still dreaming. After rubbing my eyes a few times, the figure cleared its throat to get my full attentions. I let out an ear-piercing scream and tried to scramble up toward the head of my bed to keep as much distance as possible between it and me. I couldn't run to the door if I wanted to because my desk was on the way there.
I stared ahead as the last bit of sleep cleared from my eyes, and I realized that it was Myles sitting in my room. Considering all of the things that had happened today, I was extremely relieved. At least I knew it wasn't someone here to rape or murder me. Well the latter one I wasn't so sure about. He looked back to his normal self, so I was a little trusting that he was under control of whatever it was that caused him to act out earlier. I wanted to ask him so many questions, but at the same time, I wanted to rip his throat out.
My sadness over ran my curiosity, picked up the closest thing near me and threw it at him. It turned out to be a bible, which I found to be ironic. He must have thought so too because he started laughing when he watched it land on the floor after bouncing off his chest. This only irritated me more, so I threw the next thing in my reach and the next and the next. He just sat there for what seemed like a lifetime, letting me attack him until I ran out of fuel. I collapsed on my bed with a sob.
“I'm sorry.” He whispered so quietly that I almost didn't hear him. “It was an accident. I never wanted to hurt Izzy. I have been friends with her just as long as you have. I know there is nothing I can say that makes what happened okay, I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry.”
He got up to walk out the door, but I stopped him with, “You owe me more than an apology. I want answers.” I was still laying on my back looking up at the ceiling. “I want to know why you did it. I want to know exactly what you are. I want to know if it will happen again. I deserve these answers.” My voice was just as quiet as his had been.
“Shay, you're not stupid. I know you have put together what I am, but if I have to say it aloud for you, I will. I am a vampire. Before you start, no I obviously don't burn in the sun, but that's because I was born one and not created. As I said, Izzy was an accident. I waited too long since my last feeding and I was starving, so I attacked the closest person to me. When I registered who it was, I was devastated. Then I looked into your eyes and my world crashed, bringing me back from the hunger. I know I messed up, and I messed up bad. I am the only one who is too blame here, but please find it in your heart to forgive me. I know it won't happen today or tomorrow, but don't hate me forever. It will never happen again. That was the first and last time I have ever drank from the vein. I usually live off blood bags. My whole family does.”
What Myles was telling me absorbed into my brain, as I laid motionless. He was right, what he did was wrong, the worst kind of wrong. He took the most important person away from me, and all he had to say was sorry. Of course, nothing would ever bring her back, and nothing he could do would make it okay, but “sorry?” Tears started their salty trails down my cheeks again. I was speechless. I had not response for him, so I let him walk out the door without one.
As he pa**ed the doorway, he sent me one last “please forgive me” and walked down the hall and through the front door. When I heard the door close, I curled up in the fetal position a silently wept. How could I ever forgive him? As this thought ran through my mind, I remembered the Bible I threw at him. Looking at that book, I knew that I would eventually forgive him. It wouldn't happen today, tomorrow or maybe even years from now, but one day I would be able to let these feelings of hate and disgust towards him go. It's what Izzy would want for me in the end.