Preface

Preface

 

            Jenny Lawson stared into the blazing fire, imagining different figures dancing within it. She stared at the embers flying up into the air, the fire giving them life. Warm arms were wrapped around her waist as she lay against David’s strong chest.

            Everyone was having a goodtime. Teenagers from their senior year came here tonight to party, drink, and flirt with each other. It was the first party of the year on a cold autumn night. The wind was whistling in the yellow leaves that were just beginning to fall. Some were already bright red, making the ground look like the color of the fire as well.

            Long pine, Nebraska was one of the smallest towns. Its population was somewhere between 356 and 389 depending on the season. Long pine was located in the Brown country, and also surrounded by millions of trees just outside of the town’s limits. Its town was so small the kids had to ride a two hour bus to get to school. This meant that all the seniors in Long pine knew each other, and it also meant there were very few of them.

            Jenny was one of the ten seniors that lived in Long pine. It was more than common that if you grew up in Long pine you stayed in Long pine. Jenny Lawson didn’t mind one bit she was stuck in the stinking small town, as long as she had David.

            David had been Jenny’s best friend since they were in diapers. Both had taken there first steps together, and that grew to both of them having their first kiss with each other when Jenny turned 16 two years ago. They officially started going out then, and had been together ever since. David was her companion, her friend. And that’s the way Jenny wanted it too stay.

            “Hey, Shannon! Want to come over here,” Jason called after a tall blonde girl who usually kept to herself. Shannon was very pretty in a plain, natural kind of way. All of the girls here who slept over at her house knew she didn’t where any makeup, yet she had this airbrushed look to her, you only saw on magazines.

            “No Jason, you’re drunk,” she said resisting rolling her eyes at him. All the boys started to laugh and holler at Jason, who flushed red with Shannon’s rejection. The trees around them began to rustle restlessly, and Jenny hid her uneasiness.

            “Crap, you guys. I gotta go use the little ladies room to tinkle,” Alley Sampson whined, holding her stomach. By the looks of the beer can she was holding, it looked like she was going to have a major hangover in the morning. The can was her fourth one. Alley was almost up to Greg’s amount of six he had already.

            “Just go behind the bush,” David said impatiently, and Jenny giggled.

            “Watch out for the monster, Alley. They prefer brunettes,” Damien slurred, his beer dripping down his chin.

            “Stop trying to scare me,” Alley said shrilly. She was a petite girl with pretty brown eyes, and often freaked out easily. This made her a target for pranks.

            Jason, Greg, Damien, and even David howled with laughter at her cowardice. It seemed all the other girls and guys were to busy groping each other behind the trees.

            “Tanya, will you come with me,” Alley pleaded, calling out to her best friend. Tanya looked up behind a tree. Her hair was slightly messy, and her lips were bruised. All she had was her tank top on-with no bra.

            “Can’t you see, I’m busy,” she hissed and then disappeared.

            “I’ll go with you, Alley,” Shannon said bluntly and grabbed her hands.

            “Ooo, I’d like to see me some girl on girl action,” Damien said seductively at the girls. He tried to get up but then decided not too, his head was probably throbbing from too much beer. Shannon made a disgusted face at them and disappeared with Alley at her side into the dark.

            With the two girls gone and everyone else pretty much drunk, this left Jenny and David as close to alone as they would get. David looked down at Jenny and she smiled up at his tan face. David was every guys dream girl. He was her superman, and she wasn’t going to let him fly away without her.

David had these dark brown eyes-almost black, that seemed to probe into yours. They were like liquid onyx, which melted into your eyes. His hair was a dark black too, and was cropped short and spiked up. He was tall, lean, and muscular. With a major six pack that made Jenny want to drool. So when David leaned into kiss her, Jenny automatically began to hyperventilate.

It wasn’t because she was nervous; her breathing became a little rapid in anticipation. His cool lips touched hers, and the response was automatic. Jenny immediately held herself tighter to him and they began to kiss so patiently that even the fire sizzled louder than usual.

There were hoots and wolf whistles coming from Greg, Jason, and Damien. It didn’t break either of their concentration. It was like they were in their own space bubble that they only knew about. Everything around them melted into a big pool of nothingness. Nothing could break it. That is, until a shriek, pierced the cold air. Jenny immediately disentangled herself from David.

“What was that,” she whispered. All of them went silent until the guys started to howl again with laughter. Jenny smiled in embarrassment. It was probably just Alley getting freaked out by some mouse or even worse a spider. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She didn’t know how far the girls had gone into the forest outside their small clearing. Silently, Jenny began to panic for her friends while the guys made jokes and drank some more. Shannon and Alley could have easily gotten lost out there in the dark.

It wasn’t surprising that none of the others came out of the bushes or trees to see what was wrong. Jenny figured they were in there own personal bubble too, doing who knows what. Inside Jenny her stomach began to knot up in uneasiness. She had a bad feeling about tonight; she just didn’t know what that feeling was about. It didn’t make it any better when she heard another scream that sounded like “Shannon”.  Maybe it was just her paranoia, but something was wrong.

“I’m going to go check on the girls, see if their okay,” Jenny muttered and got up. She tried to step away from David, but he grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t go, the girls are probably just freaking out over a bug,” he said impatiently. Jenny shook her head and removed her wrist from his hand.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised, grinning at him.

“Don’t take too long,” he grinned back and let her go. Jenny was just about entering the darkness, when Alley burst in the clearing crying hysterically.

“She’s dead!” She cried and went to the middle the clearing and stood in front of me.

“Who is,” Jenny asked shaking her when she didn’t answer.

“Shannon,” she wailed. “I don’t know how b-but I-I saw her d-dead! I was c-coming back from peeing and I-I heard her s-scream! I went looking and I found her lying o-on the f-floor d-dead!”

“Stop playing with us Alley, Shannon isn’t dead,” Jason said angrily at her. “You’re just trying to get us back from the prank we played on you last week!”

“I’m not!” She screamed at him. Jenny sat her down and started soothing her. While holding Alley it made sense that Alley could be getting the guys back. But was she really this good of an actress?

“Alley, are you sure of what you saw? It could have just been something that looked like her,” Jenny said a little impatient.

“It was her,” she wailed even louder, and the others started to peek around the trees to see what was going on. “Aren’t you guys going to go look for her,” she cried helplessly at the boys. All of them just stared at her. Jenny’s uneasiness grew stronger. Maybe Alley wasn’t just seeing things.

“I’m going to go look for her. Alley, will you show me where she is?” Jenny asked her.

“No, I’m not going back there; I don’t want to be next!” She cried even harder and fell to the floor.

“You’re not going out there alone, either,” David said sharply looking at Jenny.  The only thing bad about David was that he was very bossy of Jenny.

“I’ll be fine David, I promise. Let me just see what’s going on,” Jenny said impatiently, getting angry at him. “Now what direction is where you saw Shannon?”

“Just go straight and you’ll see her on the ground in another clearing to you’re left. It may take you awhile to get there though,” Alley said finally quieting down. Her face was pale and she was shaking with fear.

Jenny followed in the direction Alley pointed. David called her name, but she didn’t listen. The first moment she entered the trees, she couldn’t even see the glow of the fire. It was quieter in the dark, and her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to it yet. She had to hold on to the trees to keep her direction.

The silence was bothering her. Wouldn’t there be at least a cricket chirping, she thought. The wind had quieted down to caressing breeze. Her feet made a crunching sound whenever she stepped on the fallen leaves. When her eyes finally adjusted, it wasn’t much better. The trees above had covered the starry night and full moon. No light was in the forest tonight.

Five minutes had passed and she still hadn’t seen a clearing. She wondered vaguely if Alley was playing a trick on her. When the hair on her neck rose she froze. It really was scary, she thought. She couldn’t blame anyone for getting scared easily out here. That’s when she saw a luminous glow in a clearing to her left. The moon was shining just above the empty space.

Jenny entered the clearing nervously, and had to stifle a scream. There just barely two feet away was Shannon, eyes open, and obviously dead. Despite her gut telling her to run, Jenny went up to the body. She was scared shitless of course, but she had to know what happened to Shannon. Shaking slightly, Jenny bent towards Shannon. She touched the side of her neck. No pulse.

Jenny couldn’t find anything wrong with Shannon, besides that she was dead. How did it happen? It was when Jenny turned Shannon’s neck around that she saw the evidence. There on the side of Shannon’s neck were two big bight marks just an inch from each other. Visions of a Dracula like creature entered her head, and she screamed.

Shannon was drained from all her blood, what else could have done it? Staring at the two holes, Jenny noticed they were dissolving. They were practically disappearing before her eyes. In just seconds they were gone.

A rustle in the trees made Jenny whip her head around, there in the safety of the dark two bright eyes were staring at her. Adrenaline made Jenny get up and run. A sixth sense in the back of her head, told her she was being followed. It wasn’t till later that Jenny realized she was running in the opposite direction of the campfire.

The wind blew harder than before, making her black hair whip her face and cover her eyes. Jenny was fit, she ran track at her high school, and just now she was running faster then her best mile time of 5 minutes. Her breathing became faster, and her legs began to ache. It was darker than usual now, and she couldn’t see a thing.

Jenny fell flat on her face after just thirty seconds of running away from Shannon’s body, and whatever else was back there. She scrambled up but something hit her hard. The impact was excruciating. Jenny’s whole left side was screaming with pain. She tried to get up again, but stopped when she saw what was chasing her.

A silver wolf stood before her, barely eight inches away. It was baring all it’s canines at her and was tensing to pounce. She never knew wolves could be this terrifying, or this big. With a snarl, the wolf attacked her. Instinctively she covered her face and held it down to the mossy earth.

Several, howls pierced the night air simultaneously. But she couldn’t distinguish her terrified screams from the howls. To her amazement the wolf jumped over her, and ran away.  The last thing she saw of the wolf was its silver hind legs leaping into the trees, without a glance towards her direction.  

Whimpering, she limped to her feet and looked down at herself. Her black v-neck sweater was practically shredded. Her bare legs were scratched and bruised, but her shorts remained in tact. She wondered, slightly amused and angry with herself, why she wore shorts on a night like this.

She limped her way towards what she thought was the direction of the camp. Her head began to feel hazy, and she felt a tightening in her insides. She groaned from the pain, and fell on the floor. Jenny didn’t know what was happening to her.

Everything inside her seemed to convulse and contact. Her head began to throb as if she was hit with an iron rock. She held her stomach as she began to cough up blood. She looked down at the blood in her hands and began to moan. Everything inside her hurt. She started to see white spots cloud her vision and had to close her eyes, she felt tears stream down her cheeks, and she wiped them with her arm. That’s when she realized her tears were red with blood as well. Her crying became harder, and she could feel a numbness creeping at her feet.

The numbness felt so good, she could easily give in to it. The thought seemed peaceful, almost restful. The numbness was death, she reminded her self. When Jenny thought against the pain, will this ever end? Her eyes closed and in a blink of an eye she slipped into unconsciousness. 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Thanks for reviews, please ignore typos. :)

Reviews

[KimmiChristine(:]

Omg... That was ... It was.. AHH THAT WAS SOO GOOD. Very well written, awesome plot and idea.. although i think theres to many vampire stories floating around :] This is defiently one of my favorite prolouges i've even read and ever think i will read! Keep on writing, that was amazing
~*~Sparkle.Glitter.Shimmer*~ (Who is in love with your story)

[allonsy_doctor]

it was so freakin' awesome it was unconpaired to words. WANT MOOOOOORE!
(Ditto to what hiralarious said; every word.)

[hiralarious]

The beginning could have been a little more intense...
but DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGGG, that was so freaking INTENSE. I LOVED IT. Seriously, that was so *#^#$&*^$&%^$& CRAZY GOOD.
I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED. WANTTT.
Okay, but seriously. I swear, that was really good. As you said, there were typos but they quickly become unimportant as the plot progressed. Some of the word choices sounded a bit awkward, but nothing that severe. :D
Overall.. a totally freaking brilliant preface O: