November 14th, 2009: Nights Out

The moon and the stars above, they've made people believe or want to believe in something more since people where able to look up. People always want to believe in something more powerful then themselves, I know I did. For others the stars lead to questioning origins or some who are long since dead the ability to predict the future. I anticipate those special nights that came in threes. A beckon of horror and delights as all my nerves and senses became more finely tuned to the world around me. A world I’d never known existed until I had become a part of it. It now screamed in my blood always a part of me, my night seems to be too far away to wait for yet I used to welcome the night before it happened. The change I never expected in my life.

The calm and still of the night, just walking around on my own to just clear my head and think with no prying eyes on me to judged me. I would do this almost every night. I never let my family know about that, but it was southern Oregon as small town goes this place was never very eventful. Besides it was my alone time. My family wouldn't try to understand how it felt. My loving mother would fear and go and make me watch news reports on rapes and murders and break out her old saying "Nothing good happens after midnight." My father would be neutral. He stopped caring somewhere around my third birthday when he got a heart attack. He then got medical weed and well I wasn't worth talking to. I left the house more and more often to just be alone because of all the fighting over money. Money was always an issue when in economic slump in housing when your father builds houses for a living and your mom sells them.

More than a few times I would end up hanging out with my best friend, Serena. We would walk around, drive around, go to late movies, or binge eat on junk food. We would talk about the craziest things, things that only made sense to us because of random inside jokes. She would be the only one to understand if anyone could about what I was going through. She was always there to point out everything I did right or wrong. I now blame myself for what happened to her. She was the only one who knew about my family and my love life. Or lack of life until the night it all started. I could never close the deal, as one might put it. I could get any guy in the world to be my best friend. But at the end of the day I would never be anything more than a sister figure. My crushes normally ended by my crush asking me about how to get his crush on another girl to go out with him which would leave me crushed but I would help if I could, a constant doormat. 

Every once in a while I would go to one of the middle of nowhere parties. They were more like raves then a normal party. I didn't like going to them to often but when my parents were really at it always did help to be on another planet. I didn't do drugs and I waited till I was eighteen to drink alcohol. This age in most countries is the legal age to drink, except I was on the one country that didn’t. I mean I could vote for the next president or sign up and go to war and die for my country but God forbid I drink a beer in a bar. Not that I would drink beer, it looked like pee and I knew it didn’t even taste good. So I would go to the parties and get a little wasted. It was nice to not feel pain for a few hours or to not be in my own head which was normally over-thinking and far too emotional for my taste. I never went alone, that was just a personal rule of mine. Sometimes I had Serena and other times I went with people I knew from my High School Drama department. On the night it all started I was with Serena. She and I both were stressed; her stresses were mainly school related. She and I made plans to meet at the entrance in half an hour. We always split up in the beginning of the night. It was more of a get out of your comfort thing, despite the fact that she and I knew nearly everyone who came to the small town bon fires. We had each other as safety nets in case one of the sleazier guys wanted to be gangster white boys wanted to get “fresh”. If we were more than five minutes late we would call the cops which had never happened. It was a good rule because this way we wouldn't be late in meeting each other and if we didn’t show we knew something was wrong. 

We arrived into a large field; it was filled with easily over two hundred people, mostly people from my graduating class. A large bon fire raged in the center and off to the right of the fire was a large black SUV that was blasting popular rock music so loud, I could hear it over half a mile away. The SUV was owned by a guy who I once had a crush on. His name was Bramm Collins he was tall and lean with deep blue eyes and dirty blond hair, with a confidence that glowed off him to such a level that anyone who didn't truly know him would fall for him instantly. I was one of the few who figured him out. Serena dated him, that's how we met oddly. I was Bramm's b***h with lack of a better term. At least that's how I felt he treated me, so when I had found out he’d cheated on Serena I sided with her and told her about his betrayal. He didn’t care that I had told Serena and somehow it seemed to make him happy. I made his life easier for him, I had helped him by being the messenger.

  Bramm came from a family with money. Not that they would admit that, for some reason they liked to pretend they were poor or at least part of the common folks despite the large house and nice cars that they often showed off. Even though I didn't like Bramm the way I used to, I never liked looking like a fool in front of him. My pride was fragile at best when it came to Bramm. He sat on top of the SUV as if he were the king of this little event, his group of ego booster friends where all at his feet and surrounding his friends where Bramm's Gallery. Serena and I called Bramm's female admirers this. It wasn't super witty but we thought it funny because he kept them all like his privet art collection. Some Monet's and more often than not a slew of Picasso's looking girls willing to do anything with him or to him, at one point we had been members of this club so we understood what they were going through. I walked past the SUV unnoticed by Bramm, I quickly made my way to the bar area they had set up.

"Can I see you’re ID?" asked a large over weight guy with a baseball cap flipped backwards and he looked just a bit old to be hanging out with high school kids. I placed a ten dollar bill at the table and walked away from the over twenty one buyer. I ignored him and grabbed a bottle of jack and put some in a half bottle of coke a bought with to mix it with. It was my drink of choice I grabbed a bottle of Vodka and walked from the table. I walked back to the SUV were I saw Serena starring. I knew I had grossly under paid but the buyer seemed to be not thinking clearly. 

"Serena, stop it looking at him. Here." I trusted the vodka into her hand and Serena snapped out of her trance. 

"Thanks. Is this guy amazing or what? He just sits there and bam girls appear. I'm sick of it. I need to find a smart guy." Serena said with conviction.

"Not your usual type. Normally you go for tall and blond." I said factually before taking a sip of my drink. Immediately I knew there was not enough coke in my drink but shrugged it off. 

"Yeah, well new year and new type. I'll go for short, dark, and smart if I have to. And I'm going to go look for this guy right now right now. See you here in thirty minutes?" Serena said over her shoulder as she walked away. I watched her take a swig of the vodka before I quickly turned around and walked into Bramm. He and I stumbled backward a step.

"Bramm…" Great, I thought. Just one more stupid moment to add on to the wall of shame I've been making for myself since the age of five, a slight amount of my drink landed on my shirt and his shirt he laughed shamelessly as I tried wiping my shirt off.

"Eve, I thought I spotted you in the crowd. How you doing?" Bramm asked with his award winning smile. I would be doing a lot better if I hadn’t bumped into you and spilled my drink I thought. 

"I'm doing fine. You seem to be having a nice time." I said, even now I couldn't be mean to him. I hated how he's treated me and yet I find myself being nice to him. Making small talk wanting him to like me I felt like I was falling back into our old routine and that scared me but I wanted to see where this was heading. Was this a permanent thing or would I one day out grow this stupidity?

"Yeah well I have too. I'm only young once, I owe it to myself. You having a good time? Did you get your Jack and coke?" Bramm asked. I hated to admit that it sent a thrill through me to know he remember this little fact about me. 

“I guess I'm having a good time. I've only been here for a few minutes." I took a quick sip of my drink. I need a small pause to relax and figure out a smooth way to get out of this conversation. "I think I should go find Serena."

"Wait. Can I have a sip?" Bramm asked. I looked down at my bottle; it wasn't even a quarter empty. I handed him the bottle he gently grabbed it and took a slow sip and handed it back smoothly. "You linking things a bit stronger aren't you? Well you should find me later… wife." He laughed to himself while he turned and walked back to the SUV. He hadn't called me wife in a long time. It was a big joke between us because I played his wife in the schools production of the Crucible, he played John Procter and I played Elizabeth. People said there was great chemistry between us, at the time I was in love with him and he was sleeping with the girl who played Abigail. In the play Bramm cheats on me with Abigail, so it was a real life story, without the witches and not being early settlers and without a real marriage between us. 

Meeting him later was a bad idea I had finally gotten over the crap I went through with him. I still got mad when I thought about the time I had fell into the knowledge of his cheating ways because I had felt just as betrayed as Serena. I moved on mentally there wasn’t a point to making myself feel like crap again. I lost weight and started wearing heels from time to time and I felt better about me, I had worked hard to get to that place and suddenly Bramm wanted to screw with that. I walked into the crowd. The music was still blaring and the alcohol was starting to kick in. I went and sat on the other side of the bon fire were it was warm. It was starting to get cold out and the light jacket I chosen to wear wasn't cutting it. I took another sip and watched a couple dance, I daydreamed about a guy walking over to ask me to dance until I saw that the couple was moving on from dancing to making out. I turned my head as he was reaching for something and I started to laugh, at myself and at them. As I was laughing, a guy walked towards me and I stopped. His hair was soft and dark black with his clean skin and emerald green eyes seemed to make him more god-like than anyone here, or maybe a billboard ad for the perfect guy. He smiled at me with his lips closed and kneeled down next to me as if nervous to talk to me. Who would be nervous to talk to me? Everyone at my school knew my name because I had been in enough plays to were people would walk up to me and start talking to me it was creepy but none of them were ever nervous but his eyes seemed like he was afraid he’d say something wrong.

"Who are you?" I asked without thinking. It may have sounded rude but to be honest I had been going to school in the Central Point School district since I was a kindergartener and He was never there. I would have remembered those perfect emerald eyes he had, he had to be new. 

"You sure you want to know now? You are fairly intoxicated; you may not even remember your name." He said smoothly and clearly. I watched his lips move as he spoke more perfect still, not to big not to small I could only think of one word, kissable. It made my same question pop into my head because I couldn’t possibly try to make out with a guy who’s name I didn’t know. 

"Yeah, who the heck are you?" I asked.

"I'm Liam Spiro." He said gently as if he were telling a well kept secret. 

"Like the dragon?" I was thinking of the video game but he looked at me blankly. I sighed as I explained. "Spyro, that purple dragon. Haven't you ever heard of the video game?" 

"No Spree-ro, Spiro. It's Greek." He said with a smile. He wasn’t sure of himself that was clearly stamped on his face and yet he plastered a calm face on. 

"Okay Liam. Why are you here?" I asked rudely. I never talked this way to a complete stranger before normally I was a giggly funny drunk, I once asked to incredibly stupid things, like to do a ninja roll down a hill. I still didn’t know what I meant by a ninja roll but I had been truly disappointed when they told me wasn’t allowed too. On the other hand it probably saved me a trip to the hospital. 

"I was just passing through the party, I just moved here with my brother. I should probably get going. Don't want to be here when the cops come. Bad first impression to give the town’s law enforcement, don’t you think?”

"You called the cops?!" I stumbled up leaving my empty bottle on the ground. I wobbled almost falling over and Liam’s fire hot hands gripped my elbows easily supporting me.

"No, but I can hear the sirens." Liam said while steadying me. "If I were you I would leave too. If you want I could…" 

"What time is it?" I didn't wait for an answer; I looked at my cell phone I ripped out of my pocket. "11:40 screw me upside the head! Serena called the cops." 

I had been very lucky that I had not tripped because under normal circumstances I was a klutz but now I held on to the hope that I had some amount of grace somewhere deep down inside of me. I ran to Bramm's group and pushed my way up to Bramm. I leaned on the SUV and looked up at Bramm who was now sitting on his thrown.  

"Bramm! Bramm, the cops are coming!" 

"Cops? You serious? Get into the car." Bramm jumped into the SUV. His three guy friends got into the back seats and Bramm pealed out of the field, leaving behind him a group of drunken teenagers screaming about cops and panicking to find a ride out. If the musical entertainment is leaving something is up. I texted Serena "Going home. Left party with Bramm. ttyl." sent it and looked back at Bramm who looked pissed. I knew I would get grilled about Bramm later but my life would be a lot easier if I weren't caught underage hammered by the local police most of whom knew my parents on a first name basis. "Who called the cops?" 

"I don't know. I was talking to this guy and his family owns the property or something and he heard sirens and well I figured you had a SUV and all." I knew this game. If I said Serena did it she would be shunned from ever coming to a party again. Not something you would want for your senior year. Besides she was only doing what we promised to do if we didn’t meet up in case something had happened. I suddenly realized Bramm was drunk and his friends where too. One of the guys was leaning out the window vomiting. "Bramm your drunk we should pull over." 

"Oh please, I'm just fine, thank you. I've been way worse off and driven home before." Bramm said with a slur to his speech. I started to tear up not one of my better traits but I was first to tear up when I get mad. Tears started to well up and I rubbed my face with my sleeve.

"Bramm you pull this car over! I don't give a flying fu..." That's when Bramm's SUV went off the road and into a ditch. It rolled two and half times before stopping. I was bleeding heavily and I felt colder then I had earlier. Things started to speed up and slow down at the same time. I was awkwardly strapped to seat by my seat belt upside down. I looked and saw Bramm wasn't even in the car, everyone else was but only one other person was strapped in and he was knocked out or dead like the rest of them. Dead? That scared me, it freaked out and more tears flowed. I knew they were dead because one’s face was so ripped apart from smashed glass pieces from the broken window that I would have never known or guessed who it was and his other friend been bashed in the head by the sound system that somehow was ripped out by the force of the rolling SUV. I ripped at my seat belt franticly then pressed the release button. I hurt myself on the landing but managed to crawl out of the SUV using only my arms. Another frightening discovery was that my legs didn’t seem to work.

I searched for a sign of where we were. The shrubbery that blocked the road from where we were was mashed down. I knew that none of the party goers would be looking for us or slightly pushed down bushes that could mean someone crashed. Nobody would call for help and I wasn’t sure where my phone was but I wasn’t near me and I couldn’t move my legs. I wiped my face with my muddy hand and knew no help would come. I looked up at the night sky, it was a crescent moon and the stars seemed brighter now that I was in the complete darkness of the woods. Would this be the last thing I would see? It all faded to black then. 

I was moving without moving. I felt limp as if I no longer had control over my own body like everything was being done for me. I felt like I was flying but something was making me fly. Was this death I thought? It's wasn't so bad, gentler and freeing then I would have guessed. Not that I thought about death much. I didn't want to open my eyes, I wasn't sure what I would see and I didn't know if I wanted to see it. Maybe if I opened them this feeling of calm and peace I felt might leave me, I didn't want that to happen it was the only thing stopping me from crying.

Suddenly a loud slam broke my calm, like the sound of a door being kicked open. I had lost my safe feeling but I closed my eyes even tighter, and then as if I were being carried to bed I was placed on something soft and warm. Then I heard a door gently open and close. I forced my eyes to open, at first I couldn't see clearly. I looked straight ahead of me and focused until the room stopped spinning. The wall where made of logs. I was in a very big log cabin, on a fur rug by a fire place with a calm fire in it. I tried to get up when I realized I couldn't move, I no longer held strength to move my arms and my legs felt like dead weight. I was still bleeding and in pain but now adenine wouldn’t let me pass out. I was in a log cabin bleeding. Who's log cabin? Why am I not on the way to the hospital? What happened to everyone in the SUV? All the questions I had and I had no answer for them. I heard a door open, there was a pause and then the door closed again. I already knew I wasn't alone in the cabin.

"You brought her here why?" Barked an unfamiliar voice.

"She was injured and I couldn't just leave her thereto..." This voice was younger and was familiar. A loud smack and the sound of a body falling to the floor stopped him from finishing his sentence. "I wanted to help."

"We can't help her. Unless you are willing to... you know." The old voice was stern yet worried. 

"I can't. You know that." The young voice sound sad. 

"Well I vowed to never do it again for a girl. I was foolish to do it to you and..." The older voice didn't finish his sentence. "If you need my help, I can talk you through it. I will not do anything more. This is your body now." His body? It is my body. What are they talking about? I'm I in some horror film where they are going to cut me open and use my skin for lamp shades? 

"What if I kill her?" The young voice asked.

"She's as good as dead anyway. You know that. I can hear her heart slowing and I know you can to." His voice became callus. The door swung open and two pairs of footsteps followed. One dropped on to a seat as the other lay down next to me. I shut my eyes. I didn't want to see. I wanted to pretend that this was all a bad dream. It had to be a bad dream. I would wake up in my bed and have a panic attack.

"Eve, please don't worry you'll be fine. I’m lying down next to you because you’re freezing but that will pass." The young voice said calmly. How did he know my name? "Tell me what to do."

"Wake her up. Then you take her wrist and bite it. Hard. It won’t matter if you brake her hand because it will heal. The rest will be more watching then anything. It’ll will be like a large seizure that won’t stop for seven or eight hours. It would be longer if she healthy." The voice got up and left the room. I opened my eyes and looked. It was Liam. He and I looked into each other’s eyes. 

"Are you going to kill me?" I hadn't spoken since right before the accident. My throat hurt as I coughed a small amount of blood up. It hit Liam’s face but he didn’t even flinch.

"No, but this is going to be painful for a while. I’m sorry." Liam said softly as he lifts my wrist. I tried to pull my hand away, I couldn't. He lifted my wrist to his mouth,

"Why are you going to bite me? I never did anything to you." I said. 

"You'll wake up in your bed, you'll forget this night, and I'll find you when you're ready. And when you hear my name you’ll remember what has happened tonight." Liam then bit my wrist. I long flowing pain seared my whole body. I wanted to throw up the pain or just to die. I felt everything, my heart beating so fast my body wanted to fight but couldn’t. I wasn't sure if I was screaming but gratefully when I passed out. I felt nothing. I saw nothing. I was nothing.