Chapter 1

I’m walking down a dark street looking at all the houses with their lights off.  I can’t get to sleep tonight so I’m taking a walk down to the beach.  It’s so peaceful at night there are few people and very few cars out.

It’s around midnight and I’m walking down to the beach with a towel in my hand.  My name is Katrina, I have black hair, and abnormally dark blue eyes some people say they even look black.  I don’t really fit in at my school.  Yes, I hang out with people sometimes, but I normally hang out by myself most of the time.  I usually hang out in the library and read books at lunch, when I have time off.

 Walking down the beach I get to the rocks, put the towel over my shoulder and start climbing.  It’s not that far up, when I get up there I lay my towel down and lie on top of it.  I sit up after a minute of rest and take my shirt off; I have my bikini on below it.  I take my shorts off to, and dive off the edge of the cliff. When I hit the water I let the coolness wash over me and sink to the bottom of the ocean, the cold water feels good against my skin.

I’ve loved the water since I was a baby.  I could swim a mile without hesitation when I was only two years old.  My momma says she could never get me out of the water; she called me the ‘Water Goddess.’

I’m swimming around under the water and zone out. I don’t know how long I’ve been under here about five minute’s maybe.  I can breathe under water I don’t know how but I can.  I tried asking my mom about it when I was younger but she didn’t answer me; she just sort of changed the subject and walked away.

I swim up to the top of the water and look around to see how far out I’ve gone out.  I don’t see the shore that well, it’s just a real little speck out there, so I go back under water and start to swim towards the shore.  I don’t swim that fast because I’m trying to enjoy the water.

When I get back to the rocks I climb up them and look at my watch, its two in the morning now.  I’ve been out here for two hours now; it seemed like just ten minutes under the water.

I grab my clothes and wrap them in my towel then I start to walk home.  I see someone hiding in the shadows; I try to ignore him and walk away thinking he’s just another person who can’t sleep.  When I get to the road, I notice he’s still following me.  I’m not the type of person to walk away from someone when they’re following me, but this guy is really creepy. Hating that I wore flip-flops, I start running. My Flip-flops start to slide off my feet but I ignore them and keep running. I get to the street next to mine and speed up; my house is not that far away now.

When I get to my house I open the door and run inside.  Then after closing it quietly, I sneak up to my room and close my bedroom door quietly.  I change into my pajamas and lay on my bed pretending to sleep.  I hear my mom walk up and open the door; she walks over to the bed, making sure I’m asleep, and then leaves.  When I hear the door close, I call one of my friends, whom I tell everything to.  She’s just like me, even looks like me according to some people.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me…  I need to tell you something.”

“Katty?  Why are you calling at two in the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep… but that’s not important listen I need to tell you something…”

“Can’t it wait for the morning?  I’m really sleepy…”

I walk over to the window, that creepy guy from the beach is still standing outside, watching my window. So I close the curtains, hoping he’ll go away.  “Not really…”

This time she hears the scare in my voice “Katty…  What's wrong?”

“I went down to the beach and swam for about two hours. But when I got back to the rocks I grabbed my stuff and was starting to walk away, when I saw this guy standing in the shadows.  I kept walking thinking he was just another person who couldn’t sleep but when I got to the road the same guy was still following me. So I started running and I could hear him behind me but I thought he’d go away.  But… he’s still here, standing outside my window…”

“He knows which room is yours?”

“I don’t know I guess because when I looked out there he was looking right at my window.  Gina…  I’m really scared right now… there’s something not right about this guy…”

“Ok Katty… hold on, I’ll be there in just a second let me change clothes and I’ll be there in just a minute.”

“Ok…”  I say, opening the curtain a little again.

Hearing the click, I peak out the window again I see the guy he’s still standing there not moving.  Not even looking anywhere else besides my window.  I think he see’s me so I close the curtains and squat on the floor below the window. I crawl across the floor and open the door and look back at my window then walk out the door, closing it behind me, I walk down the steps to the front door.

Right when I get to the front door Gina Lightly knocks on the door. I slowly open the door, she walks in and we creep up to my room.  When we get to my room I get really scared and don’t want to walk in there.  Gina opens the door and pulls me in there.  She walks over to the window.

“Is he still out there?”

“I think so… he was when I left. But I really don’t want to find out…”

She opens the curtains anyway, not caring if he sees her, and yes he’s still out there.  He stares at her and she stares back.  Gina is a little different from me she has the same hair color but her eyes are ice blue.  He doesn’t flinch from her gaze, usually people flinch when they stare at her long enough.

When neither of them flinches I think he gets a little mad.  We’re both standing at the window, and then he somehow jumps up here quickly.  It scares us both, we fall to the floor, scattering and screaming. When he try’s to open the window, we grab each others hands.  Then my mom comes running through the door, she sees the man at the window.  He says something we all hear plain and clear, as if the glass of the window wasn’t even there.

“Ya’ll will both die by the end of this year… your mom can’t protect you.”

We run over to my mom and grab her hand and we all run out of my room and into the living room.  We close all the curtains making sure no one can see into the house.  My mom also pulls the curtain down over the small window on the door.  When she gets back to the couch, me and Gina are squished together on the couch; this is the first time in forever that we’ve been scared this badly.

My mom asks really calmly “Do you know who that was?”

Gina and I both answer at the same time; “No…”

Then I say “I went to the beach around twelve…  I couldn’t sleep… he followed me home…  I didn’t know who he was, so I called Gina…”

“Why didn’t you tell ME?  I could’ve called the police…”

“I was afraid you’d get mad at me Ma’…”

Gina puts in; “We feel safer… stronger when we’re together…”

“He wasn’t normal ma’…  I don’t know how to explain it but it was like… he wasn’t human almost…”

“Not human?  He looked human to me…”

“You weren’t outside with him… it was really creepy... and did you hear the way he talked…”

“Ok…ok…  I understand… listen you two can go over to Gina’s house tonight…  I’m going to call the police and see what they can do about this guy…”

“Ok…”

After we get done talking I go to get some clothes out of the dryer then Gina and I run across the street to Gina’s house.  When we get inside we lock the door and run upstairs to her room.  We don’t care how much racket we make because her parents could care less what she does, they are always up all night watching movies in the den, so they can’t hear us.

When we get to her room we shut her curtains, throw my stuff on a beanbag chair and lay down on her bed.  We are too scared from that guy to talk and finally fall asleep.  A couple hours later her alarm clock goes off and we wake up, get dressed and walked outside to wait on the bus.  It feels like forever before the bus finally gets there.  I still have this creepy feeling that that guy is still watching us.  I could tell by the way Gina was looking around that she does to.

When we get on the bus we go all the way to the back to the seat we always sit in.  Gina sits on the inside and I sit on the outside.  I turn around and look out the back window and there he is that guy just standing there in the middle of the road.

Gina says something kind of in a whisper that sounds scared “He’s there isn’t he?”

“Yea… but don’t worry about it… he wont try anything at school… to many people.”

“Ok…”

Like Fifteen minutes later we pull up to the school.  Gina and I don’t wait for everyone to get off this time, we usually do.  We jump up and get in the middle, another one of my friends, Jake, looks at us funny but just decides to let us through.  Knowing him he’ll just ask us later why we were so jumpy this morning.

We walk inside the school in a hurry and go to our lockers.  Gina and I grab our books, say goodbye and go to our first class.  Right when I get there I see Jake sitting in the back, wearing his black jacket, white muscle shirt, and jeans.  There’s an empty seat beside him that he motions for me to come sit in, so I do.  Right when I sit down he hands me a note and I open it and start reading it.

What was up with you and Gina on the bus?  Ya’ll were really jumpy.  Ya’ll looked a little scared.

I write back to him, we just had a bad night that’s all…

He reads it and writes something down. What kind of bad night… c’mon kitty…

I look at him he looks a little worried and I write back, ok… there was this guy last night that followed me back from the ocean and he just sat outside my window all night so I called Gina over when I did he said ‘both of ya’ll will die… your mom can’t protect you.’  It was creepy and it scared us to death.

He still looks worried for a minute but then that look changes to a little pissed.  Do you know who this guy is?  And why is he following you??

No I don’t know who he is or why he’s following us he just is…

Well next time you see him you come down to my house…

I can’t come down to your house then he’ll know where you live and that you’re my friend…  He could kill you…  I don’t want to risk your life like that…  But anyway I gotta go the bells about to ring I’ll talk to you later.

He looks at the note, writes something down, folds it up and puts it on my desk.  I open it and read: I don’t care if it risks my life or if he knows where I live.  Next time ya’ll see him come down to my house… it’s not an option, I can’t let him hurt ya’ll.

I look at him after I read it with a worried expression on my face. I’ll do what he says and I mouth to him ‘ok’.

When the bell rings I leave and go to my locker again and get my other books out right as Gina runs up to me.  She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong G?”

“He’s here… that guy…  He’s here.  I was talking to Michael about the guy and I see something in the corner of my eye, out the window and I look over there and he’s standing at the window, smiling at me.  I run over and shut the shades.  Michael looks at me and asks me ‘was that him?’ and I say ‘yea’ then he gets pissed and runs out the classroom and outside and he never came back in… we’ve got to help him Katty…  C’mon please, he’ll get hurt…”

“Ok… ok… which door did he go out of?”

“That one…” she points to the nearest door that leads to the dumpster outside.

We run out the door and Gina leads us to the window she saw him at and we see Michael and that crazy guy fighting.  Michaels almost gets him pinned when the guy sees us.  Then the weirdest thing happens, he just disappears, gone.

Michael gets up and looks around, wondering where the guy went.  Then he turns around and Gina runs up to him and hugs him, asks him if he’s ok about three times.  Michael shuts her up by kissing her and says that he’s ok that he just has a few bruises.  But Gina makes him go to the nurse anyway, just to make sure.

Gina follows him to the nurse not leaving him for a second.  I wait for her and Michael; we have the next class together. She makes the nurse check him to see if anything’s not to serious.  She’s really very protective over him, it’s kind of funny.  I start to laugh and Michael looks at me when I do with an expression of; “shut up before you get hit” look on his face.  I just laugh again then we walk to our next class.

Author's Note

Found the picture on google..