Authors: Jeff Sampson
Werewolf.
The word popped into my brain as I pulled on my jeans, and it felt so very right that I stopped with only one leg on. Falling back, I sat on my bed. I glimpsed Ein still lying on his back in the corner where I'd kicked him the night before.
A werewolf. What a crazy thing to hallucinate. Between that and the whole Emily Cooke spirit idea, maybe I'd just been watching too many horror movies. Combine that with booze...
But then, what about how when I was Nighttime Emily, I spent so much time
smelling
everything? How I was stronger, faster, graceful? What about how my vision miraculously cleared, and everything I heard and felt sizzled with intensity? Or how I'd somehow7 managed to tear my pants to shreds with just my hands, how there was dirt still stuck under my fingernails from where I clawed into the damp earth...?
And let's face it: That explanation made a whole lot more sense than my theory that the other Emily had possessed me. Not that I had ever really taken that too seriously-Well, maybe a little.
''There has to be a logical explanation," I said, then let out a bitter laugh at how I sounded like the scientist character in every bad horror movie I'd ever seen once he's faced with something out of the norm. "No, seriously. Maybe I found ... scissors or something in the woods. Maybe ..
I didn't know. I didn't have any answers.
It had to be a hallucination, I decided. Beyond the whole wolf-girl thing, I also remembered seeing
and feeling
ghostly, shadowy figures standing all around me.
Werewolves. And ghosts. All of that belonged strictly in the realm of fantasy. At least my change into someone with a bad case of the crazies could be explained rationally by a brain tumor or something.
Reassuring.
It was 8:05. Already five minutes past the time when Megan was normally outside honking at me. School started in fifteen minutes.
Oh man, all this time I'd been getting ready to go to the one place I probably should never go back to, ever again: Carver Senior High. Home of the Carver Cougars and all the pretty, important people I'd made a complete and utter spectacle of myself in front of the night before.
So here were my choices: feign sickness and stay at home all day, trapped in my room with nothing to do but think about last night all day long, or go to school, where I would have to suffer the wrath of the entire junior class.
Okay, maybe you'll think I'm even more nutso than you already do, but I decided on school. It's just that, for the first time in my life, the idea of being trapped in a room filled with books, comics, and movies all about strange, supernatural happenings didn't sound all that appealing. I actually wanted normal, boring reality for once.
Besides, I was back to being glasses-wearing, makeup-less, hoodied Emily Webb. Maybe no one would recognize me.
Right.
I was halfway down the stairs to the living room when the front door slammed, and I heard my dad's stomping footsteps. He screamed out my name. "Emily? Emily!"
Confused, I peeked down the stairs and waved at him. "Yeah?" I said.
Relief washed over his face, and he put his hand to his chest. He was wearing his pajama bottoms with his sneakers on, and also his faded leather jacket. His glasses, as always, were crooked—had he been outside?
Before I could move, the door opened wider and Dawn rushed in, still wearing her clothes from last night, followed by my short stepmother.
That was when I finally remembered—I'd ditched Dawn last night. I was guessing I hadn't checked in with her before ending up in bed, either. My face flushed with embarrassment.
"Emily!" Dawn called at the sight of me. She raced up the stairs to pull me into a hug. "Oh, dude, I was so, so scared. I'm so glad you're fine."
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I guess I got kinda drunk, and I wasn't thinking...."
I couldn't say anything else because at that moment my dad and stepmom finally reached me, and they, too, drew me into a hug.
"I was worried out of my mind, Leelee," my dad said. I could hear it in his voice; he definitely wasn't lying. Oh, my poor dad! I'd never done anything like this, ever. How he must have felt...
"Sorry, Dad," I said, my voice muffled against his chest.
"You're in so much trouble, little girl," he said. "But oh, am I glad to see you."
My stepmother pulled away, her glasses wet with tears. A lump formed in my throat. She was such a nice woman, my stepmom, and here I'd gone and made her cry.
"I'm sorry, Katherine," I whispered to her.
She sniffed and took off her glasses to wipe at her eyes. "We heard about that boy getting shot, and I had this horrible feeling," she said between wipes. "I was so afraid that whoever is doing this...” She sobbed, and my dad let me go to put his arm around her.
For a moment, I thought she must have been confused about the gender of Emily Cooke. Then I remembered another detail of my blurry evening: the popping sounds. The girl screaming.
"A boy was shot? Who?"
Dawn shook her head. "I don't know his name. Somebody at the party, though. A girl came screaming down the street after you ran off, saying we needed to call 911..."
I couldn't breathe. There were three guys who I saw leave the party right before I did, but only one of them was with a girl. Trembling, I ran down the steps into the living room. Fumbling with the remote control, I flicked on the TV.
"... And now over to Nancy Smith, who is on location at Carver Senior High School in Skopamish, where another sixteen-year-old student has fallen victim to an unknown assailant."
I could sense my family crowding behind me, but they didn't say anything.
I stood in front of the couch, so nervous that I couldn't sit down or even lower the hand that held the remote.
The image cut to a view of my high school. There were some students and teachers milling around out front, but far fewer than usual. The camera panned over to rest on a blond woman in a suit, standing in front of the stone Carver High sign with a microphone to her chin.
"A community is broken by fear this morning at the news that another bright young student has fallen victim to a crazed gunman.” A picture flashed on-screen: Dalton. Attractive, sweet-faced Dalton McKinney—who'd never said a bad word to anyone, but who'd acted totally opposite from his normal self last night, just like I had.
I gasped and put my hands to my face.
"Carver Senior High School football star Dalton McKinney is the latest victim of an assailant that police now believe to be the same person who killed fellow student Emily Cooke earlier this week." "No," I whispered.
"Dalton McKinney is currently in Harborview Medical Center and listed in critical condition, though we were told just moments ago that doctors are hopeful for his survival. Fellow students and parents are at the hospital this morning waiting anxiously to learn if he'll be all right, and whether or not police will be able to find the person responsible for these attacks."
I clicked the TV off. Dalton was alive.
But he almost wasn't. He'd left the party early and ran into the killer for one reason and one reason only: me. If I hadn't acted the way I had, Nikki never would have become upset, Dalton never would have...
It was at that moment that the cautious pleasure I'd had from being Nighttime Emily went away completely. No matter how exciting she was, last night she'd taken it too far, and now I hated her, what she'd made me become, how she made me treat everyone around me.
I turned to Dawn. "The girl who ran back, is she okay?" I asked. "Was she hurt?"
Dawn grimaced as she remembered. "She seemed fine, but there was ...
uh, there was blood on her hands from trying to help that boy..
"Did she say anything? Did she see who it was?"
Dawn shrugged. "I don't know, it was chaos. Everyone was still reeling from whatever happened with you downstairs, and then the girl ran back screaming that her boyfriend had been shot."
I didn't ask any more questions, but even as I stood there wobbling with shock, I had to wonder: Why did the killer only shoot Dalton? If he was going around killing random teens, why not Nikki, too? Or Spencer, if he'd managed to catch up with them?
Maybe the shootings weren't so random after all.
It was eight fifteen. School was about to start. Suddenly I didn't feel quite as gung ho about going.
I was officially grounded.
I know in the grand scheme of things, especially considering all the insanity of the past few days, being grounded should have been the least of my problems. But here's the thing: I had never once been grounded in my entire life. I'd never done anything even remotely requiring a punishment of that magnitude. Doing grounding-worthy things usually requires a person to leave the house.
But drinking and wandering off and disappearing all night? Yeah, that was worthy of punishment, being forced to stay home with no internet or TV for the weekend. I wasn't mad at my dad or anything. I was glad he was laying down the law. I deserved it.
Oh, how my life was changing.
I wanted to stay home that day, just surround myself with my dad and stepmom and Dawn, even if they were going to spend the next several hours lecturing me on the dangers of alcohol and of acting so reckless. My dad was sympathetic at first, thinking maybe I wanted to go to the hospital along with all my "friends" and hold vigil, waiting to hear about Dalton. I refused and gave a lame excuse about being afraid of hospitals; I couldn't really explain why my showing up there would be the worst idea since George Lucas said,
"Hey, how 'bout some prequels?"
Thinking I was trying to get out of my education on top of everything else, he forced me to go to school. I couldn't really blame him.
Megan wasn't outside when Dawn drove me to school. Of course not; school had started twenty minutes before. But a quick check of my cell phone showed that she also hadn't called me. After the frantic way she'd been all over my case the past few days—ever since seeing me transform into the type of girl she loathed with every fiber of her lanky being—and after hearing about Dalton, surely she would have checked up on me.
That she hadn't? I had no idea what it meant, but I had to assume with her it was because she was mad at me. Join the club, Reedy.
"Okay, so, I'll come here to pick you up right after school."
Dawn leaned against the steering wheel of her car, looking at me with a serious expression I'd never once seen from her. Grabbing my backpack from where it rested between my knees, I opened the door, then hesitated.
"I'm really sorry," I said without turning around.
For a moment, she didn't say anything. Finally she said, "I was really, really worried about you, dude."
"I know, I-"
"Just don't ever do that to me again. I want to help you break out of your shell and all, but not if it means you're going to make me think you're dead all night."
I turned to her. I smiled weakly. She did not return the expression.
"I won't. I promise."
She coughed and looked away. "All righty. So right after school, then. I need to go home and take a nap."
"Okay."
Clutching my bag to my chest, I surveyed the school. The brick buildings were quiet, seeming almost empty. The sky was a matte gray—it often was in the morning—and the cool wind blew through the towering evergreens that surrounded the school. Across the parking lot there were news vans, some preparing to pull away, others setting up cameras. The reporter from TV that morning talked with her cameraman, cradling a steaming cup of coffee and laughing.
Near the front doors was a pile of flowers and teddy bears, ribbons tied to the pole they rested against. Last year's school pictures of Emily C. and Dalton were pasted against the brick wall
.
They both looked so happy. At least maybe Dalton would get to take a new picture.
I went to the front office and gave the secretary the note my dad had written, and she wrote something in her ledger and sent me on my way.
Behind her the principal stood with the vice principal, the two women nodding solemnly while speaking to a pair of men I assumed were detectives based on the badges clipped to their belts.
I took my time walking through the quiet, empty halls to my locker. First period was already halfway over, and the last thing I wanted was to walk in and have everyone's eyes on me.
Storing my backpack, I wandered past the lockers, past the half-empty classrooms where the kids who either weren't close to Dalton or whose parents weren't overprotective enough to keep them home sat, learning reading and writing and 'rithmetic. I stopped outside of room 113: Mr.
Woods's English class. Megan's first period.
I don't know how long I stood there until the bell rang; I more or less zoned out, my back against the lockers by the door and eyes cast down at the green tile floor, my mind circling around the same things over and over.
Finally the doors burst open and kids began pouring out. Megan was one of the first. She walked right past me.
"Hey," I said, reaching out to touch her arm.
She stiffened and spun around, ready to verbally smack down whoever had touched her. But her face softened—only slightly—when she saw it was me.
Dragging me away from the door so we wouldn't be caught up in the wake of chattering kids rushing into the hall, she put her head close to mine.
"I heard what you did," she said through clenched teeth.
Oh crap.
I looked away from her accusing gray eyes and bit my lip. "Uh, yeah, so what did you hear?"
"Enough," she said. "When someone like us makes a scene, word gets around fast. Even when one of their lunkhead boyfriends almost gets murdered, people still have plenty of time to make comments online all night laughing about you getting smashed and acting like a whore."
I glanced sidelong at the kids passing us as they went to their lockers and classes. A few glowered at me, their expressions judgmental, before whispering into the ears of whoever they walked with.