Here’s the next section from the “novel” I wrote one winter in high school.

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“Wow,” I breathed, almost speechless. “That was great. You have some imagination!” The story had definitely moved me.

“Who says I made it up?” Justin asked.

“Personally I would have added more sex and violence,” Karl said. “But I definitely liked the part when William chopped their heads off and blood was spilling all over the floor. It was vivid, and of course, I like all that gory stuff.” He smiled.

“I swear you have a one-track mind,” Jill muttered.

“Yes,” Karl admitted. “And it’s such a wonderful track to be on. I think I’ll stay awhile.” He laughed.

“It was sad,” was Don’s only comment on Justin’s tale.

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Here’s the next section from the “novel” I wrote one winter in high school.

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After dinner, when the night deepened, we all went and sat around the campfire that Justin had prepared. We awaited our wonderful tale. We were not disappointed. Justin, like Karl, did not stop during his tale.

* * *

Long ago, in Medieval England there lived a vampire named Richard. There had been others, but they had been younger and weaker than Richard and had therefore died in battle. But the same would not happen to Richard. He was six hundred years old, and had drunk the blood of at least seven thousand people. He did not mind killing. Blood gave him strength and agility. He was a master with his sword, the common weapon of the time. He needed no shining armor; his excellent skill, and faster-than-life reflexes allowed him to kill anyone who got in his way.

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“What are you doing with that paper?” a cold voice demanded.

I whirled around to see Justin, with an expression of anger on his face.

“I-I’m sorry,” I said through chattering teeth. “I-I didn’t kn-know it was y-yours.” It was so cold and I was scared. I had seen pain in his eyes, great sadness, but never the fury I saw then.

“Does it matter?” he asked, a cold hardness in his voice. “You knew it wasn’t yours, didn’t you? And what the hell are you doing down here anyway? Is that what you came here to do? Spy on me? I don’t appreciate that, Andi.”

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Within seconds, everyone was gathered and ≈assembled in our room. I was in tears. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Everything in my mind was spinning out of control.

I couldn’t comprehend it. I had talked to Eve only the night before. How could she be dead now? How had she died?

“It looks like she died by bleeding to death,” Jill said, speaking softly. She too, was crying. I don’t think there was one of us who wasn’t. Even tough, strong, Karl had tears running down his face. “There is a cut near her left shoulder-blade that looks pretty nasty.”

“Do you think she fell and cut herself or something?” asked Don with a shaky voice.

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“And we’re all defenseless, alone in a cabin in the woods with this guy? I’m getting scared,” Jill said jokingly.

“The story was pretty good,” Justin observed. “I never expected the end.”

“It wasn’t that good,” Don said. “I’m sure I could do better if you gave me awhile to think of one.”

“I think it was very amoral,” Eve remarked. “I mean, the girl who was trying to help everyone and kill the killer got killed and blamed for being the killer. That’s not fair at all.”

“That’s life, baby,” proclaimed Don. “Not all stories have happy endings.”

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Awhile later Jill suggested we have a campfire, an idea welcomed by all. There was a fire ring not far from t©he cabin. We roasted marshmallows and made s’mores. I felt like I was a little kid again, at Girl Scout Camp. I suggested we tell ghost stories. Everyone loved the idea. We decided we would tell one story per night. Karl requested to go first.

“Wait!” I cried, before Karl began, as a stroke of brilliance hit me. “Why don’t we tell the stories we wrote for Miss Bennett’s class! We were just talking about how none of us wrote flowery tales!”

That idea was agreed upon as well. Don said that he would think up something, seeing as he did not have Miss Bennett for a teacher.

Karl began talking and did not stop until his story was complete.

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I slept through most of the ride. When we arrived, the cabin was much bigger than I had expected. It was actually more like a house in the woods than a cabin. There was electricity. In fact, there were fluorescent lights in each room. There was one bedroom that was small and had one double bed in it. I assumed it to be Justin’s parents’ room. Then there were two other bedrooms, each having four cots and four cubby-type things to store belongings in. The living room was huge and had in it three couches with blue cushions. There was even a TV, but it didn’t get cable. The kitchen was small but had a refrigerator, freezer, and gas stove. With all the advanced equipment, it was really strange that there was not a single phone. All the walls were wood paneled, and only the living room had a rug, a brown one. There were two bathrooms, which was a good thing considering there were six of us. In the front there was a beautiful porch with windows on the three walls that were not part of the actual cabin. It was spacious compared to what I had expected. Eve, Jill and I chose the room that was more towards the back of the cabin for our own. It had a back door so if any creepy people came to kill us, as one would in a cheesy horror movie, we’d have an escape route. The guys stayed in the other bedroom, where there was no such escape route.

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It was a year after the funerals, two years after the party, and a week before Winter Break. I was a senior in high school and eighteen years old. I couldn’t wait to graduate in June. Life seemed to be going well.

It was on a Saturday afternoon rich with blowing snow and howling winds, that my parents decided to talk with me about Winter Break. I was up in my room, working on a book I was trying to write. I had been working on it for about six months, but couldn’t get very far. I had some strong images and scenes that would not leave my head. I knew it was about a girl who dreamt often and vividly of a girl who looked exactly like her, yet it was not her. Nor was it her long-lost identical twin, or the likes. I also knew I would title it Stranger is Me if I ever got around to finishing it.

I was summoned downstairs by my mother. She needed to have A Talk with me. I honestly thought it would be about studying, grades or some other grueling topic.

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All nine of us went to Jake and Todd’s joint birthday party, the one I spoke of earlier. We were the only attendants, rather odd for a sweet sixteen party. Jill, Eve and I figured we were invited because of Brenda, though none of us had really spoken with her since she began seeing Jake. Justin was invited without question, being Todd’s best friend. Jake had invited Karl and Don; don’t ask me why. Jake is Jake though, unpredictable and pushy. He gets what he wants whether he has an explained reason or not. He had insisted the two of them come, which was no problem with either of them. Eve and Don had not been going out then, but they did argue a lot, and a real romance was growing between them.

  I had hopes of going and talking to Justin. As of yet, I had never done so. At least, not of any significance. While preparing to leave, I thought of as many ways as I could to start a conversation with him. I thought of how I could impress him with my wicked sense of humor, wow him with my brilliant intelligence. But I knew all of this was quite exaggerated and only in my mind. Who was I kidding? I’d be lucky if I could gather up the courage to say hi to him. I was a coward, too scared that I’d get my heart broken and shattered like fragile glass.

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