I
As cliché as it may sound, it all started on a Friday the 13th; a Friday with a full moon, and to make things worse, it was a Blood Moon. For many, it meant nothing; just a night with too much hype due to the legends surrounding it. For others, it was the day of the year when they felt the most hungry and powerful. There were a few who hid just in case; they didn’t leave their homes all day and stayed away from any door or window, remaining alert with every passing second.
On the other hand, there was me. For me, it was just another night of solitude; my parents were absent due to work. I wasn’t afraid or believed in any legends, but I also didn’t trust people on that particular day. They tended to get a little crazy, so I decided to stay at home, or rather, on the roof, admiring the stars and the transformation of the moon, from a bright white to an even more striking crimson red. But in a matter of seconds, my night of tranquility and solitude turned into a tragedy.
Near the alley that was diagonally across from my house, I saw a man running as if he was fleeing from something or someone. When he reached the entrance of the alley, someone pulled his arm, and shortly after, another person arrived; I assumed they were either helping him or maybe he was the one he was running from. After several sounds that I thought were punches, I saw a limping and bleeding wolf emerge, dragging the first man who entered the alley. Then, a boy who was at most a year older than me came out; he was of average height with curly black hair. He wiped the blood off his mouth and hands with a look of disgust; his arms were covered in bite marks, along with his clothes, which were once a beige shirt and black pants, now both red and torn by what seemed to be scratches, like those of a wolf. Another taller boy with brown hair and a slender build came out drenched in blood, complaining about the noise they had made, the blood, and saying that their boss would kill them if anyone found out.
By instinct, I hid behind the wall where I had been sitting seconds before, at the edge of the roof; I didn’t want them to know I was watching and end up like or worse than the man being dragged away from the alley. The one who entered after the one they had killed? Well, I don’t know, I didn’t see him anymore. Well, I didn’t see any of the four anymore because even in the middle of summer, I felt something cold, like it had just come out of the freezer, touching my shoulder. A shiver ran down my body. I swallowed hard and turned to see what was insisting on touching my shoulder.
At first, I thought it was all just product of my imagination due to all the nonsense I had been watching on TV those days, but no; it was as real as I was. It was a boy who couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, with long black hair that reached his shoulders. His eyes were a deep green, and in them, I could see the reflection of the moon, but none of that was what left me frozen in front of him. Despite the fact that the color of his eyes was brighter than any human’s, what scared me, terrified me, and above all, impressed me, was his smile. If it weren’t for the long and sharp fangs protruding over his lips, I would say it was a tender and innocent smile, which was extremely unsettling. I wanted to run away and convince myself that it was all a hallucination, but my body refused to respond.
“Shhh, don’t say anything, we might get discovered. Come with me,” he murmured, extending his hand, inviting me to go to who knows where. “I’m sorry if I scared you, it wasn’t my intention, but if you don’t come, you’re going to suffer a lot,” he said softly when he realized I wasn’t responding to his invitation.
I continued looking at him with a face that said, “Who is this guy? He’s crazy if he thinks I’m going with him.” It seemed like he understood right away because he continued:
“Look, you have two options: either stay here at the mercy of a man you just saw killing another person, or take the risk and come with me. I have no intention of hurting you. If I wanted to, I would have done it already, don’t you think?” He had a point, so with some fear, I accepted his hand and stood up, making sure the man who was still standing there, looking around as if searching for someone, didn’t see me.
We walked to the other side of the roof. As we did, I could only repeat to myself over and over again that this was madness. No one in their right mind would trust a child they didn’t know, especially one who looked nothing like a human. And let’s not forget that he had managed to reach the roof of my house without making a single sound. In other instances, I had heard people jumping from roof to roof, but this time, I didn’t hear any footsteps.
Upon reaching the other edge, I saw him calculating the distance between my roof and the neighbor’s.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to jump that! I’m not Spiderman, jumping from roof to roof,” I said horrified when I realized his intentions.
“Trust yourself, I know you can do it. Besides, it’s not that far, and it’s the only way to escape from here...” he tried to convince me. “Quickly, before he smells your blood and it’s goodbye to your life and mine for helping you.”
They may call me crazy, that no one in their right mind would do what I did, but that boy was right for the second time. I would prefer to jump a thousand times, even with a 0.1% chance of surviving, than to stay at the mercy of that man whom I was a hundred percent sure would kill me without a second thought.
The sensation of jumping in the air with a high possibility of failing and falling from a third floor, combined with the fact that I was fleeing from a potential killer, made the adrenaline in my body reach levels I didn’t know existed. My heart beat so strongly that I thought it would leap out of my chest. I experienced a strange sensation; it wasn’t a shiver, but rather as if my blood froze and then boiled at such high levels that the sun would seem small.
As expected, when I reached the neighbor’s roof, I slipped because I was right at the edge, and I almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, the boy was there and helped me immediately.
“Come on, hurry, he probably heard you, and we still have another jump ahead, so hurry up,” he whispered, urging me to run faster so we could reach I didn’t know where.
“What?! Are you crazy or what? I’m not jumping again. I almost killed myself just now. Who’s to say I won’t do it on the next one?” I was scared, so I initially shouted, but then I lowered my voice, remembering it would be better if I didn’t speak.
“Well, if you want to stay here and die, fine, but I’m not going to keep asking you to come with me. He can’t do much to me, so... I’m leaving,” the boy said, looking annoyed. I didn’t understand why he reacted that way, but I understood even less why my body started moving on its own towards where he was, following him as I had done until that moment. “Fine. This time, bend your knees more and push harder; you’ll see that you’ll make it.”
I have to admit I was terrified because I was never good at exercises - in any sport ever invented. So running and jumping from roof to roof for my life wasn’t something my body could do normally. Still, I closed my eyes tightly and with a burst of energy, I jumped again. This time I did reach the next roof, but since nothing can go perfectly when it comes to sports and me, I almost fell, and the boy, laughing at me, helped me regain my balance and cross the edge. I had to take a moment to breathe and calm my pounding heart.
“Please, tell me we’ve arrived because I can’t go on anymore,” I pleaded between gasps, trying to compose myself. I was starting to run out of breath from running and jumping from roof to roof.
“Yeah, calm down, we just have to go down and enter the house. Let’s go,” he urged me, laughing, earning a annoyed look from me.
He pointed in the direction with his head and started walking. When we reached the other side, I could see a staircase that didn’t look very safe, but I still went down; I needed to set foot on solid ground. Once in the garden, I let out a sigh of relief, thinking it was all over, but I was wrong. It wasn’t over; it was just beginning.
What struck me as strange was that we were in the garden of the house I had seen closed all my life. No one entered or exited that house. Some people in the neighborhood said it was abandoned, while others said someone lived there but didn’t like to have contact with anyone else. The truth is, not even my friends’ grandparents had ever seen it open. At first, I was afraid to follow him, remembering all the stories that had been made up about the house, but my options were limited: stay with a murderer or trust whichever of the legends about the house were real.
I entered the house in awe. I had never seen it open, which was reason enough not to want to go inside, but my curiosity and the fear of what I had witnessed won over any reasoning. It was decorated with huge portraits of a rather extensive family, all looking serious with chilling gazes. Only the two youngest children seemed a little less terrifying, although the older one had a very deep gaze. I quickly brushed off those silly thoughts and focused on following the stranger so as not to get lost. After all, they were portraits of a family like any other... or were they?
When we reached the dining room, I realized we weren’t alone. There was a boy drinking a reddish liquid that I assumed was wine. He would be around two years older than me, with the same deep and even more chilling gaze than the child in the portrait. He observed me carefully from head to toe, analyzing me with curiosity, like a predator to its prey, and then he questioned my companion with his gaze.
“She’s the neighbor,” the boy explained when he realized how the other boy was looking at me. “Let’s just say she saw something she shouldn’t have seen, and I helped her not end up like one of the wolves.”
The older one just opened his mouth, as if saying “Ah,” and finished his drink without taking his eyes off me.
“Here you go,” the younger one handed me a glass of water. “It’s not very cold, but it helps.”
I nodded and drank it all at once. I was very thirsty.
I handed the glass back while looking around everywhere except in front, where the older boy was staring at me. The situation had become too uncomfortable, making me realize that I didn’t have to be there. I didn’t know them; that house had never been inhabited, or at least that’s what we all thought in the neighborhood. To tell the truth, if you analyzed my companions, you would realize they weren’t ordinary boys because they would evoke feelings of fear, danger, and submission in anyone. I needed to get out of there, but I had no idea how.
“Sorry about my brother, he doesn’t know how to act around people he doesn’t know,” the younger one told me, looking at the mentioned person with clear annoyance. “Oh, how forgetful of me! I haven’t introduced myself. My name is John Miller, and the one sitting there is Peter. He doesn’t usually talk to anyone, which is why he’s looking at you like that. Sorry.”
“Why don’t you stop lying to the girl and just get straight to the point, telling her the real reason she’s here?” the other one said in a threatening tone.
A cold shiver ran down my spine as the boy called Peter approached me, and I completely froze when I saw him run his tongue over his sharp fangs. He was so close that I felt his icy breath on my face until John pulled us apart.
“Shut up already!” he exclaimed. “Do you want to scare her or what? Don’t pay attention to him, he’s an idiot with no tact.” He tried to approach me to calm me down, but I backed away. I was too scared and looked around, searching for an escape route to run away. “See?! Now, because of your stupidity, she doesn’t trust us.”
“I prefer to be direct. It’s pretty obvious what we are; our appearance gives us away. Besides, I’m hungry, and I don’t want to prolong this any further,” he approached me stealthily.
I recoiled, keeping an eye on him. I bumped into a table and one of the armchairs, but despite the pain, I kept walking backward, searching for an exit.
“Peter! Leave her alone. I’m sorry, I really don’t know what’s gotten into him, he’s very agitated tonight,” John apologized again. He seemed embarrassed, but at that moment, I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to get out of there, be in my house, locked and safe, far away from the killer outside and these two.
“I-I think I better go,” I stammered in a whisper.
“It’s dangerous to go out at this hour. It’s better to leave when...” I didn’t hear the rest because I was already outside, with the door securely closed behind me.
I looked around with my heart in my throat and ran to my house, being careful not to make any noise. Luckily, I had the keys in my pocket - I forgot to leave them in their place, as always - and I was able to enter.
I had to place my hand on my chest as I felt my pulse racing. My eyes were wide open as I scanned every corner of the house, inspecting that there was no one there, or at least no one unwanted. When I made sure I was completely alone, I ran upstairs to my room and locked myself in.
I spent the rest of the night thinking—or rather trying to convince my brain—that it had all been a bad dream. Wolf, dead boy, missing boy, radiant eyes, sharp-fanged smile, an unfamiliar child on my roof, a glass with thick red liquid; danger, so much danger. Those images kept coming back to my mind over and over until dawn finally broke.
I wanted to get up, seek help, or at least go somewhere where I wouldn’t be alone, but my legs wouldn’t respond; none of my body parts would. Every little noise put me on edge, causing me to hide under my sheets, trembling. I was scared, exhausted, and even more scared. That’s how I spent the weekend; I could barely get up on Sunday night to eat a small piece of bread with whatever I found in the fridge and take a shower. I was drained; I had no desire for anything, and despite still being terrified, I couldn’t continue avoiding what had happened, let alone keep postponing my life.
“Let whatever needs to happen, happen,” I told myself on Monday in a burst of courage.
I had no desire to go to school, but if I skipped, they would call my parents and that would create problems for me, and the last thing I wanted was to spend the little time I saw or talked to them fighting. Reluctantly, I got up and got ready to face that horror. I had to apply some makeup to hide my dark circles, and so I went to school with the events of Friday night still fresh in my mind.
Upon reaching the central hallway of the school, everything seemed normal... or somewhat normal. I saw several students whispering among themselves, another one shouting a “joking” comment about my red and messy hair, the same old stuff, until I noticed there were several new faces, among them... Not again.
My pulse started racing, and my head started spinning. I looked around, searching for a place to hide or how to pass by without being discovered. It was of little use. When I looked back at where he was with other new boys, I noticed that he was watching me. His expression had shifted from seriousness to a malicious smile, and there even seemed to be a hint of resentment.
I swear, at that moment, I thought I was having a heart attack because my heart went from pumping blood at full speed to suddenly stopping. Why did it have to be him? Out of all the schools in that city, did he have to come to the smallest and least known one? Was my luck really that bad?
