The Summer We'll Never Forget

The summer as we knew it was not going to be as we planed. I was with my perfect friends with their perfect smiles and perfect personalities, so of course we didn’t think anything could go wrong. Oh were we very wrong.

Things happened slowly as we arrived at our vacation home on Seneca Lake, Upstate New York, on a beautiful Saturday evening. All hyped and elated we were to spend an all party and no work week. No rules, no parents, no nothing. We were to spend this special week how we wanted to and enjoy ourselves in the luxury of vacationing in such a wonderful spot. Just like myself and the people that were surrounding me. Now I know that sounds very conceded, but I have my friends to blame for that. You see . . . I use to be someone that people would call a freak, but since I don’t want to get into that right now I just won’t.

I had so many of my own internal plans that I had thought up of and couldn’t wait to put them into action. First of all I wanted to get that hunk Joey over there in my arms. I looked at him. As usual he had his muscular arms wrapped around his girlfriend’s thin waist.

“Hey, Freak, where’s the house keys?” someone asked behind me.

“Don’t call me a freak!” I shouted at Josh as I threw the keys at him. He caught them and then ran off not looking at me.

“Kat calm down,” one of my true best friends, Lila comforted putting a hand on my shoulder, “He’s a jerk and he only was able to come because he said he’d pay for the rent on this place.”

“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled, “Why was he that desperate to come anyway?”

“Who knows the inner working of a douche bag,” Lila sighed and we laughed.

As soon as we were all let in I calmed my bed. Unpacking everything I had brought I kept looking at myself in the mirror. I just had this feeling about something.

Oh gosh, am I really home sick already? I thought, I’m pathetic.

Then just as I was about the exit my room I heard someone whispering. Peeking out the door I looked and saw Carrie and Jena. It looked as if Carrie was threatening Jena about something so I tried and listened harder. Straining my ears I heard Carrie say, “If you tell anyone what I’m going to do tomorrow then you’re as good as dead.”

“Oh, c-come on C-Carrie you don’t mean that,” Jena stuttered looking uncomfortable as Carrie came closer to her. She then got so close she pushed her into the wall and said, “Try me.”

They both dispersed in a hurry to make sure that no one caught that little episode. What was going on though? What did Jena know that she shouldn’t know? We were here for just a few minutes and already there was way too much drama going on. It was typical for my friends.

The next day I lay on the deck with my hand in the water trying to get a tan. When something touched my fingers I looked over and saw a pink inner tube floating empty. I slowly spun it in circles as I sighed. Lifting my head up I noticed that there was no one in the water. Then whose was this? I looked back at the pink inner tube as my hand rested on it. Then I saw that the water in the center of the tube was darker then the rest of the lighter blue lake water.

Still holding onto the tube I sat up on my knees and peered over. I still couldn’t tell what it was. I pulled up the pink tube and that dark mass got bigger and finally surfaced to the top. I shrieked in terror as I threw the inner tube back into the water and backed up. I looked over the edge of the dock to make sure what I saw really was there. Unfortunately it was and there was Jena, face up in her bikini, blue, and dead.

I ran for the lake house probably getting some splinters in my foot since they hurt. My heart pounded in my ears as I went to slid back the glass, but ended up cutting my hand. I looked and the door was already broken. I was so confused.

“Lila! Joey! Josh! Hey!” I screamed for anyone. The first person to come running surprisingly was Joey. He looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Kat, hey, upstairs, Amanda,” he rushed making no sense.

“Joey, calm it, what’s the matter?” I asked momentarily forgetting Jena dead in the lake and my bleeding hand.

“Amanda,” he whispered and then out of no where he started to cry. Amanda was Joey’s girlfriend. They had been together for about a year now.

“What happened?” I dared to ask, but for some reason I felt as if I knew the answer to it already.

“She’s dead!” he yelled seeming to be angry now.

“Jena’s dead too,” I gulped feeling as though the color drained from my face.

“What?!”

“I was drifting off to sleep when a pink inner tube hit my hand and when I moved it Jena floated to the top. She was dead!” I explained.

“Oh shit, shit,” Joey mumbled brushing his hair back and started to quickly walk back and forth in front of me.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“Most of the gang went into town for a bit, but if Jena and Amanda is dead then Cassie is the only one left,” Joey said, “Oh shit what if we find her dead too?!”

“Well what if,” I paused. Should I even say anything to him? Then I started, “What if it was Cassie who killed them?”

“What are you talking about? Cassie, kill them?” Joey shouted skeptical.

“I over heard her and Jena in the hallway yesterday. Cassie said that she was going to kill Jena if she told someone about something she was going to do today,” I persisted. I must have convinced him because he became paler if it was even possible.

For the next half hour I had cleaned up my hand, gotten changed back into regular clothes, so did Joey, and we both headed outside. Our plan was to head for the town. There was no car left since the group that had gone had taken both, idiots. Joey and I chatted a lot on our way there, both of us seeming quite talkative under the circumstances. Though it became quiet after a few minutes.

I continued to follow Joey. He seemed to know where he was going. I was glad he knew because I had no clue how to get to the town. We were close to the road, but not entirely along side of it, though we were concealed by the trees. It grew darker and still we had not made it to the town. I couldn’t even see any lights telling us we were getting close.

“Joey do you even know where were going?” I asked after about an hour or so and when he didn’t respond I said, “Joey?”

“Huh?” he replied stopping and looking back at me.

“Do you know where you’re even going?”

“Um, no where in particular.” I laughed.

“Nice one, come on were going into town remember?” he stared at me blankly.

“Oh! Right.”

“Are you ok Joey?”

“Do you want to know something?” Joey questioned in a hushed voice.

“What?” I whispered my heart beating wildly out of control.

“Cassie could be following us,” He stated.

“Oh my gosh I never though of that,” I shouted covering my mouth with wide eyes.

“But, she’s not,” Joey informed.

“How do you know?” I asked tilting my head. I had a bad gut feeling.

“Because she’s dead in the basement.” He replied. My eyes widened as I looked at him confused.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” I laughed even though this was no laughing matter.

“I didn’t want you to think it was me,” he shrugged shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at the ground kicking the dirt.

“Well either way you could have told me. I wouldn’t think it was you,” I smiled as I got closer to him, but my legs screamed no.

“You should have though,” he sighed looking up at me nonchalantly. Wait, what was he saying?

“Wait, you-” he cut me off.

“Yeah, I killed them,” he laughed throwing his arms up in the air, his eyes looking wild and crazy.

“But, why?” I gasped. He then seized me by the arm and started dragging me forward and I shouted, “What are you doing?!”

“Just shut the hell up,” he snarled. I was truly scared. He was a murderer! After countless hours of walking and my complaining and Joey’s ignoring and yanking we stopped. He pushed me up against the tree, face first. He placed a hand on my back to make sure I didn’t move so I turned my head and saw a knife.

“Please don’t kill me Joey,” I pleaded as I started to cry. I turned my head back so I was looking at the ragged bark tightly shutting my eyes. However, next thing I knew he was grabbing onto my long hair and cutting it off to make it short. He then spun me around and grabbed my face.

“I’m really sorry this will hurt a little,” he mumbled frowning.

“What are you doing you psycho?!” I yelled angry now. Then yelled out when he started to cut a curve in my face going from the top of my right eye brow to the side of my mouth. I cried harder as I stared into his eyes. They didn’t look murderous. They looked more upset. Maybe if I talked to him he’d come to his senses and not kill me.

Just as I was about to say something he backed away from me looking down.

“Now go,” he huffed pointing in the opposite direction we had come.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” I said squinting my right eye from the blood.

“I’m letting you free!” he shouted, “I had to make you look different so they wouldn’t know!”

“What?” I questioned. It was actually really stupid of me to be asking instead of running for my life before he changed his mind.

“I don’t want to kill you! You’re the only one I’ve ever liked out of our group of friends. Plus I kind of like you,” he sighed coving his face, “Look, I killed Amanda because I couldn’t stand her she was making me go crazy and Cassie was doing something horrible behind everyone’s back so I was told to get rid of them!”

“Then what about Jena? I want to know before I go. Why did you kill her?”

“I didn’t kill her. I don’t know who did, but I sure didn’t that’s why I suggested we leave the house,” he explained.

“It’s a simple answer who killed her,” someone said, “Why else would I pay the whole rent if there was just going to be one person staying this summer?”

Next thing I knew I was on the ground and my chest in pain.