All That Glitters Is Silver

The hours seemed to drone on as I waited for my release from my shift. I was sitting dutifully in at the desk in the Long-Term hall, waiting excitedly for my first date…ever. I wasn’t sure what to expect or what to wear and since I couldn’t exactly ask Allison for advice, I did my best with the clothes I had. I was suddenly wishing I had brought more of my dressier, nicer clothes. The rest of them wouldn’t be here until we moved into our new house later in the week.

I tapped my foot impatiently as I watched the clock tick by excruciatingly slow. After what seemed like much longer than my six hour shift, the clock turned to six-thirty. At once, I threw my purse around my shoulder and swiftly walked back down the hall to sign out with Nurse McCall.

“What’s the rush?” She asked, chuckling at my unusually messy handwriting.

“Got a date,” I blushed, smiling widely back. I was so full of excitement and nervousness that I couldn’t help but tell Ms. McCall. She wouldn’t tell anyone and probably wouldn’t think twice about it later on. My secret was safe with this woman I barely knew.

“Already met a boy?” She quipped, taking back the clip board, “My son’s going out tonight too.” Her happy eyes crinkled, “Have fun tonight!”

I nodded, thanking her, and ran out the automatic doors into the cold falling night. I hopped onto a bench and sat there, waiting. Seconds went on to minutes and before I knew it, it was seven. Was there a waiting period on this sort of thing? I kept telling myself he’d just gotten stuck in traffic or had taken a nap and forgot to set an alarm. I’d never been on a date before so I was unsure whether guys were usually late. Somewhere in me knew that this shouldn’t happen. Derek should have been here at least twenty minutes ago if he was going to come at all.

Feeling stupid and hurt, I pulled out my phone to call Allison. I knew she was supposed to be going out with Scott, Jackson, and Lydia tonight, but I needed a ride and my parents would ask too many questions.

I pressed Allison’s number when a message popped up suddenly.

Change of plans. Meet me at the school. URGENT. –Derek

It was a weird message, I’d have to admit. Of all the places I could meet him, the school seemed to be the last destination I would have thought of. There was something odd about the message but I wanted an explanation about why he was a half hour late. Had he found out that I was still in high school and that’s why he wanted to meet there?

I decided to walk since the school wasn’t too far away from the hospital and it would give me something to do besides freak out about what the text meant. However, that was not exactly what happened.

I spent the whole walk over thinking of ways he could have found out or why he would want to meet me at the school. I even went as far as thinking he had turned into some sort of mythical mind reader and that’s how he had discovered my secret ‘double life’.

Pulling Derek’s jacket over me, I shivered in the cold Beacon Hills night air. The moon hovered above me, being the only light to guide me. I reached my destination within fifteen minutes to see that I wasn’t the only one coming to the school at night. I recognized all three cars in the parking lot: Stiles’ Jeep, Jackson’s Porsche, and Derek’s Mercedes. The hood of Stiles’ jeep was bent and as I got closer, I realized his battery was missing.

Pressing my palm across the cool exterior of the hood, I felt creases. In the moonlight they looked like scratch marks but my eyes had to be deceiving me. What kind of animal could pull back the hood of a car and pull out its battery? I glanced up at the school doors (which were propped open), the chain that had once locked it was lying limp on the stairs and a pair of bolt cutters sat next to it. What the hell had happened here?

I looked around me, feeling uneasy and very much not alone. My eye caught something red; something that looked awfully a lot like blood. I gulped as I walked slowly towards it, fearing what I might find. I peered around Derek’s car to see a huge smear of blood. I felt nauseous and terrified. Had Derek been injured? Was that why he wanted to meet here?

“Derek?” I whimpered pathetically in the dead silence. Only crickets answered me. “Derek, where are you?”

I heard a creak from the basketball courts and froze in my tracks. My heart was hammering in my chest as I tried to steady my breathing. The bloody tracks dragged on into the forest. Against my better judgment, I followed them.

The dark, dank forest was even spookier than the lack of student on the school ground. Only the sound of my ragged breaths and twigs snapping under my feet could be heard.

“Derek?” I tried again after about ten minutes of walking. Faintly, the sound of rustling leaves echoed in my ears. “Derek, is that you?”

I popped up in a small clearing of the forest. The only thing to be seen was a large, decrepit house that looked as if it had been set fire to years ago. I imagined it was gorgeous in its prime and it had a kind of eerie elegance to it, even now. The gravel under my feet crunched as I swept off towards the house.

Curiosity got the better of me, even though I knew I shouldn’t be trespassing. I invited myself in the old, cold house. To my surprise, it didn’t look nearly as abandoned inside as it did out. The house creaking uneasily in the slight wind but I pressed onward.

There was a scantily amount of furnishing in the house, enough just to live with the basics. As I led myself on a tour of the house, I saw that the kitchen held food and a table but not much else. On the old wooden table held an old book that I recognized immediately as Paradise Lost. It was as worn and well-read as the copy I had.

I assumed the water worked because the dishwasher light was on, waiting to be unloaded. I headed back to the living room and examined the mantel. It looked as if one day it had been a great, warm meeting place for the old family owners. There were two old, burned picture frames on top the mantel. The glass was broken and the pictures were horribly faded.

I reached out a shaky hand and grasped one: it was an old family photo. The whole family was gifted with beautiful looks. The man and woman were holding each other lovingly, smiling as though nothing as terrible as losing all their prize possessions in a fire could possibly happen. Their daughter, who had to be around eighteen, had her arm lazily around her brother who couldn’t have been much younger. She was grinning from ear to ear straight into the cameras lens. She was a gorgeous girl and I wondered whether she had survived the fire. The boys face was more faded then the others but with a gasp, I had no problem identifying him.

The boy in the picture, though probably five years younger, was unmistakably Derek. His face was fuller, like he hadn’t lost all his boyishness, his eyes alight with innocence. Derek looked so much different in this picture than he did now, and if I was some passing stranger, I wouldn’t have made the connection. The Derek I knew was hardened, whether by this fire or by something else I didn’t know. But I wanted to.

I set the picture down, feeling ashamed at myself. I had just barged into Derek’s home when he probably didn’t, and would never, want me coming inside. I hurried back outside, deciding to look for Derek back at the school. Maybe Allison or Stiles had seen him. It hadn’t dawned on me until now that they could have been in trouble themselves.

With renewed purpose, I sprinted back to the school.

I made in back within minutes and didn’t stop running even after I’d made it inside.

“Allison!” I cried, my voice echoing loudly to any intruders to find me, “Stiles! Scott! Jackson? Lydia?” My voice faltered when I reached the main hall and heard something unsettling behind me. It sounded like growling. A deep graveling growl erupted from the hall my back was currently facing.

The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end as I turned around slowly. I was so terrified I couldn’t even scream at the sight in front of me. Some huge, brown beast was crawling towards me on his hands and feet. His red eyes gleamed, feeling as if he was penetrating my soul. His large yellow teeth were bearing at me, readying for the kill.

I didn’t dare let my eyes leave his as I whispered for someone to help me. The beast edged closer and closer until my knees gave out and he hovered over me.

“H-Help…” I stuttered for anyone to hear. He sniffed at Derek’s jacket and then pulled away to look at me. With an unsettling feeling, I knew he was smiling at me. His lips were curled up as the monster started shaking with what sounded like laughter.

“Cassie?” Someone’s voice shouted, causing the monster to become distracted. My mind was screaming for me to get up and run but my body was too paralyzed with fear to listen. “Cassie, run!”

I wanted to but I couldn’t. Someone would have to carry me away.

“Get away from her!” The voice called, I finally glanced over at him, with wide, terrified eyes. I registered that it was Scott but did nothing to let him help me. The monster seemed to be more interested with Scott than me. He leapt up and chased Scott away down the hall. Second later they both disappeared.

The only thing I seemed to be able to do was sit up against the wall. I should have been running away. I should have been going after Scott and making sure that he was okay. But I did neither of those things. I sat against the wall in daze, not even sort of understanding what was happening. What the hell had that thing been? And why had it sniffed me and then started smiling? It made me feel a little sick and dizzy to recap all that had happened since I’d gotten off work.

Tonight I was supposed to get some fairytale date with Derek. Instead, my night had ended up like some horror movie. Derek was somewhere bleeding out, I’d stumbled across his house that had burned down some years ago yet he still inhabited, I was attacked by some creature from a horror movie, and Scott was currently being chased by it while I sat here helplessly. I had no idea where my cousin and other friends were and the more I thought about the beast, the more I thought it looked like some sort of wolf.

I let out an uneasy laugh, feeling foolish I would even think such things. Werewolves and vampires didn’t exist. Those things only lived in crappy teen love triangle stories and movies of the twenty-first century.

“Your being ridiculous, Cassie,” I told myself, “Werewolves are things of fables, like my nonexistent relationship with Derek.” I mumbled sadly, finally calming down enough to pick myself up off the ground.

Suddenly, a huge growl and scream filled the halls. It was so loud that I had to cover my ears. It echoed for a few seconds before I could take my hands away. I stood in the large, empty hall in silence for a few moments wishing Scott would come back.

In the distance I thought I saw something. Squinting my eyes, I glimpsed Scott walking slowly down the hall towards me.

“Scott?” I called, feeling relieved. He didn’t answer me which made me fearful that he had been injured. Scott was dragging his feet and kept him head down as he headed straight for me. “Scott, what happened? What was that thing?”

He was acting strange and it was beginning to scare me. “Scott, answer me!”

The closer he got, the more obvious it appeared that there was something different about him. His hands were clenched into fists but his nails looked longer, and oddly, sharper. His face looked somewhat hairier than it had appeared to be minutes ago.

“Scott?” My voice cracked.

He lifted his head up slowly; his eyes were suddenly a blazing golden color. He tilted his head and I could see that his features were off, even at this distance in the dark. Scott’s pace picked up and just before I could get a better glimpse of his face in the moonlight, someone rammed into me, threw me over their shoulder in one easy motion and ran with inhuman speed out the front doors.