Clan of Blood

I woke up to Heather shaking me telling me to get up because she needed to clean the living room for the party she was having tonight. I got up and pulled my bulk of blankets up the stairs with me to my room.

The morning light was gently shinning threw the dark grey clouds in the sky. Rain hit the window with such a force I thought they would burst under the pressure. I rubbed my tired eyes as I stood there quietly for a moment.

As I turned to leave a shadow flew across my view and I spun back around to see what had run by. At first nothing was there, then the trees near the beach rustled with I silent wind of death. I knew something horrible had happened.

i saw an arm lying on the cold sand poking out from the brush by the trees. I raised my voice and let out a cry of distress and panic, than ran down the stairs.

Thump. Thump. Thump, thump. My socks slid across the white linoleum kitchen floor and I could hear nothing but the beating of my heart in my ears.

My mom fallowed me as i ran out the front door, confused why I was in a state of panic and why I was running out in the freezing rain. I could see her mouth moving but no words came out.

I fell in the rough sand and scrambled to get to my feet, desperately running towards the motion less body. As I slid to the spot where the body lay and held my breath as my eyes grew wide with alarm.

A guy no younger than 18 and no older than 21 was laying there with blood splattered all around him. Claw marks were torn across the flesh of his chest.

His clothes were torn and wet from the rain. His chest rose and fell slightly every minute or so, as if he was scarcely holding on to life. Blood was crusted around his black and blue eyes that were swelled shut. Some of the lacerations were too deep and kept bleeding.

I tore off my white fussy jacket and held it agents him trying desperately to save a strangers life. I pushed his brown hair out of his face to check for head injuries, but none were apparent.

Heather and my mom finally arrived after what seemed like decades. Heather, being a nurse, took immediate action and pushed me aside to work on him while my mom ran back up to the house and called an ambulance.

I watched as they put him on the stretcher and raced off to the hospital. We drove up there in silence and sat in the waiting room. I was fidgeting with my pink and neon orange scarf that I tied tightly around my neck, hoping that I would get some kind of security and comfort from it. Heather was talking to a police officer a few feet away about what happened.

The doctor came out and we all stood up to here the news of what happened to the man. "He hasn't been identified yet, and he has had some serious injuries along with brain trauma, but he is currently stable. We are trying to do all we can for him right now…" he continued on as I slithered back down into my seat and sighed deeply in relief.

"Who found him again?" the doctor asked. I raised my hand slightly, "you have a good pair of eyes young lady, and you saved his life. You should be proud."

He said. But I didn't feel proud, I felt dumb for not getting there sooner. "What exactly did this to him?" Anthony asked curiously. The police officer cut in then, "we suspect it was a wild animal right now were calling it a bear attack" he said.

I shook my head "bears don't live out here; it's something else, something bigger." I replied thinking out loud. "Nothing is bigger than a bear around here, but if you find anything else unusual or any other clues give us a call" he shook my mom's hand and nodded at me in appreciation.

"This is the best one out of all the costumes we've found." "Probably because it's a real loin cloth." "Let's see it with the vine. Vicky, take that end and wrap it around his left forearm. Hold it, Anthony. All right...And...Perfect!" I announced.
Heather wrapped the other end of the vine around Anthony's right arm and stood back with Vicky. We all burst with laughter at how awkward he looked.
"I'm sorry, Heather, but Anthony just can't work the leopard print. He has a nice bod, but-" "It's the only good one that we're ever going to find, so let's get this one and begin looking for yours, Vicky's and Heather's." Anthony interrupted, freeing his arms from the vine and shooing the girls out of the changing room.

Heather and Vicky began sifting through costume dresses, looking for mainly black ones. Anthony came out shortly afterward, vine and loin clothes in his arms and traded them with Heather for his baseball cap. Before long, we heard Vicky call from a few isles away.
"Heather! Amanda! Come here! I found something over here!"
Anthony and heather and i jogged to Vicky.

"What? What did you find?" "Well, actually its a few things...First, what do you think of a genie?" She held up a red genie costume. "Defiantly!" Heather replied. "And second..." Vicky held up exactly what they were looking for, a black witch's costume. "lastly I found this for you" she flung a blue fairy costume at me.
"Shall I point you to the dressing rooms?" Anthony asked flatly.
Heather took the dress from Vicky and walked over to me. "I know you're sick of these parties. But hopefully, this will be different." She patted my cheek and made her way to the dressing rooms with Vicky as I fallowed closely behind.

A few moments later, Heather came out in her red genie costume and Vicky came out in a dangerous green haired witch robe. I spun around in my fairy costume and tried to fix my wings, eventually I gave up and got assistance from heather.

Anthony raised an eyebrow; "the rock is cooking" he quoted.
We all shared yet another laugh before the girls got dressed again. Then we stood in line and waited for the old woman in front of them to finish.

The woman had a granddaughter beside her, and by the looks of it, she was probably around the age of six. She looked up curiously at the three young adults. Her eyes grew wide when she saw Anthony
"Gramma, gramma," she whispered, tugging on her grandmother's jacket, "Gramma, look. It's Harry Potter!"
The old woman looked around. "Sorry, ma'am," Heather explained, "He isn't Harry Potter. He gets that a lot." "Oh, I'm sorry." The old woman apologized. "It's all right."
The woman turned around, but the child still stared up in wonder at the back of Anthony's head. "Hey, I'm goanna go start the car." Dan whispered. "All right." Heather said. She turned around and sighed as we pulled out our money.

"$200.80...And your change is $3.00." The cashier counted out three-dollar bills and handed them to Heather. "Thank you and have a nice day." "You too." Heather replied, picking up the costumes and walking out of the store with Vicky and i.

We got back home a few hours before the party was scheduled to start and decided to make the snacks.

Anthony was on nachos and scream cheese, Vicky was on the spider and pumpkin cookies. Heather was on the toe sandwiches, and I was left with the blood punch.

Mom put on the cornball Halloween music and we all sang along to monster mash as we ran around the kitchen throwing icing, cheese lettuce and food coloring all over each other.

We all stood around laughing together until our sides hurt. I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks as we cleaned up our huge food fight.

The weirdness of the long day died down when people started coming for heather's Halloween party.

The music shook the house and people dressed up in goulash costumes came pouring through the front door. Everyone had disappeared into the crowd of dancing monsters.

Anthony was breakdancing in the middle of the room with a crowd of masked figures all around him. Heather was hanging around Meghan and her boyfriend and answered the door to let more guests in.

Vicky was the twister queen as 15 people all tried to play twister at once in the left corner away from getting trampled by the dancers. I was singing Katy Perry's tgif song on the karaoke machine and tripped and fell off the couch on some random person.

The night was young and the punch was full of sugar, so much that even my mom ran around the room saying her and her bed were buddies.

The bomb fire outside was blazing in a glowing haze of orange as everyone gathered around to listen to the scariest stories, and play midnight hunter in the forest afterwards.

The fire leaped across the faces of masked monsters, and reflected off of glittered make up that took hours for girls to put on to try and impress the guys.

We all settled in and sipped on our home made hot chocolates as we listened intently for the first story of the night.

I stood up for my turn and paced around the crowed of people who had the fear stirred up in them.

"You know nothing of terror, or the things that stalk you in the dead of the night. Not the flash of horror in a man's eye when his nightmare comes to life. Nor the scream of torture as the wolf rips its claws into your bare skin, tearing your soul out from your lifeless body." I hissed and paused for a moment to let my words settle in their minds.

The girls grabbed there friends hands and shivered, as if a cold draft had passed over them.

"it started out with the gruesome murder of the mayor of the town right next to ours, you all know little ramshire." I continued.

"His body was mangled, and unrecognizable, torn into pieces. Bloody handprints covered the highway by the forest where his car had crashed. The police wrote it off as an accident, but the residents of the town knew it was something more."

A rustle in the bushes made a few people jump in surprise. I smirked at how fearful they were about a make believe story.

"The murders continued, people disappeared. And one person said the saw there son transform into something else. Uglier than any monster, stronger than any superhero; and had the instinct to kill and bring the town under a dark showed of evil until there was none left to pick off."

"Some say they came here. That they keep to the shadows always watching…waiting to catch you off guard." Anthony and his friends jumped out from behind me and everyone screamed and ran in all directions towards the forest.

I saw Vicky's long dark cape running away and I ran after her to tell her story wasn't real at all, that it was just a joke. Heather and Anthony caught up with me and we all chased after Vicky yelling after her to stop. But she wouldn't she ran deeper and deeper, until we no longer knew where we were.

We saw her trip over a log that was laying on the ground and fall. We finally caught up to her and helped her up. "it was just a story Vicky we didn't think it was that scary." Anthony explained. Vicky's eyes grew wide with alarm as she looked behind us.

We all turned around to meet the gaze of dangerous eyes curiously watching us, threw the dark. There figures were masked by the black of the late night, but there eyes blazed brighter than any fire I had ever seen.

My heart sank immediately, I could see the color go from heather's pretty face, and Anthony looked like a weak and defenseless baby. Vicky fell back down on the ground and sat there with her mouth hanging open in shock.

Vibrant purple eyes flicking back and forth looking for us to run in fear. Red glowing eyes of a hunter stared at us angrily, ready to kill any moment. Cold stone blue eyes with no emotion were watching closely, as if they didn't understand us. Deep emerald eyes burned into me, watching me prudently with a murderous pride lingering in them that was so overwhelming it was fearful.

I knew those eye but from where? I couldn't remember, my life seemed like a blur and everything didn't matter anymore. I tried to speak but no words would come out of my mouth. My body was numb and wouldn't budge. We all stood there paralyzed in shock, just waiting for someone to make the first move.

"Kill them" the one with the green eyes growled at the others. I felt a split second of courage, and took it. I turned around to my siblings, my family who I've known and loved for the 19 years of my life, and screamed at the top of my lungs with all my might "RUN!"

It seemed to work and pull them out of there dumbfounded state. Anthony picked up Vicky and dragged her behind him with heather and I on his tail. We ran through the blinding gloom of the night not knowing where we were going, only that our survival depended on it.

Our breathing was heavy and cold from running in the icy climate. Fallen leaves crunched under our feet as we ran over top of them and past prickly bushes that scraped our faces.

We were getting nowhere fast and they were gaining on our slowing pace. The thick overgrowth of trees seemed to never end, as we continued to storm the forest looking everywhere for a way out. My heart leapt as I heard viscous growls and hissing right behind us.

I looked back to see where they were at but nothing was in my range of vision. I tripped and fell to the hard ground. The green eyes looked down at me with a fiery hatred in them. I knew then I was going to die.

My head ached as I lay on the ground rolling over in pain. The figure squatted down next to me as I began to stand up. A hand fell on my shoulder stopping me from getting up off of my knees. I turned slightly and threw a punching into the darkness. I felt my hand connect with something hard, and the creatures hand came off of me. I got up and began to run again stumbling through roots of dead trees; I knew I wouldn't get very far in this state.

They surrounded me and I had nowhere to go. Someone grabbed my neck and yanked it back roughly. "Now you die" and evil voice whispered in my ear.

I felt something sharp sinking deep into my neck and I screamed in pain as claws dug into my shoulder and side. I felt the life being sucked from me, as if my vary soul was being torn out from my body. My sight began to fade and my breathing slowed. The night was now silent. No wind in the trees, no howling of wolves, no desperate cries from victims. Nor the breathing of 3 children running around in the woods trying to get home.

The feeling of death was warm, and embraced me inside of it. I gasped, and the last thing I remember is the green eyes smiling down at me, as if it was not yet finished.