In the Shadows

I flipped through the channels on the TV, struggling to keep myself awake. It had been a long day at work, stocking all the new stuff we had gotten at the bookstore I work at. But I had to fight it, it was Saturday night and Saturday nights were when Dave, my best friend, and I would hang out to watch movies or play video games.

Dave and I met back in second grade when he was getting picked on by some of the other boys. I basically ran up and started hitting them. One of them started crying which led to Dave and I getting called into the principals office to talk about our behavior. Its been us two against the world ever since. Even though he doesn't really like me bringing it up since in his words, "he seems like a pussy for having a girl save him from a group of bullies".

I smiled at the thought of teasing him with the story but eventually focused back on the TV. After going through all the channels two more times, I finally just settled for the local news. I sat up, stretched and started looking for my phone just in case someone texted me.

Suddenly, that dramatic "breaking news" music every news channel has started playing. I looked over at my TV wondering what could have possibly happened in this small town of ours.

"This is Beverly Miller with K-17 News coming to you live from Sherwood Pass where deputies located the body of 16 year old Joey Santos earlier this evening. The young man was reported missing by his mother on Wednesday, October 19th when he failed to come home after working on a school project at a friend's house. Santos was said to have left his friend's home at around 7 p.m. on his bicycle. Doreville PD have stated that it's too early to confirm weather or not foul play was involved and they will continue to look into the cause of death. At this time the he body has been released to the Doreville Medical Examiner pending an autopsy."

I was so concentrated on the news story that I jumped, startled, at the sound of three loud knocks. It had to be Dave. I got up and walked over to the front door.

"What's up Kate?" Dave shouted excitedly as I opened the door. "Hey Dave" I replied with a smile. He walked in holding a large pizza in one hand and some DVDs in the other.

"Ok," he said, placing the pizza on the coffee table in front of the TV. "Since it's the month of all things creepy, I brought over Pet Sematary, Fright Night and House on Haunted Hill"

Dave and I loved horror movies and so we loved Halloween and ever since we became friends, we've had our own little ritual which involved watching a ton of horror movies and stuffing our faces with pizza and other tasty junk food all through October

"Hey, speaking of creepy" I said, "You remember that kid from our school that went missing a couple of days ago?"

"You mean Joey?" Dave asked as he popped one of the DVDs in.

"Yeah, well, they found his body today out by the outskirts of town."

Dave stopped what he was doing and looked at me with a frown on his face. "Are you serious?"

"Yup" I replied, nodding my head.

"You know that was Damien's little brother right?"

"No, I didn't know that" I whispered back.

I instantly got annoyed at the thought of Damien. He was a senior at our school when Dave and I were freshman and a major douche bag. He would always give us a hard time and call us freaks and the typical bullshit. I specifically didn't like him because he had jumped this one kid, Simon while he was walking home from school. The kid was kind of a loner and according to what he had said, Damien had taken his three other friends with him so Simon didn't stand a chance. Grade A dickhead was what he was. But he was also the captain of the football team and seemed to never get in trouble for his bullshit, as cliche as that is. I was just happy we only had to deal with him fora a year. After he graduated, he was offered a scholarship to some fancy college in some fancy city.

"So how did the kid die?" Dave asked, breaking me out of thought.

"They don't know yet. Guess we'll find out at school on Monday" I said mostly sarcastically. Our school always had a bunch of ridiculous rumors going around so I figured there'd be some crazy story about how he died.

Dave shook his head and sat down on my old, dusty couch so I followed suit. We both grabbed a slice of pizza and started watching the movie. In the back of my mind though, I was still wondering about what had happened to Joey. I wonder if he had gone out to the pass to drink with some other friends and got attacked by an animal or if someone... murdered him.