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  “Nick!” she shouted, and kicked out as hard as she could, catching me on the leg.

  I laughed and stuck my tongue out at her.

  “Just piss off, you’re pathetic!”

  “So where’s Mum?” I asked.

  “At the doctor’s idiot, she told you God knows how many times before you went to town.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, then groaned and fell back onto the other sofa. “I’m bored!”

  “Me too. Hey, get me the phone, I want to try something.”

  I looked at her suspiciously. “You get it.”

  She tried her little girl act, making a cute face designed to melt people’s hearts. When that didn’t work she gave me a look that said bring it or die.

  I sighed and gave in, like I usually did when she asked me to do something. She never did anything for herself, seemingly of the opinion that boys were no more than slaves. The way Dad doted on his ‘little princess’ probably had something to do with that attitude. A pretty girl, she had Mum’s looks and would no doubt grow into a beautiful woman some day. She already had all the boys chasing her in school, and I had no doubt she’d end up with a rich husband when she grew up, who would take over my role of running round after her.

  She smirked as I brought her the phone and dialled the numbers one to ten.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “Just wondering what happens if I ring one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” she replied.

  The smirk vanished to be replaced by a look of horror. I thought I could hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the phone but I wasn’t sure. However, she soon started laughing again.

  “What? What happened?”

  “You try it.”

  I did. A recording of a woman’s voice told me the time.

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  Amy was in a fit of giggles then. I shrugged and looked at the phone, grinning as an idea struck me.

  “Hey, I wonder what’ll happen if I dial six, six, six! Think I’ll get through to Hell or maybe the Devil himself?”

  The laughter died in her throat. She gave me a look of disgust.

  “That’s the most pathetic thing you’ve ever said, geek.”

  I shrugged again and dialled the number, unsure of what to expect.

  The phone clicked as it tried to connect but nothing else happened. It made a weird buzzing noise but when it became clear nothing more was going to happen I hung up. Amy rolled her eyes at me so I just laughed.

  Later that day I sat in the back of the car, Mum and Amy in the front.

  “How’d it go at the doctors, Mum?” I asked.

  Her greenish brown eyes glanced back at me in the rear view mirror as, with a warm smile, she replied “Fine, thanks Nick. It was just a routine check up.”

  Mum was great. She could be strict when she needed to be, but most of the time she was pretty good about letting us do what we wanted. We shared a lot of the same interests and I’d always been much closer to her than I was to my Dad. She liked a lot of science fiction and fantasy, whether it be books, films or TV shows, and she did appreciate some horror as long as it wasn’t too gory.

  As previously mentioned Amy got her good looks from our Mum, including her blonde hair, but Mum wasn’t a dizzy blonde like her daughter. She was an intelligent woman and could be very perceptive at times, which wasn’t always a good thing if we were trying to hide something from her. She also had good fashion sense like many women, something else she shared with her daughter, but she didn’t feel the need to spend a fortune on designer labels like some. Amy, on the other hand, had no sense when it came to money and had been known to spend birthday or Christmas money within days of receiving it.

  Unlike Amy, Mum kept her hair a bit shorter, around shoulder length. She wore glasses for driving but they suited her, and she looked just as beautiful with them as she did without. In fact she looked good in almost anything she wore, whether it be jeans and a t-shirt or a dress.

  Amy’s McDonald’s Happy Meal dominated my senses. Much as I hated McDonald’s, I was so hungry I could have eaten anything. The smell of it snaked up my nose, and I watched hungrily as she ate, deliberately eating slow and savouring every mouthful just to wind me up, twisting round in her seat so I could see the fake look of ecstasy on her face. My stomach rumbled and I thought longingly of the meal waiting for me at Leisure X.

  I’d arranged to meet up with Lizzy in town and we’d walk to Leisure X (a large complex complete with cinema, restaurants, pubs and an arcade, amongst other things) where we’d be meeting the others. Lizzy was one of my best mates. I’d known her since the first year of high school, when we met in a Science lesson and she’d invited me to sit next to her, since I was alone and she felt sorry for me. I wasn’t the most popular guy in our year. I’d always been something of an outcast, alone in the playground at primary school, bullied by the rest of the class. Things hadn’t improved much since I’d moved to high school, but at least I was no longer completely alone. Practically all of my friends were girls, but beggars can’t be choosers. They could be annoying at times when they chose to discuss all the boring subjects girls like to talk about, but they could also be a good laugh.

  I was so distracted by my hunger that I didn’t notice when the car came to a stop.

  “Come on Nick, are you going or not?” Mum said.

  “Oh yeah, cheers,” I mumbled, grabbing the jacket I’d slung on the backseat for later, then climbed out of the car.

  Lizzy was waiting by a small shop on the main road, her long, bushy, light brown hair tied in a ponytail to keep it out of her blue eyes. She had a round, pretty face though she was quite slim, and despite her good looks I didn’t see her in that way. We had always been like brother and sister and always would be.

  “Don’t be too late back,” Mum called out as she drove off. I pretended not to hear and waved goodbye as I walked over to Lizzy and we started heading towards Leisure X, which was on the outskirts of the town.

  We came to a stop at the side of the road, waiting to cross. There was a lot of traffic for the time of day. It was evening, well after the rush hour traffic.

  “Bollocks to this, we ain’t got all day,” I muttered impatiently, and before Lizzy could stop me, I stepped out into the road.

  I hadn’t seen the car speeding towards me, but Lizzy had. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the pavement before it was too late.

  “Jesus, Nick! You’re gonna get us both killed one of these days.”

  “We’ll die someday anyway. Maybe I will end up splattered across somebody’s windscreen, I don't care. Or maybe I’ll be flattened on the road by a bus, squashed roadkill,” I said, grinning.

  “Yeah well, just don’t get yourself killed while I’m around ’cause I’m not ready to die trying to save your sorry arse yet, okay?”

  “Says she who keeps threatening to slit her wrists,” I shot back.

  “That’s different,” she replied.

  “Yeah, it would be.”

  “Anyway, me and the others are taking bets on how you’re gonna die. My bet’s on a car hitting you, alcohol poisoning, or maybe you’ll end up in a padded room if Death doesn’t get you first.”

  I laughed at that. “Cheers, I guess there’s hope for me yet. So what film are we seeing tonight?”

  “I’m not bothered. There’s only a couple of good films out at the moment. I’m easy either way, whichever one you guys go for.”

  It was a choice between two horror films; a werewolf one or some kind of a ghost story. My vote was for the werewolf one. Werewolves had always been my favourite horror movie monster.

  “Oh, big news,” Lizzy said excitedly. “This really hot guy just joined the bowling club.”

  Bowling had been one of Lizzy’s biggest hobbies for as long as I’d known her. Both she and her brother were members, and regularly played in tournaments. I had a feeling her parents were on the team too and it was a real fami
ly thing, but I wasn’t certain. I’m sure she told me at some point but I forget now.

  “Yeah?” I said, trying to sound interested, though I really didn’t want to get on the subject of her latest crush. She had her girlfriends for that sort of talk.

  “Yep, and I plucked up the courage to ask him his name. Yay me!” she told me.

  “And?” I enquired.

  “He’s called Ryan. He’s eighteen though. What do you think, too old?” she asked.

  “It’s only three years, go for it.” I said, before quickly changing the subject. “So, can you believe this right-wing Christian nut wants to put a ban on pretty much every horror movie out there? I guess a lot of them go against their beliefs and whatnot but come on, nobody’s making them watch.”

  “First I’ve heard of it” Lizzy replied.

  “Oh yeah, I just happened to overhear it when Mum and Dad had the news on t’other night. Some guy who’s big on the whole Christianity thing. Said he didn’t even believe in Halloween!”

  “Personally, I’ve never really believed in God or the Bible.”

  “Nah, me neither. God never did owt for me when I needed Him. If He exists, He doesn’t bother to listen. No, I believe in my own mortality and that’s it.”

  “So stop taking risks with your life, you idiot,” she said.

  I didn’t reply to that and we resumed the journey in silence.

  We arrived at Leisure X to find the others waiting for us, six of us in total.

  After arguing for a while, it was agreed that, as I had arranged for us all to come, I could pick the film. There was no debate in my mind: it had to be the werewolf one. Unfortunately, the only showing wasn’t until ten o’ clock that night and it was only seven. We all agreed it was time to get something to eat, then we could hit the arcades while we were waiting for the film. I’d make some excuse up for being home so late to tell my parents. It was hard enough to persuade them to let me walk home. There was a good chance they’d ground me for being out past midnight, especially as we had our first day of school the next day, but I was willing to risk that.

  We ate in one of the restaurants, after waiting what seemed an eternity for the food to come. I wolfed down a steak and chips, then settled back while the others finished eating, my hunger finally satisfied.

  In the arcades after our meal, I battled it out against David, the only real male best mate I had, on some fighting game. I had known him since primary school, and we had spent many afternoons locked in battle on the latest console games, both evenly matched. That day I was winning.

  He swore furiously as I knocked his character to the ground and proceeded to beat him to a pulp while he was down, smashing the buttons in a desperate attempt to get back up and give as good as he was getting. A bead of sweat rolled down from under his light brown hair, which he wiped away before it could trickle into his blue eyes. His hair was trimmed short but not shaved as short as I kept mine back then. He was of a similar build to me and in a real fight we would probably have been fairly evenly matched too, though I think he was maybe a little stronger than me, while I was definitely the faster. He was probably fitter as well due to his love of football, something I’d never really got into. I did have a kick about with him from time to time but I had no real passion for any sports.

  On the machine next to us, Fiona and Lizzy were on the dance mat. Lizzy would have been equally as happy on the fighting game with me, or shooting down enemies of some description, or racing, but Fiona’s favourite was the dance mat. She wasn’t really a gamer like the rest of us. Her long brown hair was bouncing up and down as she switched from arrow to arrow almost effortlessly, her brown eyes full of joy from behind her glasses as the game awarded her A grade after A grade, regardless of the song. She was another girl gifted with good looks. I know you must be thinking how lucky my teenage self was to be surrounded by so many hot girls, but they really were all growing up to be beautiful young women.

  Of the girls in the group, she was definitely the fittest, partly because she did gymnastics and dance. She had a nicely toned body and though she was white, she had quite dark skin as if she had a permanent tan. David had a major crush on her but unfortunately for him the feeling wasn’t mutual. She loved him as a friend but her heart was currently owned by a guy who’d been in the year above us before he left school that summer, and she had eyes for no one else.

  Fiona scored highest on most of the dances they did but Lizzy just managed to beat her on the odd song, with more exclamations of “Yay me!” each time. It had been her saying for as long as I’d known her. Fiona was a good sport, congratulating her for each victory without coming across as patronising.

  The last two of our group, Ava and Becci, were shooting down zombies.

  Ava was the scientist among us. She had always been a strange kid but then she came from a strange family. It was rumoured her mum slept in a coffin, though how true that was I didn’t know. Both she and her mum were goths but they were also vegetarians, so I doubted they took the vampire thing too seriously. She had shoulder length hair dyed a dark red that summer but the colour often changed, as much as school would allow. However, unlike a lot of goths I knew, she wasn’t particularly pale. She was a little chubby but not so overweight I would describe her as being fat and, though she wasn’t stunningly beautiful, she certainly wasn’t ugly.

  Becci I always thought of as slightly insane, but then, so was I which meant we got on well. She was also obsessed with sex. Once she told us she’d had sex with her boyfriend in front of the webcam while both of them were pretending to be boys, just to turn on a gay guy she’d met in a chat room. And I believed it. It was the sort of thing she’d do. One of the craziest things I ever saw her do was during a PE lesson when the girls were playing rounders, while we boys played cricket. Ava was her best friend, but they had been put into different teams so Becci had crawled down the banking army style, stopping whenever the PE teacher looked her way, frozen there until she looked away again.

  That might have been effective if she was camouflaged, but the PE uniform for both boys and girls was a maroon rugby shirt and blue shorts. And yet somehow she managed to crawl down the banking without being seen, even though logic should dictate it was a doomed mission from the start.

  Once on the field where Ava’s team were playing, she crept over to where her friend stood. The teacher caught her halfway there, and I couldn’t hear what was said since we were on the furthest field from the school building, but Lizzy had filled me in. The teacher had asked Becci what she was doing out there, and stupidly Becci pointed to the banking where she had come from and said “I’m supposed to be up there Miss.”

  Our game of cricket had been all but forgotten whilst we watched that particular crazy episode.

  Like Ava, Becci was also something of a goth, though she was much slimmer than her best mate and she wasn’t a vegetarian. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did try vampirism but she hadn’t as far as I knew. She certainly had the pale skin for it.

  She too had a habit of dyeing her shoulder length hair on a regular basis but she’d kept it black for some time that year, and she also had quite a plain face.

  The arcade kept us busy until it was time for the film. We bought tickets and popcorn before going in, heading straight for the back row. I ended up between Lizzy and Fiona. David had made sure he was sat on the other side of Fiona so he could comfort her, not that she needed it. I felt a bit sorry for him. I’d never seen him that way with a girl before and it seemed like some cruel twist of fate that the one girl he had really fallen for was already in love with someone else. That was exactly why I’d never had an interest in relationships as a teenager, feeling sex was all I wanted.

  We threw popcorn at each other, laughing and talking about school, what we’d done during the holidays, and in Becci’s case, sex, sex and more sex. When the film started a bald man in front turned round and glared at us. We grew quiet after that, mainly because of the muscles rippling beneath his
shirt. Apart from him, the cinema was all but deserted.

  The film itself was great. It was well written with a decent plot, and what my younger self would have described as awesome visual effects. But what really made it for me were the werewolves. They were half men, half wolf creatures, resembling everything I thought a werewolf should be and more, not like the kind of werewolves that barely changed, which I always said looked more like wereapes. Any werewolves that were little more than hairy men with a slightly bestial face were a disappointment, and if they didn’t meet my expectations it often ruined what would otherwise have been a good werewolf movie for me. But that movie had everything I wanted to see, including some great blood and gore effects. It was one of those rare horror films that I found so good it filled me with an excitement, almost sexual in its intensity. I felt so alive in the cinema that night.

  The others were enjoying the film on some lesser, more normal level. Had we known what was soon to come, we may have been screaming like the characters in the film, but even if a psychic had told us our future, we wouldn’t have believed it. My life as a care-free, mostly average teenager was about to come to a brutal end. How I long to go back and change the path fate was about to set me on, but of course these are only memories, and no matter how completely I might lose myself in the telling of them to you, I am powerless to change my own past.

  We emerged from the cinema to find the world in shadow, the sun having long since set as we whiled away the hours in Leisure X. It was a mild, dark night and a full moon hung overhead like a dead eye, the only light save for a few street lamps. I remember it well. There was a cool breeze, so I put on my jacket as I stared up at the night sky. That feeling the film had filled me with intensified and I felt more alive than ever, gazing up at the glowing white orb. Clouds suspended it like the muscles of some great face as it held me transfixed in its blind, milky gaze. I was dimly aware of one of the others talking but I was so caught in the moon’s spell that I wasn’t following the conversation, until one of them placed a hand on my shoulder.