The towns' inhabitants were overjoyed with the festivities that were to come when the sun had set. Parents helped their young kids get ready and excited them by telling them all the fun things they were going to partake in. Young adults were excited over much different activities. They looked forward to drinking, smoking, and having sex with their significant others; or a stranger for the people who were single and just didn't care. However, not everyone was as excited for what was to come. Inside one of the very nice looking houses of this lonely town was a young woman asleep in her bed. She had fallen asleep watching TV around noon in her room. Not even the sound of her little brother's loud video games woke her up. Her two story house was one of the many within this friendly neighborhood. This one in particular was old and the white paint had already begun to chip off years ago. The street in front of these houses was shadowed by the large trees on the sidewalk. However, the sunlight passed through these trees since the leaves had started to turn brown and fall. Their green grass was neatly trimmed but was covered with the brown leaves blown off of the trees by the strong winds.

Her mother and father were downstairs enjoying their time off from their jobs on this Saturday afternoon. Her father sat on the couch in the living room, watching an old horror movie on their seventy inch flat screen television. The mother was in the kitchen preparing some food for her daughter in case she stayed out the whole night. Upstairs, their daughter Lucy lay in her bed with the door shut and her TV still turned on. The channel she was watching had started the news for the afternoon. They spoke about the weather, some break-ins and vandalism that had happened at some nearby stores and of course the events to begin in just a matter of hours. A little wind blew through the window she had left open before falling asleep. Below the window was her desk with her school textbooks and papers on top of it. Beside her TV was a hairdresser with a large mirror and underneath it was her hair straightener, curler, make-up boxes, and nail polishes. It was all neatly placed together on top of the hairdresser. Her phone vibrated on her wooden nightstand beside her bed. After the fourth vibration, her eyes slowly opened to see her phone lit up.

Lucy's face was buried in her pillow and she annoyingly grunted after waking up. Her arms and legs were stretched as far as they could before sitting up on her knees. The phone stopped ringing but then one last vibrate came indicating she received a message. Her long, light brown hair was a mess from the nap she had taken. The wind from outside had made her cold since she only had on a tank top and shorts. She turned to the TV that was still on and saw they began talking about the town's history. Without another word being said from the news' anchor, she grabbed the remote and changed the channel to an old show she used to watch. After changing the channel she grabbed her phone and turned it on to read the message. It was from her best friend Tara merely saying, call me. She tapped the icon at the top of the message and it started to call her.

"Hello?" she answered on the first ring.

"You called?" she said tiredly.

"Why didn't you answer me?!"

"I was asleep."

"You lazy ass. What're your plans for tonight?" Lucy looked at her phone to see the time.

"I'm not going with you anywhere," she said bringing it back to her ear.

"Why not?" she asked disappointingly.

"Because I just want to be home. You know I don't like going to parties."

"Come on! Come with me please! Zach is going with me but I'm not gonna have that much fun if you don't come with me."

"Zach's enough to have fun with. You two are made for parties and I can't stand them. Besides, I always end up having to take care of one of you."

"That's why I love bringing you because you're my sober eyes in case some creeper decides to try and take me home." She knew her friend so well that she could picture Tara smiling on the other end when she said this.

"Come on Tara I don't want to go. Yesterday I had two tests and I studied all night for them. I still feel like I failed one of them. Please let me chill today."

"Fine then. If I get taken advantage of you're gonna get a long angry call from me tomorrow." Lucy sighed and smiled thinking about all the things her friend has gotten herself into at these parties. She preferred to stay home but Tara was her best friend and she loved her. Tara knew she would crack anyway since she stayed on the line. Lucy could never handle being guilt tripped.

"Okay okay fine I'll go with you."

"Yay! Get ready and I'll pick you up in half an hour." Lucy hung up the phone and stared at her messy bed. She stood up and fixed the covers and pillows back to normal. She walked over to her closet beside the front door. There were many shirts, jeans, and some dresses. On the left door hung many different types of necklaces on three hooks and on the right was a mirror the size of her body. She pulled out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, indifferent about what she wore to this party since she was clearly only there as a designated driver. Before leaving she switched her phone from vibrate to loud then from there she opened her door and walked down the hall towards the bathroom. Before opening the door she saw her parents over the railing, leaving through the front. She heard her phone ring from her room which forced her to talk back to her room with a sigh. She picked up the phone and saw it was her mother calling.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey sweetie, we just left the house okay?"

"Yeah I saw you, mom. You have Danny?"

"Yeah we're going to take him to the festival. Are you going to be home tonight?"

"Tara wants me to go with her to this party but we're not gonna stay long I'm sure."

"Okay there's food for you on the stove in case you come home early. Please be careful and don't drink and drive."

"I won't mom. Have fun."

"Love you, baby."

"Love you too." She put her phone back on the nightstand then walked back to the bathroom. About fifteen minutes later, she came out of the bathroom with her hair wet and in the fresh clothes she picked out. She gave a quick glance to her phone for the time and realized she had some to spare. She changed the channel again until she found a movie playing. It was the horror movie The Thing and was already playing in the middle. She left it playing since the only scary movies she couldn't stand were the ones with ghosts. She could always watch the bloody movies with serial killers and whatnot but when it came to ghosts she just couldn't handle it. It was because of this she was constantly made fun by her dad and friends. The wind from outside grew stronger and blew the papers from her desk to the floor. She stood up and gathered them from the ground then placed them messily on top of her desk. So that they wouldn't fall to the floor again, she used one of the textbooks to hold them down. When she glanced out the window, a dark figure was by the bushes that separated their house from the neighbors. She turned back again quickly but there was nothing there this time. She looked around the front yard before shutting her window closed. She stood there in front of the window wondering what it was she saw, or think she saw. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply before forcing herself to snap out of it.

Once again lying on her bed she found herself worrying about the tests she had taken Friday. A lot of the time when school came up in her mind, she wished she could be like her best friend and not worry too much about those things. It always seemed to come to Tara so easily. There was always this kind of pressure on her shoulders, especially from her parents. Friends like Tara are what made it easier. This year at school was her last and she hoped that she'd be relaxing like most of her friends. College was going to be a lot harder and she knew that, but she looked forward to getting out of the town. Over the years since moving into the house, she'd heard so many stories; especially from Tara and Zach. They would mess with her so much saying it was haunted, despite knowing how she felt about things like that.

The house itself didn't make it any easier. During the nights when she couldn't sleep or stayed up studying, she'd always heard noises. Her parents shrugged it off saying it was because of how old the house was. Had she never heard any of the stories, she might've believed them. She had many nightmares since living in the house and one in particular was the reason her door was always closed during the nighttime. It felt so real that sometimes she wondered whether it was even a nightmare or not. She'd lay in bed awake and then turn to her side only to see a dark shape standing in the hallway as if someone was inside watching her from the corner of the wall. Her heart would race as she could feel its stare on her. It wasn't until she gathered up the courage to get up and close the door did she not see it anymore. She closed the door and opened it again to see if it was still there but it wasn't. Still she wondered if this was only in her dreams or if it had actually happened. It felt real and she could feel the beads of sweat on her skin as well as her tired heart trying to beat to a normal rhythm again. After that she began to see it everywhere in the darkness. The outline of this shape was by every dark corner, inside every closet filled with blackness, and every shadow cast by the moonlight. She would need to look twice when she walked across the hallway when she saw the darkness down in the living room.

Lucy never even bothered to tell her friends for the fear that they would make it worse. This house scared her and knowing that college was coming around the corner was the only thing that gave her comfort. The town was just as bad but only to her it seemed. To everyone else it was a fine place now but to her it was another reason she wanted out. Everyone knew everyone in the town and because of this, in school; she was the girl to live in the house. It was this town's horrible tragedy and she was stuck inside of it. The movie on TV was almost over so she snapped out of her thoughts and picked up her phone. It was long past half an hour but she wasn't surprised, Tara never showed up on time. The credits for the movie rolled but it showed that An American Werewolf in London was up next so she left the channel on. A text message popped up in her phone. It lit up to show it was from Tara.

I'm almost there btw you should thank me because Billy is going to be at the party.

A smile formed on her face. Billy was one of the guys from her school and he was also in two of her classes. He was one of the few people who didn't give her an odd look the first time seeing her because she was the one who lived in the house. Everyone seemed to only know her because of the house she moved into but Billy never even mentioned it when they talked. It was as if he didn't care about the things she knew he had heard about or maybe he just didn't know. Every time she had class with him he would always make her laugh by whispering jokes during lectures, the two of them often got in trouble because of this but she didn't care; he made it fun for her. She had been talking to him since they started their classes together but she knew of him before since Zach was one of his friends. After seeing him a few times and hearing about him from Zach, she started to grow a small crush for him. Once they started talking in their classes she started to actually like him but never thought of doing something about it. Tara was the kind of girl to flirt but Lucy's way was just laughing at his jokes and telling her own. She never touched him, unless it was by accident, and she always caught herself staring and made sure it wasn't for too long. Knowing that he was going to be there made this an even better night.

As soon as the next movie started she heard a honk from outside. She got up from her bed and saw Tara's red Camry in front of her house. She turned off the TV, grabbed her wallet and keys then closed the door from her room on the way out. She walked down the stairs then out the front door. Quickly, she locked the door then ran to her friend's car. Through her peripherals she saw a figure move behind the bushes. She held tightly onto the door handle and eyed the sidewalk and bushes carefully. She was startled by feeling the door open but she saw that Tara had just pushed it from the inside.

"Come on! Let's go!" she yelled with a grin. Lucy looked back at the bushes one more time then got inside the car, hoping that her imagination would stop playing tricks once she was with her friends.

Officer James Bolivar had been a policeman for only two years in this town. He had been transferred from Jacksonville to stay closer to his mom since she had been going through brain cancer. She had died in his second year living here since they didn't catch it in time. There were many times he wanted to leave after she passed but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. His father came through from Jacksonville trying to get him to leave for a bit to take his mind off of his mother, however Bolivar couldn't do it. So he endured the loss and tried to manage his sadness through work even though nothing seemed to happen in the town. When he first arrived, being the young policeman he was he couldn't help but hope for more action.

Now he wished differently with all that had been happening. It had been a busy day for the police, much busier than what was to be expected. Bolivar stood inside a teenage girl's bedroom writing down some notes on his little black notepad. They had already taken the girl's body but the house was still full of other officers and the forensic team. The teenager was strangled to death while the parents were out and the police were called once they returned. Bolivar was the first one on the scene, believing she died a couple hours before the parents had returned home. There was so much fear and pain in her face when he found her. It looked like she was frozen in her last final moments, reliving the emotions she experienced when she died. He knew not to touch the body before everyone else was there so they could investigate what happened but he so desperately wanted to close her eyes.

He finally believed it was time for some fresh air. He needed to get away from the watery eyed parents and the crowds and chatter from the policemen and women. The fresh air outside of the house felt good to breathe in. He looked across the street and stared up and down at this once peaceful neighborhood. Just like all the other cops in the town, he grew familiar with its history. It was very impressive how much effort was put into making everyone forget about that terrible night. This red Camry drove by and he locked eyes with this beautiful young woman. The rest of her friends were talking and smiling but she seemed to be the only one who was a bit worried about the cops in this house. The car turned at the end of the street and he turned his attention back to this lonely road in front of him. With a few break-ins and now a murder, Bolivar was beginning to worry that this was going to be a long night.