Author's Note: This was written in Colin's POV...you probably guessed that...THANK YOU to the people who have added this to their favorites!
CHAPTER THREE: Coitus Super-Interruptus
I hoisted myself over the windowsill of my bedroom. Again with the Exorcist mutant spider-thing. I grabbed my schoolbag off my bed. Nothing in my room had been disturbed since that night.
Going to my dresser, I emptied shirts, pants, socks, underwear, whatever I thought I would need. My hand hovered over certain things–did I need a jacket? Did I need to brush my teeth anymore? I decided to play it safe and packed everything. It was like going camping, only nobody was supposed to know I was alive.
I tucked one of my notebooks into my bag. It reminded me of English class, of Jennifer Fucking Check in the seat in front of me, flipping her hair onto my desk and asking in a stage whisper for my notes. It also brought to mind Narrative Non-Fiction, of that one time I was reading that poem in front of the class and I looked up and saw tears budding in Needy's eyes, trapped there by the frames of her glasses.
It wasn't supposed to be a sad poem, I had told her later.
I know, she'd replied. It was beautiful, though. That's why I was crying.
I had left school that day feeling like I was on top of the goddamn world.
I had everything I needed.
My bag felt heavy as I hoisted it over my shoulder. I heard someone's footsteps coming from downstairs.
For a moment, I froze up. It could have been one of my parents. The urge to see them gripped me like a boa constrictor. I felt like a kid in kindergarten again, screaming for their mother.
But I knew I couldn't. Theirs wasn't a world I belonged in anymore.
I drew the hood of my sweatshirt over my head before sliding out the window. I landed fairly nimbly and began to run.
The good thing about being one of the walking undead (or whatever I was): it wasn't easy to get tired. I was wearing steel-toed boots, and running felt like the easiest thing in the world. As I ran, I began to feel a little less like a teenager in Dead Boy clothes and a little more like something wilder, something more primal. I looked up at the sky. The moon was smaller than it had been the night before. A part of me felt as though something of mine was leaving with it.
What could it have been? My life? My humanity? Possibly.
There–Needy's neighborhood. The meager rush hour was beginning to fill out the streets of Devil's Kettle, so I ducked into alleyways as I wound through the houses.
I reached her house and bolted around the back, scrambling up her wall as fast as my undead freak-eyness would allow me to. Needy, perhaps being thoughtful, had left her window open a crack. I slid my arm through to give myself a handhold as I pried it open all the way.
I heard a low whistle from behind me. "Hey, Cassanova."
I began to turn, and then froze. My hood covered a lot of my face, but I didn't want to risk showing anything.
"Sneaking in to see the lady love?" It was a middle-aged man. Turning around another fraction of an inch, I spied him: dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, he sported a bit of a beer gut and was going gray around the edges. he sat in a rocker on the back porch of the house next to Needy's.
I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I didn't really have anything to say back to that.
"It's alright," the man chuckled. "I was young once too. Well, don't get caught." He hoisted himself out of the rocking chair and started towards the inside of the house. I shoved the window all the way up and propelled myself inside.
I landed on Needy's floor, still reeling from the encounter, and did not land on my feet. Instead, I lay sprawled on the floor, looking like an idiot.
There was someone going around killing teenage boys, and he thought it was perfectly normal for me to be climbing up someone's wall? I laughed nervously. Gotta love old people.
As I lay there, my hypersensitive ears adjusted to the house, and I strained to hear Needy. There–a giggle that was distinctly hers.
"Needy?" I called out.
Someone else's voice popped up. "Who was that?"
Oh, shit. Someone else was home. Dammit, I was such an idiot. I prepared to hurdle myself into the closet again, but then Needy spoke up.
"I didn't hear anything."
"Oh."
I got to my feet and slid my bag under her bed, making my way to the doorway of her bedroom. I listened for footsteps, anything suggesting someone coming up to her room, and heard nothing except for more giggles.
"Ow. Ow!"
Was that Needy's voice? Was she okay? I started down the stairs, thankful that the hall light wasn't on. The only light in the house came from the living room, which is also where the sound was coming from.
I paused by the doorway and tried to look in without having my head come into view. This required me looking from the corner of my eye, which made it slightly hard to make out individual shapes. I saw a mass of flesh color and two heads, one blonde and one darker.
Like a camera focusing, individual details became clear. Needy and Chip Dove lay on the couch, both buck naked. Needy straddled Chip, her hair a mass of tangles.
Seeing Needy naked was more bizarre than I could fathom, especially since I'd resigned myself to the fact that I would never see her naked the moment she and Chip got together Freshman year.
Also, it hit me pretty hard, seeing Chip there. It made sense, of course, him being her boyfriend and all, but I was hurt. For a moment, I guess I'd really been convinced I meant something to her, something she could trust.
She turned her head and spotted me. Her eyes grew to the size of DVDs and she went totally silent. Chip, whose eyes were screwed tightly shut in what was probably pre-coital ecstasy, opened them, and I shot away from the doorframe.
"What was that?" he asked, breath coming in gruff pants.
"N-Nothing. No one," came her reply.
I hurried up the stairs, praying to God that none of the steps would creak. God, Colin, you are such an idiot.
How could I have let myself assume that I meant nearly as much to her as Chip did? He was her boyfriend, for Christ's sake. He was her everything.
Me? I didn't even know what I was. A safety net, maybe.
I paced around her room, sat down on her bed and then sprang back up immediately because I didn't want to look creepy or anything. My super-ultra-fucking-hearing could make out voices, but I tried not to listen in on their conversation.
When I heard the front door open and shut, I knew Chip had left. Presently, the sound of footsteps on the stairs came to my ears, and Needy's bedroom door swung open. She stood in the doorway, looking disheveled and slightly sweaty. The buttons on her shirt were off by one, and her fly was halfway down, as though she'd gotten dressed in the dark.
"Hi, Colin." She glanced down, then up at me. Her eyes were large and guilty as a schoolgirl in trouble's. "I'm really sorry about that. I should have warned you about that, only I wasn't sure when you'd be back, and Chip came over, and..." she stopped, twisting her hands nervously.
"It's fine. Really." I began to play with my rosary, a nervous habit. Then a smell hit me: blood. Not fresh, but recently spilled. "Hey, Needy, did you cut yourself or something?"
"Huh?"
"It smells like blood."
"Fudge." She unbuttoned the top buttons of her shirt and pulled the fabric away from her shoulder. A bunch of Band-aids were heaped haphazardly over...well, over something. And that something didn't seem to be too pleasant.
"Needy, what happened?"
"Promise not to freak out?"
I stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Needy–"
"OW!"
"Oh, sorry." I released my grip on her wounded shoulder. "Please, I need you to show me your wound."
"Okay. But don't freak out." The words were some sort of a warning. I watched as she pulled the Band-Aids away, grimacing slightly as she ripped them. One by one, she peeled the layers of Latex away.
Until all that was left was a very nasty-looking gash. The wound looked like a set of...
"Bite marks? Are those bite marks?"
"Yeah. But you said you wouldn't–"
"Needy, I don't care what I might have said, I am freaking out! Who did this? Was it–"
"–Jennifer? Yes, it was." She fingered the wound for a moment, and then pulled her hand away, wincing in pain.
I opened my mouth, ready to ask what had happened, and then it happened. The smell of blood I hadn't noticed until now hit me like a tidal wave, the odor so all-pervading that it seemed that all other senses were lost.
"Colin?"
I stepped backwards. All of the sudden everything was wrong–my mouth was dry, my throat burning, my head pounding. That smell forced its way into my brain, blocking out every thought I might have been having.
"Colin, are you sick? What's wrong?"
"Needy...get away..." I groaned, closing my eyes and hoping that somehow, doing so would make the smell go away.
Instead of running, she took a step forward. The scent hit me twice as strong, and I opened my eyes.
My mouth opened of its own accord, and my jaw unhinged, much like it had when I had first woken up in the coroner's lab. I could feel my fangs, rows of long, needle-sharp teeth, extending.
Needy put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my God, Colin."
I grabbed her and threw her down onto the bed, leaning over her and pausing to sniff the air. Her jugular was one attack point, but what about the stomach artery–
"Colin, please!" she shrieked. "Don't hurt me..."
Maybe it was her voice, or maybe some distinctly human part of me stepped in and intervened. I'm not sure what it was, but something made me back away. My jaw clicked back into place, my fangs receded, my brain cleared.
Needy lay on her bed, pale as chalk and shivering like a kitten left in the rain.
I stared at her for a moment as my senses returned, and I realized what I had just done.
I had been about to kill Needy.
My stomach clenched. I felt like I was going to puke, and the floor seemed to be tilting. I wanted to say I was sorry, that I'd never do it again, anything to make her stop looking at me with that fear in her eyes.
I had no words. I opened her door and bolted.
Somehow, I found myself outside of Chip's house. I must have followed his scent or something, since I'd never been there in my life. He had a tree in front of the first floor window, something that proved to be mighty useful. I grabbed one of the branches and hoisted myself up onto it. I had never been one for climbing trees when I was little, but it seemed like something a Dead Boy would do.
Inside, I could hear pots and pans banging as his mother made dinner, the sounds of his little sister running around, the quiet beat of the radio he was listening to. My chest constricted as I listened to this normal family. I'd had a normal family once.
Something broke me out of my reverie. It was the sound of twigs breaking under someone's feet. I looked down and spotted a dark figure approaching Chip's front door.
"Oh, shit," I whispered.
It was her. Jennifer Fucking Check.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, I dropped from the branch I was sitting on and landed a couple yards afraid of her.
She put her hands on her hips. "Well, look what the cat dragged in. What are you doing here? Got a totally gaysexual crush on Needy's boyfriend?"
"What are you doing here?" I demanded back.
She smiled. "None of your beeswax, Hot Topic. Now, why don't you get out of my way before things get unpleasant."
There was a time when one withering look from her would have sent me running down the hallway.
But–oh yeah–that was back when I had been alive and normal. Sort of.
"I'm not going to let you do to Chip what you did to me, Jennifer," I told her.
She pouted. "But Colinnnnn," she whined like a little girl. "I'd be doing it for YOU."
"Doing it for me? The hell do you mean?"
A smirk played across her heavily glossed lips. "Aren't you sick of it, Colin?"
"Sick of what?"
"Watching Chip and Needy act all coupley. Seeing them suck face like a couple of horny DustBusters. Knowing that Chip was poking her donut, while you...well, weren't."
I gritted my teeth. "You are one evil bitch, Jennifer Check."
She grinned. "Would you have me any other way?"
A/N: I hope you liked this chapter...uh, section of a chapter. God I love this movie. And I'm noticing that I'm making Jennifer more and more evil. Ah, well. PLEASE review!
