Night of Fear and Some Goodies By Leticia Heath

I rolled and stretched, but found no place of peace. The blanket covers twisted around my body as I did, and I felt like I was suffocating in too warm comforter. I kicked my covers off, but felt too cold when I did. With a groan that could wake up the whole neighborhood I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

I looked around my blackened room the only light was my digital clock whose green light seemed to float in the black air. It read one o’clock. It would be one of those nights.

I let my back fall onto my bed. Bored I felt around aimlessly searching for anything that might make time pass, and maybe allow me to fall asleep. My stiff fingers touched something unfamiliar. Curious I grabbed it and brought it to me observing it.

It was my cell phone. The hard blue plastic cold to the touch, and I flipped it open. Maybe someone will call me, I thought to myself, but that’s probably a long shot since they’re probably all asleep. I wish I was able to sleep. I glared at the cell phone screen a picture of L from the Death Note series staring back at me. This picture reminded me of another picture, and without thinking I brought up my pictures on my phone.

Determined I examined every picture searching for the one I was seeking. I looked at pictures of me, my house, and my friend Mariah who is always happy to have her picture taken (most of the picture in my phone were of her). Finally I found the one I was hunting for.

It was mostly black, but you could make out just faintly the forms of a few people. Mariah was of course in it, Mia, Caitlin, and I also were all standing arm over shoulders in the dark carrying bags. Our faces were shining with smiles only truly happy people could have. Behind us the night sky was dark, and tall trees stood looming like bodyguards. We were all dressed up for that special night: Halloween. Caitlin was a demonic vampiress dressed all in scarlet red, Mariah a maid dressed in black and white, Mia was dressed all in black and her face was painted black (she never told us what she was supposed to be), and I was L, the mysteriously famous detective completed with a plain white shirt and a pizza stain from our pizza fight and baggy blue jeans. We were all armed with loads of candy in four sacks.

I remembered how my arms had ached during the long walk, and to make it worse Mariah had made me carry her bag as well. But that wasn’t the only thing I remembered, we had successfully scoured the whole neighborhood for candy. We had walked down every street, knocked on every door saying “trick or treat”, and even fought off a few ninth graders who didn’t want to go through all the trouble of knocking on doors to get their own candy. We arrived at my house tired, but not tired enough to sleep. We ate most of our candy trading with each other when necessary, and then we set off to the one Halloween tradition everyone must do: watch a horror movie.

We flipped on the TV then went up and down through the channels until finally we found the right movie: 30 Days of Night. When it comes to horror shows I can only watch the ones where a monster is the one tearing apart and eating the humans, but when it comes to a human murdering other humans I have to turn away. This show had a little bit of both. It was about vampires coming into a small town in Alaska and deciding that the people there would make a nice snack before they hit the road again. Every few minutes of the show someone had to die, and as they did they gushed fountains of blood.

After the show we all walked close to each other down the stairs towards my room. We watched every corner, and jumped at every creak we made. When we reached my room we jumped inside slamming the door behind us. We all laughed at how we were acting vampires are just fiction.

We spent the rest of the night watching each others’ backs just waiting for a vampire to pop out of my closet and suck us dry one by one of our blood. Mia, Caitlin, and I had all stayed up until we could spot light peeking up above the mountains, but Mariah, who was very lucky, had fallen asleep.

I closed my phone setting it back down on my dresser, and as I did I got a clear view of my closet. It was black and shadows seemed to come to life in my mind. Vampires were just made up creatures . . . right?