Creatures From The Unknown

Four

It was three in the afternoon when I returned back home. My dad had given my friends and I a ride back to my house. Most of them lived further south of town than I did, but Jenna lived on the same street as we did, but all the way on the other end about a mile or two away. My sister was sadly home as well, who had grown increasingly annoying after her stunt with the party. She had come home like she said she would, though, so she didn't really get in much trouble, except for a huge psychobabble talk from mom that lasted an hour or two the day after it all happened. Now Jessica was extremely grouchy. My friends and I were now on the patio overlooking the lake. Here we just sat to talk about everything we could find interesting. They even asked about me winning the costume contest and I brushed it off as if it were nothing.

"It was just a contest," I said smiling.

"Yeah, and you won," Allison said smirking. "You won playing as the Hulk. You do know there's a She-Hulk right?"

"Yeah, I heard." I frowned. "I never heard of her until that night, though."

"Have you been able to get over your fear yet and cross the bridge?" Jenna asked me.

"No, she hasn't. Such a baby." Jessica said as she walked from the side of the house. She had been listening in to what we had been saying, obviously.

"It's not cool spying on people," I said calmly.

"It's not cool that you're such a wimp."

"It's not cool that you're such a slut," Allison said making things worse.

I slapped the palm of my hand to my forehead.

"What?" Allison said looking at me. "All cheerleaders are sluts."

"You can't be a slut if you're a virgin," I said softly.

"Oh. Well, she's still annoying." Allison said trying to redeem herself and failing.

"Idiots. All idiots." Jessica said as if she were the only highly intelligent one present. "Well, I'm off to cross the bridge and go to town, cause I'm not a freakin' baby."

"Aw, don't do that," I said aloud. "Last time...."

I didn't finish and Jessica went to the bridge. I watched closely with my fists clenched. The trees blocked much of the view for the beginning and end of the bridge, but it was so far to the other side, that I couldn't tell if she got to cross or not. We all went silent, though, waiting to see if we could hear anything that would lead to us to believe she would need any help. There was nothing to hear, someone's dog was barking a few doors down. Another dog barking across the lake, though that was much more difficult to hear. If Jessica needed help we would have heard her.

We all started talking once again and ate snacks, healthy snacks since I was on an "eat healthy" kick lately. Health bars, fruits, and healthy cookies. Most of my friends didn't like any of that and instead ate chips and regular cookies. An hour later we went inside to play a board game, but Jenna needed to get home. So we offered to walk her home, but she said her big brother was going to pick her up on his way back home. It happened just as so, only a few minutes later and he pulled up in his black Honda that had been modded to look quite awesome. They took off and it was just the three of us now.

"Let's play some video games instead!" Allison said going towards the living room where the consoles were all set up. My dad had all his old consoles set up that he used when he was a kid, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and for some reason, he had an N64 as well. "I wanna play GTA!"

"That's not even multiplayer," I said annoyed. "Let's just play a board game."

"We can take turns playing," Allison said helpfully.

It wasn't helping. "If you want to play GTA, then go home and play it."

"No!" Allison said and sighed. "Fine, what do you all wanna play? Video games that are."

"I guess that's what we get for an only girl with three other older brothers." I sighed aloud for I wasn't too huge a fan of video games, though I was much more so than my sister was.

"How about Mario Party for Gamecube?" Cristina suggested.

"I don't wanna play no Mario crap!" Allison said looking highly offended. "I know! We can play Dead Island: Riptide! I think we could all play that, on the Xbox 360!"

She said it so excitedly that she ran over to set it all up. Cristina and I looked at each other shrugged and sighed. We all played for one and a half hours when my mom came home and shook her head when she saw what game we were playing. She didn't even let out any of her psychological speech. I knew I was going to get some of that later tonight or even worse, tomorrow. A few minutes later my dad came through the door and saw what we were playing and sat down to join in the game. Soon my friends had to leave on their own way and their parents picked them up on their way back from work. Soon I was eating dinner when I realized that Jessica had not returned yet. I stopped eating.

"Where's Jessica?" I asked aloud. "Did she call either of you?"

"No." My mom and dad both said.

"She told me she was going into town. I figured she was going to meet some friends or something."

My mom called some of Jessica's friends and my dad called other friends of Jessica. None of them had found her at all, though. It was almost ten at night when dad had got some neighbors together, including my best friend's parents and all the guys went out searching for her in the town. My friends and I were in my room and my mom was downstairs in the living room with all the moms of my friends. My friends and I were all quiet and didn't have much to say.

"It's spooky," Allison said softly. "You always warned us something was wrong with the lake. Aliens? Ghosts?..."

"I decided they might be Phantoms instead... or something." I softly interrupted.

"Right." Allison nodded. "What if you were really right?"

"It can't be that, though," Cristina said shaking her head as if it were all unreal.

"Could be. The universe is such a huge place. We have no way of knowing if there are others out there." Jenna said looking out my bedroom window that looked out over the lake. You could see flashlights bobbing up and down all over the place, outside each window.

"But why would Aliens want Jessica?" Allison thought aloud.

That was something none of us had the answer to. It was half an hour from midnight when dad came back with all the other guys. They were going to continue searching for Jessica tomorrow, but for now, they had not found her.

It was November 4.