Creatures From The Unknown

One

1

I looked out the window at the sky. The sun was almost finished setting and looking at the colors of the sunset did not make me feel any better than normal. I knew the dark would be upon us and whatever creatures existed in the lake would be upon us. I have never seen one before. I've been outside at night and never even felt an odd presence of invisible creatures. Nonetheless, I knew something lived in the lake and I knew they cast some spell upon the bridge and would take you to their world. I told my thoughts to my older sister, Jessica, but she just laughed at me as if I were some crazy person. That was before Jessie died, though. Now when I mention it my older sister just looks sad and sighs.

"I guess you expect that's how Jessie died." She would always ask me.

I would always stay quiet. I saw my little brother of seven, killed right in front of me last summer. I was supposed to be protecting him, as a big sister should, but I did not do a good job. I did not keep a good eye on him and we had been arguing about how the bridge was an evil thing. He believed me but wanted to be brave and cross it. I think he wanted to impress me or something. I had told him not to, even though it was daytime and only slightly more safe, it wasn't safe enough. He said he wasn't, but he did. I remember when I realized he was gone and I ran out of the backyard through to the unpaved road behind our house and all our neighbors houses and found the bridge that crossed the middle of the lake, which happened to be 2 miles wide and a mile long, depending on how you look at it; the bridge was built of the mile part. It was a lovely bridge and helped all the people on this side of the huge town of thirty-five thousand people to get to the commercial section in the town easier; a lot of bike riders riding along the bridge. I had always looked at them suspiciously. On this day, there was nobody on the bridge, except my brother. He only had a few minutes head start and he was almost halfway through on the bridge.

I then noticed a man in a tan detective-style jacket. I've only seen people dressed like that in the movies if they were streakers that showed their wrinkly man parts to other people. That's what this guy looked like he was. Jessie was walking slowly up and trying to pass the guy, but before he could get by, the weird man opened his jacket for all to see, which happened to be me and my brother. I didn't think this guy had anything to do with the evil people in the lake, whether they were ghosts of some kind of aliens, who knew? Nevertheless, this guy was still strange. I didn't think he would do anything. I was about to yell out to leave him alone when I saw him pull something else out from his jacket. It was a handgun. I screamed out "No!" just as the man shot Jessie point blank in the face. I didn't hesitate more than a millisecond before I ran toward Jessie. The weird man looked up at me and looked frightened. I was only a nine-year-old girl then, but I guess me running and screaming at the same time while holding a pole in my hand did frighten him enough. People still didn't know how I got the pole off the ground. It was put there by the city and had a thin piece of metal on it telling what the bridge's name was. I knew it was loose in the dirt or maybe I had a surge of adrenaline. Either way, I charged at the creep and killer and shot at me. He was too scared of me for some reason and that made me believe that he was working for the aliens in the lake. They must know that I know about them.

The man still had not closed his jacket up but didn't bother me. I just continued running at him with some kind of war cry. He decided to run away from me too late though and I put on a burst of speed and passed my brother's corpse and bashed the sign against his body. The guy fell down and I kept beating with the sign. He didn't die, though. I didn't want to become evil also and kill him. But that didn't mean I couldn't hurt him as much as possible. Anyway, I passed out afterward and the newspapers had a fun time with this story. They tried to get my picture, but I told them no and always flipped the camera off when they tried to take a picture of me. I was a celebrity in town for half a year, but I was a "cunt" to everyone as one kid in my class called me. I didn't know what it meant, but I asked my sister. I stopped being rude to people after that and then I got quiet afterward. I am still somewhat of a celebrity in this town, as nothing else big has happened since. I was even invited to high school parties cause a lot of the guys thought I was cool, with how I beat the guy up with a pole. I even went to a few of them, the ones where my mom knew there would be no alcohol served. I was bummed out at her constant vigilance in parenting, and I still am.

"Cassy? Sweetie time to wash up for dinner." I heard my mom, Emma, say to me.

Before I turned away from the now dark mid-autumn sky, I thought I saw something moving out towards the lake. I looked a little longer, but realized it was either nothing or they realized I was staring at them. So I left the window and went to get ready for dinner.

It was October 20.