Cast The Die

Chapter Thirteen

October 2017

As I sink my feet into the sand, I feel his arms wrap around my waist. It's comforting. I lean back onto his chest and he rests his head on my shoulder. I take a deep breath and turn around to face him. He brings his hand to my face and strokes my cheek with his thumb, and I stare into his eyes. They match the colour of the ocean. We're interrupted by the buzzing of my phone. I ignore it but it just gets louder and louder. It won't stop. Suddenly, I'm alone at the beach and the tide is coming in. I try to walk away but my feet are sinking into the sand, I'm stuck.

When I wake, my phone is buzzing on my nightstand. I reach for it and Jen's name is on the screen. It's also 6.30am.

"It's 6.30 in the morning" I groaned.

"Yes, it is. It is also..." she dragged the sound out.

"Friday?" I replied. I knew exactly what day it was.

"It's Halloween, bitch" she said. "Get up, I'll meet you at 8.15. Also, Auden is going to the party tonight" my heart started racing at the sound of his name and I was reminded of my dream.

"Did you just call me a bitch?" The line went dead.

Halloween is Jen's favourite day of the year. We're not allowed to dress up for school, but there is always a party to go to. Jen thought that when we started Sixth Form we'd be allowed to dress up, she even tried to start a protest, but it got shut down. She's even more excited about Halloween falling on a Friday this year. That means there will be a party tonight, and we can go to the Scare Fair tomorrow. Scare Fair is something that happens every year in our little town and everyone goes. There's a special Ghost Tour, which is always terrible. They put different stalls up where you can carve pumpkins, go bobbing for apples, paint and draw. A lot of it is mainly for the children, but we still go. For the last two years, they set up a screening to show horror movies and Jen freaked out with excitement. I covered my eyes the whole time.

Matt always hosts the party at his house, the football team usually take it in turns to have parties. Matt refused to let anyone else host Halloween, he was more obsessed about it than Jen. His parents decorate the house and they invite everyone else's parent too. His house is like a mansion, so the adults have the front of the house and we stay in the kitchen, which is better because we get the garden.

My Mum, Jen and I arrived at school on time, despite the fact Jen was running late because she forgot her pumpkin hat.

"They said we're not allowed to dress up. They didn't say anything about hats" she told me. Within five minutes of being in the school, she was told to take it off. "How is wearing a hat in the shape of a pumpkin going to affect my learning?" she scoffed. I laughed and grabbed it off her, I told her I'd keep it in my locker until the end of the day.

The day was going slow. By lunch time, there had already been multiple pranks on the teachers. It happened every year, some of them were terrible, like having Skeletons falling from the ceiling when they walk through the door or putting fake blood on your face and running into the nurse's office screaming. The best one last year was when Isaac and Jack C put a fake severed hand in Mrs. Hannigan's desk drawer, that one was funny. It was mainly the boys and Jen who did all the pranking. The girls were more interested in the party and getting dressed up as nurses and bunny rabbits but neither of those are scary, so I never understood it. Jen and I go all out for the party, we buy fake blood, face paint, liquid latex and stick-on-wounds. We watch tutorials on YouTube for hours so we can make ourselves look like dead bodies. Last year we went as Walkers from The Walking Dead, the year before last we went as Zombie Pirates. The make-up was terrible because we're hopeless at it, but everyone said we looked great. This year we decided to go as Dead Nuns, we bought the Nun costume online and decided that I'm going to have my throat cut and Jen is going to have a Crucifix gouged into her head. I said we should hire some sort of artist, but she's convinced we can do it ourselves.