The Highway

The Highway

By: Maeve Connolly 812

As I headed home down the desolate highway, I remembered everything that had happened that day. Woke up, went to school, had lunch, left school. Uneventful, just like all the other days of my life. Everything was boring, everything was always the same. On the outside, I was a level headed, mature, smart girl with grades that would get me into a decent college. But on the inside I longed for something more. For years I had hated the way I lived my life, and it was practically eating me from the inside out. I needed adventure, and I needed it now. I tore off my backpack and left it in the middle of the empty road. I ran down the white line that separated the two car lanes. And finally when I was so out of breathe that I thought my lungs might burst, I came to a stop. I must have run for miles, and for once I didn’t care where my backpack had landed or weather my parents were looking for me. It just didn’t feel right to think about these things when I felt so alive. So I stood right there in that exact spot and I still can’t remember how long I was there for, but by the time it happened, it was dark. I also remember that no cars had come down the road until it happened. Sadly I saw it just as I was leaving. Two lights, then a second later I saw the wheels and heard the growl of the engine. Every time I look back upon this moment, I remember what I felt in those few seconds. At first I was paralyzed with fear, so much so that I couldn’t move any part of my body, not even to scream, like in one of those horrible nightmares when a monster is chasing you, but your legs don’t seem to work. But the next feeling scared me the most, it was even disturbing. I wanted the car to hit me; I wanted to feel something, even if it was pain. I wasn’t suicidal or anything, I didn’t want my life to end, I just didn’t want to feel trapped. I closed my eyes and spread out my arms. Finally as I took one last breath, something hit me, but from the other direction. I thrashed and screamed as I landed in the cold wet mud on the side of the highway.
“What were you thinking?!” I yelled as I looked to see what had saved me.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” the stranger said

I squinted in the dark to try to make out his face, he had green eyes that shimmered in the night and black hair too perfectly shaped to be real. He wore a leather jacket and combat boots; he looked like one of those cliché vampires in romance novels. And he looked so smug, like he knew he was better than me.

“Who are you? And why are you here?” I shouted as I shoved him as hard as I could.

“Well that’s some way to thank the man who saved you from dying.”

So I took off down the muddy trail next to the highway. I didn’t stop or look back, even when I heard him call after me, wanting to know if I would jump in front of a car again.

It was 2 in the morning when I got home, I hadn’t realized how far I ran until I came to my sense and cursed at myself for losing my backpack with my phone and all my textbooks. When I walked in the front door, my parents came rushing at me yelling and screaming about how they were worried sick and that they even called the police, just like I knew they would. After an hour of this I finally got to bed, but not once did I stop thinking about the man who had rescued me.

The next day I stayed home from school, my parents had left for work so I had the house all to myself, couldn’t go anywhere because I was grounded so I sat around doing nothing. Until at 2:30 there was a knock at my door. I opened it, expecting my friends to be there, wondering why I wasn’t at school. Instead, to my surprised I found myself staring into the green eyes of the guy from the night before.

As soon as I saw who was at the door my first reflex was to slam the door and run upstairs but, of course his hand stopped the door from closing all the way and he just walked right on in.

“What are you doing, get out of my house!” I said impatiently

“Well since you never actually thanked me for saving your life, I thought I would come to your house and see if you tried to jump in front of any more cars.”  He said with all the confidence in the world.

“Okay first of all, I didn’t need your help, and second you can’t just come into my house without my consent, how do I know you’re not going to rob me? You better leave now before I call the police!” The second after those words came out of my mouth, I felt stupid. Isn’t this what I wanted, some excitement? And now I was kicking it right out the door, what was wrong with me?

“Fine you can stay, but I need to know everything, why you were out in the middle of nowhere at 12 at night, where you came from, who you are and so on.”

“Okay, but you should sit down, this might take a while.”

So I sat down as he explained everything to me, his name was Alaric. I told him mine was Lindsey. Then he explained that he had just moved to town and his parents had died when he was two, in a tragic car accident. He lived here with his uncle in the house on the edge of town, it was the biggest amount of land in the whole town I had just stumbled upon its border when I went for my little run, he was there are 12 at night because he had come back from a party. That explained who he was and a lot of his past but it didn’t explain why he was lying.

I wasn’t stupid, every single vampire story on Earth is exactly like the one he just told, they live in a huge house with almost no one in it, they’re parents are dead, and they always go out at night. The whole time he told the story, I sat there laughing in my head, and at some points I actually had to try hard to keep the smile off my face.

“Well that was an interesting story.” I said

“Yeah, but do you want to hear the best part?” he said mischievously

“Sure, whatever.”

He came close to me, so close that when he answered, I could fell his breath on my ear.

“I’m a vampire”.

A slow smile spread across my face and I pulled away from him. I was scared, my heart was pounding. But not because I thought he was a vampire, but because he was probably a lunatic, who escaped from the mental hospital thinking he was a vampire. He would probably hurt me or do something weird, you never know with the crazies. I stepped back slowly until I was pressed against the living room wall; I kept the smile on my face as I said,

“Uh, I think you-you should go now, my parents will be home any minute.”

“Oh, is that so, well I’ll have to make it quick, wont I?” he said as he walked toward me. He opened his mouth and I saw one longer sharper tooth on each side of his mouth.

I laughed as he encroached. His mouth went wider and wider until he was on top of me and I could hear myself screaming in the distance.

I awoke with a gasp, panting. There was a fast paced beep in the background. I looked around suddenly and saw the inside of a hospital room. I closed my eyes and thanked God for letting me survive that weird and horrible encounter with that crazy vampire.

A nurse, and my mother and father rushed into the room to find me awake and sitting up in the bed.

“Oh my goodness, I was so worried!” my mother exclaimed joyfully as she pulled me into a tight embrace.

“What were you thinking, out there all alone on a school night in the middle of nowhere?” My father cried.

I was extremely confused. “Wait, what are you guys talking about?”

“You were in a car accident 3 weeks ago and in a coma ever since! We weren’t sure if you were going to make it!’ My mother said with relief in her voice.

“But I was home yesterday, and that vampire bit me.” I said even more confused than before.

“Oh, you had a Coma dream; it’s a very common side effect.” The nurse said.

I sighed; glad to know that vampires were just something my coma brain had come up with. I regretted my need for adventure; I had had more of that the past few weeks than I needed in a whole year. I took it as a sign that my life was perfectly fine without all the excitement that some people had.

                                                            The end