Unpretty: An Unloved Ones Prequel (7 page)

"Dude," he says. "Are you okay?"

I force myself to smile. It hurts my face. "I'm fine," I say. "Why do you ask?"

"Because it looks like your face is melting."

I gasp, and lift my hands to my face. It hurts at the touch, and I realize the hot feeling I've been having wasn't embarrassment: I've been burning!

I look down at my arms. They are a deep shade of red with swirls of purple, and there are blisters rising from the skin as if I were boiling. Now that I'm aware of it, my entire body feels like it's on fire.

I scream, and no one in the circle does anything to help me.

"I need to get out of the sun," I say, and run off through the sand.

I hear laughter all around me. They think this is sunburn. But it feels so much worse. It feels like my skin is about to burn off. I run past Sarah’s umbrella and don't bother to pick up my beach bag. There's no time. I race across the sand, darting in between lazy beachgoers, and run up the concrete stairs to the restrooms in my bare feet. I don't even feel the grains of sand digging into my skin as I walk, and bang open the restroom doors.

The moment the sun is off of me, I feel better.

Better, but not healed.

I look down at my legs. They are as red as the rest of me, dark as blood, the color made ever the more obvious by the white grains of sand sticking to my feet and ankles.

Reluctantly, I make my way to the mirror. I must know.

The girl that stares back at me is a different girl than earlier this afternoon. I am no longer a supermodel. My eyes and teeth are white floating objects in the crimson sea that is my face. It is painful to look at me. My entire body is now as red as my hair.

There is the sound of voices outside the door. Some people must have seen me run across the beach, and are making their way to follow me. This is worse than being fat. At least when you’re fat, they leave you alone.

I can't face anyone like this. I can't let anyone see me.

I spin around in the bathroom, looking for a place to hide. This would be so much easier if I could go to my bike and ride home, but I have no way to protect myself from the sun along the way. I think about hiding in a stall, but that seems too obvious. It's then that I notice the door to the janitor's closet. I rush toward it. It's locked, but I pull on it anyway. I lean back, using all my force, and the door gives, snapping the wood of the frame. I run inside the darkness and slam the door shut as the outer restroom door opens and the girls from the beach stream in.

Their voices echo across the cold concrete of the restroom, and I can't make out any individual words. They sound like banshees. They make their way to the janitor's closet almost immediately, and I curse my luck. I hold onto the doorknob, and feel as they try to pull the door open.

I don't know if it's determination or the way I was leveraging myself, but from the sound of it, I am able to hold the door shut against a whole restroom full of girls. They put up a good fight, but eventually, when they see that they're not going to see the freak, they give up. I listen as the restroom clears out, and relax my body against the door.

I don’t take my hand off the doorknob.

Chapter Eight
 

When I wake up, I can tell it’s night.

I’ve spent the entire time crouched in the dark of the janitor’s closet, drifting in and out of consciousness. I listen for a moment before opening the door. All I can hear is the lap of the waves along the beach.

The janitor’s door creaks when I push it open. I stand up, stretching and feeling sore from my bent position. The lights are off, and I find my way out by the line of moonlight under the door.

I look toward the parking lot. My bike is still on the rack, but it’s locked, and I realize I don’t have the key. I turn toward the beach, feeling the night breeze kiss my burnt skin. The moon is full, and a line of beach glows blue beneath me. I start down the stairs to the water.

At the base of the stairs is the homeless man from earlier in the day. He is asleep, his hand curled around a glass bottle in a paper bag. I step around him carefully, and walk down to the shore.

The tide has come up, and I walk with the water up to my ankles toward where I remember Sarah’s umbrella from the day before. I don’t see it. I don’t see my beach bag either, and I realize it must have been washed away by the waves.

Part of me wants to cry at this final humiliation, but I’m too tired to cry. I just keep walking.

I don’t want to go home. My mom must be worried sick about me by now. I wonder if she’s called Sarah. Maybe she’ll find the hair dye and think that I’ve run away.

That wouldn’t be such a bad way to leave things.

I think about who would miss me as the waves lapping against my ankles. My mom would, obviously, but I think she’ll get over it. She’s much too concerned about herself in the long run. My dad, or at least, who I
thought
was my dad—would he miss me? Or would he be glad that he never had to confront me with the honest truth?

I know Sarah won’t miss me. Not the thin me, anyway. And I’d have to be pretty dense to think Chad Harlow and his friends would miss me after today.

I stop and look out at the moon floating over the ocean. A few stars shine at the outer reaches of the sky, where the moon’s brilliance isn’t enough to overpower them. The entire sky is reflected and refracted on the waves all the way out to the horizon, and as I look out, I feel so incredibly small, so incredibly insignificant.

Why couldn’t I just keep shrinking? Why couldn’t I shrink into nothingness? Suddenly existence feels too exhausting, and I just want it to end.

I take a step toward the ocean, and then another one. I’m wearing so little that I feel naked among the waves, feeling the ocean swirl around my knees. It seems appropriate. For a moment I hope that when I go under, I’ll turn into dust and sea foam. That way there won’t even be a body for anyone to find.

I close my eyes, and start to lean forward.

“Wait!” cries a voice from behind me.

It startles me so much that I jump and then fall over into the water. I splutter, and feel rough hands grab me around the middle, and pull me back to shore. They drop me in the sand, which sticks to the sides of my wet body. My hair is streaming water, and I comb it back with my fingers so that I can see my savior.

I look up and see the homeless man. He is standing up straight, no longer hunched. He looks almost regal.

“I should hope that was
not
what it looked like,” he says. There is no slur or hoarseness to his words. His voice even sounds soft, and oddly erudite. I stare at him with my mouth open, as surprised to see him talk this way as I would be to see a talking Saint Bernard. He shakes his head at me. “Explain yourself, young lady.”

I don’t know what to say. I look at this man who probably spent the last few years sleeping on the streets. “Leave me alone,” I croak.

 “Not likely,” he snaps. “Now, be a doll and answer my question: what
were
you doing? Because it looked to me like you were about to, as the saying goes, take a swim with the fishes. Am I right?”

I fold my arms across my chest. “That’s none of your business.”

“We will ignore your attitude for the moment, Katherine, and focus on the predicament we find ourselves in. You are not to harm yourself, for any reason.”

I blink. This is
not
the same man who asked me for change earlier in the day. It can’t be. “Who are you?” I ask. “And how do you know my name?”

“Immaterial!” he shouts, and his voice carries through the night. “All you need to know is this.” He lowers his voice and edges closer. “You are not alone, Katherine. There are more like you. More than you think.”

“What? Who
are
you?” I ask in exasperation.

He gives me a wink. “All in good time.”

“Tell me!” I shout, and reach forward to grab the collar of his rags. “Tell me what’s going on!”

I shake him, and as I do, he seems to melt in my grasp. His eyes grow drowsier, and his entire posture changes and becomes more hunched. “Leggo,” he slurs, and his voice is rough as sandpaper. He brushes my hands away with inarticulate movements, but I hold him in place.

“Tell me what’s going on!” I scream in his face.

His eyes grow wide with fear, and he collapses in my grasp to the sand. “Help!” he screams. “Help!”

I take a step back and look at him. He is shielding himself with his arms. It’s like he switched personalities. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dumpster.

“Don’t bite me,” he slurs. “Please.”

“Bite you?” I ask.

“Your teeth,” he whispers, and tries to crawl away.

My chest constricts. My teeth? What’s wrong with my teeth now?

I leave the homeless man cowering on the shore, and race back toward the restrooms. I push the door open, and find a light switch on the wall. The fluorescent bulbs flicker and crack, and I take a step forward toward the mirror.

I look at myself. The skin of my face is crusted over from the burns, and I bring up a shaking finger to touch the side of my cheek. The damaged skin flakes off, and the skin underneath looks fresh and new.

I’m healing. This crazy week keeps getting crazier. Between the weight loss, and the increased hearing, and now this reaction to sunlight, I don’t know what to expect.

My heart beats as I lean over the counter for a closer look. I open my mouth and bare my teeth to the mirror.

At first glance, they look fine. Maybe even a little whiter than before, although that may be an optical illusion created by my darker skin. I am about to lean back, reassured, when I notice my canines. They look pointier than before, as if they’ve grown. I study them.

They’re not quite fangs, but it makes me look strange. It’s definitely unnatural. They make me look like… I look like a—

A vampire.

Coming Soon
 

We hope you have enjoyed reading
Unpretty
, and invite you to return for the next installment of
The Unloved Ones Prequels
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Also By Kevin Richey
 

Kevin Richey's
Zombie Fairy Tales
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