I live in Forks, Washington.
Yes, that Forks. A town that’s only claim to fame was logging before a middle-aged woman turned it into a haven for preteen girls who fantasized about having a dead 100-year-old boyfriend.
I was driving home late at night on a random Sunday night from Seattle in 2006. My parents got divorced when I was eight and I was tried to see my father at least once a month. That was the height of popularity for the book series and I was told many times how ‘lucky’ I was to live in Forks.
My dad had moved to Seattle with his girlfriend and though I loved seeing him I hated the drive back in the night.
The trees seemed to close in on me and I felt that if they swallowed me I’d never be found again. I turned up the stereo and tried to bob my head to the music, all while trying to avoid the feeling of seeing several white eyes peeking out from the dark abyss between the trees from my peripheral vision.
I chalked it up to the fact I always see horrifying and heart-stopping things from the corner of my eye. It was nothing. It was nothing. It was nothing.
I focused so hard on trying to make me brain trick me into seeing things in the woods that I didn’t notice the white figure that darted out from the woods and ran right in front of my car.
I screamed for a second and slammed my foot down on the brake pedal. The car lurched forward and chest hit the steering wheel but with not enough impact to inflict any serious pain. I looked up to see the whatever I had almost hit.
I wish I hadn’t.
Now this is the part of the story where one would see something so awful that they the image would sear itself into their collective memory like a branding iron.
But this wasn’t awful. Standing a few feet away from the hood of my car stood a pale, slender and short girl with soft auburn hair that rested on her exposed breasts. Her icy blue eyes bore into mine and I noticed that she was using her long nail to circle against her bare thigh.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was odd, her face was contorted into a stony expression but I felt as if she was sneering. She slowly moved toward the side of the car, all while trailing her long and jagged nail against the hood.
She rounded about to the passenger and placed both her flat against the glass and leaned her face in. This time she did smile, it began small and sweet but quickly stretched to impossibly wide feats with showed her lack of teeth except for two long, razor-sharp fangs.
“Please help me, Cassie. I’m lost,” a childlike voice escaped her menacing lips. I could hear her voice right by my ear but her mouth didn’t move.
How did she know my name?
Vampire was not the first word that came to mind: it was demon.
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move despite the fact that I desperately wanted to slam down on the gas pedal and race home. The thing continued,”didn’t your mommy ever tell you to help those in need? You look like her, we can see her perfectly from the kitchen window. She can’t see us. Not when our eyes follow her to the living room, from under the drain of the bathroom and right to her bedroom… from inside the closet.”
A scream was caught in throat but it had me in its claws, I will die here. It tilted its head to the side as its smile slowly disappeared and its cold blue eyes widened. It’s mouth began to slowly open wider and wider. The skin along the edges of its mouth began to tear slowly as its mouth kept getting bigger. Blood bored out of its open dark hole and spilt down its chin to its corpse-like chest.
The top half of its face slid off whatever was beneath its skin and fell away like a mask. I felt immense fear which is why I don’t know why I began to lean over and reach for the lock to unlock the door. I wanted to release my bowels and cry for my mommy and never sleep without a night-light again.
The rest of its skin started to slide off its body like a costume. But its blue eyes still remained and it followed my hand as I placed my thumb and forefinger on the lock.
“No, please, no,” I whispered with a cracked voice.
My fingers started to slowly pull the lock up and as I felt heard the dreadful click sound I finally managed to scream out:
“Anything, I’ll give you anything. Please, please, please!”
All of a sudden I felt my hand become my own again and I quickly slide back as far as I could to the driver’s side. That demon despite now having a wide open mouth with no visible tongue and only eyes spoke,”anything. Are you sure?”
In my panic and already knowing exactly what it wanted I said in a panic-“yes. Just anyone but me.”
The thing laughed in a child’s voice and with a tongue I did not know it had, it slowly licked the glass window and left a saliva trail. But with a glint of hunger in its eyes it slowly backed away from the car, it’s eyes never leaving mine as the darkness of the wood enveloped it.
I felt sick.
I went to a hotel that partially because I was terrified of feeling those evil blue eyes and because of the fact that I didn’t want to be there when it happened.
I got the call the next morning. My father came from Seattle that very same day and quickly began to pack my things. I refused to go into that house and no one pressured me to. Why would they? Poor little girl just lost her mother.
The crime scene was so clean, save for a pool of dark, red blood that for a while they thought she was still out there, and alive. But I knew better when my father was driving me out-of-town, late at night and I saw a face in between the trees of the woods that shared a strong resemblance to mine.
It smiled that smile I knew very well for I saw it everyday for the last eighteen years, the difference? It had no teeth, same for two.
I lived in Forks, Washington.
And trust me when I tell you that yes, there are vampires in those woods.