This is what happens when someone who's never read the books or seen the movies is given the general premise and told to write it. Enjoy.
Beatty was
the easy-going kind of girl who never really got upset over much. Which is to say, she was the kind of girl you
never meet, but keep believing you’ll come across someday, because, man alive,
if this is all you’ve got to call a
dating pool, you’re really screwed, aren’t you?
I’m
sorry. I digress.
Beatty, in
fact, could think of only two things in her life that really distressed
her. The first was that she had such a
stupid name. Beatty. Really.
She supposed it wasn’t the name that was so stupid as it was that
everyone immediately had to make a comment about Warren Beatty and it’s
ridiculous to ask if she’s related to him because, no, in Western culture we
are not accustomed to reversing given and family names on a whim, but thanks
for asking. Ugh.
The second,
far more recent source of discontentment was a boy by the name of Isaiah Miller. Or rather, it was that Isaiah didn’t seem to
be aware of her existence. As much as
she hated admitting it to her journal, which she did on a daily basis, she had
a crush like an empty soda can, and he would never even make eye contact with
her.
“Crush”
didn’t even go far enough, to be honest, although that was the limit of how
vulnerable she let herself become in the critical eyes of her notebooks. No, she was definitely infatuated, even maybe
obsessed (that one she hadn’t confessed even in the quiet conversations in her
mind), and that made it all the worse, because she hated knowing that a little
unrequited puppy love (she had to add in “puppy” when she thought it to keep
from feeling like a complete idiot) had entirely consumed all her waking
thoughts and was keeping her up way too long at night when she’d always been
that reasonable girl who was never unduly bothered by anything! Ugh.
Concerned
that she was overthinking things and that worrying was just keeping her from
actually moving ahead, and suddenly, at 10:36 PM, intent that she was going to
do something to get Isaiah to notice
her and she was going to do it right this
moment, she’d run out to her truck, which she hadn’t driven since her
stepdad had presented it to her in an effort to make up for five years of
absence, and sped off in the direction of Isaiah’s home. And so, sitting in the driver’s seat and
driving faster than she ought to and feeling her heart pounding ridiculously
fast, she was, she realized, possibly at the beginning of what might turn out
to be the third major source of grief in her life.
Oh,
well. No turning back now.
Almost as if
in a movie, all of Beatty’s thoughts seemed to pour out and play in front of
her on the windshield as she sped to the Miller farmhouse. She remembered seeing Isaiah for the first
time – not when she’d just seen him the first time, but the first time when she
really saw him and was, like, whoah,
what’s going on? – and remembered how he’d looked at her and they’d made eye
contact and his eyes were such bright blue and he’d smiled just before he
turned the corner and walked away. Beatty
had just about melted to the ground. She
replayed the times they’d worked together in their math class, the times she’d
strategically chosen her seat so that they’d end up working together again, the
times she was certain he’d been looking at her when he thought she wasn’t paying
attention and he’d been thinking the same should-I-shouldn’t-I
thoughts she was. And she recalled, with
a stab of despair, how just as she’d been ready to give up on flirting and
actually ask him on a date or something, he never seemed to look at her or talk
to her and even notice her anymore. Had
he ever? There were the many nights when
she laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling for hours, playing out their
encounters over and over again, trying to figure out if what she thought had
happened had actually happened, or if she’d just been seeing the past couple of
weeks through some infatuation-tinted filters.
She’d never been able to come up with an answer for sure.
As she
pulled up to the home and stopped the truck by the wide and twisted oak tree that
stood watch beside the driveway, she was no more sure. Was this going to be a horrible mistake? Would she cringe every time she thought of
this night for the next few years and every tim-
No. Stop.
She was not the girl who let herself get bothered by things. She was not going to live with regrets. No matter what happens, she decided, it’s
okay. Everything always works out fine.
And besides,
she was already here.
The whole
house appeared dark, except for one upper-story window. Beatty was surprised; the Millers had always
struck her as night owls. But her
surprise – and all other thoughts, really – disappeared as a figure filled the
lit upper window. It was Isaiah.
Beatty
thought that he looked down at her, and the thought didn’t fill her with worry,
to her surprise. She just saw his eyes
and again felt like melting. But then he
moved away from the window, and all she saw was a square of light blocked by a
few branches of the oak tree.
It was too
perfect. It was a sign. This was why she was here. With agility she didn’t realize she
possessed, she pulled herself from bough to bough on the oak tree and in less
than a minute was perched right outside Isaiah’s window. The momentary doubts about being too creepy
left her mind after just a second; this just felt right. Everything was going to change tonight. She
knew it.
Leaves, it seemed, fluttered
between her stomach and her lungs, and she was excited.
Isaiah
stepped into view again, coming to stand at the foot of his bed. He was shirtless, wearing just his jeans and
a belt. Beatty could feel her mouth fall
open a little. He was definitely
cut. How had she missed this
before? She must just have been too
caught up in his eyes. But those arms...
there was nothing else she wanted right now than to have Isaiah wrapped those
big arms around her. The leaves were
fluttering again. Beatty had visions of
crawling right up to his window and him noticing her and him slowing pulling up
the window pane and both of them leaning slowly toward each other, across the
gap, reaching out and-
But she
didn’t have to do that, because he turned abruptly and came toward her. He walked directly toward the window, and
looked straight at her. He didn’t seem
surprised. He just stared. And then... he smiled. It was all Beatty could do to keep from
falling giddily off the branch she was on.
She smiled back. They both
smiled, and Isaiah opened the window.
Beatty
waited, happy to let him do the talking.
But he didn’t do anything. He
just stood there, looking at her. She
didn’t care. She could stare at him all
night. So they stared.
At first she
thought she was losing her night vision, but then she realized it was him. His... outline. He seemed blurry. It seemed like he was changing shape. Beatty was a little concerned, but she felt
hypnotized. She certainly couldn’t move.
She watched
as Isaiah stretched out his arms. She
watched as his whole body darkened. And
then, in a flash, his entire form snapped in.
Where Isaiah had just stood, a bat flapped. Beatty was terrified. But she still couldn’t move. She could only watch. And then, without warning, the bat sped out
the window toward her.
Beatty
wanted to scream but couldn’t. She
couldn’t do anything. She could only
watch as the black-as-sin creature descended to her neck.
