Chapter 1 – Chap 1

Okay, I know how this title might sound, but I swear it’s not just me being superficial or anything. I guess I should start off by introducing myself. My name’s Will, and I’m 26. I’ve been dating my girlfriend Shelly since my Freshmen year of college. We met in the same communications class and I was kind of surprised when she wanted to go out with me.

Let me explain.

Shelly’s that one girl who no matter how good-looking you are just seems out of your league. She’s like a ten out of ten on all fronts. Beautiful, smart, sweet, and probably has the best sense of humor of any girl I’ve ever met. She’s like 5’11 and has the most amazing clear complexion. Her eyes are big, blue, and bombastically beautiful. Her hair is the prettiest shade of autumn red and it falls down her back in beachy waves.

Then there’s me… I’m kind of a lanky loser, if that’s the right word for it. No fat on me, but no muscle, either. I’m basically a twig with messy brown hair and have the most boring shade of blue eyes. I also don’t like going out much so I’m pretty pale. A couple of you might be saying, “So? Looks don’t matter, anyway. Even if your girlfriend is really pretty she probably likes you because of your personality.”

To that statement I respond, “Ha ha” because I am basically a polar opposite to Shelly. She’s extroverted, goes to parties with her friends all the time, is on lots of athletics teams, and hardly ever spends a night in. I am not like that. I prefer sitting inside playing video games online with my friends Tucker and Matt who live over in the UK.

But that wasn’t what set off my radar about Shelly, frankly I loved that she actually started staying in more and playing video games with me and my friends, who were just as taken with her as me. No, what set me off was when we started living together after I moved out of my dorm and got an apartment near the campus with her. I noticed she had tons of makeup and cosmetics in the bathroom, and I knew she wore makeup every day. That wasn’t weird on its own. No, what was weird was the fact that she would never take her makeup off.

I’m serious. She wouldn’t ever take her makeup off no matter what. At least… Not while I was still awake. She was always in the shower after I’d go to bed and then out of the room before I even got up. I asked her about this and she got all nervous saying she just didn’t want me to be disappointed because of how different she looked without her makeup on. Allow me to reiterate. My basically flawless girlfriend was worried about me, her basically butterface in comparison boyfriend, judging her for what she looked like without her makeup.

And I get some girls look crazy different without makeup and are self-conscious about the way they look, but this was Shelly! Perfect in every way I could think of and I wouldn’t have cared if she was hiding a second nose under her makeup Shelly! I told her repeatedly I wouldn’t judge her and I loved her for who she was, but she still refused to show me what she looked like without makeup. But we’d been dating for about seven years at this point and I knew without complete trust in one another we couldn’t really call what we had a relationship. So I did the only logical thing. I hid out in the dirty laundry hamper in our bathroom all night after pretending I was going to spend the night at my brother Markus’s place to help him study for his own college exams. And Shelly bought it!

Now I get this sounds pretty weird and kind of dumb, but let me tell you why I went with this plan.

1. Shelly would have spotted a camera way too fast no matter where I hid it

2. I wouldn’t have been able to set up a camera without making a crap-ton of noise, anyway

3. I also knew she’d have to go to work in the morning, meaning I could pretend I got home before she did

So that was my brilliant plan and I very quickly situated myself in the laundry basket after Shelly “went to bed.” But the moment she was sure I’d actually gone I heard our bedroom door open and the bathroom light came on. Shelly walks into the bathroom and sort of glances at the door as if she’s expecting me to come walking through it or something, but then turns on the shower and looks back at the mirror. Then I see her take off a pair of contact lenses… And her eyes are green and slitted like a snake’s.

It took me biting down on my tongue not to scream as I watched her get into the shower, clothes still on. Our shower is clear, by the way, and what I saw next made me want to scream even more. Her arms and legs disappeared into her body, and her torso began growing bright green scales. Her hair darkened to black, and the makeup fell off of her face like water off a duck’s back. Her face was absolutely horrifying, paler than a corpse with gaunt features even more scary. A pair of fangs sprouted from her mouth and the next thing I knew she was crawling out of the shower, leaving a trail of water on the floor.

I heard the front door open and close, and I took that moment to jump out of my hiding spot and quickly run out of the house to Markus’s house, which was at least thirty blocks from my apartment. I banged on the door and he answered, clearly shocked at the sight of his big brother drenched with sweat and looking like he’d seen someone get murdered. As much as I wanted to tell him what was going on, all I could say way, “I was heading over here to help you study for your exam and a huge-ass snake came out of a sewer drain. Scared the shit out of me.” Markus shrugged off my weird behavior as soon as I gave my bullshit explanation and he let me inside. I spent all night trying to focus on communications instead of the fact that I’d seen my girlfriend turn into a damn snake monster.

The next day I went back to the apartment and all traces of water and snake Shelly were gone. It was late in the afternoon I wasn’t sure what to do, but something inside was telling me I needed to turn on the news, which was really weird since I never watched the news, but I listened to my gut and this is what I heard the moment I turned it on:

“It was another spine-chilling morning here at Lake Kenzick as another body has been discovered on its shores. This makes the third appearance of a body in the lake this month. The victim was 28 year-old Mitchell Jensen, local student at Henley College. His body was found floating in the water early this morning and after being autopsied by police it has been determined that this was the work of the killer that has been terrorizing the country for the past seven years. Each victim has been found with two circular holes in their necks and drained of blood. This sick individual perpetrating these crimes has claimed the lives of 83 victims. Police are now instilling a curfew, insisting everyone make sure their doors and windows are locked, and that no one is allowed out of their homes past sundown.”

Seven years… How long I’d known Shelly. Two circular holes in the victims’ necks… Those wicked fangs in her mouth. How had I not known about these murders? Surely someone must’ve tried to tell me about it? Unless… Unless Shelly had been keeping me from knowing. It would have been easy for her to get into my phone because I’d told her my password after she absentmindedly asked me if she could use mine to make a call since hers were dead, and since I’ve never paid any attention to the news local or otherwise… She’d probably been deleting messages and voicemails about anything having to do with her and the killing she’d been doing.

Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, I know she’s been killing people and she’s some sort of creepy monster or something, but… I still sort of love Shelly. It’s been about a week since I found out about her secret and it’s really hard for me to go around pretending like nothing’s wrong. Please help me. Tell me what I should do. Tell me what I’m dealing with here because I have absolutely no idea. I’m too scared to do any research into this because we use the same computer and I don’t want her getting suspicious, and I don’t just want to break up with her without a reason because then she might get even more suspicious. Just help me. I’m begging here.