Beast

Not Normal?

    I stare at the man in the doorway, completely appalled. Who was this guy, anyway? The mans eyes circled around the room slowly, eyeing each startled looking face. They stopped a little to my left, on Tristan. 

Tristan looks to Phoenix, and they share an almost knowing glance. 

I don't think anyone else noticed. It looked to me like everyone else was too freaked out to even move. I turn to look at Tristan, just in time to see something I didn't think was possible. 

   His eyes, they were changing. From their normal blue, to yellow, and then a flash of red. My eyes widen. 

I look back to the man in the doorway, to see him relax his muscles before bounding over the teacher's desk and through the window. He jumped out of a third story window. 

I jump off the ground, and look through the now shattered glass. I see the man, completely unharmed, running across the parking lot and into the forest nearby. 

What had I just seen?

                                                                                 ***

My eyebrows scrunch in confusion. What kind of person has eyes that yellow? What kind of person can jump out of a three story window, and survive in well enough shape to run off?

I just don't get it. 

After the man was clear of the building, our whole school had been sent home. Nobody seems to know what happened. 

What I'm really wondering, though, Is what do Tristan and Phoenix have to do with this strange man? 

I roll over on my purple bed sheets and pull my phone off the nightstand. I quickly scroll through the contacts on my iPhone 4, and find Logan. 

He seems to be the only normal one to me. 

I press the call option, and wait for it to start ringing. He answers after three rings. 

"Hello?"

"Hey." I reply. "Can you come over?" I listen for an answer. It takes a little while. 

"Um yeah, sure. I'll be over in 10 minutes. I have to walk." 

"Alright, see you." I hang up, sliding my phone into my back pocket. I look around the room, boxes still piled about my height up the light blue walls. There is little of my hard wood floor showing through the piles of dirty clothes. 

I quickly get up, piling the clothes into my hamper and shoving the empty boxes in my closet. I have to push on the door hard to get it to close. 

I look around my bedroom once more. It seems presentable enough. I slide out the door, pulling it closed behind me, and quietly walk down the stairs. 

Mom is still at work, It's only three forty-five. 

I walk to the entry closet and grab the first coat I see. I might as well meet him in the driveway so he's not alone for his entire walk. 

                                                                          ***

Once I see Logan, I jog up to him. His cheeks and nose are flushed from the cold, and his eyes seem as blue as ice. His lips are a bit purple, and slightly parted. He, too is wearing a coat, and his floppy brown hair is a mess around his head. I can see his breath in the air. 

"Hey." He says. "What's up?" He tilts his head a bit to the side, and I fall into step next to him. 

"Nothing. I just need to talk to you." 

Logan has been to my house a few times before, that's how he knows where I live. In the month I've been at school, we have managed to have movie night every Friday and work on homework together a few other days. 

You could say he's my best friend. 

We continue up my driveway, the only sounds are our feet crunching on the gravel and the occasional chirp of some Cardinals. Cardinals are one of the only birds I see around here in the cold. 

"So," Logan says, looking at me. "What'cha need to talk about all the sudden?" He says it in such a voice, I don't think anyone else could pull it off. 

I laugh, replying "We'll can talk once were inside."

I open the front, sighing as a breeze of warm air washes over me. Logan takes off his coat and hangs it on our chestnut colored wooden railing. 

"Want some food?" I ask, already knowing his answer. I don't even wait for a reply before walking off to the kitchen. 

Logan laughs from the other room/ "You know me too well!" 

I laugh, too, and soon hear him run up behind me. I reach up into one of the white cupboards and pull out a box of pop-tarts. Logan loves pop-tarts, I've realized, especially the chocolate fudge ones. 

I toss the box at him and stand on my tip toes to grab a bag of chips. 

Logan and I sit around at the kitchen table for a little while, just eating. He somehow managed to eat four packs of pop-tarts. Four packs! That's eight individual pop-tarts. 

"I'm a growing boy!" He says. Typical Logan thing to say. 

"Oh, yeah!" Logan says suddenly. "Why did you tell me to come over again? I know it wasn't for me to eat all your pop-tarts." He grins, and I can't help but mirror his emotion. 

"Well, It's about what happened at school today." His smile drops.

"Oh." He says. 

"I saw something, something I don't think anyone else saw." He nods, urging me to go on. "Tristan's eyes." I say.

He sucks in a quick breath. 

"They changed color. They turned red."

Logan is speechless. His mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. "Uh Cody?" I nod. "There's something you should know... about Tristan, Phoenix and me."

I scrunch my eyebrows together in confusion. Him too? 

"We're not exactly... Normal"

Logan doesn't get to finish, because my mom suddenly opens the front door. I hear her taking off her coat, and dropping her keys in the key bowl by the door. 

She walks around the corner and jumps a bit. "Oh hey, kids! You scared me." She smiles. "Cody, you should tell me when you are going to have friends over. Usually you are just in your room."

I smile apologetically. "Sorry, mom."

I look at Logan, who is already watching me. "So, Logan," My mom asks. "Do you want to stay for dinner?" 

He smiles at my mom and as expected, says "Sure!"

He really will do anything for food.