Howlers

Prologue

April 1, 2016

Beep!

Beep!

Beep!

"Uuuggghhhh" Beep!

Bee-

Valleri sat up and stretched, her back cracking and feeling like Heaven afterwards. She relaxed then did it again four times.

Her long, neon green highlighted hair was all over the place, the very light brown skin around her mouth covered in spit, and her right tatted forearm was covered in markings from her blanket, due to her always sleeping on the right side of her body.

She sighed and slowly opened her eyes, blinked once, the violet orbs glancing at her clock after adjusting to the light. The time on the clock read 10:20am. She groaned and fell back in her bed. She was late for school, yet again.

She tiredly got out of bed, made it, and made her way out her room into the bathroom she shared with her family. She did her business, then grabbed a face towel and did a quick bird bath, washing all the hotspots.

She went back to her room, deposited her dirty clothes and towel in her hamper and put on her black DDD bra, her batman underwear, grey short-shorts, her oversized Foxy Pirate shirt, thigh high black socks, and her combat boots. She seated herself at her vanity, stood then sat back down, and put on her several chokers, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, and her septum ring, then proceeded to do her makeup.

She put on foundation, contoured a bit then proceeded to put on eyeshadow primer, then she covered her eyes with dark grey shadow and did a long Arabian liner. She then put on grey, liquid matte lipstick, and her favorite blush, then finally she put on her mascara and glasses. 

She then combed her hair and then pulled the top part of her hair back and put into a ponytail, leaving the rest to be free.

Once done she looked in the mirror, nodded, then left her room.

As Val poured herself her usual cereal she noticed something was off. She patted her self down and sighed, her heart racing for a moment.

"Forgot my phone."

She jogged back to her room, snatched her iPhone 6 Plus off the charger and chose the Bay Max phone case for today. She then rushed back to her cereal to eat it before it got soggy. She hated soggy cereal.

After Valleri finished her cereal, and washed the bowel out, she stuffed her charger, books, inhaler, anxiety meds, and lunch money into her backpack and grabbed the keys to her blue jeep. Before she left however she put everything back and proceeded to do it again.

Once done she popped her morning pills into her mouth. She swallowed and shook her head. She stood there for a moment then put her headphones in and headed out to the garage.

Time to go learn. Yay...

------------

Valleri was too busy jamming to her music to notice how quiet her neighborhood was. She didn't notice that Mr.David wasn't on his way to work. Shelly and Lucinda weren't gossiping on their porch, other usually late teens weren't rushing to school, nor were there parents out, heading back home from dropping off their kids.

At home Valleri never noticed that her Uncle's bed, as well as her little brother's, had been untouched. The comfy mattresses never graced by the bodies of the two males getting back from a late night football game. But it wasn't unusual for Valleri to miss things. She often shut the world out and stayed in her head, just going through the motions.

As she pulled up to the high school she pulled out her headphones and finally looked around. Uummm... No one was here. She was literally the only one parked in the school parking lot. Usually it'd be full and she'd have to park on the side of the road, but not this time.

Valleri shrugged and played it off as a joke. It was after all, April fools day.

-------------

The doors to the school opened with a push and Valleri walked inside, her eyes glued to her phone, completely looking over the fact that the halls of the school were empty and quite, the usual lovey-dovey or delinquent teens out of sight.

Valleri didn't know that however for she was too busy looking at the several missed calls from her Uncle Danton. She sighed and clicked on the voicemail as she opened her locker.

The heavy French accent of her Uncle Danton sounded in her ears as she put away the books she wouldn't need and grabbed the papers she needed for class out her locker.

"Valleri, hey, Andre and I are going to be home a little late, but don't worry, it's nothing bad just some emergency drill or whatever-"

Crash!

Valleri jumped, her phone and backpack falling from her hand as she stared down the hall, frozen.

"H-Hello?" Her voice echoed through the empty halls and Valiant realized just how alone she seemed to be. She gulped. "It's just a prank. Just a prank."

A very elaborate and well thought out prank, but a prank nonetheless. Kids these days didn't know the term 'to far'.

Valleri rolled her eyes and bent down to the floor gathering her belongings and checking her phone screen. She sighed in relief at seeing the perfectly fine screen. She kissed her case.

"Thank you Bay Max."

Bang!

Valleri jumped up, her eyes zoned in on the now ajar door of a classroom, that'd been slammed opened.

She frowned and against her will began to walk toward it. "Hello?"

No answer.

"H....Hello?"

Silence.

Her impatience and frustration rose and she glared at the door and as she faced the empty room, her eyes rolling she said:

"Ha ha very funny guys you can-"

She never did find things funny nowadays. And now, this sure as hell wasn't funny. Her eyes widened in pure horror when a six-foot tall, thing stepped out from the classroom.

It was close to her. So close that their chests touched and Valleri felt its warmth. Oh God. It had a putrid stench. Like a mix between blood and dead meat. Valleri gagged, bile rising in her throat as her breakfast dared to come back up.

It's skin was brown with dark brown fur covering its head and random parts of its body. It had a few wounds that-to Valleri's surprise-were slowly healing. That was all Valleri could deduct about its appearance however, for she didn't dare look up nor down. Lord help me.