Human

9.

            After they left the party people slowly started to relax again. I, on the other hand, needed to know what the crap is going on.

Why does Garrett follow Carrianne around like a wounded puppy if he can't stand her? Also, what was up with Garrett tonight? He said he wasn't going to come and then shows up anyway. On top of that, then there was the really strange thing with David's drink. He wasn't unsteady when he picked it up and I had been looking right at it when it just poured out backwards onto him. It was super weird, and then Garrett was smiling like he knew that would happen. I would usually think a thought like that would be completely insane, but I also just saw the power turn off and back on almost as if Carrianne was the one who was controlling it.

Now I do sound crazy.

I downed my cup of beer and went to find Brittany.

She was sitting in a lounge chair by the pool alone when I went to sit beside her. "I need you to tell me what you meant the other day." I said as soon as I sat down.

Brittany took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Cade, please."

"Tell me." I said again.

Brittany sat up and turned her body towards mine while she glanced around to see that no one was near us. "You saw what just happened." She whispered to me.

"I'm not sure what I just saw."

"They aren't normal Cadence." She said after a minute. "I know how crazy that sounds, but it is true. Carrianne and her family, Garrett and his, they're off. There is something about them. Weird things happen when they are around, and I'm not sure how to explain it to you."

"But what kind of weird things?" I pressed her further.

"Like what just happened. David somehow happens to randomly dump his cup out on himself, the lights going out and coming back on pretty much on Carrianne's cue. I don't know much about Garrett honestly, but Carrianne..." She trailed off and took a sip of her drink. "Carrianne is messed up, and her sister too. I haven't ever met her brother-in-law but I am sure it is the same deal. Garrett's brother also."

I put my hand out and rested it on her knee. "What have they done?"

Brittany looked pale as she glanced around the party again. "Freshman year, when I was new I tried to befriend anyone I could, including Natasha and Garrett. Carrianne was very standoffish to me, but I just thought she was being that way because she thought I was trying to steal Garrett from her, which I wasn't. One day in the locker room when no one else was around she came up to me and was acting weirdly nice. She apologized for being so hateful to me and then held her arms open like she wanted to hug me. I was so surprised she was being nice I stepped in and hugged her back. But then I felt it."

Brittany wouldn't look into my eyes. "Felt what Brit?"

"It's going to sound crazy, and you aren't going to believe me anyway." She said staring at her hands.

"Come on, just tell me." I held my breath when she finally looked up into my eyes. There were tears stinging at the corners of them and I could see that whatever she was remembering was a very painful thing for her.

"She burned me." She whispered urgently.

I wasn't sure I heard her right. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she burned me." She said again. "When I hugged her she put her hand on the top of my back and burned me."

"With what?" I asked shocked. I knew Carrianne seemed terrible, but I wouldn't have thought she was violent.

"Her hand." She told me. "Carrianne burned me with her hand."

"I don't understand." I told her truthfully.

"That's because it sounds impossible, but I swear it is true. When she put her hand on my back all of a sudden I could feel my flesh burning under her touch. I thought my skin was melting off. She held me tightly for what felt like forever and she whispered into my ear that I better stay the hell away from her and her friends or else she would burn more than just a spot on my back."

I wasn't sure what to think. Sure what had happened earlier was weird, but what Brittany was saying truly did sound crazy. I nodded my head to her because I couldn't think what else I should do. Brittany surveyed the area for the millionth time and then slid her white cardigan off of her tan shoulder and turned so that I could see the skin that was exposed there. I couldn't contain my gasp. Sure enough, on her right shoulder blade there was a section of burnt skin. The scars were old and had turned mostly white now, but you could still slightly make out the shape of a hand. "Oh my god Brittany!" I was shocked by it. "What did you do or say?"

"I didn't say anything, to anyone." She said back and quickly covered her shoulders back up. "I have kept my head down and away from them."

"This is insane." I said mostly to myself.

"You have been hanging out with Garrett, you haven't noticed anything strange?" She asked.

I wracked my brain, but I couldn't come up with anything, especially not like what she had just told me. "No, nothing. The cup thing with David was a little weird, but maybe David just accidently did that."

"You know that he didn't." She called me on my bluff.

"You said her sister and Garrett's brother too?"

"Last year Carrianne's sister had an argument with the butcher at the grocery store and she was really nasty to him. She was so angry just because he didn't cut the meat like she wanted. The next morning after, there was a fire at the store, but only in the meat section. Nothing else in the store was bothered, and the firemen never could find the source of how it started or stopped." I was getting more and more chills the longer I sat and listened to her. "Then a few months ago, Garrett's brother, I think his name is Dalton, he got in a fight at the sports bar out by the interstate. He is known to be a hot head with a crazy bad temper, but this time he got into a full blown fight with some guy. Nobody knows what the fight was about but people say he lifted the other guy, who was way bigger than him, like a full foot off the floor and then threw him against a wall. The guy broke his arm and shoulder, and people say the way Dalton threw him was like he was just tossing a sack of potatoes, not a full grown man."

"Was he arrested?" I asked with my eyes wide.

"At first, but then the other guy came forward and said he didn't want to press charges." She replied. "The McDuffie's paid for his hospital bills and then he moved away a few weeks later."

"This is all so unbelievable." I muttered.

Brittany nodded her head and drank some more of her drink. "If I hadn't experienced firsthand what Carrianne can do, I wouldn't believe any of it. People around her talk, but basically no one actually believe any of the things they say about them."

"What do people say about them?"

She looked me in the eyes. "They say they aren't human."

I had to laugh a little at the absurdity of it. "What are they then?"

"I don't know Cadence, I only know I want nothing to do with them and neither should you." After that she stood up and walked over to where Lucas and another guy were playing a card game.

All of this can't be true. The people around here must all just be really gullible or just plain insane. Stuff like 'none humans' just isn't real. That's for movies and scary stories, not real life.

Right?