"She's a girl."

"Ooooooooh."

"No, she has a girlfriend."

"Triple ooooh!"

I laughed and punched Ash in his arm, causing the beer to spill out sideways and onto his skate shoes. He looked down with acute disappointment, probably more for his lost beer than his shoes.

"Well, I guess that's a sign to get another one," I said, and turned to make my way to the bar.

His face lit up. "Get two this time!"

"Yeah, yeah." I waved at him and walked over to the bar near the side. With the concrete floors and the bar, which consisted of fold-up tables and drinks kept in camping coolers, the whole venue had this "let's throw a party in my parents' bas.e.m.e.nt" kind of vibe.

Of course, when the music is bad, the drink line is longer. There were five people in front of me and the ordering was going slow. I tapped my combat boots impatiently and was adjusting my Mastodon shirt when the dread-locked girl in front of me turned around and gave me the eye.

"Nice shirt," she said. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Her voice was very low, almost manly. Her eyes were red.

Not because she'd been crying but her actual irises were red.

She was wearing vibrant red contacts with streaks of gold in them. They were beautiful but deadly-looking and sent a shiver down the back of my spine.

"Thank you," I said, my voice trembling slightly. I was suddenly very afraid and I didn't know why. They were contacts, right?

She smiled, her red lips spreading slowly, until I saw all of her teeth.

Her very misshapen, sharp, dagger-like teeth.

Aside from the lipstick, she had the exact grin of a shark.

My eyes widened. A stabbing feeling erupted from my stomach.

She continued smiling. A whiff of that foul, rotten smell that plagued the Port-Town bathroom came back and swirled around her, creating a wave of nausea throughout my body.

Then she took her eyes off of me, looked past my shoulder and smiled again. A tall, beefy man with long hair and a pentagram shirt walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

"Hey babe," he said. "Still wating?"

She nodded and they both turned around so I was staring at the back of their heads as they chatted to each other about how c.r.a.ppy the band was.

For some reason, I felt shaky at the incident and the stabbing in my stomach intensified. What the h.e.l.l? Did that girl actually get her teeth shaped to look like that? Who in their right mind would do such a thing? My G.o.d, Portland was f.u.c.king weird sometimes.

I found myself automatically taking a step back, nearly b.u.mping into the person behind me. That wretched odor still clung to the air and I was seconds away from throwing up.

I walked away from the line as quickly and calmly as I could and made a beeline to the women's washroom.

As I burst through the door, I was relieved to see that it was empty, though the fact that it was a disgusting mess did nothing to stop the vomit that was threatening my throat. I rushed into an open stall and puked my guts up, seeing the half-digested remains of my mom's roast pork splash into the bowl. It was enough to make me vomit again.

When I was done, I leaned against the cold metal door and caught my breath. The smell was gone, thank G.o.d, but the nausea still remained, coupled with the pains in my stomach. I sucked in my breath, trying to get air, keeping my hands on my abdomen. They felt like extreme period cramps but it wasn't my time of the month yet. However, my last period was barely existent, so maybe my body was making up for it tenfold.

As the pain subsided enough for me to stand up straight, I left the dingy bathroom and went back into the chaotic noise of the venue. I ignored the drink line, not wanting to see the vampire-eyed, scary-toothed girl again, and went straight to Ash. It took a few moments to locate him in the sprawling mess of sweaty limbs, tattoos and piercings, so by the time I did, the pain was just as intense as before.

He looked crestfallen at my empty hands but that quickly turned into concern.

"Perry, are you OK?" he asked. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

I shook my head and leaned against him, the pain so intense that I was having trouble standing up.

"Can you drive me home?" I squeaked, my eyes pinched closed.

"Of course," he said eagerly, putting his long arm around me and ushering me outside of the building.

What transpired next was one of the longest car rides of my life. I didn't live that far from the venue, but the pain was so bad that I was biting the edge of my seatbelt to keep from crying out. Several times Ash was adamant that he take me to the hospital but I stubbornly refused. I just needed to be home where I could be in pain without being a bother to anyone except the people I'm normally a bother to.

I said my goodbyes to a persistent Ash, telling him I'd see him at work tomorrow. I doubted it, though. I barely made it to the front door.

"You're home early," my mother said to me from her armchair in the living room, where she was flipping through a house magazine and sipping a steaming cup of tea. I stumbled past her, clutching my stomach, heading for the stairs.

"I don't feel well," I managed to say through grinding teeth.

"You drink too much?" she chided me.

I barely heard her. I leaned against the post at the base of the stairs, unable to make my way up.

"Perry? What is it?"

She joined me at my side and smoothed the hair away from my face and put her hand against my forehead.

"You're burning up. Did something happen? When did this start?"

"What's going on?" I heard Ada say from the top of the stairs.

I don't remember what happened next, so perhaps I fainted. Next thing I knew I was lying in my bed, curled up in a ball on my side, with someone trying to take my boots off.

"Perry? Can you hear me?" It was my father. I lifted my head as much as I could, still reeling from the cramps, the hot little knives that cut away at my ovaries, and looked around my room. My mother was rushing in the door with a bunch of pill bottles in her hand and water. Ada was bent over untying my laces and my father was standing in the corner, arms crossed, worried but stern.

"Where does it hurt?" he asked in a no-nonsense voice. "Were you drugged?"

"No," I whispered painfully. "I wasn't drugged. It's cramps. I've never had such bad cramps before."

If my dad was the eye-rolling type, his own would have shot up to the ceiling.

"Just cramps?"

"Hey!" Ada snarled at him. "You have no idea."

He looked both embarra.s.sed and taken aback. He glanced at my mother but she just nodded.

"Ada's right, honey," she said softly, then came to my side and peered at my face. "Just be glad you don't suffer from them because when they are bad, they are really bad."

"These are scary bad, mom," I said. My hand clutched around the corner of my pillow as another wave of pain rushed through me.

"How is your period? Are you bleeding more than normal?"

"That's it, I'm out of here," my dad said quickly, and left the room. For a theology professor, he really wasn't very mature when it came to the female body. Or maybe that was par for the course.

Ada sighed in disgust. "Grow up, dad, jeez." She removed my other boot and told us she was going to go find the hot water bottle.

I tried to ignore the pain by concentrating on my mom's face as she fiddled with a pill bottle's stubborn childproof cap. Even though it was a quiet Sat.u.r.day night at home, she still looked as elegant as ever. She was dressed in a black jumpsuit, with a mint-colored Celtic shawl wrapped around her. Her face was lined with worry (it usually was whenever I was around), her light blonde bangs brushing the edges of her clear blue eyes. She looked every inch the Swede she was, yet at the same time, her face looked strangely familiar. Not familiar in the "d'uh, she's my mother and has been for 23 years" kind of familiar, but that "I've seen someone lately who looks like her" kind of way. Of course, in my pain-riddled mind, I couldn't begin to imagine who that could be.

She wrestled two ibuprofens out of the container and handed them to me. "This should help with the pain; it might take a while though."

I took the pills with a grateful smile and drank a heap of water to wash them down, hoping they wouldn't come back up again. It was strange that I was so nauseous earlier and wasn't now. Strange that the meat smell followed me into the club. I shuddered at the thought of the woman I saw.

"Are you cold?" my mother asked, tucking the blanket around me tightly.

I wasn't; in fact, I'd been especially warm lately, but I smiled and nodded anyway. It sounds sad but my mother rarely doted on me, so sick or not, I was going to get as much attention from her as I could.

"You haven't been well for some time," she said gently, and patted my arm. "I know you're going through a rough time, but things will get better. You'll get a better job and you'll find love with someone good. You'll find your way, pumpkin."

My mother was being uncommonly nice. I frowned at her, trying to figure out what her deal was, but she paid no attention. She straightened up and clapped her hands together. "I'll put on some chicken noodle soup for you."

"Lipton," I croaked after her as she left the room. "Or else I'll have to pick out those gross chicken chunks."

After she left, I gritted my teeth until my jaw began to hurt and eventually drifted off to sleep. I was soon awakened by a presence nearby. Ada must have been back in the room with me.

"Did you find the hot water bottle?" I mumbled into my pillow, not wanting to move or open my eyes.

I heard the door shut and felt Ada's presence move toward me. She stopped at the foot of the bed.

Stopped.

And waited.

I could hear her breathing; it was low and ragged, like her lungs were filled with loose stones.

"Ada?" I asked again. "What are you doing?"

When she didn't respond, I opened my eyes and raised my head in her direction.

There was no one there.

The door was closed but Ada wasn't in my room. I was alone.

The back of my neck was enveloped in icy p.r.i.c.kles. I had just heard someone, heard them breathing as clear as day.

"h.e.l.lo?" I asked timidly, my voice sounding extra small. There was this indescribable feeling around me, my bedroom blanketed by a heavy, eerie vibe. Everything looked normal, except the air near the lamp in the corner seemed to bend and warp, like a sheet of moving plastic.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up slowly. I tried to focus on the anomaly until my eyes adjusted and everything looked fine again.

"Ada," I said loudly, hoping she'd hear me wherever she was in the house. "Did you close my door?"

I waited for a response, waited to hear the breathing again. I held my own breath.

The doorbell rang, its clang causing my heart to seize. I gasped, surprised and thoroughly spooked.

It rang again.

And again.

Then stopped.

My alarm clock on my bedside table said it was 11:42 at night. Who on earth was ringing our doorbell at this hour? Was it Ash?

Rebecca?

Someone... else?

I felt a tightness in my chest at that last thought and carefully eased myself out of the bed and over to the window. I peered though it onto the driveway below. The motion detector lights weren't on and I couldn't see a car or anyone out there. I listened, hearing the front door open and my mother saying "h.e.l.lo?" into a darkness that didn't answer back.

There was a single knock at my own door. I cried out, my heart hammering wildly, and spun around to see a shadow sliding underneath the door and into my room.

"Ada?"

Another knock. My door shook from its singular impact.

"Mom?" Now my voice was shaking.

Another knock, louder this time, as if to shut me up.

"Um, come in?"

I walked over to it, taking silent, slow steps, listening for whoever was on the other side. Whoever it was had knocked three times.

I heard that breathing again.

I paused in mid-stride, then took one more step until I was up against the door. I reached for the handle in slow motion, hesitating before placing my hand on it, afraid of what I might find on the other side. I was always afraid of what I might find on the other side. I knew better now than to chalk up anything strange as pure paranoia.

If I thought there was a monster in my closet, there probably was a monster in my closet.

My eyes flitted to the shadow on the floor. As if to prove my point, the shadow slowly eased back under the doorframe until it was gone.

It was time to find out what was going on.

I grabbed the handle and flung the door open...

Ada was at the very end of the hallway near my parents' bedroom, the red hot water bottle jostling in her hands.