by Riley MacDonell

Created on: October 04, 2009

She was that classic kind of beauty, you know? Her hair was smooth and ebony, flowing down past her shoulders in silky waves. Her teenage skin was flawless porcelain; her childlike eyes a brilliant emerald green. Everyone used to tell her that one day she would make a wonderful pinup if only she applied herself and worked towards building a portfolio for that day in the future when her life was at a crossroads and it was either now or never. But she was a free spirit, a dreamer, a girl with her head in the clouds and her mind millions of miles away. She was nothing at all like me but somehow we were still the best of friends.

Katherine was the yin to my yang. She was a believer and I was a nonbeliever. She lived in a world whimsical and extraordinary and I lived in a world morose and mundane. Together we shared a love for all things spooky and sinister, outlandish and bizarre. It was what had brought us together in the first place, many moons ago. The Eleventh Annual Western Massachusetts Zombie Prom and Sock Hop, one of the biggest nights of the year in the lives of oddities like ourselves. She had won first place zombie prom queen and I had been first runner up. We hit it off that night and things were never quite the same for either of us after that.

The year that everything changed started out normal enough. The bitterness of January gave way to the warming winds of March, then the oppressive heat of August and soon the first signs of cold again in late September. By the first of October we were already planning our outfits for Halloween. Not only were we going to be zombies but we were going to be pirate pinups as well. Kill three birds with one costume, so to speak. Every afternoon we'd ride Bus 62 home from school to my house and rush upstairs to continue the madness that was Halloween prep. At Wal-Mart we bought enough fabric to clothe a family for one whole year and enough thread to sew up a million ripped knees. At Goodwill we bought assorted bobbles and bangles and other finishing touches. And of course we bought mass amounts of morbid monster makeup wherever we could get our hands on the stuff. Halloween was just two weeks away and we were ready. We were itching with anticipation to try out our masterpieces. Thirteen days and we were good as gold.

Then it happened. Katherine died. It didn't even come as that much of a shock to me when the news was finally passed down the grapevine from her parents to mine and from my parents to me. I guessed it.

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