A Real Date

I parked my father's brand new Bel Air outside Sally's house and stared at the big yellow front door. Oh, gosh, I sure am sweet on her.

My dad said he'd only let me take out the car if I were to help him around the house this past week. I had done my paper route, helped him mow the lawn, I even helped with painting the molding in the living room—heck, I had helped Mom roast the chicken for dinner! By all accounts, I worked like a dog and got the car for the night, but only because the whole time, I had thought of Sally.

Her blonde hair, those hazel eyes, those calves that snuck out of her skirt. She was a doll, and I wanted to make her my gal.

I had first seen her in Mr. Hayes' math class. I'm a dullard at math, but she sure is brilliant. Maybe she raised her hand a bit much for my liking, but she seemed to know everything about numbers and algebra and whatnot.

I did not want to strike out with Sally like I usually did with girls. She was so pretty and I was so quiet, I was sure she never noticed me. A lot of the fellas said that about Sally though. That she was weird and preoccupied. Like she lived on a different planet.

I had bumped into her after class and asked her how she got so good at doing all these calculations and whatnot in the first place.

"Oh, I don't know," she had blushed, "I know someone really smart, I guess," then she looked up at me and my heart almost exploded, like a real a-bomb, right in my chest.

"Oh, gee, I don't know about that," I had cackled back. I had caught her after school a couple more times and even walked her home one day.

She talked about math the whole time, and she said she loved to look at the stars at night, to see into the vast depths of the universe.

"It makes me feel so small, but at the same time, I like knowing there's so much out there—that I'm not alone," she had spoken a little softly that day when we were walking to her house after school. Her eyes had stared at the darkening sky with a little twig of a smile…Those thin lips, I think she uses cherry lip balm.

I just knew I needed to see more of her. There was a school dance coming up, over a month away, I figured I'd drive to her house and ask her out, see if she's wanting to be my gal and go to the dance together, a regular old pair of love birds.

And so, I drove to her house and cleared my throat. I got out of the car and fixed my hair. I walked over to her yellow front door. I tried to look into the house, but the curtains covered the windows.

I walked up and I knocked. Nervous at first, but then I gained my confidence. I couldn't afford to mess this up. I'd liked Sally for so long. There's no chance I could mess up something like this. I knocked again. No answer. Strange, Sally was usually home at this hour.

I waited almost a minute. It felt like an hour, and so I knocked again.

"Sally!" I yelled through the yellow door, and then I heard footsteps muffled behind it. I could see light disappear through the eye hole as someone looked through it.

I heard Sally's voice, but she distorted it and tried to make it sound lower. It was confusing. She said, "Sally is not home right now, come back another time."

"Sally," I said, "It's me! I have something to talk to you about, I think it's important." I heard some more mumbling from behind the door, and finally, the yellow door squeaked open.

"Oh, it's you." Sally said, her hazel eyes just peaking out from behind the door. "I didn't expect it to be you."

I pushed the door open wider and saw the whole scene. She was finishing buttoning up her pink blouse. She had messed up some of the buttons and I could see her brassiere underneath. I looked at her face, and I saw that her eyes were dark, smeared with mascara, her cherry lip balm was all smudged around her lips, and her hair was all frazzled and out of place. Even her skirt seemed to be put on in a rushed way. Though Sally started to say more to me, I did not hear her.

I looked over her shoulder. My heart sank into the darkest depths of the ocean, I became just like the ancient ships sunk long ago; an empty, hollow vessel long forgotten at the bottom of the depths of the world.

In the shadows of her home, which had no lights on, I saw a human-looking thing—but it was like no human I'd ever seen before. The light from outside splashed subtly onto its features. Its gray, sallow skin was wrinkled. Its arms were long and grotesque. Its fingers were pale and lifeless, yet the thing moved, ever so slightly. I saw black bulbous eyes, and where the nose should be, I saw nothing. There was the thinnest sliver of darkness where its mouth supposedly was. Around its barren features, there was the smudge of pink cherry lip balm. There was a trail of it down the thing's bare, thin chest.

I looked back at Sally; her eyes looked accusing and uncaring for me, as though I was nothing of interest. Her eyes were pointed with anger.

"This is why I didn't open the damn door," she said, the face beneath her muddled makeup growled with anger.

The gray thing got up out of its chair. Its long, dangling limbs propelled down to the floor like hanging nooses. Its long, sharp fingers reached out for me and I swear I saw the thing lick its lips with two tongues whispering from its mouth.

Sally reached her own hand out and yanked at the ruffles of my shirt. Everything went black and warm and wet.