Serena Was a Nice Girl

         At first I wasn't even going to go to the reunion. After all, high school was thirty years ago. Except for the people who still live around here, that I see every day, who is there that I even remember or want to see? Then I thought how depressing it would be to see us all middle aged and fat and bald. But Harvey said let's go to the thing, and what else did I have to do? And Eunice wanted to go. It wasn't her graduating class but she knew a lot of the people who would be there.

         Harvey and Simon and I were buddies all through high school. I see Harvey all the time, but it was good to see Simon. There we were, pushing fifty with wedding rings, jobs and responsibilities

         Eunice got together with some girl friends right away, which left Harvey and me catching up with Simon. The old gym was decorated the way maybe some people remembered the prom. We put on the name badges and walked around greeting people. Thirty years under the bridge doesn't leave you with much in common to talk about. Simon was looking at the sign in list. "Serena is here."

         I might forget a lot of people but I couldn't forget Serena. Back in school everybody liked Serena. She was a real nice girl, the kind of girl you respect. Simon and Harvey and I had a reason to remember her more than other people.

         We stood there with our drinks saying nothing but each of us knew what the others were thinking. It happened one night thirty years ago, right after graduation, out on the old Yardville road. Serena worked in town and she caught a ride home that left her off on the Yardville road right by the lane that led down to her folks' place, We were there because there was this guy we all knew named Rimmer. He was a bad one and most people had reason to be afraid of him. He was one of those people who have no conscience and think because they want something that makes it right. He was maybe three years older than we were. People said he packed a gun, and if he did, shooting someone was what he would do if he felt like it.

         The day before he was mad and talking crazy about Serena. He asked her out and she said no. He didn't think anyone had a right to say no to him. He said that little bitch needed to be taught a lesson, and let's see who she's too good for when he got done with her. He didn't have any reason to be afraid of us so he told us what he was going to do. He was going to meet her when she got off her ride after work.

         Well we couldn't let that happen, Serena was a good friend since Kindergarten, somehow we had to stop this.

         Without any plan we were hiding in the bushes at the end of the lane. We heard his motorcycle and hunkered down behind the rocks and bushes. Rimmer hid his bike in the brush and then settled down to wait. He was mumbling and talking to himself and I guess we realized there wasn't going to be anything we could do.

         Pretty soon Serena arrived. After that it all happened fast. She screamed when Rimmer grabbed her. We were like paralyzed watching him drag her between the trees at the edge of the woods.

         Then we heard Rimmer scream. It looked as if Serena had got loose from him and was rising up to stand over him, taller than him. It was Serena and then again it wasn't. The thing that wasn't Serena looked over at us with glowing red eyes. Then she reached down and grabbed Rimmer by the hair and dragged him into the woods. As we were running away we could hear Rimmer screaming. We heard him stop screaming.

         They found what was left of him in the woods about a week later. And we never told what we saw because Serena was a nice girl.

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