Red, blood red. It soaks through her white dress like spilled ink. She sends me a wild look, eyes bloodshot as a dying doe, "Help me."

She huals Bret up, her small frame dragging his dead weight like a hay bale. The red solo cup in my hand crunches beneath my grip.

"Now, help me right now, Blake." She loses grip on him as I lose my cup, stale beer splashing on my clay mud boots, "I can't carry him by myself."

Miranda is pretty, blonde, petite. Tinker bell come to life. Her lips are smeared from kissing, bold red. I gave it to her as a birthday present last year, when we were a little younger and a lot less stained.

White Innocence, stained red. Miranda's white dress, stained with Bret's blood.

Bret's eyes stare up at me, slightly amused. Funny, he's still in on a joke, even when he's dead. Dead. My stomach twists like a knife. Oh god, I'm gonna' be sick.

"Really, Blake? Man up." Miranda's sharp little accent cuts at me, her sharp stained nails clawing at Bret's chest for purchase.

My puke glints in the faint house lights, tinted red with the fruit punch that tastes like gasoline.

"We have to call someone, Miranda."

"No, we don't."

"Yes, we do. We can't just-"

She comes at me like a tornado, fast and hard and full of destruction. Her open palm hits me clean across the face, the sound of impact ringing out in the silence of the woods.

Funnily enough, the sky didn't turn green when I met Miranda, it was as clear and blue as her eyes. All she's ever been was a natural disaster disguised as a girl. I should've heard the alarm bells blaring... but all I heard was my pounding heart.

The lights from the house cut through the trees in jagged lines, slicing her pretty face into black and red slashes. She looks as dangerous as her tone.

"Be quiet and move the body."

The body. Not Bret, not 'our friend', not even the human decency to call him 'Slob'. She always called him Slob.

He's heavier than I remember. He was always hoping on my back and wrestling me. He was lighter then. Maybe death adds a few pounds. All those skinny party girls in that house would hate to know the grim reaper is equivalent to a full thanksgiving plate.

Red Oak Lake, that's where she wants me to take him. Bret and I would throw firecrackers at each other every Fourth of July on Red Oak Lake. I still have a scar on my right eyebrow. Is that all I'll have left of Bret? A scar from a poorly timed throw?

"Go, go, go," Miranda stumbles on her own feet, hurrying deeper into the shadows of the forest, "you're doing great, Blake. So good, baby."

My chin wobbles, fat hot tears rolling down my cheeks. Bret is still warm. He'll be cold soon. Red hot to icy blue in twenty minutes flat. Alive and then dead. Like that, in a flash.

"... Blake, are you listening? Focus, for godsake." Miranda breaks past the thicket, into the clearing leading to the lake. "Go faster, we're right there."

Bret's eyes reflect the moon. He always pefered the night. Miranda stands at the edge of the lake, arms crossed. Her eyes don't reflect the moon. A void, more lifeless than Bret's eyes.

"Are you crying?" Her lip curls in disgust. She's never looked so hideous before, like a monster, "Jesus Christ, get a grip, Blake. Pathetic."

She killed him. We were kissing in the woods, warm lips and wandering hands. Bret jumped out of the dark, wearing a werewolf mask. Miranda screamed. Bret was drunk, teasing and laughing and she... she lost it. Took the beer bottle from his loose hand. Broke it against a red wood. Stuck it in his chest.

Bret looked at her, than at me, back to her. Uttered one word, one name, and then dropped dead.

Miranda stares up at me now, clutching at my hand as it tightens on her throat. Her face is turning red, red like her nails, red like the burning hot agony in my chest.

I blink away my tears. She claws at my cheek, snarling. I whimper, coughing up sobs. Miranda utters one word, one name... and the she goes limp.

She falls into the water with a splash. Bret floats in gently. They both sink the same. The water turns red in the wake of their bodies.

I sit down, jeans soaked in the cold mud. I sniffle, staring up at the moon. Red and blue lights glint off the lake's surface. Red, blue, red, blue, red red red.

I close my eyes. Their voices recochet off the walls of my skull. Bret's watery voice, full of blood. Miranda's voice, a choking rasp.

All I can hear is 'Blake, Blake, Blake.'

But all I see is red, red red...