I am going to break it up into seperate posts to make it less cumbersome. >.<
I haven't really written in first person until this short story I did for class.
Let me know what you think.

Well here it is...

Lost Dog
by Xandra Eiryklav

Case Worker: Caryn Verity
Case#:001453672: Lost Dog
Location: Vermilion, Ohio

I saw a Morning Journal at a convenient store on Route 58 and read up on what is going on in the area. Another complaint about how a stray dog came straight at a warden caught my eye. It happened somewhere by Vermilion on the Lake and something about that article jumped out at me. The fact that there was a string of missing dogs in the classified ads did nothing more than give me a reason to take a trip back to Vermilion. Since the time when I first found out about the Wire, everything bad that happened seemed to happen there. Reports of mysterious deaths, unexplained blackouts, missing children, and several encounters of the dead and furry kind made me weary about checking into the warden's run in with a seemingly invincible dog. Even people blind to the realities of life and death questioned that incident.
This was my first real case since I joined the Wire and I was not about to mess up on something so important. I bought the newspaper for Vincent, who I call Rigatoni because of his love of pasta, so he could read the article. Childish yes, as can be expected of a thirteen-year-old. I was teenager with important responsibilities, because I knew the truth. Just one day I woke up from thinking everything was normal and saw that monsters and creepy creatures were everywhere. Even in my classes I sat there silently wondering how no one else could tell that the kid sitting in the back of the class was not normal and neither were half of the teachers. Rigatoni told me that most hunters awakened in their late teens or early twenties. I seemed to be the kid of the group even upon my first arrival to the Shed as we called it. We had all met online prior to my first time to the Shed. Wire.WickedWithin.com was a website I found while surfing the net about the nightmares I was having. Little did I know, the man who I had nightmares about all of the time looming over my bed, was in fact a vampire.
I searched and found the Wire, which is basically a forum to inform hunters of where supernatural activity is going on. Hunters have banded together over the years to protect the people still blind to the monsters around them. When I found out about their meeting place I insisted on going despite what Rigatoni said. My parents did not understand that I was able to see things they couldn’t. They pawned it off on an overactive imagination and drinking pop before bed. These people understood me, and for the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere.
I began walking to Rigatoni’s house. I walked down North Ridge Road until I reached a familiar house next to a cemetery.
Leaves crunched under my boots, which gave me an urgency to get to my destination and not look back. I felt eyes watching me as I passed yet another rickety house on the way to Rigatoni’s. My walk to Rigatoni’s turned into a race against the fear I felt each and every day.
I gave up on the sidewalk and bolted straight across Mrs. Rodger’s lawn. She waved to me as I flew across her leaf-covered lawn. Rigatoni’s house was next door, and I moved as swiftly as my little legs could carry me. I grabbed the doorknob to the shed in his backyard but it was locked. I yanked my necklace clear off my neck to get a hold of the key I have been hiding under my shirt on a flimsy silver beaded cord. The beads spilled onto the cement block patio outside the shed and the key fell down my shirt. I threw off my coat and began flapping the edge of my shirt in hopes the key would fall to the ground.
The door opened and there was Mark, another hunter friend of Rigatoni. I just froze as I realized I was revealing my bare stomach to another hunter. I never seemed to make a good impression with the other hunters. Mark just smirked before he motioned for me to go into the shed. I blushed so hard I felt my cheeks would explode. I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life. It didn’t help that I had a major crush on Mark since I officially became a hunter.

I never called him by his real name though; I always called him by his screen name from the Wire, Dentist86. I thought his real name was great but I knew I was supposed to be professional. Rigatoni told me once Mark is called Dentist86 because he is the vampire specialist of the group. He is sixteen years old and one of the younger hunters. He never seemed to notice me in my first few visits to the shed. I knelt down to grab my coat before I went in. Of course my key fell to my feet then. I felt so stupid, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I knew he was older than me but that only made me like him more. He was so cool, he had a car and a driver’s license and he wore a black leather trench coat that went down to his boots and his black hair was always spiked when I saw him.
“Yo, LittleNightmare.” He called to me by my screen name.
I felt so dizzy, for the first time he remembered who I was. I felt my knees buckle under me.
“Whoa, kid!” he said as he wrapped his strong arms around my tiny body to save me.
“Thank you.” I said before I was snapped back into reality that I was here on business about.
He stood me back up on my feet and walked away as if nothing had happened. I felt so useless to him. I wished every night since I joined the Wire that he would like me.
“Come in already kid.” I heard Rigatoni’s thick Italian accent yell from inside.
I hastily grabbed my coat and key before walking into the shed. I stood at the top of the steps and sighed before following Mark down the stairs. The steel steps creaked with each step; the rust dusted the bottom of my boots with orange. The shed looked so small from outside; even when I first arrived I could not understand how so many people could go there at once until I realized it was underground. I sat down next to Rigatoni who was old enough to be my father, and he even dressed like him in tacky leisure suits. The leisure suit of the day was a pea green color with a white undershirt and he had a gold ring for each finger.
“Alright, this is the kid’s first assignment. I trust you will bring her back in one piece.” Rigatoni said, “Got me?”
Mark nodded from a seat at the other end of the table.
“What are you like twelve?” A man to the left of Rigatoni laughed.
“Trying to size me up paedo?” I said without thinking.
“Quit acting like such a child.” He yelled at me as he slammed his palm onto the table.
“Here let me spontaneously turn eighteen for you.” I screamed back before crossing my arms across my chest.
“Alright. Alright!” Rigatoni said sternly as he put his hand firmly on my shoulder signaling me to sit down.
“Bounty74 take your seat.” Rigatoni said as his eyes seemed to stare a hole right through the unfamiliar heckler, “I don’t want to hear you fighting with LittleNightmare from here on out.”
“She needs to be spanked for disrespecting adults.” The man Rigatoni called Bounty74 piped up once more.
“You would like that wouldn’t you?” Mark said in my defense.
I felt my cheeks start to blush so I quickly looked down as if I felt sorry for disrespecting Bounty74 to hide my fiery red cheeks.

“One more word and I will shoot you in the kneecap. I hear it’s very painful.” Rigatoni idly threatened him.
“You can’t...” Bounty74 began to say before Rigatoni pulled a gun from his pocket and shot him in the knee as promised. I could smell burnt copper in the air and Bounty74’s scream was searing through the air.
“Not another word,” Rigatoni muttered as he brought the gun up to Bounty74’s head, “We are here for a job; I don’t need a loose cannon on my team. I will send you back to Detroit in a box if you give me anymore trouble.”
Bounty74 stopped screaming and just sat there clenching his teeth and bleeding all over the place. Everyone ignored him and began discussing what was going on in the area.
“I posted it on the Wire that there is a Lost Dog in Vermilion.” Mark said.
“Another one?” Rigatoni asked.
“Yeah. We probably should stock up before we go looking for it.” Mark answered.
“I found an article.” I said softly to Rigatoni as I set the newspaper on the table.
Rigatoni patted me on the head and then took the newspaper. He read it intently without a single word to any of us. The humming of the generator was the only sound aside from him shuffling through the papers next to me. I flinched as he tossed the papers across the table at Mark.
“If what it says is true, there is something really weird going on near the Nautical Museum.” Rigatoni insisted, “We should start looking there as half of the incidents happen on Main Street.”
“Uhm...” I said softly, trying to not interrupt.
“Out with it kid, if you know something say it.” Rigatoni said with a sharp glare.
“The... The Antique shop.” I answered hesitantly, “The address...”
“The lives of innocents hang in the balance. This is no time to get nervous.” Rigatoni yelled at me.
I felt a drop of saliva hit my forehead as he scolded me.
“666 Main Street.” I answered as I sat there shaking in my coat, “The address is 666 Main Street and I remember seeing it in my nightmares.”
“What does your nightmare have to do with this?” He said in a very frustrated tone.
I could hear his teeth grinding on each other as I tried to say why I even brought it up but the words would not come out. I was paralyzed by fear.
“Remember when she said that her nightmares happened when she lived in her old house. Did you live near that Antique store?” Mark said uncertainly.
“Yes. Above it... in the apartment.” I forced myself to answer.
“What does that blasted vampire have to do with a werewolf kid?” A woman who was sitting next to Mark said.
I knew her as Ani_X. She was always very quiet and often went after the monsters by herself and she never said anything to me before. She ran her fingers through her shoulder length hair and stared right through me at Rigatoni.
“Well maybe this store could be a lead. Maybe it is one of those hotspots for supernatural occurrences. I guess we could send Dentist86, LittleNightmare and Bounty74 to check it out.” Rigatoni suggested as he set a gun in front of me.
“I am not going with that little brat. You blew a cap in my kneecap. Go to Hell! I quit!” Bounty74 screamed at Rigatoni.
“I got a new screen name for you.” Mark said with a laugh, “Capp’n Paedo.”
“Dentist86... This is not the time to start a fight.” Rigatoni said before turning to face me.
I saw Capp’n Paedo, as Mark called him, slink from his chair and hobble towards the stairs to leave. I felt my muscles spasm as I winced when Ani_X pulled out a crossbow and shot a bolt into Capp’n Paedo’s rear. He yelped in horrendous pain, which got Rigatoni’s attention off of me.
“Kid just take the gun and if it is furry shoot it. If it’s a bloodsucker just use your knitting needles like we practiced.” Rigatoni said as he aimlessly waived his hand about, “Ani just take the two kids and take a look around for the lost dog. I will handle Bounty74.”

Ani_X corralled Mark and I out of the shed. She handed us each a duffle bag with knitting needles, crosses, bibles and holy water in tiny little jars with crosses on them. I remember training with Rigatoni, but this was for real and I was scared out of my mind. I heard my heart thumping in my ears. I felt woozy but I was not about to look stupid in front of Mark. I tried to be brave. I trotted along in my boots and winter coat as my pigtails bounced with each step to the car.
Ani_X got into the driver seat while Mark sat shotgun. I was stuck in the back like a little kid. I sighed with discontent but I tried to ignore it, I should not have been worrying about if Mark liked me, we had to find this lost dog before it hurt anyone else. Ani_X turned on the car and backed out of the driveway. We were off on my first real hunt. I stared at my brown eyes in the rearview mirror and wondered why I was forced to grow up so fast, yet still treated like a normal kid despite everything.
Before I knew it we were already on Main Street in Vermilion. Ani_X parked the car in front of auction house. We got out of the car and headed down the street toward 666 Main Street. The sun had already set by the time we got there, and between the cold and my nervousness I had goose bumps all over my arms, legs and neck. I swallowed hard as we faced the door of the antique store. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The closed sign on the door was crooked, and the glass had hundreds of fingerprints leaving little visible ovals that the street lights illuminated enough that it almost looked like the glass door had scales.
Ani_X pulled out a chisel and a hammer and cut the lock from the door with a few forceful taps. I looked around expecting someone to be there wondering what in the heck we were doing. No one was there, but I still had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The lock pinged as it fell to the sidewalk; it skipped down a few shops and rested next to a grate. Ani’s slender black leather gloved hand pulled the door open. She went in first followed by Mark and I. The floorboards creaked and with each step I heard dishes clanging together from the shockwaves, no matter how minute. I had my hand my coat; my little fingers gripped tightly on the gun nestled in my pocket.
Mark bumped into me and I quickly pulled out the gun out of fear in the darkness.
“Kid what the heck are you doing?” Mark whispered to me after he grabbed my arm and pointed the gun away from himself.
We heard a floorboard creak across the room. I ducked under a table, with the gun in hand. My duffle bag spilled and my knitting needles and bottles of holy water rolled across the floor. Nothing was going my way; I was most certainly going to be kicked out of the Wire for sure if we survived all of this. I peaked out from under the table to see what was going on in the now silent antique store. I could not even tell where Ani or Mark were in all of this chaos. I reached around in the dark to find even just one of my knitting needles. As I reached my hand out I felt the toe of a leathery boot.
“Ani?” I whispered.
“Who is Ani?” A female voice said.
Her voice was so inhuman that it made my skin crawl to its raspy tone. I backed up and hit my head on the table. Old dishes and silverware crashed to the floor, splinters of glass pelted my hands that were planted on the floor. The lights flipped on and I could finally see what I was up against.
The woman I had mistaken for Ani was so pale that I could not even believe it was possible. Black veins protruding all over her practically white flesh, her teeth were bared and her feral eyes were glaring straight at me.

“Oh look, a little girl.” She said, “Come here, let me get a better look.”
Something about her voice made me crawl out from under the table and stand toe to toe with her. Against my own will there I was standing there with my empty hands bleeding all over myself not even three feet away from a real vampire. I couldn’t look away; I stood there as if frozen in a block of ice as she eyed me like a midnight snack. It was as if I was watching someone else standing there and preparing to die, not as if it were me in danger at all.
I saw Ani out of the corner of my eye walking up behind the monster with a cross already drawn. The mysterious woman flinched and let out a horrible yell and turned around to face Ani, I felt my body come back to me. I quickly ducked back under the table and rummaged around for a stake and holy water. I heard the vampire yelp as Ani pushed the cross against its face. The smell of burning and the sizzling sound scared me just as much as the yell that came from the monster itself.
I grabbed a stake and a bottle of holy water that hadn’t rolled too far from where I was and I leapt out from under the table just in time. I heard the table’s metal legs screech and buckle as Ani’s body fell atop it. I turned around and saw that the vampire was winning. I wondered where in the hell Mark went but right now I had to do something to help Ani.
I ran at the vampire whole-heartedly without thinking that I could suffer the same fate as Ani, and be tossed about like a rag doll. As my knitting needle met her chest, we heard a loud noise in the clerk’s office to the left of us. I credited my first real staking of a vampire to pure dumb luck. She turned her attention away from Ani and I when the glass wall of the clerk’s office shattered, giving me my one chance for success. I drove the wooden needle deep into her chest, like I had done so many times in practice back at the Shed. Her eyes widened as my stake pierced her heart and paralyzed her. Her legs gave way and she fell backward onto the floor at my feet.
I then saw what caught her attention. A huge mastiff right before my very eyes was thrashing about Mark. The nine-foot-tall creature tore at his flesh with its huge claws; I frantically reached into my pocket for the gun Rigatoni gave me before I remembered it was on the floor next to the table Ani was tossed on.
I ran to the table and grabbed the gun out from under one of its bent aluminum legs. I raised the gun up at the monster, only to find Mark was gone and the mastiff was now chewing on the arm of another werewolf. I shot several times at both of them, I was my team’s only hope, and I was the rookie. I was not ready for this but I had to take the odds to save my friends. The mastiff turned its sight on me after one of my poorly aimed bullets actually managed to hit him. Its massive body moved toward me and I was sure I would faint. I kept shooting until I ran out of bullets; it still persisted, even though with each step it became clumsier.
Overturned tables in its wake, I was all it cared about. It just seemed to forget the other monsters were there and that mistake thankfully saved my life. The other werewolf’s claws seared through the mastiff’s back and out its chest, I could hear the cartilage of its ribcage snap from the bone as the massive paws stopped the mastiff dead in its tracks in front of me. Blood spurted from the wound onto my face and jacket. The body of the werewolf was tossed aside, and I shrieked in fear that the all black wolf that had seemed to save me, was after me next.
“Caryn. Stop screaming.” It said.
Its eyes seemed somewhat warm, not cold and distant like the others I had encountered, but it knew my name and that alone sent a shiver down my spine.
“How do you know my name?” I asked as I began to back up slowly toward Ani.
“It’s me, Mark.” It said in such a deep voice that it was impossible to be Mark.
“You can’t be Mark…No freakin’ way.” I said under my breath as my slow steps turned into an all out run.
I grabbed Ani and tried to shake her awake. She only stirred a bit and moaned in pain. This was it and I was so scared, tears streamed down my face. The monster came closer and I tried to just drag Ani with me. I wasn’t strong enough; my shoes kept slipping on the linoleum floor as I continued to try to pull her. The nine-foot-tall wolf began to shrink and the fur began to disappear. It was Mark, but I could not understand how a hunter could possibly be one of the monsters we were trained to fight with such dedication. His clothes were torn and he stood there as if I should have seen this revelation of him being a werewolf as normal.

“That woman was hiding that werewolf for some reason. We should probably take whatever we can back to the shed.” Mark instructed as if this was routine.
“You are a monster!” I yelled, “I thought you were so cool and you are one of them.”
“Listen Caryn…” He began to say before I interrupted.
“Don’t call me that! Don’t even look at me!” I screamed to the top of my lungs.
“Wait let me explain.” He said extending his hand toward me.
“Don’t bother. Just let Ani and I go.” I wailed as tears streamed down my face as I disbelieved this betrayal, “Stay away from us. You shouldn’t even be part of the Wire.”
“Caryn.” He tried to get my attention once more.
“Just go away.” I cried, “Leave us alone.”
He hung his head and grabbed his trench coat before he headed out the door. I grabbed Ani’s cell phone and called Rigatoni to send someone to come get us. When help finally arrived, Rigatoni seemed so distant. He loaded Ani into the car and did not say a single word to me. I got into the back of the car and sat next to Ani, who was propped up and buckled in.
I sat there silently for the whole car ride back and wondered how I had a crush on a monster. I had no idea of how I could be so stupid to not notice he was one of them, my ability to see things as they really were had failed me. The disappointment washed over me and wanted to quit being a hunter all together. Things seemed so easy when I was just another person with a blind eye to the reality of things. I wanted no more of this life and I prayed that this was all a dream and that in the morning that I was just a schoolgirl with a normal life.
I went home that night and cried myself to sleep. Rigatoni told me before I left, to take a few days off, and that he would call me with the status on Ani. A few days later, on October tenth I got a letter in the mail from Mark. The letter said:
Dear Caryn,
I am sorry that you had to find out about me like that. I thought for sure Rigatoni told you. Considering the weird faces you make at me all of the time, I never thought you didn’t know. See I was born like that, and until I joined the Wire I did not know what to do about it. If nothing else, I joined to protect people from people like me. If you can ever forgive me for being an idiot, don’t be afraid to look me up. You are a pretty cool kid and you handled yourself pretty well back there considering. Well, not much else I can say other than I am sorry. Hope this makes up for it.
From,
Mark
“Hope what makes up for it?” I said as I looked inside the envelope.
There was a silver cross necklace with LittleNightmare engraved on the back. I felt my heart leaping for joy that he gave me something like this. I wanted to forgive him, but I needed to find him first. That became my next assignment, to find my Lost Dog.

I looked around expecting someone to be there, wondering what in the heck we were doing.

I had my hand in my coat; my little fingers gripped tightly on the gun nestled in my pocket.

It was not as if it was me in danger, but as if I was watching someone else standing there and preparing to die.

I feel like you aren’t as connected to this piece as you could be. Maybe it’s the knowledge that you did this for school, but I feel like it’s on the static side. I also think that I would like it more if you expanded it, to something longer than a short story. Turning Mark into a werewolf was an interesting turn.
The ending was extremely cute.
Your main character is young, and as a reader I’m curious as to her family. Its not revealed to the reader if she’s a runaway or not. We also don’t know if she’s still going to school. If you do decide to continue this, however you answer these questions will be fine so long as it fits how you see her world.