by J Johnson
Tainted
Vastow Vampire Series Book 1
J. Johnson
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Warnings
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Books By This Author
Copyright © 2020 J. Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warnings
This book contains explicit sex, violence, strong language, and possible PTSD triggers. Not for the squeamish or light of heart. Contains material that may offend.
This book also contains sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, attempted rape, death, mention of suicide, car accidents, violent assaults, and torture. While the author has taken great lengths to ensure the subject matters are dealt with in a compassionate and respectful manner, it may be troubling for some readers.
If you are easily offended or are under the age of 18, this is not the book for you. The pages within are intended for adults only. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
This book is dedicated to my husband. If it weren't for him, I would never have finished it. I love you more than words can say!!
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde
Prologue
A young boy, maybe five or six years old, greets his mother at the front door with a gigantic smile and even bigger hug. He rambles on about the exciting day he’s had as she kicks off her shoes and hangs her coat by the door, something she does every day when she comes home.
Suddenly he stops talking and his eyes look past her at something. No, someone. She turns around but the man wearing black gloves and a mask grabs her, pushing her further inside. He slams the door with his foot as he continues holding on to the woman’s arm.
The boy is crying now, looking around frantically not sure what to do. He attempts to run, but the man knocks him to the floor with a hit meant for someone much bigger. The boy is unconscious. The woman wiggles and squirms trying to break free of his hold, but it’s no use. He’s much stronger than she is.
I watch, unable to help as he shoots her husband that has come to investigate the loud noises. He falls to the floor in a heap, blood pouring out of him as he lies beside his son. The horror continues when the man turns the gun towards the woman and shoots her in the chest. She falls to the floor, gasping for air, dying. I can feel her panic, not for herself but for her son, who stirs quietly a few feet away.
The intruder rushes up the stairs and comes back a few minutes later with a suitcase in tow. I can tell by the way he’s holding it, that it’s full of stuff. The stuff he is taking from this family. They lay dying on the floor over a few material objects. Things he could have bought at a store. Things he could have taken without hurting anyone.
He quickly makes his way around the room, taking wallets, phones and whatever else will fit in the case or his pockets. After what seems like an eternity has passed, he glances around the room one last time before making his way to the door. He stops when he hears the woman moan.
I try to scream at him to leave her alone. I try to make him understand he’s done enough damage, but he can’t hear me. None of them can. He aims his gun at her once more, shooting her in the head. Darkness consumes me.
The air comes rushing back into my lungs as I struggle to breathe. My feet automatically take a few steps forward, away from the woman that has brushed up against my arm. I knew better than to wear a short-sleeve shirt.
She can see that something is wrong and reaches out to grab my arm in an attempt to help, but I flinch away. Her expression changes from concerned to offended, but I say nothing. I still can’t breathe.
I want to explain to her how she’ll die one day, how her husband will die, but what would I say? If I tell her what I saw, she’ll think I’m crazy. Instead, I apologize for my behavior and walk away. I need to go home, away from everyone. Alone. Again. Except for the ghosts. They never leave.
One
∞∞∞
“Come on, Ash.”, Zoe begs. “You have to go out with me at least once. You never go anywhere or do anything except read and stay cooped up in your apartment. There’s only so much reading you can do before you have to be bored to death. Have you ever been out before? And libraries don’t count.”
“No, I haven’t, and I don’t plan on going anytime soon.”, I reply again. I feel like I’ve said this a million times to her. “It’s just not my kind of thing.”
“It’s everyone’s kind of thing, and how would you know if you’ve never been out? How the hell are you ever going to meet a man if you don’t go anywhere?”
“Who said I wanted to meet a man?”
“Every woman wants a man at some point in her life. Although, I don’t know how you plan on finding one when you cover your entire body with clothing all the time. Why do you do that? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people expressing themselves however they want, but I’ve never seen anyone like you.” She pauses and looks at me guiltily. “I don’t mean to sound rude. Honest. I just don’t understand you sometimes.”
“I told you. I don’t like people touching me. All the germs and stuff. I don’t know where they have had their hands or other body parts at. It’s disgusting.”
“I don’t buy that.”, she says. “You work with sick kids all the time. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
I remain silent, debating again on whether to tell her the truth, but I can’t. I can’t make myself form the words. When I think of what her reaction might be, it stops me every time. She’d either call me crazy or stop being my friend, or both. I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut, so that’s what I do. It’s what I always do.
When I was six years old, I discovered something new about myself. Something I would come to hate over the years. A curse to me, but other people call it a gift. My grandmother is one of those other people.
I remember my mom coming inside from hanging laundry out back, and I ran up for a hug. I was a very loving child until my curse started. The moment she picked me up and pulled me in for the hug I wanted so desperately, the images started playing through my mind like a movie reel and there was no stopping it.
I’m standing in the middle of a highway, disoriented and scared. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. Suddenly there are headlights coming right at me. Headlights I recognize from watching out the window daily for my mother to come home. My first instinct is to get out of the road, but I can’t move. I’m stuck in this spot as I watch my mother’s car heading straight for me.
I brace myself for the impact, but it never comes. Instea
d, the car goes straight through me as if I’m invisible. I’m crying and frantic, as any six-year-old would be, and watch as her car heads straight for the bridge railing. The engine revs louder, like she’s speeding up, but that can’t be right. I try again to run, this time towards the car. I want to stop it. I need to stop it. I watch in horror as she drives through the railing and disappears into the water below.
I’m suddenly back in the living room with my mother. She’s yelling at me as sob after sob racks through my small body. I try to explain what I saw, but she doesn’t believe me. She chalks it up as a nightmare or my imagination running wild, but it felt so real to me. All I could think about for weeks was why would she do that? Why would she leave me like that? Why does my mother want to die?
That same month is when I saw my first ghost. I didn’t know it was a ghost at first. I just thought it was another person walking through the hallway of the hospital until he noticed me staring at him. He quickly rushed over and started asking if I could see him. When I answered him with a yes, my mother looked at me as though I had lost my mind and asked who I was speaking to. I told her about the man standing right next to her, but she claimed there was no one there. To say it confused me would be the understatement of the century. I could clearly see him. He was speaking to me. Yet she swore that the space beside her was empty. No matter what I said, she would not believe me. When she started yelling at me, I closed my mouth and ignore the man.
Years went by and the same things kept happening. If I touched someone, even accidentally brushing up against them, I would see an event in their lives or how they would die. I didn’t know what to make of it and had no one to turn to for help. I thought I was crazy. I believed that what my mother constantly told me. That my imagination was excessively big.
Ghosts would ask me to help them find someone or help them get to where they needed to go. And like any young child, I would go to my mother. She took me to every doctor within a hundred-mile radius. But they all said the same thing. I had an overactive imagination.
It got to where my mother would yell at me if I told her about any of it, so eventually, I stopped telling her anything. My father didn’t know what to do. He would listen to what I had to say without yelling, but he wouldn’t acknowledge that it was true. He chalked it up to my imagination like everyone else, so I quit telling him as well. I was tired of being looked at like a crazy person.
When I was nine and my brother was four, they diagnosed him with cancer. It hit my parents hard knowing that my brother could die at any moment. He was in and out of hospitals, constantly at doctor appointments or treatments, which left little time for me. By that time, I knew not to bring up my stories, as they used to call them, or I would get into trouble. I was alone with my curse and no one to help me control or understand it.
The ghosts I started seeing multiplied because of all the trips to the hospital with my brother. Most of them were nice to me. They were the only people besides my brother that believed me and talked to me like I was a person and not a nutcase. Seeing him was some of the best memories I have of my childhood. We were extremely close and would talk for hours about what I could do and our theories on why I could do it. He always thought God chose me for something special, but I never believed that. I believed I had done something wrong and was being punished for it.
At age sixteen, my life was torn apart. They called me out of school one day and I knew the minute I saw my father’s face what had happened. My brother was dead. I waited for him to speak, hoping and praying that I was wrong, but the words I dreaded to hear finally came out. My best friend in the entire world was gone and I would never see him again. Or so I thought.
When we got to the hospital, my father walked me to the area where my mother was waiting for us. They took us inside my brothers’ room where he lay lifeless and pale. I immediately burst into tears, but suddenly he appeared right beside his bed. He looked happy, healthy, and relieved. I’ll never forget the words he spoke to me that day.
“Please don’t cry Ashy.” Ashy was his nickname for me. “I’m not sick anymore and I feel so much better. It will be okay. You will be okay. Tell mom and dad that I love them very much. Don’t let anyone make you believe you aren’t special, Ashy. You are special. Use your gifts for good. Use them to help people. I love you, Ashy.”
He disappeared right after that, his spirit lighting up so brightly it was almost blinding. Then he was just gone. I never told my parents what he said because they wouldn’t have believed me anyway, but I remember. I’ll always remember.
Six months later, I received a phone call from my dad telling me to get home. When I arrived two cops were there with him. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I never thought it would be my mother. When he told me the news I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably once again. First my brother and now my mother. When he explained to me that her car went over the bridge railing, the vision I had years earlier flashed through my mind. That was the first time one of my visions had come true. That was the first time I knew for certain I was a freak and it wasn’t just my imagination.
My grandmother finally got around to asking me if I could do strange things, and I broke down and told her. For a year she helped me try to understand what I was capable of, and then she died. Another family member gone, and it left me with more questions than answers.
Ever since then, I make sure not to touch anyone. I usually wear long-sleeve shirts and pants and I always keep my hands in my pockets. This morning I thought for just a moment that I could be normal and wear a t-shirt. I thought I could stay far enough away from everyone, but it didn’t work out. It never does.
“Whenever you feel you can tell me your secret, I’m here for you no matter what it is.”, Zoe says to me. I nod, not knowing what to say. I won’t lie and tell her it’s nothing, but I won’t tell her the truth either. “Okay then. Meet me at my house in an hour and we’ll get ready. No need to bring clothes or makeup because I have plenty.”
“I told you, Zoe. I’m not going.”
“Please, Ash. Just this once. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll never ask again.”
The look she gives me is one she knows I can’t resist. Her eyes droop and she looks all sad. I sigh and finally give in.
“Okay, fine. Just this once. But I’m warning you, I won’t be any fun.”
“Yay! Follow me to my place and we’ll get ready together.”
“I thought you said an hour.”
“Well, it took you too long to decide, so now you can just follow me.”
I can’t help but think this will probably turn out to be a huge mistake.
A few hours and constant suggestions from Zoe later, we’re ready and to my surprise, Zoe picked out an outfit for me I can live with. It’s not something I would have picked out for myself, but I have to admit, it’s cute.
A long-sleeve black turtleneck, black tights, a red suede mini skirt that laces up one side and black knee-high boots. The only thing showing are my hands and my face. When she finishes with my makeup, I look like an entirely different person. I can’t help but worry about my hands being free though and no pockets to put them in.
“You look hot!”, she squeals.
“I’m not sure about that, but I have to admit, I like it.”
“Of course, you like it. Now let’s go before all the hot guys are gone or taken.”
As we’re heading down the stairs, Zoe’s younger sister Ali is at the front door getting ready to leave. I glance over at Zoe and instantly feel sorry for her. Ever since their parents died eight years ago, Ali has gotten out of control and harder for Zoe to handle. She’s all the time talking about how she’s afraid she’ll end up in jail or dead.
“Where are you going?”, Zoe asks her.
I can tell by the tone in her voice that she’s gearing up for an argument. These two seem to argue constantly.
“Out.”
“Where Ali? Please tell me you’re not going out with those drug
gie friends of yours. They’re bad news and only get you in trouble.”
“My friends are none of your business, Zoe and what I do and where I go are also none of your business. I’m going out and don’t know when I’ll be back, so don’t wait up.”
Before Zoe says anything else, Ali is out the door running. She looks over at me, but I just shrug. I don’t know what to tell her. My only sibling never made it to that age. I don’t think he would have acted the way Ali does anyway, but I’ll never know.
“Come on.”, she sighs.
Thirty minutes later, we’re pulling into a parking lot and my nerves have reached top off levels. If I get any more nervous, I’m going to throw up. My heart is racing, my palms are sweaty, and I just want to go home. This is not a good idea, and all I can think about is accidentally touching someone. Out of all my abilities, that is the one I hate the most. I don’t want to see people die. Sometimes I see other things, but mostly it’s their death.
I turn to tell her I don’t want to do this, but the excitement on her face stops me. I don’t want to upset or disappoint her. Instead, I force myself to get out of her jeep and follow her up to the door where a tall, muscular man is standing. He intimidates me, but most people do.
“IDs.”, he barks.
I jump a little, making him look at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Get a grip, Ash. Geez. He’s just a bouncer.
The smell of cigarettes, alcohol, and sweat hit me like a brick wall as soon as we enter. It’s awful. The music is so loud I’m not sure how anyone can think straight in here, let alone hear someone speak. The bodies in this small space are nearing its limit, and there’s no other way to follow Zoe except to push past people. I tuck my hands under my arms to keep from touching anyone and follow closely behind her until we reach our destination.
