From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (8 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  “Ava, you can’t do this!” Jeremy stood in my doorway.

  “Actually,” I stepped right up to him and did my best to look fierce, “I can.” I shut the door on him and returned to my room to make final preparations.

  “Ava, let me back in,” Jeremy pleaded. I looked out my window. He was floating just outside. What a showoff.

  “Go home, Jeremy.” I went over and shut the blinds.

  “You don’t want to go into this alone.”

  He was right, I didn’t. However, I was not very good at being magnanimous, or whatever the heck that is when somebody says something nasty and you forgive them at the drop of a hat. Oh…now I remember what that is called: weak.

  I left my room and went down to my garage. I knew that vampires had freakish speed. What I didn’t know was for how long they could keep that up, and just exactly how fast they could go.

  I started my Corvette and hit the button on the garage door. When it opened, I wasn’t surprised to see Jeremy standing in the middle of the driveway—too bad for him. I knew that hitting him with my car wouldn’t kill him. I prepared to shift into reverse and stomp on the gas. That was when I realized that, while it may not do much to the stupid vampire, it might very well put a nasty dent in my precious automobile.

  “Fine!” I rolled down my window and yelled. “Get in.”

  Jeremy’s smile was so big that he showed serious fang. That was about to change. Stupid vampire. I shot out of my garage like a rocket. When I hit the street, I yanked hard on my steering wheel, shifted and was gone before he knew what had happened.

  Once again, that is a perfect example of a guy thinking that they somehow have the market cornered on a certain skill. I may not be Danica, but I can drive as good if not better when compared to the average guy.

  I hit the highway just a Stephen Pearcy was belting out You Think You’re Tough. I sang along and left one very disgruntled vampire behind. From what he had shared about Belinda, I did not envy him.

  As I rolled into Estacada, I was actually very proud of how alert I happened to be. I knew better than to trust Adrianna. Still, if we did not have some sort of showdown, then this little problem was not going to go away anytime soon. That would mean that I would not get paid. It would also mean that Morgan would not be hitting me up with any new gigs any time soon.

  I was so ‘on the lookout’ for anything Adrianna-related that I did not notice the young lady that stepped out in front of my car as I approached the crosswalk and stopped for a red light. She walked right past my hood and up to the passenger’s side door. In a jiffy, the lock popped and she opened the door.

  I hated it when my fingers and toes went switchblade while I was driving. I can’t actually wrap my hands around the steering wheel. Not to mention the fact that I worry about slicing up the carpet on my floorboard. Of course there was also the whole thing about a stranger just getting into my car.

  I gave her the full effect of my ghoulish glare as I dropped my glasses and fixed my solid black eyes on her. She just looked back at me and blinked really slow. Her unnaturally green eyes had a glow to them that gave away her supernatural nature. My only problem was that I had no idea what she might be.

  “The light changed,” she said.

  Her voice had an accent from someplace in the United Kingdom. I say that because I couldn’t begin to tell you if it was English (the fancy kind, not us American types), Scottish, or Irish. Come to think of it, she might be Australian or from New Zealand. They all sound the same to me. And if you are from one of those places, don’t get all twisted. Seriously, can you tell if somebody in America is from Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina or Georgia? What about Maine or Massachusetts? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

  I pulled away from the light and got upset in a big hurry. Normally, everybody has a certain smell to them that I can pick up on. Since all I eat is dead things, I can smell the dead and the dying. Because of the fact that everybody is dying slowly, one day at a time if you will, everybody gives off some scent.

  If you turned me loose in one of those old folks’ homes, I would be like that cat that walks the halls and wanders into a room just before the person dies. And what is the deal with that? Every few months you see a story like that on the news and people act like it is some sort of big deal. Those cats aren’t even real cats anyways. But that is a story for another time.

  The problem currently facing me was this woman sitting in my car. She had that perfect shade of red hair that no bottle can match. Her skin almost glowed it was so white. Or maybe it did glow; anything was possible when dealing with a supernatural. And the most curious thing was that she gave off no detectable smell.

  “So you’re a ghoul,” she finally said. “Haven’t seen one of those for a few hundred years.”

  I shot her a glance, but decided to keep my mouth shut. One thing that I learned from Morgan is that if you just remain silent, a lot of times the person you are with will run off at the mouth and give you information that you never even thought about trying to find out. Of course I was usually the one doing the talking while Morgan stood there quietly, but at least I was showing the capacity to learn.

  “Don’t your type usually hang out around graveyards?” this woman asked. She was being totally serious. I just shot her a dirty look and kept driving.

  “Of course I imagine things have probably changed over the years. These days, they pump more chemicals in a dead body than you find in your average Twinkie. Probably can’t be too tasty. Or is that like junk food for ghouls?”

  She sure asked a lot of questions. And she talked really fast. She had one of those squeaky voices that reminded me of Sniffles the mouse from the old cartoons. It didn’t actually fit this person. If I was a guy, I’d be sporting serious wood. As it was, I was feeling this strange and unnatural attraction to her that had me a bit uncomfortable. Yes, I’ve kissed a girl, made out with a couple in my younger experimental days. I just couldn’t ‘do the deed’ if you follow. Right now, I was not so sure that I cared. In case you are the type who needs things spelled out for you…I would munch the carpet, shuck the oyster, tongue the clam. This gal was supernaturally hot.

  “Ghouls can talk…right?” she pressed. “I mean I know that you can display this massive mouth with rows of sharp teeth, but you seem to look normal at the moment minus the gray skin and the wicked finger and toenails.”

  “Yes, I can talk,” I finally blurted. However, I was not going to play whatever game this chick had in mind. I also took this moment to slam on the brakes. Obviously she was not going to say anything meaningful…or maybe she would, but I just didn’t have the patience. “And just who the blazes are you?”

  “My name is Rosanna,” she answered. “I’m the one who called Morgan about the zombie that I saw out wandering the woods. Since then, nobody has bothered to call me back. I’ve spotted three more zombies and had to actually put one down myself. All of them locals, and all of them so old before they were turned that they were practically falling apart beforehand.”

  “Wait,” I said, “you’re the witch?”

  “I’m a witch,” Rosanna said with a laugh. “I don’t know if I would call myself the witch.”

  “And you say that you have seen three?”

  “Including the one tonight? Yes.”

  “You saw one tonight?”

  “Am I going to have to repeat and confirm everything while we talk? Because if that is the case, I can save myself some time and just repeat myself from the get go.”

  “How about you lose the attitude and just tell me about the zombie that you saw tonight,” I urged. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a snarky witch. Actually, I was never in the mood to deal with a snarky anything, but this girl was trying my patience. If she wasn’t so hot, I would have kicked her out of the car by now.

  “I was at home putting together a few things for some clients…”

  Witches had clients? Who knew? I mean, was this a case of her brewing potions and
casting spells and stuff for the locals to make people fall in love with each other or what? I wasn’t entirely certain what sorts of powers a real witch had. I watched plenty of Bewitched when I was younger. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to be like that. If witches were that powerful, they would control the world. Right?

  “…walked right by my window and smashed all of my daisies. If my roses were harmed, I probably would have blown a gasket.”

  “This was about a flower bed?” I asked in disbelief.

  Yes, I can be shallow. Yes, I can often worry about how things might affect me versus how they may impact things on a more global scale. But I have always had that problem. I live in the Pacific Northwest where there are not enough trees for each hugger to get his or her own…and if you have seen the pictures, we have A LOT of trees. This state was sort of the innovator of bottle and can deposits. Everybody…well, most everybody is super environmentally conscious. Me, sure, I used the assorted garbage cans. I didn’t litter or anything, but I also didn’t get all worked up over spotted owls or liquid natural gas pipelines.

  Did you know that there were actually people who complained about the windmill farms in the central and eastern part of the state? Yeah, they said they were too noisy and that they scared certain birds or some such nonsense. Yeah, I know. Can’t even be happy with so-called ‘green’ energy. Folks here love to bitch.

  “…and I can’t brew any for the next several months now thanks to those damn zombies!” Rosanna was almost yelling. Unfortunately, I had probably missed all the important stuff.

  “And that probably sucks,” I tried to commiserate. “But I think a zombie apocalypse would be much worse than whatever your little problem might be.”

  “Zombie apocalypse!” Rosanna scoffed. “You have been watching too many movies!”

  “Well then, why don’t you fill me in if you’re so smart.”

  “For one, Alessa—or whatever she is calling herself these days—can’t keep her zombies from falling apart. The ones that I have seen are deteriorating so fast that I doubt they could last long enough to bite somebody. And if they are that weak, then I doubt that they could even pass on the spell.”

  “Spell?” I asked. “Don’t you mean the infection?” I wanted to ask about this other name I kept hearing, but my brain gets too cluttered. I needed to focus on the bits I felt were important.

  “Again with too much of the movies or comic books or whatever your source is. Zombies are a magical creature. They have to be imbued with a very powerful spell if they are going to be the type of zombie to create other zombies. Seriously, how could something like just a bite or scratch turn a person into a zombie? It’s magic…it certainly is not something seriously scary like AIDS.”

  Now I was probably more confused than I had been before I met her. Rosanna was saying a whole bunch of stuff, but my mind was not wrapping around the big picture. It was at moments like this that I really missed Lisa.

  “But if she is the real reason for the Black Plague, how did it become so wide spread if not by the bite?”

  “Oh, the bite has something to do with it, but there is more to it than just being bitten,” Rosanna explained. “When a zombie is created to spread its condition to the living, they can only do so within limits. After a dozen or so, they expire and either collapse or just wander aimlessly.”

  “Like they run out of gas or something?”

  “In a way…yes. That is why when you read about the plague, it says that all those people died. That part is correct, but The Queen of the Zombies had to make a few zombies a day and move before being discovered. Then she would make more. The spread had more to do with her being on the run than what the actual zombies did.”

  “But if she was trying to wipe out the world…” This is the part I really didn’t understand. Who would actually want to wipe out the entire world?

  “Actually, she was just trying to establish her own kingdom. The problem that she faced is that, unlike tyrannical rulers who might be mean or oppressive, people actually had to be dead to live under the reign of The Queen of the Zombies,” Rosanna explained. “They are the perfect…citizen for a lazy ruler. They do what they are told until they are told to stop or do something else. Their most fearsome aspect is that they are a force to be reckoned with on a battlefield.”

  “So what is her game now? If she knows anything at all, she has to know that nobody here would want to be dead any more than they did in the past.”

  “I don’t think she wants to wipe out the world,” Rosanna said with a shrug. “I think that she just wants her own little place where she matters. You see, once she creates a zombie, it is completely devoted to her. It would do whatever she told it to. And she can actually communicate with them and they with her.”

  “So…what…she is lonely?” That seemed a bit silly. It was certainly no reason to start wiping people out.

  “Perhaps,” Rosanna said. “She can communicate with the dead in a way that she cannot with the living.”

  “Like an immigrant worker who doesn’t speak good English?” I asked. I realize that probably seems racially insensitive, but it is the best thing that I can come up with, so sue me.

  “Perhaps,” Rosanna replied. “The bottom line is that she has the need to surround herself with these creatures. They see her not as food or a threat, but rather something to be worshipped. They will obey her to the death.”

  “Like a dog?” That might have been a better analogy than the whole immigrant worker thing.

  “Do you have to ask a thousand questions all the time, or are you just trying to annoy me? It seems like every single time I answer you, you ask me something else…and most of what you are asking is completely irrelevant.”

  “Listen, witch,” somehow this entire conversation had just taken a nasty turn and I had no idea why, “I am new to all this supernatural crap. If you want me to deal with this problem, lose the attitude. Otherwise, if I have a million questions and then a million follow up questions…you just answer them. It is my ass on the line here. As it is, this job has already given me more headaches than I care to deal with.”

  “What could this have possibly done to impact you?” the witch asked. “I’ve actually had my gardens stomped flat. I make my living from little brews and potions that I make for a fee. It is my livelihood. Without my garden, I am at the mercy of the council and must offer my services to the regional psychic whenever she sees fit to grace me with a job that is beneath her. Do you have any idea…” Rosanna’s voice trailed off as she realized not only what she was saying, but to whom she was saying it.

  “I apologize,” she whispered. “I meant no disrespect. It is just that I have only been free of Morgan’s employment for the past year. I hated feeling like I was something that she—”

  “Scraped off her shoe!” I interrupted. “I know, right? It is like, she comes to you with the job and then acts like you are a complete idiot!”

  “And she took my familiar a few years ago when I wasn’t performing up to her standards and kept her for several months. When I got her back…she was…changed.”

  “Into a vampire?” I asked, thinking about Lisa and what may have befallen her.

  “My cat? Hardly,” Rosanna said with a laugh.

  “Sorry, just that I have this friend named Lisa who has been with me since right after I turned. She has been like my right hand. I rely on her probably more than a grown woman should considering that Lisa is just a teenager.”

  “Age has very little to do with a person’s mindset,” Rosanna said in as serious of a tone as I’d heard from her so far. “When a witch comes into her powers, it is usually around her first bleeding. She is expected to learn how to control her powers within a few months.”

  “Yes, well I’m still a grown woman who should have a better grasp on things than I do.”

  “But you say that Morgan has taken this Lisa from you?” Rosanna asked.

  “She didn’t so much take her as they shared
a moment and then there was some whispering. After that, Lisa decided to leave.”

  “And what sort of creature is Lisa?”

  When Rosanna asked that, at first I was taken aback. I mean, what sort of a question was that? Then I remembered that she is a witch and I am a ghoul. It was actually a very good question.

  “She is a human.”

  “A teen human?” Rosanna sputtered. “I had no idea that a ghoul could coexist with a human…much less a teenage girl human.”

  “It’s not like I would eat her or something,” I huffed. “She is perfectly safe with me.”

  “Perhaps things have changed over the centuries,” Rosanna said with some serious doubt ringing in her voice.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s just that, for as long as I’ve been aware of their existence, ghouls are more like the assassins of the supernatural world. It is said that there is no more fierce a fighter than a ghoul. They are almost impervious to pain, and possess great power in battle. And in this day and age, their ability to…if you will excuse the blatancy…eat the evidence—”

  “Wait a second,” I interrupted. “You are saying that my supernatural job description is basically that of a killer?”

  “That is one way to look at it. It’s just that ghouls were always sought by any who desired to rise to power. They are killing machines. Their ability to ignore pain is the thing of legends. To capture one is pointless because they are immune to torture.”

  “But what about the sun? I burn like an albino in the desert.”

  I imagine that most of you are now immune to my lack of political correctness. Seriously, you can’t say midget, you can’t say black or oriental, and somebody just told me that albino is insensitive. Well that settles it; I am demanding that my publisher post something in the description of this series about my so-called insensitivity. I’ll be damned if I am going to tiptoe through the PC crap. I bet most of you don’t either unless your more ‘worldly’ friends are around. C’mon, you know the ones I am talking about, the type who refuses to say “Merry Christmas” and all that.