This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Aurélie Venem
Translation copyright © 2016 S. E. Battis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as Samantha Watkins ou Les Chroniques d’un Quotidien Extraordinaire: Tome 1: Pas le Choix by Amazon Direct Publishing in 2014 in France. Translated from French by S. E. Battis. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2016.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503952997
ISBN-10: 1503952991
Cover design by Kerrie Robertson Illustration Inc.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SNEAK PEEK: Samantha Watkins: Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Book 2: Origins
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
PROLOGUE
Many people say that facing Death, like when you get in an accident, changes your life forever. For me, that’s exactly what happened.
Except, that night, I found myself not facing Death itself, but rather the dead . . . who were, in fact, still quite alive . . .
CHAPTER ONE
Kingdom: Banality
But I’m getting ahead of myself. To understand the complete mess that the unexpected encounter with the dead brought to my life, I should start by describing the monotony that distinguished it before.
By the way, my name is Samantha Watkins. My friends called me Sam. Except I didn’t have any friends. Pathetic, I know.
I always saw myself as a painfully unremarkable person. Physically, I wasn’t much to look at, but I liked to go unnoticed. I exuded ordinariness with my medium height (five and a half feet), my silhouette (neither too thick nor too thin), and my chestnut hair (always up in a ponytail so it wouldn’t fall in my face). I took particular satisfaction in the color of my eyes, which were black, so black that my mother and father, who had green and blue eyes, respectively, felt like they were being hypnotized and sucked into my gaze. My parents never could tell me where in our family my black eyes came from. I liked that my eyes gave my appearance a bit of exoticism despite my white skin and otherwise ordinary features.
My parents had been in finance: my mother as a bank teller and my father as the director of the same bank. We had nothing to complain about. We had a nice house with a pool and a small backyard, an old car that my father loved to fix up in the garage, and a dog, Wally, who was supposed to be my consolation prize for never getting a little brother or sister to look after. In short, ours was a family typical of our dear little town of Kentwood, Virginia.
With its ten thousand inhabitants, Kentwood was a peaceful haven for people who could no longer stand the turbulence and fumes of the neighboring metropolis of Kerington, which was inhabited by around 190,000 people. As a quickly growing business center, Kerington, was attracting more and more young wolves eager to make money, by legal means or no. Consequently, despite its great wealth, Kerington had carved out a cutthroat reputation for itself, and quite a few inhabitants had vacated its neighborhoods in favor of the suburbs, which were more suitable for raising children.
Indeed Kentwood met all the conditions for attracting happy families: brand-new schools, gyms, a movie theater. It was a town of happiness for some, of utter ennui for others. Anyway, I had felt at home there, despite certain unpleasant memories.
For me, school had been a success results-wise (and my parents were very proud), but when it came to my social life, it was a total disaster. As in any school, there were the popular ones and everyone else. I didn’t even figure into that second category. The only times anyone had ever noticed me were when a teacher remembered my existence and asked me a question, to which I invariably gave the right answer. I came across as a bit of a nerd and therefore suffered the pitiless social destiny of those who cultivate themselves more than others their age. Meaning . . . I looked like a complete dork not worthy of friendship, let alone romantic relationships.
At sixteen, I stupidly had become infatuated with Scott Reinfeld, the hot boy at school. My admiring glances in his direction were detected by Ursula (yes, like the undersea sorceress) Caulm, the bitch of the school and incidentally Scott’s girlfriend.
One day, she asked if she could talk to me in private. I followed her naively, too surprised at having been finally noticed by someone to be suspicious. We went into an empty classroom, and there she let me know what she really thought of me.
“I’ve seen how you look at Scott, so I’m going to explain something to you. And you should remember every word because I’m not going to repeat myself. He doesn’t want you for the simple reason that you don’t exist to him. Do you understand? Do you honestly think he could be interested in a nobody like you? You are a nonentity, so forget him. I’m saying this to you nicely because I don’t want you to be upset and make a fool of yourself.”
I wasn’t an idiot. Her seemingly sympathetic smile was anything but. This was pure and simple cruelty and a thinly veiled threat; she could make my life miserable if I even dared look at her man—her possession—again. Satisfied to see that I’d understood the lesson, she gave me one last disdainful look and left, after taking great care to check that there wasn’t anyone in the hallway who could have witnessed her speaking to me.
Shortly after that conversation, I had crossed paths with the two lovebirds and their friends in front of their lockers. As I walked past, I was trailed by stifled laughs (including Scott’s), which fully inoculated me against love. From that moment, I swore I wouldn’t let my heart beat like a drum for someone who was too different from me . . . and I found myself once again ignored by everyone.
It didn’t bring me down as much as you might think. I actually liked solitude, and I still preferred the company of a good book over that of a group of muscled idiots surrounded by their fangirl admirers, all of whom had been rendered stupid by an overdose of adolescent hormones.
In retrospect, however, I have to admit that I had envied them—more than once.
Anyway, eventually we all went our separate ways. I studied literature because I dreamed of becoming a writer, but at the age of twenty-eight, I was back where I started: I’d returned to the very site of my social ostracism to work as a librarian at my old high school.
My parents had died a few years earlier in a car accident, and I’d kept their house. I was used to my routine, and I looked forward to the day when I would find a man to have a family with and continue the banality that I had always known with him by my side.
Obviously, nothing happened the way I expected . . .
Friday is a hallowed day for all self-respecting workers because it ushers in the weekend, and this is even truer during the first week back at work after the holidays. People generally are still tired even
a few days after ringing in the New Year, but my New Year’s Eve—which involved a frozen dinner and a DVD marathon—had been anything but extraordinary. So I wasn’t the least bit tired when I returned to my post at Griffith High School after the holidays, and that Friday wasn’t anything special.
As usual, I made bets on how many students would appear in my library. And as usual, I wasn’t surprised by their absence.
At the end of the day, two serious students showed up to do research for their presentation on Martin Luther King Jr. They were followed by two clearly stoned idiots looking in the botany section for books about growing marijuana.
With infinite patience, I explained that the illicit substances that were influencing their behavior at the moment would, in the long run, make them run the risk of ending up as limp, slimy, and intelligent as mollusks.
From the looks on their faces, I knew right away that I had found the right words to get through to them. When they left, completely alarmed, I couldn’t help but laugh, but I froze a moment later when Christine Angermann, the German teacher, whom everyone at school—students and adults alike—called Cruella de Vil, walked in. Her voice, allure, and likely her physique would have made the most war-hardened generals of the 1930s Wehrmacht shake in their boots. I was quite sure that I was about to be raked over the coals.
Nostrils flaring, she launched in with what little respect she could muster. “Watkins, where are the new dictionaries that I asked you to order?”
“Hello, Ms. Angermann, Happy New Year. I’m pleased to see you on this beautiful winter day,” I said, my smile wide and innocent. “The last time we had this conversation, I told you that all big orders must have the principal’s approval. Nothing’s changed, you see. Mr. Plummer thinks that we have enough dictionaries now for—”
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Watkins. I asked for new dictionaries to replace those old relics you keep here and—”
“Ones you personally selected two years ago.”
I was proud I had found the courage to confront that shrew, even as I understood—as I watched her turn purple with rage—that I’d committed a fatal error.
“Those are not the ones I ordered! How do you expect my students to pass their exams if they don’t have the right tools to study with? But I don’t see why I should wear myself out talking to someone as hopelessly unprofessional as you. I’m going to go tell the principal about your incompetence! Has anyone ever seen such a ridiculous librarian? It’s not surprising that your life is so devoid of meaning—your life is as empty as your skull!”
I’d expected a storm, but not this hurricane of maliciousness based on a heap of lies, albeit with a touch of truth about my empty life thrown in. Stunned, I hardly heard myself say the words that signaled the end of the conversation.
“Get out of here.”
Pitiful. I know.
“Oh, believe me, I’m doing just that. I should have realized a long time ago that it’s pointless dealing with the staff,” she said in a tone as icy as an Antarctic breeze. Then she turned and left with her nose in the air and a smirk on her face, clearly savoring her superb comeback.
I was short of breath, and my cheeks were hot and, undoubtedly, red; my dignity had hit rock bottom, because of her words, yes, but also because of my inability to bite back.
It was getting late. The students were leaving, and night was falling. What to do? Go home and play back that scene in a continuous loop in order to figure how I should have reacted? No. I had to clear my mind. I picked up the phone and called Hank, the old and kindly custodian that I’d known since childhood.
“Hank, it’s Samantha.”
“Who’s that now?”
Humph. I needed to stay calm.
“You know. Samantha Watkins, the librarian. I’m going to do some cleaning, so I’ll be leaving late. I have my key. I’ll lock up.”
“Very well. Have a good evening.”
He hung up before I could wish him the same.
For several hours, I sorted books in the back rooms and organized the shelves. Despite the distraction, my mind was busy, contradicting Angermann’s allegations that my skull was empty. In fact, the retorts began to come to me hard and fast.
“It’s not surprising that your students don’t pass their exams with a fat, emasculating cow like you as a teacher. And one who’s incapable of ordering the right books or ever taking responsibility for her own mistakes! Get out of here, you ill-tempered hag!”
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t saying these things to her face; there was still comfort in imagining them.
Around ten o’clock, I decided it was time to go home.
Since I didn’t live very far from the high school, a car wouldn’t have been a useful investment. So I always walked to work. I also thought that in this small way, I was helping preserve the planet. That evening, I took the usual way home. It was cold, and though I wore a wool hat and gloves, I warmed myself up even more by rubbing my hands against each other and blowing on them. I was used to walking, no matter the weather. It had become such a routine that my body guided me while I let my mind wander. I had always arrived safe and sound.
I hadn’t considered the effect of Cruella’s words, but suddenly I realized that I’d made a wrong turn. I was among the warehouses and the dark and uninviting alleys that ran behind the main avenue.
Kentwood wasn’t known for crime, but it also wasn’t an idyllic utopia where everyone loved their neighbors. I had no desire to find myself among the crime statistics. There was no one else around, and I started to get really scared.
Nevertheless, nothing—not even my nightmares—could have prepared me for what happened.
CHAPTER TWO
Dreams of Ordinariness
For some time now, the news had been reporting mysterious disappearances. Allegedly there had been several kidnappings in nearby Kerington. People were saying that two young women from Kentwood who had been missing for ten days, and who lived just a few blocks from the high school, had also been kidnapped. The police advised against going out alone late at night, and some third-rate newspapers reported that there might be a serial killer or black market organ traffickers on the loose, further scaring an already frightened population. I remembered all this now as I realized that I was in a fairly precarious situation myself.
I turned around to go back to the main street and my usual route, but I hadn’t even taken ten steps when I heard a horrendous noise in the alley ahead of me. My brain stopped working just when I needed it most. The only thing I was able to do was grip my handbag tighter to my chest.
Just as my feet registered that running would be beneficial, the noise intensified, as if someone were throwing enormous objects against the sheet-metal walls of the warehouses. I didn’t want to get any closer, but I had to pass the warehouses to get back to the route I knew. I started running, and then I was in front of the alley . . .
When I opened my eyes after falling hard to the ground, I was stretched out on the concrete, a few feet from the entry to a dead end. I ached all over, and breathing was difficult. Something hot and sticky trickled down my forehead, and I knew I was bleeding.
I told myself that I must have been hit by a truck . . . except that I hadn’t heard any engines. I was trying to gather my thoughts when a dark mass landed right next to me. I cried out in surprise. The dark mass turned out to be a man, tall and blond, and I realized that it was he—and not a truck—who had rammed into me. Just as I was processing that thought, a second human cannonball flattened the first one, who had been getting to his feet.
Then I did what any reasonable person would have done.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
I immediately regretted the piercing scream I’d let out. Two pairs of eyes stared at me, then lit up brightly. It looked like the two men wanted to devour me. I swallowed back a second scream, and a lump of pure terror wedged in my throat.
Then I heard another voice.
“Gentlemen,
it is truly unfortunate that in the middle of a fight, you are so easily distracted by the prospect of a good meal. And it is rather impolite as well. You both need a lesson in common courtesy.”
In the dark I couldn’t see this person clearly, but the tone of his voice—oddly velvety and smooth despite the threat—chilled my blood, especially as I realized that the good meal he had referred to was me.
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of her once we’re finished with you,” the second man said. He had brown hair, and though he wasn’t very tall, he was unbelievably brawny.
Intuiting that these two raging crazy men were going to go for each other’s throats again, I tried to flee to avoid being collateral damage. But I’d overestimated my strength. After taking barely two steps, I started to feel dizzy. I couldn’t stay there, particularly because behind me the fight had started up again. And to think I’d never taken the time to go buy myself a cell phone! I could have at least called the police. I turned around to make sure that I’d put some distance between me and my assailants, and what I saw made me open my eyes wide with horror.
The head of the tall brown-haired brawny guy had just been torn right from his body, with a horrible sound of bones cracking, by his velvet-voiced adversary. The very next second, the headless corpse transformed into a fine dust that blew away in the wind.
Stunned, I tried to run again, but in the space of a breath, I felt someone grabbing me by the arm, the one that by some miracle was still clutching my bag. Suddenly I was lifted up from the ground and projected right toward Velvet Voice. I’d become a human cannonball too, and the impact drove us both to the ground.
While I was sinking into the void of unconsciousness, I heard something that reassured me that my insipid life was definitely over and that I was going to see my parents again.
“Watch your back, Phoenix. In the meantime, don’t forget—no witnesses.”
I am dead.
Is this heaven? Or maybe this is hell . . . there’s only darkness around me. That’s it, I’m dead. So why does it feel like I’m in a bed? Is this the kind of torture inflicted on sinners in the underworld?
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