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

  “Morgan, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I managed to say. Sometimes I went all sharkmouth, too, depending on how scared I got.

  So that brings me to another of my abilities. I can totally see in the dark. And not Paris Hylton sex-tape vision. I can see in the dark like a normal person can in the daylight. However, for some strange reason, Morgan is invisible to me when she chooses. It is like she wraps herself in the darkness and vanishes. Also, I can hear. I’m talking footsteps of a fly on the other side of the wall type stuff. It is like having a radio tuner in my head. I just scan the area, and I can pick up on things as far as a few blocks away. (I know this because Lisa and I played this game one night where she kept walking and talking in a whisper until I couldn’t hear her.) However, like her ability to evade my sight, Morgan can also be so quiet that I can’t hear her so much as breathe. (And she does, because I watched her chest one time to see if it rose and fell…it did.)

  “And I will remind you that I am the authority in these parts and keep my own council.”

  Bitchy mood, I thought. Great, just what I need. What I said was, “So what brings you to my house tonight? I know it isn’t to hang out and do each other’s hair and nails.” To emphasize my point, I kicked off my newest pair of ruined Nikes.

  “It seems that there has been a disturbance.” Morgan moved into view. Now when I say that, what I mean is that she went from being invisible to standing three feet away from me in the blink of an eye.

  “In the Force?” I scoffed and sat on the edge of my bed to pull my shredded socks off my feet. Bummer, these were the ones with the cute little roses on the toes. I kind of liked those socks.

  “Your attempts at humor have not gotten any better.” Morgan walked to my door and pulled it shut.

  “Neither has your attitude,” I shot back. “You sent me on a job with the high likelihood that I would die, but that I would do enough damage so your precious little vampire could come in and finish the job.”

  “Not true,” Morgan countered. “We gave you a fifty-fifty chance.”

  “You still sent me in underprepared and with the thought that my death would be an acceptable loss.”

  “We paid you very handsomely for your services.” Morgan gave me a dismissive wave. I wondered, and not for the first time, if I could take her in a fight.

  “Lot of good that would have done me if I were dead.”

  “You are dead.”

  I have no idea how long I stood there with my mouth open. I desperately wanted to fire off a witty comeback. Sadly, that is not really my strong suit. Instead, I went to what I felt I did best. I glared.

  “I suppose you came here with a purpose?” I finally said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence that was probably worse on me than on the emotionally stunted Morgan.

  “I have.” Morgan took a seat in the over-stuffed easy chair. She settled in and went so far as to grab the handle on the side and recline! Talk about making yourself comfortable. “There has been an incident just outside of the city in a little town called Estacada.”

  I had grown up in the Portland area. There are several little towns on the fringe that are mostly full of loggers, and, as of late, meth cooks. Back in the Seventies, there were always stories of people growing marijuana out in the forests. Supposedly they had the farms booby-trapped and if they caught trespassers, they just killed them and left the body for the animals. It was the Pacific Northwest’s equivalent to moonshining, I guess. If you believe the stories, that is.

  “When you say incident…” I let that hang in the air and become my question.

  “I have been…” Morgan paused. For just a second, I thought I saw something flit across her face that almost looked like an emotion. Seriously, this lady could make Mr. Spock look like a Jerry Springer guest when it came to containing emotional expression. “I have been informed that there may be zombies in the woods.”

  I looked at Morgan, and then I pulled out my phone and tapped the screen to wake it up. Yep, it was the middle of March. That would rule out April Fool’s. I tucked my phone away.

  “Zombies?” I tried not to sound like I thought she was full of it, but I’m not sure how well I managed to hide my skepticism. “Like Dawn of the Dead zombies, or like Serpent and the Rainbow zombies?”

  I was so proud of myself. I was never into the whole scary movie kick when I was human. Honestly, I was a giant scairdy cat. Those sorts of things gave me nightmares. Now, heck, I’d done battle with an honest-to-goodness vampire. I’d spoken to a few ghosts, and I live with a teenage girl. Movie monsters had nothing on my reality. Since Morgan had let it slip that a lot of what most people would consider popular fiction had some basis in reality, I decided that I would do some homework. Turns out Lisa was a big fan of the stuff. So I let her pick the selections for movie night.

  “We aren’t sure yet,” Morgan said with all seriousness.

  “Wait! What?”

  “There has only been one report and it was made by a witch that has a propensity for sipping a bit too much hemlock tea.”

  I was pretty sure that hemlock was some type of poison, but I could worry about that later. Morgan was talking about zombies. Worse, when I asked what type, her answer leads me to believe that there is more than one type of zombie! That tops poison drinking witches in my book.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Do I go out there with a shotgun and blow their brains out?” I said with as much of a laugh as I could muster.

  “I imagine that would be one way to deal with the situation,” Morgan said with her usual lack of emotion.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am absolutely serious. Do I strike you as somebody who jokes?”

  I tried to imagine Morgan even smiling and it gave me a bit of a chill. It would probably be like a shark’s smile…the last thing you ever saw before you became a snack. There was something about this woman that was just the most pure form of scary. And she was a tiny little thing. And then it dawned on me who she reminded me of: Carol Kane in that Bill Murray movie, Scrooged. She was that ghost or fairy, or whatever the heck she was supposed to be. But when she hit Bill Murray with that toaster, I laughed so hard I think I peed my pants just a little bit. She even had a voice very similar to Ms. Kane. Of course I would never tell her that. The only reason that I am sharing it with you here is because I know that she will never stoop to reading any of my books.

  “So what in the world would zombies be doing here? And what am I supposed to do if I find one?”

  “If I had all of these answers, do you think that I would be here asking you to investigate? That is what you are going to be paid for, Ava.”

  “So am I supposed to just investigate, or am I supposed to kill something?”

  “I imagine that will be determined once you go check things out,” Morgan said with a sigh as she unreclined (is that even a word?) from the recliner and stood up. “Perhaps I have overestimated your abilities. Maybe I should find somebody else.”

  I thought about that last seven figure paycheck. Considering the fact that I had worked as a waitress, and a good night was when I walked out with a hundred bucks, I decided that I wouldn’t have a problem taking a drive out to Estacada to look for zombies. My only concern was Lisa.

  “You might want to leave your pet human at home,” Morgan said.

  I know she told me that she isn’t a fortune teller or a mind reader, but that was just too spooky. I think she had a good point, though. If these were the Dawn of the Dead-type of zombie, I would feel just terrible if Lisa got bit and turned into one of those things. Of course that brought me to another question.

  “How come this isn’t ending up on the news? If there are zombies, wouldn’t that be something that the humans would want to report?”

  Morgan was silent for a moment. I think that worried me more than anything else. She was keeping something from me and I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Somebody is keeping the zombies under control for now,” Mo
rgan finally said.

  Now I was even more confused. There was so much wrong with that sentence that I had no idea where to start. I decided to just wade in—not that I expected much in the way of answers.

  “Somebody?”

  Morgan’s face actually seemed to melt into something resembling an emotion for just a split second. At least I think so. It might have been a trick of the shadows or something, but I was almost positive that I saw one eyebrow knit ever so slightly.

  “There may be a person behind this,” Morgan admitted.

  “So if it is a person…” My mind tried to make what I considered to be a logical jump. “Then it must be some sort of voodoo thing, right?”

  I had to consider that voodoo was real. After all, just scroll back a bit to that whole part where I mentioned meeting vampires and ghosts. Oh yeah, and the part about me being a ghoul. So if those things were real, then why not voodoo?

  “Not necessarily,” Morgan said with a slight movement of her head that may have been a shake in the general direction of “no.”

  “But if somebody is in control…” I heard that sound in my voice that was dangerously close to a whine. This was not going to get me any answers. I took a second and regrouped. Maybe if I tackled something else.

  “You said something about ‘for now’ when you said that these zombies are under control.”

  “Bravo for catching on,” Morgan said. The only problem was that I was not sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

  “Does that mean this might be some sort of beginning of one of those zombie apocalypse thingamajigs that everybody seems so excited to read about?”

  Personally, I didn’t get the whole infatuation with that genre. Anybody with half a brain would know that a zombie apocalypse would eventually mean that there would be no more anything! Things like hot showers and stuff would be gone. It would be like the camping trip that never ended. I don’t know about you, but I like to maintain a certain degree of personal hygiene. Soaps would stop being made…and that would be the least of our problems. You think you have trouble with feminine itching…or the lack of “feeling fresh” now? Try living without the local drug store or supermarket.

  And for you men…I wouldn’t start feeling so smug just yet. There are certain things that a woman may or may not do in these modern times regarding “your little soldier” that I can promise would come to an immediate halt when you stop being able to keep that area clean.

  I knew this one guy, and he was just so dreamy; broad chest, dazzling smile, and strong swimmer’s legs that were attached to buns that you could bounce a dime off. We met one night in a little club downtown and I swear that he was so well-groomed that I was certain he had to be gay. When he whispered in my ear that he would like to buy me a drink, I had to go check my make-up.

  I am a very busty gal with my 38DDs, and I play to my strengths. I also have Elvira-black hair that comes to my waist. If I get a bit too carried away with the make-up, apparently some people have suspected me of being a drag queen. Now I don’t want to get into the whole thing about whether or not that is a bad thing. Let’s just say that when that revelation was made to me a few years back, I learned to tone down the face paint.

  Anyways, we get back to my place and he is one of those guys who likes to do a little bit of taste-testing before he gets down to business. Yay for me! is what I was thinking. Me being the kind of gal who is into reciprocity, I went to return the favor. I got to his naval when I noticed what I first believed to be just a case of bad feet. I was prepared to overlook that…until I got to the actual source of that sweaty stench.

  So, fellas, if you think that whole zombie apocalypse thing is gonna just-freakin’-rock, let me tell you that there are some major downsides.

  “…would take a lot more than that.” Crap, Morgan had been saying something important. I knew that she was going to be annoyed, but I didn’t have much to lose since she already thought I was an idiot.

  “Excuse me?” I tried to make it sound like I wanted her to elaborate. She is far too smart for that.

  “I should have known when you had that vapid look in your eyes that you were off on some sort of mental picnic,” Morgan said. The thing is, she said it with as close to no emotion as possible. It was like my Speak-and-Spell using a female voice.

  “Sorry, just trying to wrap my mind around how bad a zombie apocalypse would be.”

  “So you didn’t hear a single word that I said.” I couldn’t swear to it, but it almost sounded like Morgan was annoyed.

  “Okay, I’m listening.” I even cupped my hands to my ears for effect.

  “I said that all those books and movies are preposterous. Do you really think that one person infected with some sort of zombie virus could cause a chain reaction that would wipe out the world? It would take something a great deal more widespread.”

  Morgan headed for the door and started downstairs. I guess she was leaving. I followed her down and even edged around her to open the door. I doubted that it would raise my standing in her eyes, but perhaps a little politeness would gain me a little something.

  “I want to repeat,” Morgan turned and stood in my doorway, “that I believe it would be a very bad idea to take your little human pet with you on this assignment.”

  “She’d not a—” I began to protest, but she was gone. I could say that she vanished in the blink of an eye…but I hadn’t blinked.

  “What assignment?”

  I jumped. If my heart still beat, it would have been pounding like a Rikki Rockett drum solo. Instead, my fingernails and toenails went switchblade. Lisa took a step back and had the decency to look apologetic. How had she snuck up on me? Hmm.

  “Morgan just came by with a job.” I shut the door and headed upstairs to my room. It would be daylight soon, I could feel it. “She thinks I can handle it by myself and didn’t want you getting involved.” I guess that was at least part of the truth. I wasn’t all that sure that Morgan believed that I could handle anything by myself.

  “What is the job?” Lisa moved past me into my room and plopped down on my bed. I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t buying any of what I was selling.

  “Just something up in Estacada. I will head there tonight and be back before morning most likely.”

  “So is it werewolves?” Lisa said that with way too much enthusiasm. I guess this was all just a big adventure to her. She still was not really in tune with the whole “we are monsters” part of things. If she knew how close she’d come to being a late-night snack to Belinda back when we first started hanging out together…perhaps she would be a little more concerned with her own safety.

  “No.” I closed my bedroom door. A little bit of dim gray light was starting to spill across the floor of my hallway.

  “Then maybe you can let me know what it is, and I can decide if it is too dangerous for me or not.” Lisa folded her arms across her chest and cocked one hip. That was teenage girl body language for ‘I ain’t budging until you talk.’

  “Zombies,” I said.

  Seriously, what could it hurt? In fact, we’d watched a bunch of those movies. Even went to some author’s book signing. Marvin, or Mark, or Mel Tufo…something like that—he had some series that she was just crazy about. She got home that night and wrapped the book in plastic like it was a priceless artifact. I was certain that when I told her it might be zombies that she would see the logic in sitting this one out. After all, I am a ghoul. I was pretty sure I am off the menu.

  I could not have been more wrong.

  2

  Rumors in the Air

  Lisa was at my door within minutes of sunset. Lucky for her that I wasn’t busy. Hey, I might be a ghoul, but I still have my needs. I had done some searches on Google about zombies—the real ones…not the movie versions. I figured I knew all that I needed to deal with the made-in-Hollywood kind—a bullet to the head or whatever.

  In a day’s worth of research, I came up with salt. Now what you did with th
e salt depended on what you read. I could make a circle with it. I could throw it on the zombie—that one seemed like a last ditch tactic. I was pretty sure that if it came to that, I was already in big trouble.

  “Can I drive?” Lisa asked, twirling the keys on her finger.

  “The Corvette?” I had to stifle a laugh. Hadn’t she just been going on yesterday about my frivolous spending?

  “Did you get another car when I wasn’t paying attention?”

  “You can drive, but if you so much as get too many bugs on the windshield…it is game over.”

  Lisa let out a squeal that could almost cause an ear hemorrhage and raced down the stairs. I am pretty sure the only things capable of hearing in that register were ghouls and dogs. I grabbed my plastic bag from the grocery store with a variety of salts. I had the one with the little girl and the umbrella, the generic store brand, and then, as an added bonus, I’d had Lisa get a thing of sea salt. Hey, no such thing as being over-prepared when it comes to dealing with zombies. Now there is something I never imagined in a million years I would have to say with any sort of seriousness.

  We pulled out of the driveway. That is how long it took me to regret letting Lisa drive. First, I was thrown forward hard enough that I was pretty sure I was going to have whiplash (if ghouls can get whiplash, that is). Then, I was slammed back in my seat hard enough that, if this would have been a cartoon, my teeth would still be floating in the air where my head used to be.

  Then she turned on the stereo.

  Apparently the little delinquent had been planning on my saying yes. She already had her iPod docked and a song queued up. Now when I was young…err…younger…groups like Pantera were considered pretty extreme. I listened to them when I wanted to piss off my folks. I didn’t even like them that much. Megadeth and Metallica fell into that grouping as well. Well, Metallica did until they went emo-metal with Nothing Else Matters.

  The stuff screaming out of my speakers had absolutely no relation to actual music. I get that each generation thinks theirs is the one that cornered the market. With my folks it was Elvis, The Beatles, and Barbara Streisand. How you can link those together is anybody’s guess. My mom cried when John Lennon got shot. I cried when Poison broke up. To each his or her own, I guess. Still, this noise was absolutely ridiculous. If you shoved a microphone down some guy’s throat and then slammed his testicles in a sliding glass door, he would probably be more musical than this garbage.