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

  “So how do I kill her?” That seemed like a pretty logical question. And considering all of the stuff that she seemed to know about this so-called queen of zombies (notice how I left of the word ‘the’?), it did not seem a stretch that she might know.

  “I don’t think you can.”

  Well that was not at all the answer I had hoped for. Besides, every monster has a way to kill it. Right? I mean, if you go by the movies—which supposedly have some basis in fact according Morgan—then it would stand to reason that every monster has an Achilles Heel.

  “I believe that those who managed to lock her away would have killed her if given the chance. After all, she was trying to subjugate the entire world and managed something almost single-handedly that even nations marching under their silly little banners have not accomplished—the death of over half the population of the civilized world.” Belinda flashed her fangs in what I thought was a yawn…until she snarled. “My thrall!”

  And just that quick, she was gone.

  “…standing right over there,” Lisa said. She sounded like a record getting up to speed.

  I gave her a curious look. I had no idea how Belinda did it, but I know I didn’t like it. The way she could just pop in and put Lisa into what was basically a coma for an indeterminate time, and then pop out and let her return with absolutely zero knowledge as to what had happened.

  “Who was?” And that was the other problem. I couldn’t recall what the heck she was talking about.

  “This lady…” Lisa drifted off for a second. I looked around expecting Belinda to be back, but then she snapped out of it and continued. “It was weird because I almost thought she wasn’t real. Nobody stands that still. Plus, it was like there was not even a hint of this soft evening breeze causing anything to ruffle. And she has dark hair that should have been waving at least a little bit.”

  My mind seemed to fizzle for a second. There was something else that had been happening right around that moment. Now I couldn’t remember. I know I’m not the brightest girl, but I’m not stupid. I focused my attention on trying to remember exactly what had been happening when Belinda so rudely interrupted. I could remember getting out of the car…walking up to the coin-op laundry, and then thinking that maybe we should look in the pizza place. I was sure I was missing something.

  3

  Nobody’s Fool

  “You sure are acting weird,” Lisa said with what sounded like genuine concern.

  Of course, a lot of that had to do with the way that I had literally scooped her up in my arms and dumped her in the Corvette. I had jumped over my car—I didn’t actually know I could do such a thing until that very minute—climbed in, and took off like I’d stolen something. Oh yeah…and I couldn’t get my finger- or toenails to retract or my sharkmouth to pull back.

  “Mrgll shrmf.”

  What was the use? There would be no way for her to understand me until I could dial my feelings back a little. I had plenty of things to be concerned about, but at the moment, I couldn’t whittle my list down.

  I briefly wondered if there would ever be a time when I would not be having some massive revelation dumped in my lap. As if being a ghoul wasn’t bad enough…as if knowing that vampires were real weren’t enough. Now I had Templars, Augustines (whatever those were), and a zombie queen (nope, still no caps) dropped on my head.

  Then there was this whole memory blank thing. My first suspicion was Belinda. However, I could recall every single thing that she had told me. I doubted that she could use her powers on yours truly. Was it a possibility? Sure. I didn’t trust that little vamp any further than I could spit…and I don’t spit; it’s a nasty habit.

  By the time the glow on the horizon grew into the night skyline of Portland, my teeth had gone back to normal and my fingers and toes were almost there. They come out like a switchblade, but they retract over time, and always at their own pace. I have considered starting a stopwatch, but the situation never seems to be one that my mind pipes up and shouts, “Hey, hit that timer!” So I have no idea if they retract with any sort of consistency.

  “And that is all you can remember seeing?” I asked—for probably the hundredth time in the past ten minutes.

  “I wouldn’t have seen it at all if you hadn’t staggered like you were just learning to walk on heels.”

  “Wait…what do you mean?” She hadn’t said a word about me staggering before.

  “You took a step and then your knees buckled and I thought you were going to fall. My immediate thought was that somebody had shot you with a sniper rifle.”

  I zoomed along down the highway in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. My knees buckled? The only time that I ever had any trouble controlling what my legs did was during—

  “There was a smell,” I whispered. A little snippet of memory broke loose. When it all came, it was like a light being flicked on in a dark room. At first there was nothing, then there was everything all at once. It took my mind a moment to clean everything up and put it where it belonged, but once I had basically reorganized my mind, it was all there…I think.

  It sorta reminded me of my ten-year high school reunion. I had shown up at the ritzy little golf club that had been selected to host that first mixer where we are all supposed to see who got fat, who got bald, and compare divorces.

  High school was a funny time for me. My freshman year I went into summer break barely discernable from the boys. The boob fairy had skipped my house once again. Couple that with braces which came with the oh-so-sexy headgear, and I was a crazy mother and a bad girls’ locker room incident away from being about as popular as Carrie.

  When I showed up on the first day of school my sophomore year after a summer at my cousins’ place in Florida, I was tan, down to just my retainer, and was sprinting towards my eventual 38DD finish line. All of a sudden, I was being asked out, I even joined the cheerleading squad. By the time that I graduated, I was the homecoming queen and had my pick of boys for the prom.

  So when I showed up at the reunion (two hours after a lunch shift at The Olive Garden) more than one person was probably snickering. I hadn’t done anything or gone anyplace. I was still listening to the same music and had held on to my big hair and Spandex. I actually pulled in to the parking lot cranking 18 and Life by Skid Row. After getting the evil glare from all the fuddy-duddies hitting yellow balls at the driving range thingy, I strutted in to the big open bar area and froze. Nobody had bothered to tell me it was semi-formal. Maybe they did in really small letters at the bottom of the invitation and I missed it. In any case, I was beyond underdressed for this little soiree.

  Since I didn’t have Lisa Kudrow as my wingman, I felt like an absolute idiot. There was no happy ending that night. I slipped out as soon as I could and skipped the rest of the weekend’s festivities. That night, with a bottle of Southern Comfort, I started replaying a bunch of my high school memories. I dug out my yearbook and started browsing at all the entries.

  “…never forget that night at the drive-in…”

  “…that time in the pool…”

  “…under the bleachers during the assembly…”

  I had gone through three years of an illusion. I had thought that I was popular and funny. The only thing I was…was easy. And then I started remembering it all. But I was remembering it how it actually was versus this shiny, perfect thing that I had created in my mind.

  Somebody…or better yet…something had messed with my mind! Well Ava Birch is nobody’s fool. And now that I was aware, I would figure out what happened and make sure that it never happened again. I just hope it didn’t involve wearing a tin foil hat.

  ***

  “Ava!” Lisa called from the kitchen.

  “What?” I was getting dressed and preparing for another trip to Estacada. I had given Lisa strict orders to get my attention the moment that she saw anything strange. A woman unaffected by the wind definitely fell into that category. If I was bringing her along o
n this little venture, then I needed her eyes peeled for stuff.

  “You have a phone call!” Hmm. Now that might just fall in the “anything strange” category.

  I became a ghoul after allowing my weak mind to win out in the argument that life would be better off without me involved. Who knew that suicide is the last step to ghoulishness? Anyways, I must have been dead on my bathroom floor for a few days before I came to and entered this new life. The problem I had initially was getting over the idea that my place of employment hadn’t so much as called when I didn’t show up for work. You can totally throw out the thing that I wasn’t even that good of an employee.

  Turn on the news any night and you see stories about some girl or another coming up missing. I hadn’t even rated that kind of response. Here we are almost a year later and nobody from my past ever came looking for me. So a phone call? Yeah, that falls in the “strange” category for sure. Heck, the only reason I still even had a phone was…damn…I have no idea!

  I went downstairs where Lisa was holding the thing like it was poisonous. Seriously, is it that strange?

  “Hello?” I used my most pleasant voice. After all, I could be some sort of sweepstakes winner or something. They still have those…right?

  “Am I speaking to Miss Ava Birch?” an equally pleasant-sounding voice said from the other end.

  “Yes you are. And who might this be?”

  “This might be a lot of things,” the voice answered with a laugh. You know the type. It is the kind where you are absolutely sure that they are laughing at you and not with you. “However, for now you can just call me Adrianna.”

  “I can think of a few other things that I could call you.” Yes, two can play at this game. I had no idea who this was, but I was certain that she was already on my last nerve. Maybe she was a friend of Belinda’s.

  “My name is…Adrianna Montevicci.”

  The way she said those five words (did you just go back and count? Sheesh!), it was like she expected them to mean something to me. Too bad for her.

  “You were in Estacada last night, correct.” That was a statement, not a question. Okay, big whoop-di-doo, so she knew where I was last night. Anybody could have known. It wasn’t like I was keeping it a secret. “You had a young girl with you.” Still no big deal. “And you stood outside the Suds Shack and had a lengthy conversation with a blonde vampire.” Okay, just got interesting.

  “So, Adrianna, I can call you that…right? I mean you don’t sound old or nothing, so I probably don’t have to call you Ms. Montevicci or ma’am, right?”

  There was a brief pause. I believe I felt a slight chill come through the receiver.

  “Perhaps this conversation would be better if we met in person,” Adrianna said. The only thing being that I wasn’t too thrilled with how she said it. Imagine if spiders suddenly had the ability to speak. Now, picture them calling up all the flies and little flying bugs in the neighborhood and inviting them over.

  “Maybe I should pick the place and time?” It was the best I could think of on the fly (no pun intended). I have had a few friends who dipped into the online dating thing the past few years. Well, ‘friends’ is probably overstating it, but you get the picture. So the number one thing I always heard them talking about was that you always met in a very public place that first time just in case they were total creeps.

  “Okay,” Adrianna agreed. Did she sound amused? Hmm.

  “Meet me at the Voodoo Doughnut on Davis,” I said.

  “How cute.” The way she said those two very simple words made me want to slap her. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that she was toying with me. That image of the spider kept coming to mind.

  “You gonna be there or not?”

  “I will, and may I suggest that you not bring your little human friend with you when you come.”

  Before I could say a thing, she hung up. Now I was more than just a little concerned. Not only did she know about what Belinda was, but she also referred to Lisa as ‘my’ human. That screamed supernatural. The problem I had was that I just did not know enough about what might be out there. I guess the only thing to do was to go and meet this spider…er, I mean, woman.

  I went back up to my room and grabbed my larger carry bag. I’m sorry, girls. I just can’t call that thing a purse. You could fit a small child in it.

  I went into my closet and found a few necessities: silver cross, holy water, all three kinds of salt, a decorative wooden stake and mallet that Lisa had purchased online. It was supposed to be a novelty item…if they only knew. I had no clue if any of this stuff would be helpful, but I wasn’t going to just walk in and meet whoever this was and not be at least a little prepared.

  4

  Sunglasses at Night

  “So you are just going to meet this person with no sort of backup?” Lisa huffed.

  “I made sure that we would meet in a public place,” I said as I tossed my bag in the passenger seat.

  “Yeah…and that worked out so well in Estacada. A vampire snuck up on you, hexed me, and vanished into thin air. And shall we bring up the whole chunk of your memory that you lost?”

  “I got it back,” I insisted. At least I think I did…most of it at least.

  “This is a bad idea, Ava.” There was something in Lisa’s voice that I wasn’t used to hearing. That’s probably why I didn’t know what it was right away. It took me a few minutes.

  “Are you worried about me?”

  “Of course I am, you idiot!” Lisa actually had that shiny look in her eyes, the type people get when they are right on the verge of crying.

  “Look, I really appreciate it…you have no idea how much.” And she didn’t. Maybe that was part of the problem. Somewhere along the way, we stopped really telling people what they meant. Sort of like that joke, “Of course I love you, I told you once, didn’t I? If it changes, I’ll let you know.”

  It was another one of those moments. When I had killed myself, not even my neighbors missed me. That was mostly because they had no idea who I was. I doubt that I had said more than a dozen words to all the other residents in my apartment complex back in those days. I kept to myself and they did the same. If somebody showed up on my doorstep with a casserole when I moved in, I probably would have waited for them to leave before I scraped it into the trash. Hey! Who knows what they put in that thing, right?

  I had simply become accustomed to having nobody ask or care about my well-being. Now that I did, I don’t think that I had really been appreciating it.

  “Look,” I turned to face Lisa and give her my full attention, “I know that this might be a little bit dangerous. But that is also why you can’t come with me. Morgan warned me against involving you in this case at all, and I did it anyways because I didn’t think.”

  “What if something happens to you?”

  “First off, the house is bought and paid for, and second you are listed as my beneficiary.”

  “I don’t care about any of that!” Lisa snapped.

  “Well if you are worried about me, don’t be. I’m a ghoul for crying out loud!”

  “That doesn’t mean you are invincible,” Lisa shot back. “Nothing is really immortal. That is the problem with things like vampires, they think they can’t be hurt all the way up to the point when somebody drives a stake through their heart. You already know that you can’t be out in the sun, but I bet there are other ways to hurt you that we don’t know.”

  I wanted to know what brought on this sudden display of emotion. I knew it had to be more than just simple PMS. She was almost in tears…correct that. The first couple started to trickle down her cheek.

  “If I promise to be careful, will that make you feel better?” I asked.

  “No,” Lisa said. “You won’t mean to, but you will do or say something stupid and get yourself in trouble. It isn’t a bad thing, it’s just the way you are, Ava.”

  I was almost hurt. The only problem was that I knew what she was saying. I couldn’t keep my big
mouth shut.

  “So what will help you feel better?” I asked.

  “Take me with you,” Lisa insisted.

  I thought it over. I could almost imagine the little angel and devil sitting on my shoulder arguing. If I took her with me, she would feel better, but I would possibly be putting her in serious danger. So is this what it was like being a parent? I mean, I feel responsible for her, but at the same time, I want her to still be my friend. One thing was for sure, when this whole thing was over, I was going out and buying some books on the whole parenting subject.

  “Fine, you can go, but you have to do what I say,” I conceded.

  “Okay!” Lisa was already zooming around to the other side of the car and shoving my bag on the floor.

  We headed for the meeting with the mysterious stranger. I tried to let my music do its magic and clear my head, but something about all of this was bothering me.

  When we arrived, I found a spot to park and turned to Lisa with as serious of an expression on my face as I could muster.

  “I will be going in alone. I want you to stay here in the car and keep an eye on the place. And I will be sitting close to a window. I want you to keep an eye on me.”

  Lisa nodded. “Just don’t forget to grab me a Cock-N-Balls!”

  For those of you who have not been to Voodoo Doughnut, you are missing out on quite an experience. They have some very creative people coming up with the names of their doughnuts. This one is a local favorite. I imagine that women order it more often. Most men probably wince at the idea of publically announcing that they would like a Cock-N-Balls. Big sissies.

  “Fine. Now sit tight and keep the doors locked.”

  I walked across the parking lot. I could already see that the place was empty except for the employees. I walked in and smiled at the girl behind the counter. She smiled in that way that only those who work in the service industry can truly master.