From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (13 page)

What you need to know is this. We did it. We did not kiss. It was okay, but not great.
He lasted longer than above average, but since we didn’t get too much time to prime my pump, I did not reach the Promised Land. It was still nice, but nothing amazing. Then, apparently the sun came up, because, true to his word, Jeremy died. It was super weird. We were actually talking and he was telling me that we could continue the conversation later. Like a dork, I asked why. Then he just went limp. I mean entirely.

So here is my dirty confession.
I already told you that I didn’t reach the Grand Finale, so I did something that I am not entirely proud of. I tried to see if he was ‘entirely’ dead. Are you following me here? In other words, I tried to raise the flag by hand. I figured that there would be no harm if I could get the puppy to sit up. I would hop on, ride to victory, and then go to sleep.

Apparently dead is dead. Now that I think about it, I am a little embarrassed. I probably should have just
reached in the drawer beside my bed and handled my own business. Maybe it had something to do with being desensitized to dead bodies. After all, they did make up the basis of my diet.

I recalled that very first corpse that I’d eaten. I was so mort
ified at the time.

But now for the real revelation. I think this might upset Belinda if she ever finds out what I am about to reveal. Since I find it unlikely that she will ever stoop so low as to read
anything that I write…even if it becomes super popular and some cable company decides to make it into a series starring Zooey Deschanel as me. You know how repulsive I have told you that vampires are to my senses? How they absolutely reek? Well, when they are in their dead state…the Dumpster frosting scent goes away. Jeremy smelled so sweet that he made me break out in sharkmouth!

Imagine my surprise when his body shut down and all of a sudden it was as if I were at the peak of my PMS and standing in the middle of a giant fudge factory. I actually drooled on him a bit. I even gave him an experimental lick and he was delish!

Once I got myself under control, I climbed out of bed and into my shower. I had a special set of shower heads installed. One of them aims in just the right direction. Plus, it has like a dozen settings that pulse at varying degrees of intensity and speeds. I hit the highest settings and rode the waves until my hot water heater finally exhausted itself.

The rest of the day I just watched some daytime television. It made me feel sort of nostalgic. When I was younger and in school, I used to love Spring Break. Not because I went anyplace and flashed my boobs or anything like that. Actually, for me, the best pa
rt was just staying in bed late and then watching the soaps while my mom was at work. I’ve tried a few times in my life to check them out again, but they are just so boring now. I guess we see so much drama in our real lives that the over-the-top stuff they try for now just seems so phony. That, and every actor and actress looks the same.

When my phone rang just after noon, I had a weird feeling. Something told me it was something bad.
I’ve never been much for believing in things like intuition…but then again, I hadn’t believed in vampires, zombies, or ghouls.

“Is this Ava Birch?” the strangely familiar voice asked.

“Well since you called me, I imagine that you already know the answer to that question.” I always made it a point to give a hard time to telemarketers. And another thing, if I answer my phone and a recording tells me to hold on for “a representative who will get to you shortly,” you can bet I hang up. I could care less if I owe you money, or what bill you are trying to collect, but if
you
call me and put
me
on hold…you better believe that I won’t be there when you get around to actually being on the phone.

“Hello?” an irritated voice buzzed in my ear.

“Sorry.” I really think I might have a problem when it comes to concentration.

“
My name is Betty LaGuardia,” the voice said. It sounded strangely familiar. “I am calling on behalf of Alessa—”

There was a muffled sound. It sounded like somebody put their hand over the receiver or something. I could make out what sounded like a bit of an argument. After a few moments, the voice returned.

“I am calling on behalf of
Adrianna
,” Betty said that name with a hell of a lot of sarcasm.

It struck me. I knew who it was that I was on the phone with; it was that old lady from the porch of that house in E
stacada. I had no idea why she would have my number. Even more, I was clueless as to why she would be calling me.

“…says that she wants to meet you face-to-face tonight,” Betty said
.

“On what terms?” I asked. For some reason, it seemed like I should not be going into this willy-nilly like I did everything else.

I heard Betty repeat my question with her hand not quite covering the receiver of her phone. There was a long silence, and then the sounds of what had to be Adrianna…or Alessa according to Betty’s apparent goof, could be made out. I could hear some really angry sounding chatter coming from that end of the line. That was actually a bit of a comfort. Adrianna did not expect me to question things. She really did think that she was dealing with an idiot. When it came to this whole supernatural thing, maybe I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was good on my feet. I had always had the knack of figuring things out on the fly. Granted, it was usually associated to the customer service industry…

“She will offer a truce
that will expire in twenty-four hours,” Betty related.

That seemed reasonable. I agreed and said that I would be on my way as soon as the sun set.

“And come alone!” I heard a strangely garbled voice hiss in the background.

Rosanna

“…absolutely not going out there alone!” Jeremy snarled. He was far too angry for this to just be about my going out to meet Adrianna. I think somebody was compensating for last night/this morning.

“You are not the boss of me,” I said as I did an inventory of what I’d put in my bag. I still had absolutely no luck in finding anything that told me how to put a stop to this
Queen of the Zombies.

“It isn’t about me being the boss of you,” Jeremy defended. “But my boss told me that I was not to let you out of my sight. I am supposed to be by your side until she says otherwise.”

“And that is really sweet.” I patted him on the cheek.

“Don’t patronize me, Ava,” Jeremy snapped, swatting my hand away. “This is not an order that I can ignore.
If you don’t allow me to ride with you, I will simply follow you my own way. Estacada isn’t that big, you won’t be that hard to find.”

“Do what you need to do.”

Actually, that wasn’t such a bad idea. I absolutely did not trust Adrianna. If Jeremy just happened to be in the area and something went wrong, I could hardly be blamed. My only concern was that if this was another one of those damn
ju-ju
thingies, I might suffer from breaking the deal. But if I didn’t let him come with me, then technically I was not doing anything wrong.

“About last night…” Jeremy fumbled. Ah-ha, now I was convinced what this whole thing was really about.

“Can we deal with that when I get back? I’d really like to get home early enough so that we can enjoy our next romp in the sack a bit more…if that’s okay with you.”

My statement was greeted by silence. That was a bit unner
ving until I turned around and saw him standing there with his mouth hanging open.

“You better close that thing before it draws flies,” I quipped.

I guess that was not exactly the right thing to say. Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about how gross he smells when he is awake. I was not trying to make him self-conscious about being a vampire. Honest.

His face took on a hurt look. Seriously, I was so far from thinking about that Dumpster analogy that I did not know what had his panties in a bunch until he spoke.

“I am sorry if I am so unpleasant for you to be around, but there is nothing that I can do about how a vampire smells to a ghoul. Perhaps now would be the time to tell you that vampires cannot reach absolute sexual fulfillment without at least a slight draw of blood. And since you are a ghoul, your blood would be toxic to me.”

So we were going to go the anything-you-can-bitch-about-I-can-bitch-louder route. Nice to know he wasn’t above being pe
tty.

“Perhaps you should go back to your little Belinda and tell her that I kicked you out.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Jeremy’s eyes grew large. He glared at me when I simply returned his look with a smile.

“I re
voke my invitation,” I said in my really bad Clint Eastwood impersonation.

Jeremy wailed and screeched, but a moment later he was outside my front door. I had accidentally done that to Belinda once. It had really pissed her off, but I had learned something that day when it came to dealing with vampires.

“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 b
eing 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 yell
ed. “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 co
mpared 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 wa
s 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 pe
ople 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 Sni
ffles 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 co
mplained 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 pr
obably missed all the important stuff.