Magic, Mystery & Zombies: YA starter set

by Elle Klass

A bright red light flickered from the corner of the dark room. “Grab the light!” Alda yelled. Cara scurried towards it, dropping the book as she reached for it. She held it firmly in her hand and tugged, but the object was caught on something she couldn’t see in the dark.

  The Bloodseeker dived for her, catching her other arm in his firm grasp. A blast of white light diffused through the room from the object Cara clutched in her hand. He pulled her towards him. She tightened her grasp as the object and the nail it was stuck on slackened from the wall. The Bloodseeker, too late to stop her, screamed in agony as the light blasted him against the door, his body engulfed in flames.

  The light enveloped Cara, pushing its way through her body. She burst into fire, the flames licking the walls, then eddying into nothingness. Her ginger hair now crimson red, her amber eyes shining as garnets in the darkness. Beneath her skin, muscles exploded to the surface.

  “What’s happening?”

  A smile widened on Alda’s face. “You’re the one. We’ve waited for you.”

  “What do you mean and how come I can see you and they can’t?”

  “You are a Slayer, that’s why you see us. As long as you wear the amulet you will be indestructible and invisible to the Bloodseekers. They won’t be able to harm you. Your job is to find others like yourself and slay every last Bloodseeker. Don’t ever take it off and keep it protected beneath your clothes. Should it fall into their hands they will use it against you. You see us because you are special. All the answers are in the book. Take it, place the amulet around your neck and leave now!”

  Cara leaned over and grabbed the book. She then pulled the glowing amulet over her head. “What about you and the others?”

  “You have freed us. We are forever grateful but you must leave.”

  Cara hurried towards the door, stepping on the Bloodseeker’s ashes. The door opened for her and she ran through the house, ghosts guiding her way. She dodged the Bloodseekers, their dark glowing eyes searching, fangs sharp as daggers protruding from their upper gums. Their blood covered mouths saturated the air with the scent of iron. Claw-like fingers sliced through the air, scratching her clothes as she sprinted past them, hurdling tables and furniture with skill and agility unknown to her.

  Finally, reaching the front entrance, she twisted the golden knob on the large, chunky door and ran into the morning’s first light. Dawn. The sun rising just above the horizon. She stepped onto the porch, Bloodseekers on her trail. Stumbling down the steps, she landed face first in the dirt. Scrambling she lifted herself upright and quickly turned towards the house.

  A tall, thin Bloodseeker hissed, shielding his face as he sank into the house, flames licking his hands. The sun’s light rose bigger and brighter in the sky, immersing the house in radiance. The ground shook. She sprinted.

  Reaching the relative safety of the tree line, she turned in time to watch the ground part around the house, swallowing it. Thousands of lights glowed as the ghosts swirled into the atmosphere, rising high into the sky as they disappeared. Screams reverberated in the air surrounding her as the Bloodseekers were burned and buried.

  She cupped her ears and knelt, curling her head towards her knees to muffle their death screeches. Unable to stifle the noise, tears rose to her eyes from the pain in her throbbing ears. As soon as the screeching began, it stopped, and the earth filled in above the house. The ground appeared undisturbed. The sun shone high in the sky, erasing the dreadful night.

  Cara lifted the amulet hanging against her chest, a large red stone set in the center surrounded by, and hanging on, a silver chain. She clutched it, the book tucked beneath her arm, and marched down the road. Not a soul peered outside their windows or took notice of the event.

  The house was wiped from existence and erased from St. Augustine’s inhabitants’ minds. Cara’s secret.

  Chapter 1

  Alison

  Music surging from the apartment next door startled Alison awake. Her body rolled off the couch with a soft thump, landing on an assortment of throw pillows she’d kicked off during her nap. She pulled herself off the floor and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Mouth dry as the Sahara, she headed towards the kitchen for water. A shrill female scream vibrated against her eardrums, causing her to jump and drop her empty tumbler. It crashed to the floor with a loud thunk, mimicked by the shattering glass outside her front door.

  The apartment complex was always quiet, especially after dark. It had to be the new neighbors. After sunset, they’d moved into the adjoining apartment. As a lonely girl in a new city, she’d watched them with admiration. Two women, neither over the age of twenty-five, single women living on their own. One with long, brown wavy hair and eyes bluer than any she’d seen before. A surreal blue. The other girl had blonde highlights throughout the light brown hair, framing her flawless face and intense green eyes. Both had curves in the right places.

  Self-conscious, she had compared her still developing body to their mature ones. Her gut swelled over her sweatpants and her chest had barely sprouted. She wore an A-cup to make herself feel better, but really she didn’t think anyone noticed when she went braless. At the moment her admiration for them plummeted; beautiful or not, they were an annoyance!

  Two voices, one female the other male, argued in the breezeway, the open air hallway between the apartments, upsetting her, but also piquing her natural teenage curiosity. She peered through the peephole hoping to catch sight of someone in the breezeway between the apartments but all she saw was the apartment across the hall. Her own front door blocking the view of the adjoining apartment.

  “I hate you!” Then the door slammed so hard it made the walls tremble and the door shake. Alison’s face pressed against the door, she yelped from the jolt against her nose. Rubbing it, she moved away and strolled back to the kitchen, picked up her tumbler and poured filtered water into it, drinking it all in several successive gulps. Catching her breath she considered her options. She could knock on their door and ask them nicely to lower their music or she could wait it out.

  Home alone, as her mother worked as a nurse at Flagler hospital, and hundreds of miles from her father and best friend, she was unsure what to do, but didn’t feel knocking on the door was the best choice. Actually, the idea freaked her out. Instead, she padded to the coffee table, picked up her tablet and checked the time. She was overly dismayed when her tablet screen displayed eleven p.m.

  A tad scared but nosy and irritated, she slid the patio door open and listened, maybe they were wrapping up the party. All she heard was murmuring half-drowned by the music. Upset, lonely and slightly frightened she sent her BFF in Virginia a message: I hate my life. New neighbors are crazy. I miss you. She knew Vicky was asleep like normal people and wouldn’t see her message for several more hours.

  Alison laid her phone on the table and gazed towards the heavens. A chunk of moon peeked out from the surrounding clouds. Always interested in lunar phases as most paranormal books she read featured the moon was an important piece of the story, and each phase having a specific meaning. The most well-known were the werewolves who morphed during a full moon, but red moons and blue moons had meanings too. Her body shuddered as the party next door continued, but the steady purr of a familiar vehicle kept her plastered to the chair.

  Within seconds an emerald green Charger hugged the road as it passed her screened patio. Her eyes moved with it as the driver swung around the curve. She jumped from the plastic patio chair, grabbed her phone, her heart beating fast within her chest, and with a sigh, stepped inside. Almost forgetting her troublesome new neighbors. She slid the heavy glass door closed, bolting all the locks and tugging to be sure.

  She raced toward the dining room window and parted the blinds, a large breezeway with philodendrons planted in the middle separated the apartments. She recognized the emerald green Dodge Charger and its driver, Rodham. To her, his chiseled body screamed for every teenage girl in a fifty mile radius to pay attention. He lived kitty corner to her apartment and direct
ly across the hall from the new, loud neighbors.

  He rounded the corner of the building, keys jingling in his hands, eyes shooting a glance across the hall towards the partying neighbors’ apartment. Well defined muscles on his forearm bulged as he twisted the key in the lock. She imagined herself wrapped in those arms, his full lips kissing her neck and drifting behind her ears. Still a virgin with no prospects or past boyfriends, thoughts of Rodham filled her waking and sleeping mind. Under no circumstances did she think a hot, dreamy creature like Rodham would date an ordinary, overweight, ginger like her because she lacked the talent and looks to suck men into her web. Rodham closed the door and her moment of teenage lust ended.

  Dropping the blinds, she sauntered to the fridge and lifted the papers hung on the fridge with magnets, searching for an emergency number for the apartment complex. Her mother was organized, down to every detail. As the thought brushed through her mind, she glanced at the pillows still lying on the floor and made a mental note to pick them up before bed.

  With a triumphant grin, she found the number and lifted it off the fridge. Loud neighbors at eleven p.m. was an emergency in her book. She dialed the number and it directed her to leave a message. What if I was dying? What if someone broke in and I was shivering in terror in my closet? Whatever, she shrugged and left a message, tossed the pillows onto the couch and crawled into bed, drawing the comforter over her head, and sticking in her earbuds. She turned up the volume, attempting to drown the commotion next door and opened her tablet to her current book, City by the Bay.

  Thirty minutes later a pounding on the front door interrupted her reading, and a shudder ran down her spine. She curled further under her covers like a frightened turtle inside its shell.

  Rodham

  A bottle cap skittered across the cement breezeway as Rodham rounded the corner. It landed in the dirt next to a philodendron leaf. A shattered glass bottle twinkled in the lights, its contents sprayed across the cement wall, puddling on the concrete beneath. The heavy beat from the music across the hall thumped against his eardrums.

  When he drove past the apartment, he captured a glimpse of the new neighbors. Several people stood on the patio, each holding drinks in their hands. The sliding glass door open, he saw into their apartment, where a woman with blondish hair danced against a dark haired man. Her back rubbing his chest, she slid down him, her flowing hair trailing across his torso. Her partner leaned his face towards hers as she grabbed a handful of his dark hair.

  Rodham fumbled with the lock, aware the apartment across the hall was empty when he’d left with his friend, Adrian, for Daytona to surf. Now, new, annoying neighbors partied and littered the breezeway. He wondered how the quiet ginger next door was faring against the noise. Always aloof with her tablet in front of her face - at the beach, the pool, slung in a hammock on the shore of the manmade lake at the apartment complex.

  Her amber eyes mysterious and deep, ginger hair trailing her back with gentle waves falling across her shoulders, freckles kissed her porcelain cheeks. Intent on her tablet, she always twisted stray strands between her fingers. From the corner of his eye he caught her amber eyes peering from her parted blinds, biting her natural cherry colored bottom lip, watching as he hurried and closed the door, locking out the new, annoying neighbors.

  One finger pushed against his ear, his cell phone meshed against his other, Rodham’s father acknowledged he was home with a quick flash of his eyes, then he squinted and bent over talking to the person on the other end of the line.

  His mom sat, feet propped on the coffee table and plugs in her ears. Her back against the soft cushion of the sectional. Closed captioning jogged across the TV screen. She waved at him as he disappeared into his room. Beach sand stuck to every part of his body, he gathered clean clothes and rushed into the shower.

  He allowed the warm water to wash the sand down the drain, the cute ginger filling his thoughts. Fully focused on her, a set of dagger-tipped fangs interrupted his thoughts. A single drop of blood hung in the air as it fell from the point of a fang. A thunderous knock blasted him out of the vision. Catching the shower’s side handle to keep from slipping, he knocked the back of his head against the tile wall, hard enough to give him a temporary headache. He scurried out of the shower, both his parents’ were watching something through the parted blinds.

  Chapter 2

  Alison

  Alison yanked the earbuds out of her ears and listened. The knocking stopped, the music stopped, and muffled voices drifted through the wall. Throwing off her covers, she hurried towards the dining room window, attempting to catch a glimpse. All she saw was the black-clothed, burly back of a police officer scolding her neighbors.

  “We’ve had complaints. This is a residential area and we’re going to have to ask you to keep your music down,” the officer said in a deep voice.

  Across the hall, Rodham’s ebony face appeared through parted blinds. His sable eyes met her amber orbs locking them in a gaze. He noticed me! Thought Alison, the ambiguous girl whom he hadn’t paid one ounce of attention to all summer. Warmth tingled through her body and she all but forgot about her matted bed-head, and Tinker Bell pajamas. The expanded-second locked gaze ended, and he dropped his blinds back in place.

  She twirled her body away from the window and, in a dreamy state, leaned against the wall, thoughts of the day she followed him to the beach, flitted through her head. She’d poised her chair under an umbrella, sprayed SPF 130 over her entire pale body, placed a floppy hat on her head and watched him with stars in her eyes from behind the pages of her book while pretty girls with dream bodies in their bikinis flocked towards him like bees to honey. His brown skin velvet beneath the sun. She pushed her book, Beyond the Hidden Sky, over her face and read, catching glimpses of Rodham. In her one-piece with a baggy T-shirt to cover her jelly stomach she didn’t think she compared to the other teens.

  She peeled herself off the wall and strolled to her bedroom. He noticed me! Sinking into her bed she savored our moment in her mind, silence next door - she fell asleep.

  Sun filtering through her window awoke her the following morning. She crept towards her mother’s room, peeking around the corner of her opened door. She lay on her bed, burrito-wrapped inside the covers, feet poking out the end. Alison sighed relief that her mother was home. She’d grown used to her absence at night and had felt safe enough until last night.

  Her stomach grumbling for food, she strolled into the kitchen, poured a bowl of cereal and ate while she turned on her tablet and continued reading her current book.

  Hours later, her mother stretched her arms as she exited her bedroom and ambled into the kitchen. With a yawn she said, “Good afternoon, sweetie.”

  Peeling her eyes from her tablet and current fictional world, Alison acknowledged her mother from her prone position on the couch and lifted her eyes responding, “Hi, Mom. I fixed lunch, frozen lasagna and garlic bread.”

  “What did I ever do to get such a wonderful daughter?” She spied Alison’s tablet. “I love all the reading you do. It helps the mind grow, but I hate seeing you inside all day, every day. That’s why we bought you the car so you could get out, explore your new surroundings, meet new people. This is St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S., there’s more than enough to keep you busy and entertained.” She gently pushed Alison’s legs towards the back cushion of the couch and sat, pecking her on the cheek.

  Alison’s parents had bought her a 2000 Corolla, not a bad first car. In fact, she thought it was an excellent first car - everything worked. The problem was they lived in Florida and she detested starting the car and setting the air conditioning to full blast for ten minutes before she could sit in it without melting or touch the steering wheel without second degree burns.

  Her next problem was the friend issue. As an introverted book nerd, it took her years to build the relationships she had - Vicky, she was it. Her only friend. She anticipated she’d be spending the two years left of high school alone.

>   Alison’s phone vibrated and she glanced at the message, Vicky responding to her late night text. Miss you! Talk later, school shopping. She wished she was in Virginia shopping with her, the way they’d done the past few years, since their parents deemed them old enough to wander the mall without 24/7 parental supervision.

  “I miss Vicky, my high school, the mountains, the cooler night air.”

  Her mother sighed and brushed her hand through Alison’s hair. “Honey, I know this is difficult for you. But your dad travels a lot. I was offered a job here. This is our home now. School starts next week, try and make friends.”

  “I know. I’ll try.” She bit her lower lip. “And when the weather gets cooler I’ll explore the city.” After her parents’ divorce, her mother, who’d spent sixteen years as a stay at home mom, dusted off her nursing degree and sent her resume all over the U.S., hoping to land a job. She did, in St. Augustine, to Alison’s bad fortune.

  Her mother stood and wandered towards the kitchen, cutting a slice of lasagna and placing it on a plate, then sighed as she popped it in the microwave. “I’ve been working a lot, paying moving expenses. Once they’re paid up we’ll do more exploring together.”

  Facing away from her mother, Alison rolled her eyes and shrugged, the only exploring they’d done together was watching an IMAX movie at World Golf Village. And it was an excellent outing but, other than that, her mother constantly worked. Alison was old enough to understand child support didn’t pay everything. She also understood her parents continued an amiable relationship if nothing else than for her, and her father would do more to help them out. Her mother, proud and stubborn, refused any money other than the court dictated amount.

  She contemplated telling her mother about the neighbors but chose against it, assuming it was a one-night thing.

  As soon as the sun went down, the neighbors’ thumping music and partying began, growing louder as the night progressed. She built up the nerve to walk to her front door, replaying what she would say in her mind. As she turned the knob she chickened out, her anger inside recoiled and she stuck her earbuds in and read instead.