Undeath: The Fragile Shadows Series (A Paranormal Vampire Romance)

by Lily Levi

  The imagined sound of water played in her ear. If it was a trick, she didn’t care.

  The orange bag hit against her leg.

  She staggered forward, willing one foot in front of the other, over and over. She recalibrated her steps to the second star as often as she dared.

  “Go, Jolene, go,” she whispered to herself. “Go, go.” She shuffled onward, moving her hands from one rough tree to the next. She would make it, she had to. The only other option was too grim to consider.

  Slowly, slowly, the trees thinned and the dark spaces grew in size between them. Dark shrubs scratched against her bare legs. Her vision stabilized.

  She adjusted the duffel bag's rough strap over her shoulder and stopped at the edge of a steep incline.

  “Hey! Hey, Jolene!”

  He’d found her.

  She scrambled down the slope.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  She stumbled down the base of the incline and caught her balance on the rocky shore.

  The black water sparkled with the reflection of the stars and the giant moon.

  Feverishly, she scanned the bay for the shadows of the dark islands. She needed to find the dock. She needed to find Laurie. She needed help.

  The scraping sound of boots on rock grated into her ears.

  She turned and watched with sick dismay how Benny’s heavy frame clambered down to meet her.

  “Whoa, hey,” he called out drunkenly. He waved his arms up at her. The pistol and the clear bottle from the motel room glittered with cold moonlight. “Nice night for a romantic beach walk, huh?” He stepped closer. “So, Jolene, you wanna tell me what you did wrong back there?”

  She wanted to run, only she couldn’t. Her legs revolted against her and refused to move.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you. First you took my shit and then you took it again.” He threw the empty bottle into the sand. “I tried to be nice, didn’t I? Wasn’t I nice?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  He stepped closer.

  Run or die, she told herself. Your choice, Jolene.

  Another sick wave passed over her and she wrapped her arms around her middle to keep herself straight.

  “What did you say to me?” He stepped closer to her. “Did I just hear you say ‘no’?”

  She lurched forward on the shore. He wouldn’t shoot at her. She repeated this to herself. He wouldn’t shoot at her. He’d shoot into the air to scare her, but he wouldn’t shoot at her.

  “Where you going, Jo-Jo?” he yelled after her. “You tryin’ to tell me something?” His words slurred themselves together and his boots thudded against the sand behind her. He’d gotten drunk in the forest or perhaps he’d been drunk when he found her.

  She tottered on the sand, but she quickly righted herself, and kept running. Her dirty sneakers pounded against the shore and matched the harried beat of her heart.

  “C’mon,” Benny panted loudly behind her. “I just wanna talk now, that’s all. Don’t you want to talk?”

  She desperately searched the water for the islands, for the dock, for Laurie.

  “You got something of mine,” he yelled. He was so near to her now that she imagined she could smell the liquor on his breath.

  She shouldered off the orange bag and dropped it into the sand behind her. “Take it!” she screamed.

  She listened with unexpected relief to how the rocky sand shot up beneath his boots. He’d stopped to pick up the bag.

  She ran faster, even as the world seemed to tilt and toss beneath her. The sick taste of vomit swelled back up into her throat. She forced it back down.

  “You think I came back for this?” he hollered after her.

  He shot the pistol into the air.

  She forced herself to look back, but she barely saw him.

  The islands – how had she missed them? They sat in the dark water, unperturbed by the drama unfolding on the beach across the bay. Her heart rose with new hope. She was close. It was going to be okay, if only she could keep going.

  “Go,” she told herself. She scanned the shoreline for the dock she’d almost let herself believe she’d never see again. Now, it was the only thing she wanted to see.

  And Laurie.

  Chapter Forty

  Hot and out of breath, Jolene struggled down the dark beach. The dock came into view first and then the dark walls of the manor.

  It wasn’t long before she felt the handles of the double doors in her hands.

  She’d made it this far, but something told her they would be locked.

  Holding her breath, she pulled on one side of the door. It didn’t open.

  She closed her eyes and pulled on the other side.

  The heavy door groaned open and, without pausing to let the relief sweep through her, she slipped into the dark entryway.

  “Laurie?” She pushed the door shut behind her.

  No one answered. Cool moonlight drifted in through the long, opaque windows on either side of the doors.

  She fumbled to close the locks using the dim light as a guide. She wouldn’t be able to see Benny coming from the first floor. She hadn’t looked back since leaving him on the shore with the orange bag, but there were no chances left to take.

  She tottered uneasily through the entryway and into the grand foyer.

  At the base of the flumed stairs, the silver chandelier glinted back what little light there was. Her head throbbed with the same feeling as when she hadn’t eaten, and her throat constricted against the very real threat of sour, stinging bile.

  Holding on to the end of the curled bannister with one hand, she cupped the side of her mouth with the other. “Laurie!” she yelled.

  Where was he? She steadied her foot on the first step and prepared herself for the climb. It would have been hours since she’d stormed out and he could be anywhere, but she’d left him in the gallery. There was a small chance that he was still up there, ignoring her, still brooding on what had happened.

  She hoisted herself slowly up the stairs, one step after the next, and called out his name.

  Something dreadful told her that he wasn’t there anymore, but she pushed the fear away as best she could. Where would he have gone?

  And the old woman - where was she?

  Her heart chilled at the memory of the sunken, papery face.

  Wild banging rose up from the first floor and she stopped, head swimming.

  “Jolene!” The voice was muffled by the doors, but it was unmistakably his. “Don’t you wanna play?”

  Blood pounded up into her ears. She pushed herself further up the stairs. She didn’t want to play. She wanted Laurie. She wanted Benny to disappear and to have never happened. She wanted to have never left the house, even for its horrors. Whatever life she’d left behind in the forest months ago, she didn’t think she wanted anything else to do with it, not if Benny was its main star.

  Below, the furious knocking continued.

  Something told her that he would bleed his knuckles dry against the door before he even considered walking away.

  “Laurie,” she whispered as loud as she dared. “Where are you?”

  She climbed steadily, but too slowly. The second floor felt years way. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that maybe Benny hadn’t seen her go into the house at all. Maybe he was taking a lucky guess by banging on the door and trying to scare her out, if she was inside.

  Maybe, but probably not.

  The smashing of glass below shattered this thin hope.

  “Nice place, Jo-Jo,” he yelled over the muffled sound of crunching glass. “Very nice.”

  Jolene stepped gingerly up the stairs, one at a time. She would go all the way up to the top where she’d found the old woman and the gallery. She would wait there for Laurie, or for a better idea, whichever came first. All she knew was that she couldn’t keep running, not like this.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  Down below, porcelain smashed against tile. “Why’d
you run?” he yelled. “Huh?” Something bigger, heavier, shattered against the marble floor. “Did I scare you away?”

  Her head twirled and the dark house grew darker. She latched her hand tighter around the bannister.

  Something was hurled against a wall. “You’d rather hide up in a fuckin’ haunted house than have a nice little conversation with me?” He laughed and even the house seemed to shudder at the sound.

  Jolene pulled herself up to the third floor landing. She allowed herself a moment’s rest. The corners of her vision continued to blur. A sick backwards feeling rose up through her body.

  The horrible image of Benny finding her unconscious body forced her upright once more.

  “You never shoulda run away from me,” he yelled. “We were good together. Benny and Jolene. You threw that shit away, though.”

  Exhausted and sick, she stepped as silently as she could up the next flight of stairs.

  “Jo-Jo,” he sang out. The sound of his boots thumping against stairs echoed up to her. “Oh, Jo-Jo, don’t you know-know!”

  She closed her eyes against the sing-song voice. It sounded nothing short of insane.

  Frantically, quietly, she took one step and then another. If he heard her, there would be no chance of him stopping off on another floor to continue his hunt.

  And if he caught her?

  She didn’t want to think about that. She couldn’t. Instead, she tried to match her steps with his on the stairs below her, only he was too fast. He wasn’t going to stop off on the second or the third floor.

  He was like a dog. Like a crazed hound, hunting her up the stairs, not needing to see her to know where she was.

  She stumbled over herself and cracked her chin against the wooden step above.

  “Jolene.” His footfalls paused below, but only for a moment. “I heard you, Jolene.”

  Using both her hands and feet, she crawled haphazardly the rest of the way up the stairs, no longer caring how much noise she made.

  “Jolene!” he yelled.

  She pulled herself up against the railings and turned around to face the strange, shadowed hallway. She’d made it.

  Further down – oh, how it seemed like miles and miles in the dark – a gas lamp flickered.

  “Laurie,” she breathed, struggling forward. She used the peeling wall as a crutch, sliding her arm and shoulder against it. She slunk forward towards the light. “Is that you?” She stumbled closer.

  A hunched frame came into focus. Black eyes sparkled behind the soft glow of the lamp.

  Shaking from the strange sickness, Jolene struggled to speak. Her mouth had grown dry. “Where’s Laurie?” she managed to whisper. “There’s someone coming.”

  “I’m gettin’ tired, Jo-Jo!” Benny yelled. His boots clomped slower up the stairs. “Makes me not want to play so much, if you catch what I’m saying.”

  The old woman stared at her. “So I heard,” she said dryly.

  Jolene clawed her hand into the old wallpaper. “We have to hide,” she pleaded, hoping the woman would let her pass or else come with her. She was likely someone Laurie cared about, hidden away or not.

  The woman’s black eyes hardened. “I don’t hide,” she said.

  Jolene’s chest throbbed with the frantic beating of her heart. “Please,” she said. “You have to hide, too.” Like a petulant child, Benny would hurt anyone who got in his way, including the old woman.

  But she would not be moved.

  “Hey Jolene! I’m gonna fuck your night up.” He was coming. “Really,” he said. “I’m gonna fuck it right the fuck up.”

  Jolene pressed herself against the wall and fumbled with the knob on the closest door.

  Locked.

  “Where’s Laurie?” she asked.

  The old woman watched her with a strange calmness and then moved the gas lamp behind her. The heavy shadows parted. Her black eyes, like two shining pebbles, glittered sullenly. “You’re dead,” she said. “Remember this.”

  “No,” Jolene sobbed. “Please.”

  Benny laughed from the top of the stairs. “Who’s that old witch?” he said. “That your friend, Jo-Jo? Hey lady,” he said, stepping forward. “I’m gonna need you to close your eyes for a second.”

  But the woman wouldn’t turn around for Benny. Her face cleared and seemed, for only moment, devoid of wrinkles and the obvious pain of her old age.

  “Run,” said the woman.

  She unfurled her clawed hand from the handle of the lamp and let it fall. She lifted her bare foot over the glass and the flame within.

  “Run,” she said.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Jolene hurled herself down the hallway.

  Flames licked up behind her, catching on the dry wallpaper and dust-packed rug.

  She hobbled as fast as she could, head spinning with smoke and the sound of Benny’s booming voice from the other end of the hall.

  “What the hell!” he cried. “Jolene!”

  She could hear how the old woman laughed.

  She stumbled forward. There was no time.

  The orange glow of the spreading fire lit her way from behind. Hot smoke filtered down the corridor, filled with locked doors and nothing but locked doors. There was nowhere to go but further down, and then what?

  “Jolene!” Benny yelled after her, but she refused to turn back.

  If she could help it, his face would not be the last thing she would see. It would be the end of the dark hallway, if it was going to be anything at all.

  Snippets of their time together played through her mind like some opaque, sick circus. But, it had been her circus to choose, no matter how the choice was made.

  She pushed the dark memories away. Even if that had been her life, it wasn’t anymore. If she was going to die, she would die as the girl who got away, not as the girl who stayed.

  Her chest burned with smoke and adrenaline. She paused against the wall, already hot from the growing flames behind her.

  You’re dead.

  She threw up onto the carpet, wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, and pushed herself off from the wall. Her eyes stung and her vision blackened, but still she struggled forward into the hallway’s black morass.

  She prayed that it would go on for miles and miles; that the house was somehow both magically and infinitesimally bigger on the inside than it could ever seem from the outside. She could press herself on until she couldn’t anymore, but as soon as she hit the wall at the end of the hallway, what more was there left to do?

  If Benny couldn’t have her, then the flames would.

  “Laurie!” she screamed, coughing.

  Her legs shuddered beneath her own weight, but still, she went on.

  The end of the hall loomed closer, a dark block that even the hot light of the fire behind her could not touch.

  You’re dead.

  She landed against the heavy, folded fabric. Curtains. She fumbled frantically to part them, to pull them down.

  The fire crackled closer, louder, and she could no longer hear Benny’s frantic yelling.

  In a strange moment of clarity, she abandoned the middle of the pleated curtains and slid behind them from their side. Fear would kill her faster than anything else. She had to think straight if she stood any chance at all.

  Behind the heavy curtains, a hidden window filled the wall from top to bottom. With her face to the dirtied glass, she stared out over the mosaic ceiling of the ballroom and the dark waters of the bay beyond.

  Fear would kill her.

  She raised her elbow and slammed it down through the middle of the window.

  The old glass shattered and the thin, cross-hatched wooden beams broke apart.

  It wasn’t enough. She raised her arm again, ignoring the sting of broken glass beneath her skin, and smashed through the glass a second time.

  The warm night air moved against her face and the fire’s sharp heat gnawed at her back. There was no more time.

  She kicked out the shards
of glass from the bottom of the window. Crouching, she set her legs over the side of the wall and, with her heart pounding madly, struggled to find the ledge she prayed would be there.

  She peered over the side.

  It wasn’t a movie. There was no reason for there to be a ledge where she so desperately wanted there to be one, but there it was, an inch of thin stone, and below that, more of the same, like ribs along the wall.

  But it didn’t matter. The first small ledge was too far down to touch from the base of the window.

  She closed her eyes and, in one last bid, she screamed out Laurie’s name into the summer night.

  The popping of flames grew louder behind her. There was no question that as soon as they caught on the bottom of the weighted curtains, she would be forced down the side of the manor, ledge or no ledge.

  She had to try. There was nothing else to do.

  “Come on, Jolene,” she whispered feverishly to herself. “You aren’t done with this world yet.”

  She turned back to the curtain and, crossing one arm over the other, gripped the window ledge with her scratched, bleeding hands. Using what traction was left on the bottom of her worn tennis shoes, she lowered herself down.

  Above her, the window glowed hotly. Flames licked up the curtains, setting them ablaze.

  Panicked, she strained to touch the ledge with the toes of her shoes. She hunted the outside of the wall for a crooked stone or some unfortunate hole that she could grab hold of.

  A dent in the stone to her left caught her eye, but it wasn’t deep enough to set her fingers into.

  The tendrils of a hot wind blew against the back of her neck and she shivered. The ledge was too far down.

  She’d been brave, and that was good, but she was still going to die.

  Her hands, stinging with broken glass, ached from the growing weight of her own body. Her stomach turned and her vision blurred against the stone.

  She looked down.

  Below her, the mosaic ceiling reflected back the light of the moon. She didn’t think she’d be able to hold on for much longer, and even if she could, the growing flames threatened to kiss her bare knuckles.