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

by J. Thorn

  Don’t get me wrong. A good hair pull can be really hot, but there is a difference between getting your hair yanked and tugged versus having him wrap it in his hands and using it to pull your head back so he can sink his teeth into your neck or kiss you in that really rough way that gets that certain shiver…

  Hmm, that may just be me. I might have shared too much. Oh well, the bottom line is that the first time often leaves a bit to be desired. And before you guys get your panties in a bunch. Maybe it is time to let you in on a little secret. No, the Earth doesn’t move every single time. It is nothing against you, it is just that you guys are microwave ovens and we are more like crock pots. And don’t think I didn’t hear you when you changed the word ‘crock’ to the word ‘crack’. You aren’t that clever.

  “…do that a lot don’t you?” Jeremy asked with a lopsided smile on his face. It was in that very moment that I realized who he reminded me of. He looked like a really young Harrison Ford. Not even the one from Star Wars. I’m talking American Graffiti era.

  “Do what?” I hated that I had to ask. That meant that I was doing it again.

  “Space off into your own little world,” Harrison…I mean Jeremy said.

  “I may have issues with paying attention,” I admitted.

  “No…you go into a world all your own,” Jeremy said with a chuckle.

  “Look,” not that this wasn’t all cute and amusing, but Ava want nookie, “are we going to do this or not?”

  “I would love to…” I heard the ‘but’ before he even said it, “…but the sun will be up very soon.”

  “I have a safe room. I don’t like it on my skin either,” I said. “And when you say soon…”

  “One of the abilities of a vampire is to be able to feel the arrival of the sun. It sets off a little warning bell in our system so we can get to ground or back to our lair if time permits.”

  “So how long do we have?”

  “Sadly, only about forty minutes.”

  I laughed. You men are so funny the way you over-exaggerate your prowess. Now I have been with guys who can go again real soon after completion. And then there are the ones who can spend some serious time ‘down under’ if you know what I mean. However, do you know what the AVERAGE amount of time it takes a man to actually finish once he starts dipping the pickle? Two and a half minutes! Yeah…that is the average…

  “But wait a minute there, Ava!” some of you guys are arguing.

  Sorry, fellas. You can’t argue with science or biology. Don’t believe me? Look it up. Or how about this, next time you are in the act, pay attention to the song playing. Still the same song when you finished? How sad for you. Now back to Jeremy.

  “But if we are going to do this—” he was arguing, “I will require more than just forty minutes.”

  “Look, I am not suggesting that you aren’t an absolute stallion in the bedroom,” a little flattery goes a long way in this department, ladies, “but this first time doesn’t have to be something magical. Honestly, it would probably help to get it out of the way.”

  “Not holding out much hope of it being enjoyable?” I saw that hurt puppy look that you guys can get when we ladies are not actively stroking your ego.

  “I just know that the first time can be awkward. Let’s get it out of the way so that we can really enjoy the next go ‘round.”

  “And not a hopeless romantic either, I see,” Jeremy grumbled.

  “Nope. Just mostly hopeless.” He was wasting time. “Listen, Jeremy, neither one of us are virgins here. We’ve done the horizontal mambo before. I say we hop-oh in the sack-oh and see what happens.”

  “But you are aware that I have told you the sun is coming up soon.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you know what happens to a vampire when the sun rises?”

  He had me there. I guess I assumed that they crawled into their coffins or whatever and waited for sunset. I gave a shrug.

  “We die, Ava.”

  “But you are not alive.” That seemed like a logical retort. If I was up to speed on our supernatural status, neither vampires nor ghouls were technically alive. I didn’t need to breathe, but could do so if I thought about it. My heart didn’t beat. I guess I figured that vampires were in the same boat.

  “No,” Jeremy sighed and sat back in the driver’s seat.

  Great, this was eating into valuable time and I really was starting to feel a rise in my sexual frustration. If I had to finish this off alone, I was going to be rather cranky when he saw me next.

  “When the sun comes up, it is like a giant off switch in all but the most powerful vampires,” Jeremy explained.

  “So vamps like Belinda?”

  “I wouldn’t know for certain, but since she is the Queen of the Kiss, I would have to assume she is strong enough to resist if the need arises.”

  You know what they say about assumptions. Perhaps that would be something I could find out later. Not that I was planning on taking out the bitch, but if it ever came down to her or me, it would be nice to know the weaknesses of the enemy.

  “…and we just shut down. So not only is that an extremely vulnerable position to be in, but some folks find it rather disturbing.” Oh yeah, he was still talking.

  “Well, in case you have missed the memo, I am not exactly human,” I said with a smile that I hoped could get him to get his butt out of the car and up to my room.

  “Yes, but if we are going to do this, I didn’t want you to be surprised if I didn’t want to talk or cuddle after. And I will be totally incapacitated until sunset.”

  Okay, I thought, so you are a guy with the perfect excuse. I wasn’t really looking for meaningful chat at just this precise moment.

  “Now that we have that out of the way,” I exited the car and went to the door that opened to my house, “can we go before you end up sleeping in my car?”

  Jeremy finally got moving. He followed me inside and up the stairs. When he entered my room, he whistled appreciatively.

  “Are those titanium?” he tapped the shutters that sealed my windows.

  “Yep, not a sliver of sunlight will get through. And in case a bunch of angry villagers show up with torches and pitchforks, this is also my safe room.”

  I turned around and gave Jeremy an appraising look. Now in most cases, there would be some sloppy kissing and we could fumble at each other’s clothing. I already knew that there would be no kissing. Nothing else would be a greater mood killer than me hurling all over him. I needed to get the motor running somehow, and then inspiration struck.

  I pulled my tee shirt off, unclasped my bra and slid out of my pants. All that remained were my blue cotton bikinis. I figured that I could leave a little something for him to deal with. After all, I didn’t want to seem easy.

  Jeremy unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall. I was extremely pleased with the view. I could see that he worked on his body. Only, did vampires need to do that sort of thing? I mean, they already had the whole superhuman strength thing going on. Did they need to pump iron?

  “Are you gonna stare and let your mind wander on whatever little sidetrack that it has started down, or are we going to do this?” Jeremy laughed.

  “Sorry,” I apologized. I might have blushed if I was able. “I was just admiring your chest and wondering if vampires needed to work out.”

  “First off, thank you,” Jeremy said as he took my hand and pulled me to the bed. “And second…yes. We do need to work out, otherwise we simply start to look like a Ken doll. There is no definition, just a smooth body.”

  I ran my fingers through the soft, dark brown hair of his chest. I don’t get the whole shaved chest thing. I know that some of you ladies like your men to be smooth, but to me it is just creepy. I didn’t find twelve-year-old boys attractive when I was twelve years old. Why would I want some guy with a chest smoother than mine?

  The only awkward moment was when we each kept trying to kiss each other as things started heating up. Since we both knew how that wou
ld end, we managed to veer away, which, admittedly took a little wind out of the sails, but then we both agreed on the good old doggie-style position and our lips could not have met if we’d wanted them to.

  Oh don’t get all Puritanical on me. What did you think was about to happen? For crying out loud, I’ve only been saying how horny I was for about the last several pages. Haven’t you been paying attention?

  But, on the positive side, I have no intentions of trying to give any details. Seriously, that is just not my thing. Besides, then I would have to decide on clever metaphors like “love tunnel” and “velvet cave” or some other equally ridiculous word or phrase to describe my mommy bits down below. And since I am gray, I could hardly refer to my breasts as fleshy mounds. I mean, technically they are still made of flesh, but they are gray! They don’t look fleshy so much as stony. I could probably go downtown and stand naked in the Pioneer Square; folks would think I am a statue or something.

  I don’t know about you, but I get confused when I am sharing sex details. Granted, if it is a friend—like Lisa—I might get all raunchy and put in way too much detail. But here, where you and I don’t exactly know each other all that well, I wouldn’t know whether I should call his daddy part a penis or a dick…or the more porno-centric term, cock. See, some of you are wincing. At least I am not alone in my discomfort.

  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 mortified 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 part 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 Estacada. 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.

  12

  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 Jere
my 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 unnerving 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 petty.

  “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 revoke 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.