Tall, Dark and Paranormal: 10 Thrilling Tales of Sexy Alpha Bad Boys

by Opal Carew

  Drake frowned as he considered that. “No, but then again, I’ve never eaten anything when I’m a zombie, so I wouldn’t know.”

  She chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “You don’t think they’ll find us here, do you?”

  Drake gently brushed her hair back from her face. “No. We’re safe, sweetheart.”

  Simone nodded, but didn’t look very reassured.

  “Come on. Enough talk about zombies,” he said. “What do you say we get something to eat, then take a walk in the woods and check out this beautiful area?”

  She smiled. “I’d like that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Unless she counted Central Park, Simone hadn’t spent any time in the woods since she’d moved to New York City. But as she and Drake walked through the forest of oak, hickory and maple trees a few hours later, she realized how much she missed the beauty of nature. While Central Park was an oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, it wasn’t the same as a real forest. Wandering hand in hand with Drake along the natural trails with the late afternoon sunlight peeking through the trees, she could almost believe things like curses and zombies and evil Voodoo priestesses didn’t exist. But Drake was walking, talking proof that they did.

  When she’d come out of the cabin that morning, the look of sadness in his eyes as he’d turned to face her had almost broken her heart. She’d stayed up all night wondering what she was going to do. At first, she just wanted to run back to her life in New York and act as if none of this had ever happened. While that seemed like the easiest solution, it didn’t really work for her. For one thing, leaving Drake didn’t guarantee the Voodoo priestess wouldn’t still come after her. But more importantly, Simone couldn’t see herself running out on Drake and their relationship.

  She wasn’t quite sure when this thing with Drake had gone from a sexual fling to a relationship, but it had. So what if the issues he was dealing with made all of her previous boyfriends’ hang-ups seem like a joke? Somewhere between last night and this morning, she’d come to the startling realization that a guy’s issues didn’t seem nearly as monumental when she really cared for him. And she cared for Drake more than she’d ever cared for any man in her life. Even when he was in his zombie state, in the back of her mind she’d been more worried about whether he’d been in pain than if he was a danger to her.

  So, in the early morning hours, she decided she was going to stick this out with Drake. Of course, it had taken her until noon to work up her courage to actually face him. But if she had any doubts about her decision, they’d completely disappeared the moment she’d seen the sadness in his eyes. How could she ever possibly have thought of walking away from him?

  She and Drake wandered through the forest, not going in any particular direction, but not straying too far from the cabin either, and Simone was surprised when they suddenly emerged from the trees to find themselves in a clearing. She halted in her tracks at the sight of the grave markers sticking out of the ground. The hair rose on the back of her neck. She hadn’t realized the cabin was so close to a graveyard, and a very old one at that. Under normal circumstances, graveyards were eerie, but with their recent run–in with the walking dead, graveyards took on a whole new level of creepy.

  Despite how warm the day was, Simone shivered. “Let’s go back,” she said to Drake. “Graveyards give me the creeps.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Leave it to Beck to find us a desolate cabin in the woods right next to a graveyard.”

  She and Drake weren’t nearly as leisurely on the walk back to the cabin. He must have sensed she was still a little uneasy because he locked the door and closed the drapes the moment they got inside. When he was done, he put his arms around her and pulled her close.

  “You’re freezing,” he said. “How about I make a fire?”

  She nodded. “That’d be nice.”

  While he did that, Simone went into the kitchen to make dinner. As she looked over the meager selection of food they’d bought, she wished she’d thought to pick up some salad stuff when they were at the store. But since she hadn’t, she supposed they’d have to make do with grilled cheese sandwiches. They would have to go to the store tomorrow and buy some real food. Drake might be okay with eating sandwiches for both lunch and dinner, but she wasn’t.

  Doing something as ordinary as making grilled cheese sandwiches went a long way toward helping Simone relax and put the creepy graveyard out of her mind. It didn’t hurt that Drake came up behind her while she was working and put his arms around her waist. She smiled and flipped the sandwiches over to cook on the other side, then leaned back against him. He felt so strong and solid behind her that she couldn’t help but feel safe.

  When the sandwiches were done grilling, she transferred them to plates and carried them over to the table. They just started to eat when Simone heard a noise outside. It sounded like someone snapping dry twigs.

  She tensed, her eyes darting to Drake. “What was that?”

  He set down his glass. “I don’t know. I’ll go check it out. Wait here.”

  “Like hell I will,” she muttered.

  Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet and hurried after him. Drake scowled at her over his shoulder but made no comment. Walking over to the window above the sink, he cautiously pulled back the curtain. Simone held her breath, half expecting a zombie to be staring back at them, but nothing was there.

  Maybe she’d just imagined the noise. She opened her mouth to tell Drake as much when she heard it again, this time coming from the front of the house. She was about to ask Drake if he heard it, too, but he’d already turned around and was looking in that direction.

  Glancing at her, Drake started for the living room. Simone followed, her heart pounding. She peered around him as he pulled back the curtain. In the moonlight, she could see a heavy fog rolling in from the woods where she and Drake had gone for a walk earlier.

  “That doesn’t look right,” he said. “It’s too damn warm for fog.”

  She was about to ask him what he thought it meant when a figure emerged from the thick mist. Though she couldn’t make out what the man looked like in the dark, she knew from the slow, shambling gait it was a zombie. And he wasn’t alone. She took an involuntary step back as half a dozen more zombies appeared behind him. Oh, crap!

  “Drake—”

  But the rest of what she was about to say was cut off by the sound of breaking glass. Simone spun around, her eyes going wide at the sight of a zombie trying to climb through the kitchen window. The creature bore little resemblance to the ones that had attacked them in New York. While it still had some pieces of ragged clothing, it was nothing but bones with just enough ligaments and tendons to hold it together. She cringed in revulsion. How the heck could the thing even move?

  Drake gave her a little push. “Go into the bedroom and stay there.”

  She spun around to look at him in surprise. Was he crazy? “I’m not going to let you fight all of them by yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine. Go in the bedroom.”

  In the kitchen, the zombie had almost managed to get his decrepit body through the window. “But—”

  “Simone, please just go.”

  She wanted to argue with him, but Drake was already heading for the kitchen. Simone stayed where she was just long enough to see him yank one of the oars off the wall before she bent down to pick up the poker beside the fireplace. Then she followed his instructions and hurried into the bedroom.

  Once inside, she closed the door behind her. She knew it was risky not to lock it, but if Drake needed to get in, she didn’t want to have to fumble with the darn thing.

  She stood there staring at the door, afraid to even breathe. Outside in the living room, she could hear Drake fighting with the zombies. How many were there? And how many could he possibly manage to fight by himself? Drake was big and strong, but there were just so many of the damn things. How could he hold them all off, especially when they couldn�
�t be killed?

  For several long, tense moments, all she heard was the sound of Drake’s oar smashing into one zombie after another. Interspersed with that was the sound of breaking glass. They must be coming in through the living room window, too.

  Simone was just about to say the hell with waiting and run into the living room to help Drake when she suddenly stopped. She couldn’t quite say what it was, but something made her shiver. Heart hammering in her chest, she slowly turned around, dreading what she was going to see behind her.

  Standing outside the pair of French doors looking at her was an old, black woman dressed in a long, gray dress. She was tall and reed thin, her black hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, her dark eyes cold and full of hatred.

  Oh, God. This had to be the Voodoo priestess.

  Simone tried to take a step back, figuring it was safer out in the living room with Drake and the zombies than it was in the bedroom with the old woman, but for some bizarre reason, she couldn’t make her feet move. Terrified, she opened her mouth to scream for Drake, but nothing would come out. It was as if she was being controlled. That was when Simone realized the old woman’s lips were moving. The Voodoo priestess must have put some kind of spell on her.

  Smiling, the woman lifted her hand and crooked a finger at Simone. The poker slipped from Simone’s hand to drop to the floor and her feet moved of their own accord, taking her toward the French doors. She tried to resist with all her might, but it was useless. She had no control over her body at all. She couldn’t do anything but obey the Voodoo priestess’s commands. It was as if Simone was one of her damn zombies. Coming to a stop in front of the doors, Simone watched in horror as her hands reached out to open them.

  The old woman stepped into the room, her smile widening to display rotting teeth. “You are even more lovely in real life than you were in my visions, chere. It will be a shame to have to kill you. But he must suffer, which means you must die.”

  The words made Simone’s heart pound even faster. By “he,” the old woman obviously meant Drake. Simone tried to force herself to turn and run, but she was powerless. All she could do was stand there and watch as the Voodoo priestess pulled a wicked looking knife out of the leather sheath dangling from the braided belt around her waist. She lifted the weapon, clearly intending to plunge it into Simone’s chest.

  Simone stared at the blade as if transfixed by it, the old woman’s words echoing in her ears. He must suffer, which means you must die. Tears stung her eyes. Thinking about what her death would do to Drake gave Simone a strength she hadn’t known she possessed.

  Suddenly, Simone regained control over her body. It was as if when she’d stopped thinking about her pain and started thinking about Drake’s instead, it weakened the priestess’s hold on her. With a cry of desperation, Simone caught the old woman’s knife hand in both of hers and twisted it away from her as hard as she could. The move caught the Voodoo priestess by surprise and Simone saw her eyes widen as the blade she’d intended to use to kill Simone was suddenly pointed at her. Though she wasn’t sure how she did it, Simone somehow managed to slash the other woman across the face with it.

  The old woman stumbled back with a horrific scream and dropped the knife. More blood spurted from the wound than Simone would have thought possible. It went everywhere, including on her.

  Simone ignored it. Free of the Voodoo priestess’s hold, she shoved the woman outside and slammed the French doors closed. Whirling around, she ran for the living room, bending down to scoop up her poker on the way.

  * * * * *

  Drake froze at the sound of a scream coming from the bedroom. Simone. Smashing the zombie in front of him one last time with the oar, he turned and ran toward the bedroom.

  He was just reaching for the knob when the door flew open and Simone ran out of the room straight into his arms. There was blood on the front of her shirt and his own ran cold at the sight of it.

  Still gripping the oar in one hand, he reached out to steady her with the other. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”

  She looked down at herself as if in surprise, then made a face. She shook her head, her breath coming fast and hard. “It’s not mine. It belongs to the Voodoo priestess. She tried to kill me.”

  Drake clenched his jaw, Beck’s words coming back to him. Any qualms he had about killing the old woman disappeared. He’d do whatever he had to do to protect Simone and that included killing the evil bitch.

  Putting Simone behind him, he strode into the bedroom, intending to confront the Voodoo priestess, but she was nowhere in sight. Drake hesitated, debating whether to go look for her, but that meant leaving Simone by herself and he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that.

  Thinking the bedroom might be the safest place right now considering the rest of the house was rapidly filling with zombies, Drake grabbed Simone’s hand and pulled her back inside. Only one zombie at a time could get through the bedroom door, so he should be able to keep them at bay. But then he heard the sound of breaking glass behind him and he turned to see two large zombies awkwardly climbing through what was left the French doors.

  “Shit,” he muttered. So much for that plan.

  Tightening his grip on Simone’s hand, he bolted into the living room and ran toward the kitchen, only to be intercepted by half a dozen more zombies coming from that direction. The Voodoo priestess must have emptied out the whole fucking graveyard.

  Drake swung the oar as hard as he could, sending the zombies flying in every direction. But it did no good. For every zombie he knocked down, two more took its place. He kicked one square in the center of the chest, knocking it backward into the fireplace. Even that didn’t stop it, though. The damn thing crawled out with half its head on fire.

  “We’ll never make it to the front door,” he shouted to Simone. “Head for the kitchen!”

  Getting there was easier said than done, especially since the zombies stood between them and it. Gripping the oar tightly, Drake swung the makeshift weapon left and right, taking out every zombie that came at him. He aimed for their heads and though the big oar was really good at breaking zombie skulls, the fucking things didn’t seem to need much of a head to keep coming at them.

  That was when Drake decided it was more effective to aim for their legs. One good whack on the knees and the zombies crumpled to the floor, their legs crushed and useless. They still scrabbled around on the floor in a vain attempt to get at him and Simone, but they were a whole hell of a lot slower.

  As he fought, Drake tried to keep an eye on Simone. After the way she reacted at her apartment, he wasn’t sure how she’d deal with a horde of zombies, but he was relieved to see she was doing a pretty good job of taking care of herself. She swung that poker like Babe Ruth. He couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at how strong and capable she was.

  He was just taking the legs out from under a fairly fresh-looking corpse when he heard Simone scream behind him. He spun around to see two zombies holding her by the arms as they tried to bite her throat. Their bony fingers were digging into her skin so hard they were drawing blood.

  Drake launched himself at them, smashing the first zombie on top of the head with the oar so hard its skull shattered into pieces. Even though it still had hold of Simone, Drake was more worried about getting the second zombie’s rotting teeth away from her tender flesh. He could only imagine what kind of infection came with a zombie bite. Even worse, what if the movies had gotten it right and a zombie bite turned a person into one? He didn’t even want to think about that.

  The zombie’s head was too close to Simone to get a good swing at it, so Drake shoved the tip of the oar in its jaws. Then he pushed with all his strength, forcing the zombie away from her. Simone let out a cry as the creature’s bony fingers tore at her arm as he let go of her. Once she was free of that one, she used the poker to bash at the arm of the headless zombie still holding onto her. Within a few moments, she’d knocked the zombie away, then turned to help Drake finish off the first one
. Drake was relieved to see she wasn’t hurt too badly, despite the blood running down her arms.

  Between the two of them, they were managing to make a pretty good dent in the local zombie population. But Drake knew they wouldn’t have the upper hand for long. Both he and Simone were starting to get tired and there appeared to be no end to the zombies streaming into the cabin. Sooner or later, one of those zombies would get its teeth latched onto him or Simone and they’d be done. He glanced toward the kitchen door and his heart sank. There was no way they were going to get out through there. There were at least twenty zombies on the deck waiting their turn to get in the door.

  “Head for the basement door!” he yelled at Simone.

  She swung her poker at a zombie, catching the thing on the side of its ugly head. “The basement? We’ll be trapped in there!”

  “We don’t have any choice!” he shouted. “We’re not going to be able to hold them off up here for much longer.”

  Simone looked as if she wasn’t too crazy about the idea, but she gave him a nod and started backing toward the basement. Drake did the same, beating off the zombies that came at him while she opened the door. Once she started down the stairs, he ducked inside after her, shoving the zombies away with the oar so he could slam the door shut.

  He pressed his weight against it, praying there was some way to lock it. He ran his hand up and down the doorjamb and was relieved to find a deadbolt there. He slammed it closed just as Simone turned on the light.

  Drake tensed as the zombies beat against the door. It shook a little, but didn’t give.

  Beside him, Simone eyed the door nervously. “Will they be able to get through that?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It looks pretty strong. Come on. Let’s go downstairs and see if we can find another way out.”

  She nodded and started down the steps. At the bottom, she turned to look at him.