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

by Opal Carew

  “I don’t suppose you thought to grab the salt shaker off the table as you were fighting your way through the kitchen, did you?”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Afraid not. I was a little busy.” He took her hand and moved her closer to the light so he could examine the ragged scratches on her arms. “I wish I had something to clean these. I hate to think what those zombies had all over their hands.”

  She looked down at her arms and grimaced. “They look worse than they are. They barely even hurt.”

  Drake doubted that, but he didn’t call her on it. Still holding her hand, he looked around the basement. It was large and unfinished with lots of exposed rock. Other than a set of shelves along one wall and a furnace on the other, it was pretty much empty. He’d hoped there would be a door leading outside or at least a casement window they could break and climb out of. But there was nothing.

  However, in the dim light of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling, he was able to discern the outline of what looked like a trap door in the floor. He frowned. Who had a freaking trap door in their basement?

  Simone must have seen it the same time he had. “Do you think that leads outside?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. For all we know, it could lead to a bomb shelter or a root cellar. There’s only one way to find out, though.”

  Drake walked over to it, Simone at his heels. Resting the oar against the wall, he dropped to one knee and grabbed the ring attached to the trap door, then gave it a yank. To his surprise, it didn’t budge. Then he saw the dead bolt set into the wood above the handle and it dawned on him. If the trap door did lead outside, the owner of the cabin wouldn’t want anyone to be able to get in that way. He leaned down to get a better look at the lock. It required a key to open and it looked seriously heavy duty. Even the floor around the lock had been reinforced, probably so no one could force the door open from underneath.

  “Can we bust the lock or something?” Simone asked.

  Drake shook his head. “I don’t think so. And if there’s a tunnel under here, any noise we make trying to get the door open might attract whatever zombies could be outside. I wouldn’t want to open the door to find a tunnel filled with those ugly-ass things.”

  She ran her hands through her hair in obvious frustration. “What are we going to do then?”

  He glanced up at the door at the top of the stairs. “Wait until they leave, I guess.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Do you really think they will?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

  She chewed on her lower lip. “Can’t you…I don’t know…communicate with them?”

  Drake lifted a brow. “Communicate with them?”

  “Yeah. You know, talk to them. One zombie to another.”

  His mouth twitched. “Sorry, but my zombie is a little rusty.”

  Her cheeks colored. “I just figured you could talk to them since you’re related.”

  “I never really had much contact with that part of the family,” he said dryly. “I guess we’re just going to have to wait it out.”

  She looked up at the door at the top of the stairs where the zombies were still pounding on it, then back at him. “Maybe we should call your friend Beck and see if he can help.”

  Jealousy immediately shot through Drake at her words. He clenched his jaw, irritated that Simone expected a guy she’d never met to come and rescue them. Simone was his girlfriend. He was supposed to be the one saving her. Besides, what was Beck supposed to do that he couldn’t?

  He swore under his breath. What the hell was the matter with him? This wasn’t a competition. Simone was right. Beck might be at Madame Bijou’s by now. If there was anyone who could help, it would be the old Voodoo woman. It was a long shot, but it was better than hanging around waiting for the zombies to go away. If the damn things didn’t figure out a way to get the door open first.

  Reaching into the front pocket of his jeans, he pulled out his cell, only to discover that after his ridiculous bout of jealousy, he had no reception anyway. Great.

  “I can’t get a signal in here. It must be the stone walls,” he said, putting the phone back in his pocket. “We’re back to waiting.”

  Simone didn’t look too thrilled with that idea. To be honest, neither was he. While he was confident the zombies couldn’t get into the basement, he didn’t think they were going to give up trying. Which meant he and Simone could be down there a very long time. With no food and no water.

  “Do you smell smoke?” she asked abruptly.

  Drake frowned and sniffed the air. Shit, she was right. He could see smoke coming from underneath the door at the top of the stairs. He didn’t think zombies even knew how to start a fire. Then he remembered the one he’d knocked into the fireplace. It had crawled out with its head aflame. That would certainly explain how the fire had gotten started.

  “New plan,” he said to Simone. “We’re just going to have to risk attracting more zombies. We have to get that trap door open.”

  Picking up the oar from where he’d rested it against the wall, he shoved it through the trap door’s pull ring. Maybe with the added leverage of the oar, he could snap the dead bolt.

  Something snapped all right, but unfortunately it was the pull ring, not the dead bolt. “Shit.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Simone. “See if you can find me something on those shelves I can bust open the lock with.”

  “Like what?”

  “A chisel. A crowbar. A sledgehammer. Anything heavy like that.”

  She nodded and ran across the room as he continued to bash at the trap door with the oar. Behind him, Drake heard her rummaging through the boxes on the shelves. She was back a few minutes later, a hammer and chisel in her hands.

  “This is all I could find.”

  Those were exactly what he needed. “That’s perfect.”

  Drake glanced up at the ceiling to see smoke coming through the floorboards. A lot of it. Fuck.

  He dropped to one knee and studied the lock. At first, he thought about trying to punch the chisel through the lock mechanism and hopefully draw the bolt out that way. But now that he really looked at it, he didn’t think that was going to work. It was a damn serious lock. He was going to have to try something else.

  He examined the floor around the area where the dead bolt went into it. Although it had been reinforced with a metal plate, it looked like the weakest part of the lock. If he could chisel out enough wood from the floor around the metal plate, he could get the trap door to come up.

  He glanced at the ceiling again before he started to work. The smoke was really pouring in now and he could hear the crackling of the flames above them. Forcing himself to focus on the task at hand, he started chipped away at the floorboards around the metal plate with the hammer and chisel.

  Within minutes, the basement filled with so much smoke it made his eyes burn, and he blinked rapidly. Behind him, Simone coughed uncontrollably.

  “Get closer to the floor,” he said over his shoulder, raising his voice to be heard above the roar of the flames.

  Drake didn’t check to see if she did as he’d told her, but instead forced himself to work even faster. It seemed to take forever to chisel out enough of the wood to free the bolt and by the time he was done, he was coughing like crazy. Wedging the chisel under the edge of the trap door, he pried it up enough to get his fingers inside, then threw it open.

  In the dim light, he could just make out the bottom of the space underneath the trap door. It looked as if it had been carved out of rock and wasn’t more than three or four feet deep. Praying it really was a tunnel and not just a hole in the ground, he grabbed Simone’s hand and steered her down through the trap door. He could already feel the heat of the fire above them. If he and Simone didn’t get out of there soon, they’d both be dead.

  He’d just started to follow her when the single light bulb in the basement suddenly went out. Shit. The fire must have gotten to the wiring. Not that it really
mattered. The dim light hadn’t illuminated the space under the basement anyway.

  The moment he dropped down into the hole beside Simone, he felt fresh air hit his face. Thank God. It was a tunnel. Small and tight, but a tunnel.

  He reached for Simone’s hand and pulled her close. “Can you crawl through this tunnel in the dark?”

  “I can if it gets me the heck out of here.”

  Drake waited for her to go first, then quickly followed. No sooner were they inside than the ceiling of the basement collapsed. He hurried Simone forward as firebrands and smoke whooshed into the tunnel behind them.

  He moved after Simone as fast as he could, but the tunnel was even smaller than he’d first thought. It left barely enough room for his shoulders to fit through as he scrambled on his hands and knees. The rough, chiseled stone floor bit into his palms as he moved forward, but he smelled fresh air ahead of them and that was all that mattered. The farther away they got from the cabin, the fresher the air became. They were going to make it.

  That’s when he heard Simone yelp in surprise. He rushed forward, only to run right into her a moment later.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

  “There’s a metal grate blocking the entrance,” she said. “I ran right into it.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. But what are we going to do now?”

  Though it was difficult in the small space, Drake managed to crawl over Simone. He felt along the metal grating with his hand. Praying it wasn’t locked—or worse, welded shut—he fumbled around for a latch and breathed out a sigh of relief when he found one. It was a simple mechanism, but because of the way it was designed, a person wouldn’t be able to reach it from the outside. The tunnel had been meant as a one-way exit. Maybe the cabin had been a hideout for bootleggers back in the time of prohibition or something like that.

  Flipping open the latch, he pushed the grating aside and crawled out through the bushes covering it. He did a quick look around to see if there were any zombies waiting for them, but didn’t see any. Taking Simone’s hand, he helped her crawl out.

  Keeping an arm around her, he turned and looked toward the cabin. It was blazing and in the firelight, he could see the silhouettes of the zombies as they stood outside. He tensed, wondering if any of them had spotted him and Simone, but when none of them made a move in their direction, he realized they must have their backs to them. Thank God.

  Taking Simone’s hand, Drake led her around the side of the cabin to where he’d parked the car. They were dangerously close to the zombies now, but to his relief, none of them looked their way. It was as if they were mesmerized by the fire.

  Opening the driver’s side door as quietly as he could, Drake waited for Simone to climb in and slide across the bench seat before getting in himself. Knowing there was no way he could start the car without the bastards hearing it, he held his breath and cranked the engine at the same time he slammed the door. The zombies immediately turned to look in their direction, then shambled toward them.

  Drake floored the gas and did a spinning turn so he could get the car headed down the driveway. If they got out of this, he promised never to rib Beck about his choice of cars again. It might not look like much, but when he punched the gas, it hauled ass.

  By the time he got the car turned around, several zombies were already standing in the driveway in front of them. Even though it made him cringe to do it, Drake gunned the engine and ran them down. It was creepy the way they made no attempt to even move to safety. They just reached toward the car with their bony hands as he ran them over.

  “It’s the priestess!” Simone cried, pointing at the figure in the middle of the driveway as they headed for the main road.

  Drake didn’t even hesitate, not after what that bitch had tried to do to Simone. Tightening his grip on the wheel, he floored the car. But before he could get close to the old woman, she faded into a mist and disappeared. How the shit had she done that?

  As they squealed onto the highway. Drake glanced in the rearview mirror. In the firelight, he could just make out zombies staggering down the driveway after them. There was no sign of the Voodoo priestess.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Heart pounding, Simone stared out the back window at the zombies stumbling down the road, terrified they were going to catch up to the speeding car despite how ridiculous that sounded. She wasn’t sure if logic applied when dealing with zombies, though. In the movies, the hideous things always seemed to catch up to people no matter how fast they ran.

  Only when the zombies had completely disappeared in the distance did she finally turn around in the seat and relax a little. Beside her, Drake gripped the wheel tightly, his face unreadable in the darkness.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “Call Beck and see if he’s been to Madam Bijou’s yet. Hopefully they’ve come up with something.”

  Simone said nothing as he pulled out his cell and dialed Beck’s number. She couldn’t make out much from listening to Drake’s side of the conversation and when he hung up, she looked at him expectantly.

  “What did Beck say?” she asked.

  Drake shoved his phone in his pocket. “That he’s at Madame Bijou’s right now and they have a plan.”

  She frowned. “What kind of plan?”

  “He didn’t go into it on the phone, but I trust him.”

  Simone would have felt a lot better knowing what sort of plan this guy Beck and the woman at the Voodoo shop had come up with, but if Drake trusted the other man, she would put her trust in him, too. Besides, what other choice did she have?

  Drake must have sensed her unease because he took one hand off the wheel to put his arm around her. Simone slid closer and rested her head on his shoulder.

  How the hell did she get here? A week ago, she thought zombies were something out of cheesy horror movies. Now she was sleeping with a man who was one. It was incredible. It was crazy. And it might very well get her killed. Yet at that moment, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but with Drake. He was the only reason she wasn’t completely losing her mind right now. The guy put both James Bond and MacGyver to shame. The way he got them out of that cabin had been amazing. First, he fought off the zombies with nothing but an oar. Then he hacked through that heavy-duty door in the basement with nothing but a few common hand tools. She still didn’t know how he’d been able to do it in all that smoke. She’d barely been able to breathe, much less think enough to be able to do something like that. She promised herself if he got her out of this, he was going to be the hero in her next book. Of course, that would mean she’d have to be the heroine, but she could work with that.

  Neither she nor Drake said much on the drive back to the city. He seemed too preoccupied with his thoughts and Simone’s throat was too raw to talk. That was okay. Sitting there with her head on his shoulder was fine with her. She was so exhausted she wished she could fall asleep, but she was still too freaked out by what had happened at the cabin. Every time she closed her eyes, images of zombies, the burning cabin, and the Voodoo priestess would force them open again.

  It was well after midnight by the time they finally arrived at Madam Bijou’s. The street was surprisingly quiet, so finding parking wasn’t a problem. As she climbed out of the car, Simone glanced down at herself and grimaced. Her jeans were covered with dirt and soot and her T-shirt had dried blood on it. She’d almost forgotten about her confrontation with the old woman, but the dark smudges on her shirt brought it rushing back and she shuddered. She looked at Drake and saw that he was just as filthy. They both reeked of wood smoke, too. God, she could really go for a bath and a change of clothes.

  Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, Drake led her to Madam Bijou’s. Simone had never been in a Voodoo shop before and she let out a little shiver at the unsettling assortment of items in the front window as Drake knocked on the door. When it opened, she dragged her gaze away from a hu
man skull that seemed to be staring right at her to see a man standing in the doorway. Tall and good looking, he had slightly wavy hair that was a little lighter in color than Drake’s and deep, blue eyes.

  He took a step back so she and Drake could enter. As the man locked the door behind them, Simone looked around the store. With its dim lighting and shelves of Voodoo dolls, jars, pots and incense, the interior of the shop was just as creepy as the outside. If she ever wrote a book with Voodoo in it, she certainly knew where to come for research. Shuddering, she tore her eyes away from a table of scary looking Voodoo dolls and stepped closer to Drake.

  He put his arm around her. “Simone, this is Beck Slaten. Beck, meet Simone Kent.”

  Beck held out his hand. “Nice to finally meet the woman who got Drake out of his apartment.”

  Simone couldn’t help but smile at the words as she shook his hand. She wished she didn’t look like something the cat had dragged in the first time she met Drake’s best friend. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  Beck jerked his head toward the rear of the shop. “Aniyah’s in the back room. Come on and I’ll introduce you.”

  As she and Drake followed Beck through the store, she eyed the glass bottles and colorful little bags on the shelves curiously. She wondered what they were all for and why there wasn’t one among them that could remove Drake’s curse.

  Beck led them to a doorway covered by a heavy, black curtain. He pulled it back, then moved aside so she and Drake could enter. Simone stepped into the other room hesitantly, not sure what to expect. Against the back wall was a table filled with even more small jars, candles and leather-bound books. To the left of that was a desk with a printer, scanner and laptop computer. Simone was surprised to see something so normal. She didn’t think a Voodoo priestess would have the need for such ordinary things.

  At the sound of footsteps to her right, Simone turned her attention away from the desk to see a woman standing there. Tall and slender with coffee-colored skin and exotic features, she was probably around twenty-five. In contrast to her apparent age, her eyes held a sadness and a wisdom that seemed beyond her years. Since Drake had said Madame Bijou was an elderly woman, Simone knew this woman couldn’t possibly be the Voodoo priestess he’d met all those years ago.