by Tessa Dawn
DAYWALKER
The Beginning
by Tessa Dawn
Copyright
Published by Ghost Pines Publishing, LLC
http://www.ghostpinespublishing.com
Second Edition eBook Published March 04, 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Copyright © Tessa Dawn, 2012
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1-937223-05-2
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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Author may be contacted at: http://www.tessadawn.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ghost Pines Publishing, LLC
one
It was my first day of work.
Okay, so that’s not totally accurate. I guess it would be better to say it was my first day at work, since I had no idea what I was doing and was getting little to nothing done. I had placed a shiny new nameplate on my office door and another stand-up version on my desk. Now, I was stacking a crisp set of business cards in the fancy little holder I had purchased from Office Giant just for the occasion.
Lacy Logan, Paranormal Investigator.
Sounded pretty good to me.
I sat back in my chair and stared at my empty desk. While I still didn’t have a clue as to what to do next, I did notice that my old-fashioned swivel chair kind of squeaked. I leaned forward and then rocked back again. Squeak-squeak. Squeak-squeak-squeak. Squeak-squeak. There was a kind of rhythm to it. Hmm, note to self: buy some WD-40.
I stared at the archaic clunker of a telephone that sat like a lone tree in the desert on the top of my workspace—I had purchased it for $1.25 at a garage sale just last weekend—and wondered if my whole setup was professional enough to attract new clients. Well, any clients, really.
I waited for the phone to ring.
Bored out of my mind, I surveyed the entire room with a critical eye, noticing for the first time that the paint was peeling off the walls. Probably lead-based, I thought. The dirty light-fixture above my head caught my attention next, and I made a mental note to clean it. And then I considered whether or not to change out the rusty door knob. I had to admit it was pretty bad, but was it worth the added expense? I stared at my shiny new nameplate again and smiled. Nah, I had spent enough money already. Better to wait and see what happens with the business first.
I willed the phone to ring this time, instead of just waiting.
Maybe I could concentrate it into ringing…or meditate…or something. I had taken a two-day, online course on metaphysical mind control—the whole mind over matter thing—and was fairly certain I could at least work up a call over, say, an hour or two, if I really tried. Did I really believe I was psychic? No. Did I believe the law of averages was in my favor? Absolutely.
I’m an eternal optimist.
I flipped a wavy lock of my long, dirty-blond hair behind my shoulder and sighed. What to do…what to do. I drummed my nails on my desk. And whistled a little tune. I pulled out my cell and texted my best friend Marcy: HEY. I’M AT WORK. NEW OFFICE. CALL ME.
At this point, I needed to be sure the old piece of junk could ring.
A few seconds later, it did, and I smiled.
Cool.
THANKS, I texted Marcy back. I mean, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually answer the phone. I didn’t have call waiting, and I needed to leave the line open for clients. I did, however, notice the collection of smudgy fingerprints on the otherwise smooth metal surface and instinctively reached for my handy-dandy bottle of Clorox wipes. This was different from the doorknob, the chandelier, and the walls. This was about hygiene, and I could practically hear my mom harping in my ear now: “One of these days you’re gonna catch your death from those unsanitary habits of yours, Lacy. Watch what you touch.” Okay, so Mom was a borderline paranoid freak, not quite as bad as Howard Hughes but definitely too messed-up to grab hold of a grocery cart. Or a restaurant-fork that didn’t come wrapped in cellophane.
I was just about to wipe down the phone, get it all prepared for the call I was conjuring with my online skills, when I saw him standing there.
The scary man dressed in all black.
He was about five feet away from my desk, blocking the view from my only window, and considering that I never saw him enter the room—or heard him take a step—his sudden appearance completely freaked me out.
I jumped back in my squeaky chair and tried to stifle an unprofessional scream.
The guy didn’t seem to notice.
He just stood there like some kind of gargoyle statue—well, a six-foot-two, wickedly handsome gargoyle statue—but freaky-as-hell, just the same. I decided to scope him out before I panicked and ran from the room. After all, I was a paranormal investigator. And this guy clearly needed some other-worldly help.
The man was tall, and from what I could tell, pretty well-built. Not like a linebacker or anything, but definitely athletic beneath his fancy pleated pants and his tight muscle shirt…that just happened to showcase every one of his well-defined muscles. His hair was sort of dark-brown, just short of black, and it hung almost to his shoulders. And his eyes. Well, they were just weird. Dark, like his hair, but with way-too-narrow pupils, almost like a cat’s. His lips were gorgeous—really. Full. Pouty. Perfectly shaped. But they were turned back in some gross parody of a smile that looked more like a snarl.
I noticed all of this in less than two seconds because my real attention was on the door: the distance between myself, the man, and freedom should I need it. I mean, I would help him if I could, but if not, I was outta there.
I cleared my throat. “Hey. Didn’t hear you come in. How can I help you?” I spoke in an overly cheery voice.
He just stared at me with those intense, creepy eyes, saying nothing.
Okay…let’s try this again. “Excuse me, I’m Lacy.” I pointed to my nameplate as if that would simplify the whole situation. “Are you here for…some investigating?” Wow. That sounded stupid.
His lips curled up then, this time in a sort of smirk…or stupid grin. Boy, did this man have mouth issues. He placed a card down on my desk, and I picked it up to read it. “Jozef Palezia. Sedona, Arizona. Back-country canyon tours on horseback.”
Okay???
And then, just like that, he leapt right at me, flying across the room and closing the distance between us in a millisecond. Before I could react, he had my hand in his fist, pinned to the top of the desk.
“Hey!” I yelped, yanking on my arm. It didn’t budge. “Let go of me!”
He smiled. And it wasn’t friendly.
Shit.
My heart started to race, and my life suddenly flashed before my eyes. I was only twenty-one, had just started my own business, and was about to get killed on my first day. This was so unfair. Not to mention, Mom would have a huge mess to cl
ean up once the CSI crew got through with everything.
No sanitizing that one.
The creepy man leaned toward my face. “Good evening, Lacy.” He spoke in some thick, Eastern-European accent, and his breath was frigid, like icy-cold. I’d like to say he sounded almost Transylvanian, but that would be a little gothic-dramatic. Just because he dressed like a vampire, behaved like Jack the Ripper, and was still anchoring my wrist to my desktop, didn’t mean—
Wait.
Did he just say, ‘Good evening?’
I don’t know what bothered me most: the fact that he had just paired a social greeting with an assault or the fact that the sun had already gone down without my noticing. I realize that sounds ridiculous under the circumstances, but there’s just this scary-movie thing burned into my brain about nighttime and evil creatures: As long as the sun’s still out, there’s hope. But once it goes down…well, let’s just say the boogeyman never strikes at noon.
I glanced out the window just to be sure, and what do you know, it was dark outside. I had been in my stupid office all day long: arranging and rearranging furniture, setting up my pitiful computer, and labeling empty files…just in case. And now, I was probably going to die in this cheap little building because I couldn’t keep track of time.
Screw this.
It was time to make a run for the door.
Putting all the strength I had into breaking free, I pushed against his chest with my free hand, gave another hard yank on my arm, and screamed, “Let go!”
And that’s when it happened.
The freaky guy snatched me by the throat with one hand and mauled my shoulder with the other. And his hands must have morphed into some kind of claws, because I felt a really sharp pain in my shoulder, like a blade digging into my skin. And then he snarled.
As in, for real.
Snarled.
I started to cry out but I had no air, so I gulped instead. I had no idea what was happening. I only knew that I had to get away from this freaky guy before he ate me for dinner.
I ignored the pain in my shoulder, and I think I tried to run in spite of the claw hooked into my flesh; but it was like one of those crazy dreams where everything happens in slow motion, and the harder you try to move, the more impossible it becomes.
I was stuck. As in absolutely going nowhere.
He relaxed his grip just a smidgen on my throat, and I screamed bloody-murder, praying that someone could hear me. And then he flashed a wicked set of teeth like a rabid dog. I braced myself for the bite I just knew was coming.
Only what happened next was actually much, much worse.
His once-sexy mouth opened so wide that his jaw almost looked double-jointed—not so handsome anymore, I thought—and smoke or fog, something unnatural, spewed out of it, like the mist that comes off a geyser before it erupts. His breath had gone from cold to blistering, and it scalded my cheeks. I groaned from the pain and tried helplessly to backpedal away. To get out of my chair. To get out of my office.
To run far away.
His eyes changed: from deep dark brown to creepy amber-and-orange, with tiny glowing centers for pupils.
“What the heck is wrong with you?!” I shouted. And then I screamed for my mom. I can’t say entirely why; I guess I just wanted my mother.
I think some part of my brain was shutting down, and I just wanted to go home, to be sixteen again and safe with my family. I wanted to snuggle up on the couch under one of those infomercial hoody-blankets—preferably purple—with a fresh bucket of popcorn in my lap and—
His double-jointed mouth came at me like some sort of flying insect, zooming in for the kill.
“Noooo!” I wailed.
I tried to put my hand up to block him, but his tongue seemed to have a life of its own. It was swollen and red and wagging back and forth like a dog’s tail as it came closer and closer, as he bent to do…what?
Kiss me?
OMG, how disgusting!
I shoved him hard then, punching a fist into his broad chest, and he actually flinched a little before he whispered my name…and the earth stopped moving.
He stopped snarling, and I stopped screaming.
He stopped pushing, and I stopped resisting.
My heart stopped pounding.
I just froze in his arms, waiting, as he pressed his mouth to mine and inhaled.
I couldn’t fight him anymore.
I didn’t want to fight him anymore.
All of a sudden, all I wanted was to go to sleep in his arms, to submit to his will and let him have me. Somehow, I had to be his, if that makes any sense. I wanted this dark man to love me…to need me…and to kiss me.
Forever.
I don’t know how long it lasted, this bizarre, psychotic romantic-interlude, or why he suddenly had so much control over me, but whatever had happened, it was the beginning of the end. As our lips pressed together and our tongues tangled, my breath left my body in a slow, drowsy exhale. And so did that essential part of me that makes me…me.
I was without identity as I felt my life force slowly drain out of me. As I felt death slip into me. And maybe that’s what he was, this Jozef Palezia.
He was Death.
In pleated black pants.
With truly creepy eyes.
Lacy Logan, Paranormal Investigator, I thought.
Yeah, right.
two
My first day at work had been my last.
I had spent six hours arranging my office. And six minutes dying.
At least theoretically.
The man in black—no, correction, the thing in black—had appeared in my office, sucked the life out of me, and disappeared in a wisp of smoke as seamlessly as he had arrived.
Now, as I stepped out of the sterile adobe building on 90th and Desert Cove into the miserable pouring rain, I just felt empty.
Cheated.
The doctor had confirmed the diagnosis. He had called it…the C-word (I still couldn’t say it), and then, as if he was simply giving directions to the nearest Starbucks, he had informed me that I had three-weeks left to live.
Three weeks left to live.
My C-word was that advanced.
I hugged my arms to my chest and hurried toward my Honda in order to get out of the rain—not that it really mattered, I guess, but it felt like the thing to do. Scottsdale could be volatile this time of year, so why not at least stay dry?
I was so disoriented.
Three weeks.
Why?
Because I wanted to work for myself?
Because I thought I could make some easy money reassuring people that their homes were not, in fact, haunted? That I could set up some cheap recording devices and install some hidden cameras to track paranormal activity…and charge by the hour? Was it really so wrong to want to feed my supernatural fantasies while making a few bucks while I was at it?
Apparently, it was.
My cell phone rang, and I hunkered down as I drew it out of my pocket and checked the display.
It was Mom.
This had to be like the tenth time she’d called me in the last hour, and honestly, I just couldn’t deal with talking to her right now. I mean, what was I supposed to say? Hi Mom, I have three weeks left to live.
I shivered as I checked the meter to see if I still had some time left (again, as if it really mattered), shoved the key into the lock, and reached for my door.
I climbed in and just sat there.
So, that was it then. I could either stick around and wait to die, get as much time in with my mom and my little brother Tommy while I still could, or I could head to Sedona and try to find the man in black, try to get my life-force back somehow…or at least find out why he had taken it in the first place.
I could try to understand why I was dying.
Not to seem indifferent, but I shrugged. I mean, what was the worst that could happen if I went? He would kill me?
Been there.
Done that.
Boug
ht the t-shirt.
I looked at the display on my cell one more time, and I almost felt worse for my mom than I did for myself. Ever since my dad had left us three years back—for his younger, bustier, secretary—Tommy and I had been Mom’s life. And then I had finally moved out a year ago, got my own apartment, and started to make my way in the world by myself. The adjustment had almost killed Mom. In fact, for a while, I really wasn’t sure if she was ever going to stop crying every time we talked on the phone. So how could I tell her, now, that I had this horrible disease and only three weeks left to live? She knew I’d been very sick, but this?
I shook my head and drew in a deep breath.
I couldn’t.
That was it.
I just couldn’t.
My only hope was that I could find the guy in black in Sedona and be back with a new lease on life before she missed me.
Yeah, right; who was I kidding? In what universe?
Okay, so that wasn’t going to work.
I would have to tell mom something.
Maybe I could relate it to some sort of higher calling—she gets into that type of thing. I could say I’d always wanted to see the Seven Canyons area, and I’d decided to make a quick weekend-trip out of it. You know; a bucket-list kind of thing.
Yeah, she’d buy that.
Until she thought about me sleeping somewhere, all alone, in the desert and completely freaked the heck out.
I banged my head against the headrest three times, and then I gave up thinking and started the engine. Might as well get some heat circulating. There’d be plenty of time to figure out what to tell Mom on the drive home.
three
I packed my pink Hello Kitty suitcase with four extra pairs of socks and plenty of extra underwear (in case mom ever checked my bags), and I sat on it to make it shut. I looked around my apartment and got teary-eyed. It might be the last time I ever saw it…the last time I ever slept in my bed or cooked in my kitchen.
But I couldn’t think like that, could I? Things might work out. As long as there was life, there was hope, right? Oh yeah, but wasn’t that the problem to begin with? The fact that I was about to lose my life…