Alone in the Dark

  J.A. Cipriano

  Copyright © 2014 J.A. Cipriano

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  “Now Lillim, once you escape the vampire den, make sure you come straight home.”

  Those were the last words my mother said before she shut the door, leaving me, her thirteen-year-old daughter trapped in the basement of a rotting building a half hour before sundown.

  I hated her games. I didn’t know if she liked the games or not. I wanted to ask her about it, but that always carried the possibility that we would play again. I didn’t want to play again. Not ever. I always tried to be a good girl, always tried to please mommy, but no matter what I did, it seemed like we were always destined to play her games. We played a game when I didn’t do something I was supposed to do, or when I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. Only, half the time, it seemed like she was the only one who knew what the right thing to be doing was, and she never told me what that was.

  Mommy’s games were always unforgettable. I’d been locked in the basement of a warehouse, tied up in the back of a cave, left stranded in the middle of a desert, and trapped in a safe at the bottom of a lake. I’d been left in the dark. Alone. My job was to escape before the vicious wolf, the hungry lion, the man-eating alligator, or whatever other subterranean horror she’d found nearby, showed up and made my face its dinner.

  I swallowed and tried to push the memories of past games out of my head. It was dark down here. So dark that I couldn’t even see my body when I looked down at where I knew it to be. It was quiet. So quiet that I could only hear my own shallow breathing even when I strained to listen. There was no stirring of mice in this place. There was just the cold emptiness of death.

  I swallowed again, barely resisting the urge to cry. Still the warmth of tears tugged at the corner of my eyes. They hung there, threatening to spill out, to slide down my cheeks. But I couldn’t let them. I was thirteen now. A big girl. And big girls don’t cry.

  I concentrated on controlling my breathing while I sat there, huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around my knees. If I waited much longer, the house would begin to stir. The vampires we saw on the way down would awaken. Their feet would shuffle against the floor, still half-encumbered by a sleep so close to death that you couldn’t tell the difference, even with a microscope.

  They would cock their hideous faces toward the basement and sniff. The scent of warm blood and flesh filling their noses. They would come, stumbling down the rotting stairs sniffing all the way.

  And then the vampires would find me, huddled in the corner, tears streaming down my cheeks. They would come with snarling teeth and flashing fangs and rip into my flesh, tearing my arms from their sockets. They would feast on my blood until I was nothing. Then I would be discarded… left alone in the dark to rot.

  That wasn’t going to happen. Slowly, I unwrapped my arms from around my knees and pushed myself to my feet. I wiped the back of my hand against my eyes and flung the unspent tears away. I looked around the nearly pitch-black basement, but my eyes still hadn’t adapted. I swallowed again and tried to ignore the shivers marching down my spine like a column of icy ants. The musty smell of old clothing and rotten wood filled my nostrils.

  I reached back, touching the wall behind me and felt bits of wood and old wallpaper come away beneath my finger nails. I guess if I had enough time I could have dug my way out of the basement, though I was pretty sure that beyond the walls was not the safety of sunlight, but instead miles and miles of cold, dead earth. Earth filled with snips and worms and corpses. No, that wasn’t the way out.

  Besides, my mother hadn’t left me with enough time in this game to escape through the walls. If I had a whole day I could have tried to tunnel out, but not with the minutes flitting away like I was watching cartoons. I shook my head, dismissing the idea. I needed to focus on a different way out if I was going to win.

  I balled my left hand into a fist and drove it as hard as I could into the wall.

  CRACK!

  The sound of it was like a gunshot in the silence. The vampires wouldn’t hear me. Not now, not until the sun had set. Of course, by that time it wouldn’t matter because if I was still here when they woke up, I would be dead.

  The pain of the blow shot through my arm, reverberating down into my core, hurting like the time I closed the door on my hand. Still, the pain slowed down time, gave me something to focus on. It was keeping all the horrible things my imagination could cook up firmly under the bed.

  I cradled my left hand in my right and took a step forward, toward where I remembered the stairs being. Then another and another. My footsteps echoed in my ears. The vampires couldn’t hear me move, but still I made an effort to move slowly enough to control the sound of my footfalls. I crept closer to the other side of the room, my hands stretched out in front of me. I hoped they would meet the opposite wall before I walked into it.

  The other wall was wet and slimy. I edged closer to where the stairs should be, and the pit in my stomach grew ten sizes. My insides twisted up into a knot with every step, questioning why I was moving closer to where the vampires slumbered instead of finding a nice dark corner to hide.

  I nearly fell. My shoe hit the edge of the stairs, and I stumbled, catching myself on the wall. Sliding down, I sank to my hands and knees and began to crawl up the stairs. It would take longer, but I couldn’t risk walking up stairs in blinding darkness. If I fell, I would get hurt. If I got hurt, I would lose the game. I did not want to lose.

  Trying to ignore the slimy grit under my hands and knees, I scrabbled upward. It seemed to take an eternity and I very nearly screamed out in joy when I reached the top. I straightened myself and wiped my hands on my jeans, but they still felt damp and gross. The air was moist and warm. I hugged myself and shuddered.

  I never should have argued with my mom about wanting to wear an unzipped sweatshirt and jeans to class instead of the standard khaki pants and polo shirt. If I had worn my uniform, maybe the air wouldn’t feel so icky. Then again, if I’d worn my uniform, I wouldn’t be down here.

  I took a deep breath to calm myself and nearly gagged. The air tasted like dirt and mildew, and I fought the urge to wipe my tongue off on the hem of my shirt.

  I paused, trying to remember how we had gotten to this room. My mom had spun me around so many times that I wasn’t sure which direction to go. I swiveled my head back and forth, trying to see something, anything in the all-consuming darkness. Tears started to pull at the edges of my eyes again.

  Hesitantly, I walked forward, wishing I had a sword, a flamethrower, or a bazooka. I had no weapons with me, not even a gun, not that guns would do much against vampires. Unless I could cut off their heads or rip out the hearts, I wasn’t sure how I could kill them. It wasn’t like I had any fire to burn them to ash…

  I stopped so suddenly that I nearly tripped. I was wearing my running shoes. The ones with the extra padding that made the heel huge so they could correct my running posture because I ran on my ankles.

  I pulled off my left shoe and yanked out the liner. I reached in the space I had hollowed out and pulled out a tiny plastic lighter. My mom would be furious if she knew that I had not only ruined a really expensive pair of shoes but had also snuck something into one of our games.

  It wasn’t exactly cheating. It was her job to strip me of gear, not mine. It was only my job to win the game. Once I was alone, I could win by any means necessary. Besides, my mom had stopped stripping me of gear a while ago. It made it too obvious that we were going to play one of her games. It was why I’d had the idea to hide stuff in my clothes.

  I tugged my shoe back on and flicked the lighter. Flame lit up the space in front of me, revealing a grisly sight. Corpses littered the room, thick, gummy sludge still leaking from some of them. The closest one was barely a meter away. Its mouth hung open in a half-realized scream. I was where the vampires put the leftovers.

  I swallowed and pushed my own scream back down my throat. If these games were really to train me, like my mother always told me, then I owed it to myself to try and stay quiet. Besides, I wasn’t quite sure how much time I had until the vampires woke up.

  The tiny flame flickered, illuminating the outline of a large doorway on the other side of the room. I wasn’t sure where it led, but it was the only way out of the room that didn’t lead back downstairs.

  I stepped over the bloated, distended corpse. Something squished under my sneakers. I shut my eyes for a moment and concentrated on my breathing. With an effort of will, I forced myself forward, my shoes squelching on the floor as I moved.

  Hoping it wasn’t rigged to explode, or do some other disastrous thing, I reached out toward the door knob. When the knob turned easily and the door swung open, I released a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. A tiny smile spread across my face as I stepped into the room. I was almost free.

  Something grabbed my ankle. Cold, steel-like fingers bit into my flesh, yanking me off balance. I stumbled sideways, my arms flailing wildly as the lighter flew from my grip and went out. I screamed and thrashed and kicked at the thing that held me.

  My other foot struck something soft and wet. The fingers released me with a hiss. I ran forward in the darkness, my hands stretched out in front of me so I wouldn’t run into a wall. Hideous blood, curdling screams erupted all around me, standing the hairs on the back of my neck straight up.


/>   Things reached out of the darkness, trying to grab me from the sides as I stumbled forward, wide-eyed and screaming. Something seized the arm of my sweatshirt, tugging the fabric off my arm and spinning me around. I tripped, unable to catch my balance and fell skidding to the floor. Pain shot through me as I tried to crawl forward, wiggling out of the sweatshirt as my knees scrabbled on the decaying wood.

  A hand seized my left thigh, its fingernails gouging into my flesh. I kicked backward with my other foot as the hand yanked me toward it. My fingers dug into the wood in a desperate attempt to keep me from sliding backward.

  I screamed and kicked again. Something grabbed me by the back of my head and slammed me face first into the floor. Pain flashed behind my eyes, and my mouth filled with blood.

  “Oh, I love it when they scream. It’s very nearly my favorite thing. It’s like drinking a fine wine while being wrapped in silk.” The voice slurped in my ear. Its breath was hot on my neck which was a neat trick because vampires don’t need to breathe.

  The thing flipped me over onto my back as though I weighed nothing at all. Hands reached out and gripped my arms, pinning me there. I tried to move, flexing my muscles so hard that they bulged. Little good it did.

  The weight of the creature settled down on top of me, its body lying on top of mine as it wrenched my head to the left. Something, wet sandpaper, scraped against my skin, and I shuddered. There was a nip at my throat as something latched onto my flesh, and instead of feeling pain, I suddenly felt tired. Its swallow was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else.

  I struggled again, but this time it was much harder, much more difficult to move.

  Gulp.

  There was that sound again, so impersonal and so loud in my ears. Its hand moved, trailing down across my fingers like slimy icicles. I tried to move my head away and found, much to my surprise, that I could do so.

  I swallowed my fear, forcing it down inside me and shut my eyes. I slammed my head forward as hard as I could.

  Crack.

  Pain shot through my forehead, but the thing on my neck stopped sucking, its weight on top of me lolling to the side. Whatever it was that held my right hand released it, and I rolled my body to the left. I was on top of the creature now, blood dribbling from my neck and down onto the thing. I rolled again and was off the creature.

  The tinny scent of blood filled the air as unseen creatures went nuts. Snarling and snapping sounds echoed in the room, the sound of them scrambling toward me. They were still a little ways away, but that wouldn’t last. I had to get out of here before that happened.

  I crawled toward the wall, feeling for a door. I don’t know if it was luck, or if I subconsciously remembered where I was, or if someone was just looking out for me because I almost immediately found the door. I pushed. It opened.

  Moonlight streamed through broken windows into the room on the other side of the door. I got to my feet and ran. Behind me, the sounds of the vampires was even louder. Soon. Soon they would be upon me.

  I ran as hard as I could toward the closest window and leapt at the opening. In a splash of glass and debris, I came down hard on concrete outside. My heart pounded as I forced myself to my feet once again and took off. I didn’t glance back. To do so would invite disaster, and I was pretty sure I’d used up all my luck for the day.

  I didn’t stop until I reached home. I opened the door to see my mother. She had been sitting at the table waiting for me, like always, with my prize: a chocolate-covered donut. It was embarrassing and not fair in every way. The only time I got sweets was when I won the game. Then, I got a chocolate-covered donut.

  As I walked up to the table and sat down, my mother stared at me, her eyes a little wider than normal.

  “Lillim, what happened to your sweatshirt?” Before I could answer, her ruby-red lips twisted into a smile. “Do we need to play another game?”

  Thank you for reading Alone in the Dark, a short story prequel to Kill It With Magic. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review.

  Want to know when my next book is available? Sign up for my new release e-mail list here . Visit my blog at JACipriano.com for all the latest updates.

  If you haven't started the series, please check out Kill it with Magic, the first book in the Lillim Callina Chronicles.

  You might also like my other book, May Contain Spies.

 

 

  J.A. Cipriano, Alone In The Dark

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net