When Darkness Whispers Read online

  When Darkness Whispers

  Ashes of Eden Series, Book 1

  Heather L. Reid

  WHEN DARKNESS WHISPERS:

  Book One of the Ashes of Eden Series

  Previously titled PRETTY DARK NOTHING

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather L. Reid

  Published by Snowy Wings Publishing

  www.snowywingspublishing.com

  Cover Design by K.D. Ritchie www.storywrappers.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, businesses, brands, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-948661-02-7

  Second Revised Edition

  In loving memory of those who believed in my dream before I even knew how to dream it. For Delia Gibson, Frank and Celia Leinbach, Jessie Easley, and for my mother, Sherry Reid. You may be gone from this world, but your spirits live on within me. I would not be who I am without you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Great Titles from Snowy Wings

  Other Great Titles from Snowy Wings

  1

  Shadows lingered in the corners—unhindered by the burning lights—eager for Quinn to grow careless. She ignored the weight of fear that squeezed her heart. They wouldn’t have her, not tonight, not if she could help it. With shaking hands, she popped open the lid of the prescription bottle and upended the contents, tapping the bottom to make sure nothing remained. The white oval pills clattered against the porcelain and slid beneath the water. She flushed, and stared, transfixed as they swirled around and around the edge of the dark hole that waited to swallow them up. Better them than her.

  She left the bathroom light on as she crept back into her bedroom, checking the clock on the bedside table for the thousandth time, willing it to race through the remaining minutes until morning. Six-thirty. Half an hour until sunrise. She wasn’t sure she could last that long. A half empty energy drink sat near the clock. She downed the last dregs of cherry fizz in two gulps and threw the can into a corner. Pressing the headphones against her ears, she maxed out the volume and let Metal Mania Six shriek her awake. On the offbeat, her head banged against the antique headboard, a quick pinch of pain to ensure she hadn’t nodded off.

  Yawning, her eyes welled to wash away the boulders wedged beneath the lids. She hadn’t slept a full night in months. She couldn’t.

  So tired. Maybe she could close her eyes for only the few remaining minutes. Not long enough to fall into REM sleep, but enough to give her the energy to make it through school. Please let me sleep. Just five minutes. Please. Metal Mania Six wailed a warning as her eyes flickered and shut. The rocking slowed then stopped. Quinn slumped to one side.

  A creeping cold inched its way across her exposed skin, dotting her flesh with goosebumps. Something sinister pushed against the dead weight of her sleeping body from the other side of the headboard. The wood shuddered and groaned as the evil reached out, searching for the portal that would open with a deep sleep. Quinn’s breath quickened with the thought of what was coming, but it was too late. She was helpless, already suspended in the torpor between waking and dreaming with no energy left to fight.

  It only took a second for the veil between reality and nightmare to rip. Tendrils of fog splintered through the headboard and coiled around her neck. She screamed, the music in her headphones echoing that tears in her voice. The noose pulled tight, digging into her windpipe, and cut her cry short. She clawed at her throat as the coils snaked across her neck and mouth. Whips of fog were everywhere at once, twining around her body, binding her inch-by-inch with living rope. She kicked and flailed, but the fog entombed her.

  The smoky mist dragged Quinn through the splintered void and held her in its dark web, dangling her over the black abyss of the tunnel below. She knew what would come next, but never when. The dreams never changed—the darkness would hold her for seconds, or hours, taunting her at the precipice of the nightmare until one by one, the tendrils unraveled and left gravity to pull her into a long, terrifying freefall.

  She twisted and tumbled as she fell, hoping this time would be different, that her fingers would find some hold to stop the descent. But they never did. She grasped only air, and the ground rushed to meet her.

  The thud as she hit the cold, hard earth rattled her teeth. All the air in her lungs rushed outward, and she gasped and flailed like a fish out of water. She rolled to her side and stumbled to her feet. Enormous trees stood sentry around a small clearing, their gnarled and twisted trunks mirroring the clenching inside her stomach. Hundreds of human-shaped figures hung from their branches, each draped in tattered, gray death shrouds. Mud-caked feet with jagged, black toenails peeked out from below the rags as they swayed and creaked like a disintegrating rocking chair.

  Broken patterns of moonlight illuminated a narrow trail through the corpse forest and across the clearing. Follow the light, find the way out. Her breath came in sharp spasms. The smell of damp and decay grew stronger as she approached the first hanging body. It twisted on the end of its rope, reaching for her. But she skirted past, the end of its shroud grazing her cheek. Quinn shivered. From eyeless sockets, they watched her. She could feel their presence like a weight pressing against her skin. Dry leaves littered the forest floor; their brittle veins crunched under her black leather boots as she squeezed past two more bodies.

  Each whispered a name, a word, a plea, as she passed, but she ignored them and moved on. Keep your eyes on the light, keep moving, don’t listen, it’s only a dream. She repeated the mantra to herself, numb to the thundering of her heart and the lump in her throat.

  Something thudded to the ground beside her. Heart hammering within her chest, she glanced over her shoulder. An apple, blood red against the sepia-toned landscape, rolled into the moonlight and stopped at her feet.

  Take a bite, the corpses whispered.

  Her stomach growled. So hungry. Just one little taste. She picked up the apple, cradling the fruit in both hands. Something in the back of her mind screamed for her to drop it, but she held it tighter.

  Take a bite and all your troubles will disappear.

  The whispers compelled her. She swayed with their rhythm. Left, right, left, right, so soothing. Her hands lifted the fruit to her lips where she could smell its sweetness. Perfectly shiny, perfectly red. Quinn took a bite and smiled as she swallowed.
r />   Juice trickled down her chin, and she wiped it away.. Black liquid stained the back of her fingers. She looked at the apple. Half a fat worm wriggled inside the perfect bitemark. Quinn spit and gagged, dropping the apple to the ground. Another worm swarmed out of the rapidly desiccating skin, then another, and another. They plopped to the dirt and writhed over the toes of her boots, up her ankles. She kicked free of them and darted in a circle, searching for the moonlit path to guide her way out, but it was lost in the heavy fog weaving through the maze of corpses and trees, devouring any light that dared to surface.

  The trees moved closer, the corpses with them, swinging, twisting, writhing in their branches, an all-consuming darkness behind them.

  What have you done? her mother’s voice whispered from a nearby corpse.

  It’s all your fault.

  Why didn’t you stop it? her father’s voice.

  Help us. Help us.

  The dark ring of fog surrounded her, moonlight absorbed by its eerie, gray-green mist. Then, like a beast pouncing on its prey, the darkness descended. Panic moved from her stomach to her feet. Blindly, she groped until her fingers found the trunk of a sturdy oak. She pressed her back against it, its rough bark catching at a strand of long hair. Trapped. Perspiration trickled down the small of her back and she shivered.

  Something cold and damp brushed her leg. It felt like a human hand, a dead human hand at that, the moistness of its grave still clung to its rotting flesh. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. She shuddered as the corporal mist found her palm, inched its way between fingers, and seized both of her wrists, binding them together. Jerking away from the smoke’s grasp only succeeded in it tightening the grip of living rope until pain danced across every nerve.

  Before she could blink, two new wraith vines grabbed her legs and slammed her to the forest floor. She clawed at the ground as the tendrils dragged her into the fog. Dirt lodged under her fingernails. The earthy decay, disturbed from its winter slumber, filled her nostrils.

  “We’re coming for you, Quinn,” the fog hissed.

  Earth to earth. The image of her parents throwing a handful of dirt over her coffin as it lowered into the ground came unbidden to her mind. Tears slid from her eyes. She didn’t want to die.

  More tendrils slithered toward her, swirling and changing into dozens of dark shadow masses. They crowded around her; their bodies blacker than the surrounding night.

  “You can’t get away. You have no one to protect you now.” The shadows reached for her. “There’s no escape, Quinn. Earth to earth. Everyone dies. Some sooner than others.”

  2

  “No!” Quinn jolted awake, knocking over the gleaming tower of empty cans of Red Bull from her bedside table. Her alarm clock screamed, and she fumbled for the off switch. Golden-pink light oozed across the butter-yellow walls, painting the room in the warmth of sunrise. She blinked and pulled the blanket up around her chin, huddling under the covers like a child.

  Hugging Mr. Snuggles, her angel-winged teddy bear to her chest, dirty and ragged from seventeen years’ worth of love; she tried to shake off the lingering fear. When had these nightmares gained so much power over her? Her mind spiraled backward, picking apart every moment before her father left and every moment since. She remembered feeling it, the moment the darkness broke free and pushed forward, leaching all the color from her world. He walked out the door, and the next day, it was if the sun had been eclipsed. Cold seeped into her blood and she hadn’t been warm since.

  At first, the nightmares blurred with the light of morning—just dreams, but every night now, they turned more and more sinister. Their vividness bled into reality, bringing her dread even in the daylight hours. Something was coming for her, and she had no idea what it wanted. Or how to stop it.

  Quinn shook her head. It sounded crazy. It was crazy. So much so that she stopped mentioning it to her therapist and she didn’t dare talk about it with anyone else. Her psychiatrist insisted the nightmares were mere manifestations of her grief, a way for her unconscious mind to cope with her father walking out on them, her fear of abandonment, her feelings of inadequacy. The doctor prescribed some sleeping pills and sent Quinn home. At first, it worked, no dreams invaded her drugged sleep, but slowly, as the months ticked by and her father didn’t return, the darkness seeped back in, insidious and disturbing. The pills became a trap, locking her in with her demons and nowhere to escape. Now, her mother filled her prescriptions, and, one by one, Quinn flushed them down the toilet.

  Nothing was coming for her. Dreams couldn’t hurt you, no matter how vivid. Even so, she scanned the room for any movement.

  The silence of an empty house washed over her, and her mind conjured the creak, creak, creak of the corpse forest. Quickly, she flicked the radio app on her phone to her favorite morning station and turned on her Bluetooth speaker.

  “XTRM extreme music. All your favorite hits, all the time. And now, here’s Skipping Zombies’ new hit, ‘Intensity.’”

  Still clutching her angel teddy bear, Quinn slipped one foot from under the covers and let it hover above the dark space between the mattress and the floor. She chewed her bottom lip and willed herself to dip a toe into the shadow, slowly extending her leg until the sole of her foot met the cold hardwood floor. She waited. Nothing grabbed her from the recess of the bed to drag her through the cracks. She turned the volume on her phone up another notch and placed it back on the nightstand, letting the music drown out her fears, and unfolded her other leg from the tangle of covers until sunlight spilled across her bare feet, the rays charging her with courage. The floor groaned as she placed her full weight onto the solid wood boards.

  The music cut off mid-note and her cell vibrated, dancing off the nightstand and onto the floor, startling her. Three deep breaths calmed her jitters. Grabbing the phone, she checked the new text message that flashed on the screen.

  HAD 2 GO 2 WORK EARLY AGAIN. MORE PROBS WITH THE BUILD DESIGN. THERE’S $ ON THE COUNTER FOR PIZZA 2NITE. DON’T W8^. I’LL BE L8. LUV U. HAVE A GR8 DAY @ SCHOOL. X :-)

  Mom’s texts reeked of text speak lists posted on parents’ websites, like how2comunic8withyourteen.com. Quinn brought up the touch screen keypad.

  THANKS, MOM. SEE YOU TOMORROW. DON’T WORK TOO HARD. LOVE YOU.

  Time to stop jumping at shadows and get her ass in gear, or she would be late for school, and she hated being late. But just in case, she kept her back to the lit window and eyes to the softly shadowed side of the room.

  Quinn’s Westland High cheerleading uniform hung on the back of the closet door, fresh from the cleaners. The shiny plastic film was a mocking reminder that she remained benched for failing algebra, of all things.

  Not caring if it wrinkled, she shoved the uniform into the back of her closet. Instead, she grabbed her dad’s vintage Bowie tee shirt from her dresser and pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans. A magenta and black houndstooth scarf would keep the October chill at bay.

  A pair of black boots peeked at her from under the bed. She inched forward, kicking the boots into the light, and bent to pick them up. A dead leaf clung to one of the soles. She pulled it free and brought it to her nose. The leaf smelled musty and damp, fresh from an autumn walk in the woods.

  Earth to earth.

  Hands shaking, she dropped the leaf, snatched one of her boots, and hammered its heel onto the golden frond until it disintegrated into brown dust.

  “I-Will-Not-Be-Afraid.” She snarled each word with every strike.

  Quinn pulled her car into one of the last empty spaces in the school parking lot and glanced at her watch. Just enough time to get to class—if she ran. Slamming the door of her red Mustang, an unwanted bribe from her mother, she darted for the main entrance.

  As she rounded the back of a white pickup, she froze. There, blocking her way, were Jeff and Kerstin, tongues throat-deep in what looked less like kissing and more like a scene from a porn movie. Quinn ducked behind the truck bed and hoped the
y wouldn’t notice her. She wanted to look away, but her eyes were drawn to them like metal to a magnet. Jeff stroked Kerstin’s hair and nuzzled her neck like he had once nuzzled Quinn’s. Kerstin nibbled his ear while he laughed. They looked happy. Jeff looked happy. Yet anger swelled in Quinn’s chest as she swiped at the tear rolling down her cheek.

  Don’t you dare cry, she told herself. He’s not worth it. But her emotions were stubborn, and the pain of losing Jeff to that succubus was too raw. They’d been best friends their whole lives, their friendship blooming into more in eighth grade. They’d been inseparable for four years. Until the summer. Until Kerstin. Men will always betray your trust, her mom proclaimed. Hadn’t she learned that from her father? A hard knot tightened in her stomach, and she clutched at her belly to keep her insides from ripping into a million pieces. He’s not worth it. She repeated the mantra and choked back a sob.

  Relief washed over Quinn as Kerstin grabbed Jeff’s hand, and they disappeared into the building. She closed her eyes and leaned against the truck, the cool metal calming the heat rising in her cheeks. The pain in her chest eased as she released the tears she held back. At least they hadn’t noticed her hiding and blubbering like a fool. The last thing she needed was Kerstin spreading more nasty rumors, a favorite hobby of hers.