A Nighttime of Forever (Vampire Innocent Book 1) Read online

  A Nighttime of Forever

  Vampire Innocent #1

  Table of Contents

  Claustrophobia

  Escape

  Pale Moon

  Transference

  Vulnerable

  Homesick

  Bodies

  New Digs

  Dalton

  Fangs for Dummies

  Mystical Nonsense

  Innocent

  Totally Chill

  Mind Zap

  Adjustment Period

  Come Alone

  Friends with Pointy Benefits

  The Cabin

  Attack Dog

  Gnarly

  Intentions

  Beautiful Death

  Favors

  Oops

  Messy Breakup

  Early Admission

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other books by Matthew S. Cox

  Claustrophobia

  1

  Lost to a vast ocean of darkness, I float without direction or depth. A breeze neither warm nor cool washes over my skin along with the brush of hair at my back. I’m flying, or at least it feels like it. Maybe I’m hanging weightless, drifting.

  And… I’m naked.

  Great. I’m in for another nightmare. Funky dreams have been happening on and off all last year, becoming more bizarre the closer I get to moving out and going to USC. Sometimes they’re trippy, like the floors melt to goop or I’m the last girl alive and everyone around me goes full zombie. More often, I wind up stuck in a dream of being on campus or in class and all my clothes vanish. Best I’ve been able to find on the ’net, winding up naked in a dream is supposed to represent fear of being vulnerable, or fear of ridicule, or that I’m afraid of being unprepared for a test. Maybe I’m secretly a chicken and deep down inside, I’m terrified of leaving home.

  Argh. Yeah, I’m nervous, but who wouldn’t be? More than simply moving out of the home I grew up in, I’ll be going like 600 miles away from everything and everyone I know. Exciting, yes. Scary? No doubt. However, last I checked, I’m more excited than scared at grabbing independence.

  But this dream is a first. I have no idea what the floating-in-darkness thing means.

  Other than being blind and feeling naked, it’s not too scary.

  At least, until I try to move… and my arms go on strike. A constant flow of air glides over my skin, but I’m unable to twitch even a finger. I’ve got no sense of which way is what, like some kinda astronaut drifting in space without a suit. Nothing’s touching me, no straps or anything really scary holding me down. The dream’s not giving me any sense of imminent danger. Still, being unable to move is pretty damn freaky.

  Hello? I attempt to say, but my voice only happens inside my head.

  “Sarah!” screams my mother, sounding far away.

  Mom? What’s wrong? I’ve only ever heard that tone in her voice once before when I was eight and a car almost ran me over. Something’s definitely wrong. Again, I try to lift my arms, but nothing happens. My body drifts in endless nothing. Mom! I shout in my head, my voice echoing over and over into silence.

  I try to ignore a building sense of panic, listening to the soft whisper of the constant breeze, waiting, hoping she says something.

  Bang!

  A heavy, metallic crash, like a big truck door slamming, rolls over me like I’m ground zero at a lightning strike. I want to scream, but can’t. I struggle to move, to shout, to do anything… but the stillness remains.

  Helpless, I give up trying to fight and float in place. Despite my terror, my body isn’t even shaking. When the silence gets to me, I chant, It’s a nightmare, over and over in my head. I am dreaming and I need to wake up.

  The breeze stops, and a sense of coolness spreads through my limbs.

  I’m dreaming. It’s time to wake up.

  Plastic falls over me, covering my face and all down my front. Okay, this is one strange dream. My clothes vanishing off me in the middle of campus I’ve dreamed before, but being stuffed naked into a Hefty bag? That’s a new one―and I don’t like it.

  Wake the hell up now!

  My eyes peel open at the same time a heaviness grips my limbs. Grey blankness is all I can see, and there’s definitely some kind of plastic draped over my face.

  Gah!

  I slide my leaden right hand up over my hip, rustling the material. Sure enough, I’ve got nothing on. Nothing, at least, except for this plastic… bag?

  “Well, I’m still dreaming…”

  My voice echoes like I’m in a confined place, and I become aware that my weight is on my back. I’m no longer floating, but lying on a hard surface. For a few minutes, I remain still, waiting for my body to adjust to being awake. I mean, awake in my dream. This is the weirdest thing. I had a nightmare inside a nightmare, and woke up tired―in my dream. Ugh. Why is my brain pulling some Inception-level shit? I’m way too tired to process this.

  Barely two minutes later, I can’t take having plastic over my face anymore. I push out with my hands while sitting up.

  And crack my head on metal, which knocks me once more flat on my back.

  “Ugh. Ow.”

  Plastic crinkles around me as I reach up to cradle my forehead. Oh, damn, that hurt. A few seconds later, pain gives way to anger and I tear at the thin material, ripping it away. A featureless grey plane hovers less than a foot above my face. Behind me, above my head, a square metal plate. I peer down the length of my body at another square slab past the tents my feet make in the black shroud I’m half wearing. It’s kinda a sleeping bag, but made of plastic. The surface I’m lying on wobbles back and forth, like it’s on rails or something and can slide. I’m trapped inside a long, narrow space with no obvious way out. And hang on, my nails are supposed to be blue, not light grey. It takes my brain a few seconds to latch on to what my eyes are trying to tell it.

  This chamber’s about the size of a coffin.

  I’m also in a body bag.

  I grab the side walls and kick at the end past my feet, but other than creating a hollow thud, thud, thud, my effort gets me nowhere close to out of here. The tray I’m on rolls back and forth, but only a couple of inches in either direction before it rams into metal.

  A flash of white catches my eye on my right wrist―a plastic bracelet, like from a hospital.

  NAME OF DECEASED: WRIGHT, SARAH E. CASE NUMBER: 2017-006832

  AGE: 18 SEX: F RACE: W WEIGHT: 124 HEIGHT: 5’4”

  PLACE OF DEATH: DUVALL, WA CAUSE OF DEATH: HOMICIDE

  “124! Are you kidding me?! I’m 117 tops!”

  I’m not that heavy. And for another thing, I’m not dead!

  But I’m… in a morgue.

  Panic hits me hard, and reality becomes a blur of kicking and pounding on the walls while screaming. Eventually, I wind up on my side, staring up at the head end of the chamber, now covered in scratches. The sight of the marks makes me shudder. I’m trapped in a place so confining it could cause legit insanity and I’ve already scratched the walls.

  Wait…

  I scratched the walls?

  Dumbfounded, I stare at the pale lines etched into the metal, unable to come up with any explanation for why my fingernails aren’t a bloody mess. Also, the body bag that had been around me is in shreds. The worst part is I’m pretty sure the end above my head is a solid wall. Don’t they usually load people in these things headfirst? But there’s no possible way I can turn around to get my hands anywhere near the door at the foot end. I’ve never felt so helpless and trapped before.

  I roll again onto my back and shut my eyes so I stop seeing this tiny littl
e cage.

  My breaths come in rapid, panting gasps, but I can’t shake the suffocating confinement. Throbbing pain from my hands and feet seeps into my awareness. Guess I really pounded on the walls, but I don’t remember doing it. Ow. I think I broke my pinky finger. Never had anxiety issues before―if you don’t count public speaking―but I’ve also never been locked in a body cooler either.

  “I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming.” I start counting to ten, but stop at six when the pain fades away. A quick examination of my hands shows no bruising or broken fingers. Out of contempt for what’s on it, I snap the bracelet off. “I’m not that heavy.”

  This is a dream. It has to be. If I was in a body cooler, it would be cold―and I’m not cold.

  Also, those things don’t have lights inside, right? Not like dead people have to see. So this can’t be real or I wouldn’t be able to see anything, much less read the ridiculous identity bracelet. 124 pounds my ass. Speaking of seeing…

  I roll onto my side and give myself a quick once-over. Other than naked, I appear to be fine. No wounds, no blood, not even any marks.

  “This makes no sense. Wake up, dammit!”

  My breathing echoes within the little prison while my brain goes in circles trying to understand. Did someone kidnap me? Am I being held prisoner by some sick, twisted creep who’s maybe watching me right now on a digital camera? I roll flat again and glare at the ceiling. Cause of death: homicide? Bullshit. Someone’s lying. I wasn’t anywhere dangerous. I was…

  Blank.

  I can remember my name, my parents, my siblings, home, friends… but other than a strong feeling of anger and betrayal, I can’t picture anything from the past, like, day or so. I remember catching my asshole boyfriend Scott cheating on me, but he doesn’t know I saw him with Bree Sampson. The past week, I’d been arguing with myself, trying to find the courage to flush the last two years down the toilet. No, don’t think of it like that. He’s been shitty to me for over a year. I still don’t know how I forgave him for what he did to me the first time we tried to have sex. But, if I’m honest with myself, we’d been over for a while. I just refused to admit it.

  My fingernail clicks on the metal tray beneath me, tapping as I wrack my brain for any fragment of the past twenty-four hours.

  Eyes closed, I try to drag any scrap of explanation out of the fog in my head as to how I wound up in this present insanity.

  Colors flash in my thoughts, shirts and dresses floating in front of me. Blur-faced people mill around. It’s dark, windy, and starry. Outdoor lights shine on a backyard that ends at a forest tree line. A guy in a red polo dashes by, inches in front of me. Sudden, crippling nervousness makes my stomach clench up. The woods get closer like I’m walking toward them, but the trees frighten me. Something bad’s going to happen to me if I go into the forest. I want to set my heels and stop, but my body refuses to listen. Someone’s holding my hand―and I don’t really want them to. My mind-voice screams, No! I cringe away from the woods and the memory fades back to the blank grey of my surroundings.

  There’s no way I’m calling this a body cooler, because, well, it’s not cold and I’m obviously not dead. With a groan, I rub my eyes. Best I can figure, I’d been at a party. Did someone slip me something? That’s the most reasonable explanation. I got roofied, stripped, and locked up in a box. Someone’s playing a vicious prank on me.

  Shit. I hope it’s a prank and not like a serial killer.

  “Help!” I shout, kicking at what I hope is the door at the foot end.

  The tray under me wobbles. I’m making a crapton of noise. Someone’s gotta hear me. Minutes pass as I stomp at the door with increasing force. Why is no one coming to let me out of here?

  “Help!?” I scream again, kicking even harder.

  Claustrophobic panic comes back for round two, and I lose a few minutes futilely punching at the walls. The next thing I know, my throat hurts and I’m on my side, shivering. Ringing in my ears tells me I must’ve been screaming. Total silence envelopes me. It’s captivating for a little while, until the absolute lack of any sound worries me. I press a hand over my heart, which should be racing, but I can’t feel anything.

  Huh? What?

  As if it heard me, my heart begins beating the instant I realize it’s slacking off.

  Okay, I’m just panicking. I’m clearly not dead since I’m awake, aware, and moving around… so obviously, the no pulse thing had to be a hallucination.

  “Let me outta here!” I shriek.

  I wait, listening… and I’m not even breathing.

  Oh, shit. I’m having an anxiety attack. Can’t breathe. I gasp for air, and reach up over my head to brace my hands on the wall behind me. A hard shove launches the tray only an inch or so before it hits the other end. Which side is it? They look the same. This chamber is so damn narrow, I can’t even curl into a fetal pose. And I really want to. This is way too much to handle.

  “Mom!? Dad!?” I shout. “Someone please let me out of here!”

  Oh God. Some idiots from school locked me in a morgue cooler. This is either a creepy, old, abandoned place, or I’m like right next to actual dead people.

  “Guys! Come on. This isn’t funny!”

  I listen to silence for a while before another panic attack sneaks up on me. This chamber of hell is getting even smaller. Not that I’ve ever been claustrophobic, but there’s something about this confined space that’s got a super-extra strong dose of nope!

  It’s gotta be the deathiness.

  The walls shudder in time with the start of a distant mechanical whirring. It sounds alarmingly like a refrigerator motor. Great. Something else that makes no sense. If I’m in a functioning morgue for some bizarre reason, it should be cold in here. But it’s not. I can’t call it warm either, but this is definitely not a cooler. I mean, I’m totally naked and I’m not even uncomfortable―temperature wise. I’m sure my face is bright red.

  I gotta get out of here before I go crazy. Tears drip down the sides of my head, gathering in my ears. I’m terrified, freaked out, and not above crying for my parents like a kid half my age. A sudden upwelling of homesickness―I want to be back in my own room so bad it hurts―gets me screaming again. Visions of being the victim in a horror movie get me pounding on the walls again. The killer put me in here for later, and when he opens that door, I’m gonna die!

  Panic hits me so hard I can only see white. Desperate to survive, I rear back my legs as much as I can move in this box, squeezing my knees into the ceiling, and stomp both feet on the wall at the end.

  Bang!

  The door flies open and crashes against metal outside. Too freaked to think, I shove at the wall over my head, launching the tray out with so much force, I go flying when it rams to a stop. Before I can scream, I find myself pulling off a surprise cat-like landing on all fours.

  My fingernails have gone back to being pastel blue. The black-and-white dream has either shifted gears, or the weirdometer dial’s been turned up to eleven. Ahead of me stands a row of teal-green cabinets over a white countertop. Two steel slabs in the middle of the room send a jolt of fear down my spine. I’ve seen enough Law & Order to recognize autopsy tables.

  “Oh, wow. This is messed up.”

  I stand out of my squat and gaze around in shocked horror. The room is deathly silent save for the constant whirring of the refrigeration motor. Four rows and ten columns of square hatch doors, like old-timey iceboxes, cover the wall behind me. The cubby I escaped is all the way on the top, third in from the left, about face-high to me standing. For no reason I can fathom, I push the tray back in and close the door. Only it doesn’t latch. The metal bit on the wall’s broken off and missing. The inside face of the insulated door has two vaguely foot shaped dents.

  “Whoa. This dream is not messing around. They must’ve spiked my drink with something good.”

  Escape

  2

  Another unsettling truth crawls into the back of my brain: this room is noticeably warm
er than the little box I woke up in. That can only mean that the little chamber I’d been trapped in was cold and for some reason I can’t (or refuse to) understand, the temperature didn’t bother me.

  Windows on the right peer out over a fenced-in parking lot with a couple trees at the corner. I wander up to the glass, cringing away from my pale reflection. I look like I haven’t eaten in a week; my ribs are showing… and I’m too pale to be real. I’m not supposed to be that white. At least it’s obvious I didn’t pass out at a party―no one wrote obscenities on my face.

  For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the silence. I drift up to the window, staring. It’s so quiet out there that the world doesn’t seem real. The empty parking lot glows under the glare of a nearly full moon hanging in a cloudless night sky.

  “Okay, dream. What gives?”

  I turn away from the window and start across the room to the only door, glancing up at a wall clock. The red LED numbers show the time as 3:42 a.m. The parents are going to scream at me when I get home, but this isn’t my fault. Some douchebag drugged me and dragged me into a… not abandoned morgue.

  My nerves prickle as I spin around, taking in my surroundings once more. This place doesn’t look like a creepy haunted asylum like something from one of those ghost-hunting shows. It’s a clean doctor’s office.

  I can’t deal with that idea right now. I gotta get home, but I can’t go outside naked. Running around this room gets me nowhere. Every cabinet door I try to open is locked, and I’m not looking in the coolers. If this place is legit, I do not want to see a real dead person. In fact, I don’t want to be in the same room as a cooler holding dead people.

  Overcome by ick, I rush the door and burst out into an empty corridor with a polished white floor. The red glow of an exit sign at the far end catches my eye. Doors on the left and right lead to storage rooms or offices, but they’re all locked as well. Of course. I’m having a nightmare, why should I expect any different? Resigned to being stranded in the buff, I pad down the hall to the corner.

  The exit sign above me emits a continuous buzz, it’s bright red so intense it feels like I’m trapped in a black-and-white movie and that sign is the only color in the universe. My fingernails take on a purple tint from the light, but as I continue into the corridor, they fade once more to grey―until I walk into a patch of moonlight coming in from a strip of windows along the right wall that looks in on a conference room. I pull my hand out of the light, and my nails turn grey. Back in, they’re blue. So much of this dream makes no sense. Why am I obsessing over trick nail polish?