Malevolent Sadness: A Paranormal Suspense Thriller (The Prophet's Mother Book 2) Read online

  Malevolent Sadness:

  The Prophet’s Mother – Book 2

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzO2ImaIO50&t=9s

  Julian M. Coleman, Copyright 2017

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

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  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QunBcuD3cg

  Credits

  Editor: The EEIO Editing Group

  [email protected]

  Cover Art: Kitty Honeycutt

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  Evie looks like an ordinary single mother, but she isn’t quite human. Her young song is kidnapped. Determined to find him, Evie is convinced there is only one way to save his life. She has to become a monster. She surrenders to her inner darkness without hesitation. She leaves behind madness and death as she searches for him. She will find Victor. There's no one to stop her...or is there?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFEDsw87aoA

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Devoured

  Chapter 2 – Sergeant Sap

  Chapter 3 – Juxtaposed Reflections

  Chapter 4 – A Monstrous Encounter

  Chapter 5 – Slipping into the Grey

  Chapter 6 – Obsessive Attention

  Chapter 7 – Having Ain’t the Same as Wanting

  Chapter 8 – Curdled Love

  Chapter 9 – Whispered Conspiracy

  Chapter 10 - Truce

  Chapter 11 – Shadow Attack

  Chapter 12 – Is She or Isn’t She?

  Chapter 13 – The Tombs

  Chapter 14 – Crenshaw, Edgar A.

  Chapter 15 – The Unusual Suspect

  About the Author

  Chapter 1 – Devoured

  Steamy water cascaded around her collarbone and trickled down her back. Her fingertips brushed over her nipples forcing a groan to erupt from her full lips. They were still tender where he had suckled. The memory of his tongue caressing her nubs to stiffness caused her to purr and shudder at the same time.

  She raised her face to the blast of water. The shower head pulsated with just enough flow to nearly dilute the unpleasant thoughts of her tryst, but not of her Ethics final. Almost, but that wound was way too fresh.

  Nessa wished she could stop remembering how easily she’d plopped in her seat knowing she hadn’t studied with anything that resembled diligence. So this time, her pre-exam jitters were more palpable than usual. In fact, she’d squeezed the mechanical pencil so hard, it was either going to break, or puncture her skin if she hadn’t placed it on the desk.

  Dr. Monroe, a humorless perfectionist, had walked solemnly down the aisle doling out the multi-paged test as if bestowing a special gift. Nessa had scanned the first page and panicked. Damn it to hell! She’d closed her eyes as she tried to call up the lofty words of the philosopher, Kant.

  Now, intertwined in her horrid Ethics examination memory were snatches of the glorious, but ill-spent night spent writhing under Shawn. He had wordlessly welcomed her into his crib and immediately smothered her with biting kisses.

  He knew why she was there.

  Nessa abstractly remembered there had been some pulling off of clothing before they had clawed off each other’s clothing and tumbled entwined on his lumpy mattress. Shawn had lifted her legs, parted her knees and slid into her softness without an ounce of chivalry.

  She still throbbed deliciously from the merciless pounding he had delivered. As she shuddered from the hot memory of his wicked thrusts, a moan escaped her lips. She drew back her head to allow a good blast of hot water to soak her face. She closed her eyes against the cleansing assault. The water felt almost as sinfully good as Shawn’s rock hard shaft. She’d given up a night of studying to indulge in him. Even now she could still hear the rhythmic squeak of the worn-out mattress springs in his tiny one-bedroom apartment.

  Shawn was one hundred and eighty-five pounds of pure muscular power-driving desire. Still, she shouldn’t have shucked her books so she could bump pelvis with her ne’er-do-well friend who shared in the sexual benefitting.

  Nessa shook her head as if trying to dissipate the memory of her terrible choice. Yeah, too much stress and she chose endless orgasms over prepping for a kick-ass exam. Nice move. Too bad the snowstorm hadn’t materialized until after she’d taken the final. The administrative powers-that-be canceled all afternoon campus classes. Just great! She was having the worst kind of crappy luck.

  Maybe she didn’t give herself enough credit. Maybe she eked out enough right answers to pass? After all, she only needed twelve credits before getting her bachelor’s degree in Public Administration. Premature drumroll please, ta-dah! But Lord-a’mercy, with all the money she owed in student loans, she’d better find a high paying job or she would be living off cheap ramen noodles for decades.

  Her internship last summer had been a freebie she couldn’t afford, but she hoped the payoff would be some awesome post-graduation contacts. And just maybe at least one bona fide job offer?

  She had plans, right? She continued chastising her impulsive horniness even as she climbed out of the shower. Her full lips curled into a secretive smile at the rush of memories that sizzled enough to cause her to tingle.

  She wrapped herself in a towel as she shared a smirk with her blurred reflection. She couldn’t help reliving the savagery Shawn had put on her the night before. He was a gorgeous hunk of masculinity who had never been any good on his feet. God knew she considered him as smart as applesauce. But when that sexy creature was horizontal, woman-oh-woman, wasn’t he masterful? He had just enough street in him to get her juices flowing.

  Nessa kept smiling as she squirted a spritz of gel on her toothbrush, brought the toothbrush up to her teeth and then she froze. Her body seized up in tense expectation. She intuited something was wrong. But what? The skin on her arms, despite the humidity in the bathroom, shivered into goosebumps.

  She stared at her image in the mirror and saw how her features were distorted by wide-eyed fear. She flipped off the ventilation fan and listened. She didn’t hear anything and instantly recognized that was the problem. The sorority house was too quiet.

  It was never, ever this quiet.

  It was a home to fifteen noisy wannabe women who mostly got along. Which meant there was usually a lively ensemble of overlapping sounds of music, study group chatter, and the television. Or just plain gossip-fests that at times, easily evolved into bickering arguments. And occasionally, during the wee morning hours, sexual moans…which weren’t technically supposed to happen because guests weren’t allowed to stay after ten at night. It was a house rule that Nessa was known to flout too.

  So why the absolute silence now?

  Nessa’s thoughts zeroed in on every urban legend about psycho kille
rs who turned sorority houses into slaughterhouses. The idea forced a smile. Of course, she was being silly.

  Abruptly, her smile disappeared.

  But what if she was wrong? What if some deranged copy-cat got in the house? Richard Speck and what he’d done to those nursing students had been very real.

  There was no place to hide in the bathroom. She couldn’t allow herself to go down like the Psycho babe grabbing onto the shower curtain, while some weirdo with mommy-issues ground her up into chopped human meat. She held her breath as she cracked open the bathroom door and silently begged the hinges not to squeak. But she couldn’t keep her heart from hammering as she envisioned a towering inbred freak sporting a mask made from human skin and wielding a bloody axe, waiting for her just outside the door.

  Nessa was so rigid, her muscles ached. A new thought nibbled. Had her reflection smiled back a half second after she’d smiled?

  She dared to look back at the mirror. It was still clouded over and sweated with condensation from the shower. Maybe she should step back in for another looksee? Maybe the image hadn’t been her real reflection after all? What if she saw a twisted version of herself? What if that crazy mirror-Nessa reached out from a parasitic dimension, killed her and took her place among the living?

  I gotta knock it off, she scolded. The only thing I need to be scared of is my grade on that Ethics final.

  She lifted her chin, straightened her back and pulled the towel so tightly around her body, it dug into her skin. Whatever was out there, she was going to face it with dignity. She was relieved when sound drifted into the bathroom through the open door. She heard voices, but they weren’t unfamiliar. She recognized the reporters from the local news broadcast.

  The television was on, but that was normal. So where in the hell were her sorority sisters? Should she call out to them?

  Oh sure! Please alert the knuckle-dragging throwback to exactly where you are so he can carve a new mouth in your neck?

  What about the others?

  Nessa remembered coming home and seeing Luisa and Carmen, the Frick and Frack constantly bickering duo, who joined forces this afternoon to pick apart her self-esteem for obviously bumping uglies with a dude who she’d sworn she would never date again. Those snoopsters had radars. Right now, she would’ve given anything to hear their bitchy teasing.

  Who else had she noticed when she’d fled upstairs? Their housemother? Nessa knew Mrs. Parker wasn’t as deaf, or as ignorant, as she pretended. Although Nessa hadn’t seen the house matriarch, she knew the older woman wouldn’t have gone out in the snow. Certainly not the way she always complained about her bad hip.

  Nessa remembered how she’d tried to avoid Ashley. The kind-hearted southern belle had popped out of the kitchen to see if Nessa was hungry. Sweet Ashley was a lousy cook who could make fried steak taste like boiled ass. Naturally, Nessa had begged off just as Frick and Frack started their tramp callout anew.

  All that drama had occurred less than twenty minutes earlier…a lifetime ago. Now the house was too damn quiet. More than that, though. Vanessa felt something was off.

  Her heart jackhammered as if running on diesel. She peered down the hall and saw…nothing unusual. The egg-shell colored hallway wasn’t smeared with blood or splattered with brain gore.

  Nessa consoled herself. Her imagination was her only problem, but if that was truth, then why wouldn’t her heart slow down. She was naked. She didn’t have a weapon and she didn’t have a phone.

  Nessa conjured up an image of herself dangling half dead on a meat hook with her toes barely scraping a bloody floor. She also envisioned a deranged killer, some whacked-out fool in a tutu, doing horrible things to her innards.

  She considered turning the towel rod into a weapon, then she snorted at her ridiculousness. Besides that, she couldn’t fathom going back inside the bathroom. A different kind of fear slithered up her spine. The face in the mirror hadn’t been hers. Nessa couldn’t imagine what she would do if she found herself staring into those hellish eyes…hellish eyes? What had she seen in the mirror?

  She took a few more stealthy paces, and then she caught a burning whiff just moments before the shrill beeps of the smoke detector sounded.

  Ashley’s boiled ass?

  Nessa had no choice. She darted down the stairs. The bottom of the staircase led to the foyer which opened to the grand parlor. It was her favorite room in the house because it was dignified, yet comfortable. The furniture were good replicas of vintage Queen Anne. There were two camel back sofas, one gold and the other blue, three gold wing chairs, and a cherry wood and glass coffee table with matching end tables. Even the rug that covered enviable hardwood floors, was a good Persian imitation. A large gilded mirror hung above the brick fireplace and cattycorner to it was a wide-screen television that didn’t fit in with the stately décor.

  Nessa ran, almost skidded, into the parlor and came to a stunned stop. She hadn’t expected to see them like this.

  The high-pitched beeps pricked Nessa’s nerves with an antsy itch to hurry and do something, yet despite the insistent noise, or the acrid smoke that crept up her nostrils and stung her eyes, she was immobilized by them.

  In a way, she was alone.

  It was literally a full house. The women were all there, including Mrs. Parker, and they weren’t dead. Although by Nessa’s guesstimate, they weren’t quite alive either. Now as she eased toward them, she thought they looked sort of frozen. The women were either sitting on the floor, or on the tufted sofa, or were sharing seats on the wing back chairs. Each pair of eyes was on the television screen. Their faces were expressionless except for their eyes which were rounded by either surprise or fright.

  “Hey guys? What’cha doing?” Nessa asked. Her tone was thick with fear.

  No one answered.

  Nessa had to try to reach them. Carmen was closest to her, so she asked, “Hey Carm, do you still wanna hear about last night?” Nessa poked her good-naturedly, and then she recoiled. It was like prodding a statue.

  Carmen wobbled a bit, but was otherwise unresponsive. She continued to stare, unblinkingly, at the television screen. Nessa leaned in closer and realized Carmen’s eyes were glazed over with tears, some of which, had cascaded down her cheeks. Her lips moved. Nessa edged in closer to hear her above the smoke alarm. She heard Carmen whisper. She said a name, “Victor.”

  Victor?

  Nessa straightened up, one vertebra at a time, as she tightened her fist around the upper edge of the towel to keep her nudity in check. She was glad the smoke detector kept her anchored in reality. She didn’t need to figure this out. All she had to do was dial 911.

  A motion floated into her peripheral vision.

  She gasped as her legs turned into stone. Fear salted her tongue and caused the saliva to dry up in her mouth. Her eyes bulged as she rolled them toward the movement without tilting her head.

  Nessa was face-to-face with her reflection. It was the last thing she’d wanted. Deep in her psyche, she knew uneasiness was making her crazy. How else could she explain what she was seeing?

  Her image was staring, not pretending to mimic her actions. The mirror-Nessa grinned at her like she couldn’t wait to hang her on a meat hook. Nessa wondered if she was in the middle of a close-to-pissing-on-herself bad dream. Well then, if that was her situation, she needed to wake the hell up!

  Her grinning image floated within the confines of her mirrored existence like a specter. The only real difference between them was the mirror-Nessa distorted her mouth by opening it wider than humanly possible. Her jaw may as well have been on hinges. It opened so wide it flapped down to her throat.

  The mirrored version of herself floated closer, then pressed her hands against the mirror as if it was a barrier. Her fingers were several inches longer than natural and the nails were hooked at the tips like talons. The tips were as red as blood.

  Or were covered in blood.

  The other-she pushed against the mirror, and with each thrust, the mirror
wobbled until the image wavered like a mirage. With each push, the other-she transformed. Her features darkened and became vague. It was a ghoulish sequence. She pushed, the mirror wobbled and she darkened until she became nothing more than a shadow…except for her eyes. Her irises and pupils ignited at once and were consumed by blazing infernos.

  Nessa willed her legs to move backward, but she was too scared. Despite the repetitive beeps from the fire alarm and the stinging smoke, she could only register cold terror as that thing pushed itself into her world like a macabre breach birth.

  A final jolt was delivered with such force it nearly dislodged the mirror from the wall. She plopped onto the floor inches from Nessa like a newborn exiting a womb. After a few seconds, she floated up gracefully, fully extended with her arms above her head, and spun around like a phantom mermaid. If Nessa hadn’t been so pissy-scared, she would’ve been captivated by the spectacle. A sweet scent of vanilla threaded through the odor of boiled-ass.

  Nessa gasped as the shadow woman swam closer. Her nearness slammed Nessa with an emotional tsunami of terror and rage. The emotions that emanated from the shadow woman were so ferocious, Nessa struggled to stay on her feet. Nessa choked on the undiluted emotions for several minutes.

  Thoughts slithered into her mind…thoughts that were not her own…while Nessa felt her identity was being sopped up, consumed and digested. The sensations were more than unpleasant. Nessa was helpless against the mental intrusion as the lure of the fiery eyes demanded her stillness. The open mouth cranked wider apart and a cold draft settled over her…she could taste the vanilla. She felt like an insect paralyzed by a spider just before it was devoured.

  Nessa knew death was imminent and she hungered to see her momma one last time.