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  The Everlasting Chronicles

  Dead Silence

  K.G. Reuss

  The Everlasting Chronicles: Dead Silence

  © 2017 by K.G. Reuss. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s overactive imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Signed Books may be purchased by contacting the author at:

  www.Facebook.com/kgreuss

  Cover Design: TheBookCoverMachine

  Publisher: Amazon Direct, Books From Beyond

  Editor: Charlotte Stanley (N-D-Scribable Services)

  Formatting: Two Broke Authors

  First Edition

  To those who crave the answers from the dark but are too afraid to venture there.

  Contents

  Foreword

  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

  Broken Shadow Book 2 in the Everlasting Chronicles

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Trigger Warning: Some content of this book may be sensitive to some readers.

  Reader discretion advised.

  “So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

  ‘Cause oh that gave me such a fright

  But I will hold as long as you like

  Just promise me we’ll be alright”

  Ghosts That We Knew, Mumford & Sons

  Chapter One

  I pulled my hoodie over my head, and let my long black hair do the rest of the work of hiding my face as I walked through the chilly evening air. Hiking my messenger bag up onto my shoulder, I picked up my pace, eager to make it back to the warmth of my home. The coldness of Northern Michigan’s spring air caused my breath to visibly puff from my mouth as I hurried along the darkening street.

  A familiar loud truck rumbled past with its bass booming loudly. Ugh, I groaned inwardly as the angry, red brake lights came on before the truck went in reverse. This was the last thing I felt like dealing with, but I was always a trooper when it came to dealing with unwanted situations. I’d managed to make it through my alcoholic father’s harsh words and heavy hits—watching as he’d terrorized my mother, then running and screaming as he’d terrorized me when his bottle had run dry. I’d managed to make it through my parents’ nasty divorce. I’d even managed to make it through my childhood, which was littered with a creepy, red-eyed shadow person, strange creatures that were born from the dark corners of my dimly-lit bedroom, and the disembodied voices that called out to me. If I could make it through all that, I could certainly make it through a couple of teenage jockstraps yowling at me from the truck purchased by their overindulgent parents.

  “Ever,” Dylan Reynolds called from the passenger seat as his friends guffawed loudly from their various perches within the vehicle. Ducking my head lower, I pretended I couldn’t hear them. They creeped along beside me, laughing.

  “Oye, mamacita, qué buena estás? I know your sexy, half-Mexican ass can hear me,” Dylan shouted again as I scowled behind my curtain of dark hair. “Come on, Ever!”

  Though I kept my head down the entire time they rolled next to me, my senses were attuned to the truck and its occupants. My heart lurched when the tires stopped crunching on the edge of the pavement. Dylan jumped out and stepped in front of me. I sidestepped around him and kept walking, but being the annoying little shit that he was, he got back in front of me and started walking backward.

  “Ever, seriously. Are you still pissed over Brit’s party the other night?”

  “Dylan, I know it may be hard for you to understand, but vete a la chingada,” I snapped at him.

  “You’re right, Ever. I don’t understand what that means. But it sounds good coming from your mouth, whatever it is,” he grinned at me. His hazel eyes sparkled with amusement, and his sandy brown hair fell across his forehead. What did I ever see in him? I spent five months as his girlfriend—five months listening to him mess with people and suspecting he was cheating on me with Britney Stewart. I was over it now, though. “You haven’t been answering my calls or texts. What gives, babe?”

  “Gee, let me think,” I snapped, stopping suddenly and glaring at him. “I found you sucking face with Britney in the bathroom at her party! Why would I give you the time of day?”

  “Babe, that was nothing. I was drunk. I thought she was you!”

  “Ugh, get the hell out of my face, Dylan. You thought that blonde-haired, blue-eyed bimbo was me? Do you think I’m stupid and desperate?” I was losing my patience with him. I’d been avoiding him like the plague since the party last weekend. As far as I was concerned, he could go back to making out with her.

  “I’m sorry. I was wasted… Come on, Ever. You know, you’re my girl!” he sighed, stopping me by putting his hands on my shoulders. His fingers pushed my dark hair away from my face. “You’re just upset. Give me another chance, babe. I swear it won’t happen again. Just get in the truck with us. We’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Dylan,” I said sweetly, batting my long lashes at him.

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “I’d rather shit in my hands and clap than get in that truck with you jackasses.”

  “Christ, Ever.” Dylan’s face soured. “You know, maybe you could keep a guy around if you learned to talk like a lady. It’s a huge turnoff when you say shit like that.”

  “Good. My work here is done.” I stepped around him and continued down the sidewalk.

  “Whatever!” Dylan shouted at my back. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to come to your senses.”

  I flipped him off and kept walking, the wind at my back pushing me forward.

  Chapter Two

  “I’m home!” I called out, opening the door to my house and walking inside.

  “Ever, I wasn’t expecting you yet.” My mother poked her head around the corner of the kitchen and smiled at me, her dark eyes lighting up. “I thought you had kickboxing tonight. What happened?”

  “Canceled,” I sighed, coming into the kitchen and breathing in the delicious smell of my mother’s homemade tacos. I’d always had an active life. When I was younger, Mom had enrolled me in gymnastics. I think it was just a way for us to escape our home while my dad was around. Since he decided to walk out on us a few years ago—or rather, was forced out on us by a police order—it had just been the two of us. Not that I missed him. He’d done us a favor by leaving. At least now, we had a home we didn’t have to worry about being evicted from just because he spent the rent money on booze. I’d joined m
artial arts and kickboxing as a way to protect myself from others ever trying to hurt me or my mom. I’d even taken a self-defense course with her. I think she had the same ideas in her mind about protecting us as I did. In recent months, Dylan and I started training together. Most of our sessions started with sparring and ended with kissing. That was over now, though.

  “How was work today?”

  “Surprisingly quiet for the ER,” she responded.

  I didn’t know how she juggled the stress of nursing and being such a wonderful mother, but I was grateful.

  Gazing at Mom, I had a glimpse at what I’d look like in twenty some years, except for my green eyes and a missing couple of inches in height. My grandmother always said that what I lacked in height, I made up for in spunk.

  “I guess that works out.” My mom grinned at me. “I was going to rent a movie on T.V. later, pop some popcorn, and relax. Now, we can do it together.”

  “Sounds great.” I smiled back at her. I was close to my mother. We’d been through hell together, and that’s the kind of bond you can’t break even through teenage angst and young raging hormones.

  As we ate our tacos, my mom looked at me thoughtfully before she spoke, “How are you and Dylan doing?”

  “Don’t get me started,” I grumbled, sinking my teeth into my third taco.

  “That bad, huh?” She gave me a sympathetic look.

  “Worse,” I sighed after swallowing. “I caught him with Britney Stewart in her bathroom last weekend. I broke up with him.”

  “What a creep.” She shook her head, her anger at him evident on her face. My mother never liked Dylan, although she wasn’t mean to him. “I’m glad you kicked him to the curb. The kid is skating around on his dad’s dime. I imagine he’ll be off to some ivy league college and cheating on his trophy wife in no time at all.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, finishing my dinner. “It’s… whatever. I figured he was messing around with her anyway.”

  “Well, it still hurts to be betrayed like that.” She frowned, and I knew she was thinking about my dad. She’d caught him many times with other women. I think she spent most of their marriage either cowering from him or crying because of him.

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?” I replied, plastering a weak smile on my face. That seemed to be our motto.

  “Right.” She returned my smile with her own, but it didn’t quite reach her dark eyes.

  It might not kill you, but it could sure change you. We were a testament to that.

  Chapter Three

  After we finished the movie, I trudged upstairs, and flopped down on my bed, my hair spilling around me as I buried my face in my pillow. That warm, fuzzy, numb feeling was just starting to kick in as my body drifted off to dreamland, when the sound of breaking glass yanked me back to consciousness.

  Sitting up with a jolt, I looked wildly around my dark bedroom, willing my eyes to adjust. When I still couldn’t see anything, I reached over and fumbled for the switch on my lamp and turned it on, flooding my room with a dim, yellow glow.

  “What the hell?” I grumbled, getting out of bed and picking up my favorite photograph of me, my mom, and my grandma off the floor. It had been taken last summer when we’d gone to the Grand Canyon. It had been an incredible trip, and the photo served as a reminder. The glass in the frame was shattered and bits were scattered across the floor like tiny diamonds. I looked around. How did it fall off my desk? My window was closed, and there wasn’t a breeze.

  I frowned, a cold familiarity biting my skin. Déjà vu. I’d done this before. It had been years since I’d seen Shadow or heard the voices. It all gnashed at me, trying to get me to see, to listen. My breath was visible as I exhaled—the tiny white clouds clinging to the frigid air. Despite the delicate late spring chill outside, there was no way I should be able to see my breath in my warm bedroom. My hand gripped the silver pendant hanging around my neck, running the infinity symbol along the chain as I tended to do when I was nervous or thinking about something.

  Something didn’t feel right. In fact, something felt wrong. Incredibly wrong. I backed away shaking my head with the photo still in my hands. A buzzing feeling rolled within my body, making my knees quake and my stomach churn. I backed away from the desk, my legs hitting the edge of my bed. The buzzing in my body grew until I felt a strange numbness spread through me, almost as if my body had fallen asleep.

  I let out a yelp and jumped as something brushed against my legs from under my bed, the coldness from its touch making my blood run hot and waking my body up. Rushing out of my room, I entered my mother’s and jumped into bed with her like I’d done as a child. I tugged the blankets up to my chin and burrowed deeply within its warm confines.

  “What’s wrong, mija?” Mom asked sitting up, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

  “I—my picture fell off my desk. It scared me,” I answered lamely, my heart still hammering a rhythm in my chest. I didn’t tell her about feeling like my leg had been grabbed.

  “Probably just a draft,” she yawned, lying back in bed. “We’ll just have a sleepover in here. Try to get some rest. You have school in the morning.”

  I nodded tightly and pulled the blanket tighter around me. As my eyes darted back and forth through the dimly lit room, memories from long ago resurfaced. Memories I’d spent the better part of my adolescence trying to forget.

  “Daddy! No!” I screamed, kicking my little legs out as he pulled me across the living room. His big hand was fisted tightly around my pink pajama top. My pigtails bounced as I struggled against him.

  “They want you!” his voice was loud, making my small body quake as he tugged me roughly to the dark closet by the basement door. “They can have you!”

  He pulled open the door to the closet, and I let out a scream as he threw me inside it. My small body tumbled forward, as hot tears poured down my face.

  “Daddy, please!” I reached out for him, but he shook his head at me, shoving me away. His dark eyes wild as they glanced around.

  “They want you, peanut. The voices—they’re driving me insane. If I give them what they want, they’ll go away.”

  He snapped the door close with a bang. I heard him slide the table lining the wall against it. I threw my small frame against the door, hammering on it with my tiny fists, and screamed for him to help me. When I was out of breath and tired, I backed away into the coats hanging behind me, sniffling.

  The coldness seeped into my skin as they arrived. I knew they were there. It was always cold when they came. I moved to bang on the door again, but was jerked back as gnarled hands—tens of them—reached through the coats and tugged me roughly into the dark depths, my screams echoing around me. I struggled to grab onto anything I could, but it was useless.

  “A tasty morsel he’s given us!”

  “Eat her soul!”

  “Kill her now before she becomes a problem!”

  I let out a blood-curdling scream, as pointed teeth pierced my skin and claws raked over me. Scratching me. Tangling themselves in my hair.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” I screamed her name over and over, knowing that my father was lost and that he wouldn’t be the one to save me. When she didn’t come, I stopped fighting.

  The coldness crept over me again, pulling me from the terrible memory. I peered around the room shivering, straining to see into the dark corners of the room. That’s where they liked to hide and emerge from—the darkest corners.

  My mother kept a night light on in her room because she got tired of stubbing her toe on the dresser by her bathroom door. I’d awoken more than once to the sound of her swearing in Spanish as she nursed a stubbed toe. I couldn’t decide if having the light casting a soft glow throughout the room was good or bad. The situation was sort of a which is better: the Devil I knew or the Devil I didn’t know. Did I want to see it coming or would I prefer to hide beneath my blanket in the dark hoping that it didn’t show itself? Or worse. Touch me.

  I lay in bed for a long time
feeling like I was being watched, and it gave me the creeps. Despite the warmness of the room, I shivered. The shiver was born of fear, not the temperature.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow slip silently through my mother’s open bedroom door. My body stiffened as the temperature dipped even lower. My breath came out in tiny gasps and clung to the air like week-old bubblegum holds to the underside of a desk. There was more than just the shadow there. I could feel it. They were there, lurking nearby, the creatures that haunted me as a child.

  “Go away, go away, go away,” I whispered over and over, fidgeting with my necklace and squeezing my eyes closed, with the blanket still pulled firmly around me. I dared to peek out from beneath my lashes after a moment and saw that the room was empty.

  I opened my eyes wider and let out an ear-splitting scream as a leathery creature with razor-sharp teeth and claws longer than my hair, unfolded from the end of the bed and launched itself at me. It had no eyes, only torn skin where the eyes should be, and snake-like slits for a nose. A nasty, black liquid oozed from its open mouth.

  It happened in an instant. The shadow from the door planted itself in front of the creature and sliced through its body with a sword as dark and shadowy as the creature itself. The creature fell with thump and a nasty snarl before it hissed and popped, disappearing into black, floating ash. Shadow turned to face me. His red eyes stared at me as he continued to clutch the shadowy sword in his hand. Fear ripped a scream from my throat.