THE DEAD GAME -- DAY 148

Chapter 25

After dropping Sam off at his office, Todd drove to the Oasis Hotel to confront Judy, Gregg, and Ryan. He was determined to find out why the human vampires hadn’t bothered to attend Diane’s party this year and why they’d conveniently disappeared every time there was trouble in town.

     The hotel seemed to be deserted. People must have heard about the strange events in town and decided to keep away. If things didn’t return to normal soon, then the hotel wouldn’t be the only business closing its doors. He was afraid that he’d be living in a ghost town before everything could be resolved.

     He located the three human vampires, sitting huddled together at the bar, whispering animatedly to each other. This did not look promising. He interrupted their little meeting. “I was afraid that something might have happened to you. None of you have ever missed a meeting before. A lot of important things have gone down that you needed to hear,” Todd said as he approached them.

     “We’re sorry. Since the number of tragic incidents in town has increased so dramatically over the past week, we’ve become more afraid and much more careful,” said Gregg.

     Gregg had never before admitted to being sorry for anything he’d ever done in the past. This sudden change in behavior had Todd concerned. He answered carefully, not wanting to antagonize them any further. “If you were worried about your safety, you could have approached me about your fears, as you’ve done in the past.”

     “We didn’t know who to trust any longer, so we decided to lay low,” Judy said. Todd knew that Judy had just admitted that they’d even begun to doubt his own loyalty. This made him angry—considering the number of times that he’d saved their measly lives. Sam wouldn’t be too happy about this turn of events either.

     “What have we missed at the party?” Ryan asked.

     “Wolf joined the meeting of the elders as usual, but this

time I confronted him about his personal involvement with End House. We discovered that he sat on the Board of Directors of the company that owned the house. He admitted that he’d been the one who’d created The Dead. There were other clues that led us to believe that Wolf was the one responsible for all the disappearances and deaths in town.”

     “What clues?” asked Judy.

     “In the past, the gruesome events at End House usually involved shape-shifting and illusions, which had led us early on to suspect demons as the culprits, and not humans. However, after the party, we searched the house and found computer controls and monitors in the attic, leading us to believe that humans might be involved. This just added to our confusion.

     “Now we believe that the computers were most probably designed to throw us off the scent of the real perpetrators. They wanted us to believe that the whole game was being orchestrated by humans, while in reality it was actually vampire-driven. Only vampires—utilizing their own special powers—could have laid out such elaborate traps in the basement. Humans can’t make water appear and disappear on a whim, or have dangerous cages and saws materialize and vanish in an empty basement.

     “There were clues in the house pointing to Wolf as their leader. Wolves were portrayed all through End House: in all the paintings on the walls and in the elaborate, engraved design on the ceiling of the library. Wolf, being such a vain creature, hadn’t been able to stop himself from leaving a stamp of his own on the house. We still don’t know how long he’d been terrorizing and killing humans, since End House has a very long and sordid history.”

     Todd didn’t bother to inform them about Hayden and his indecision over which side to be on.

     “You’ve always been our true leader, boss.” Todd suspected that Gregg’s statement was most probably made from fear. Now that Wolf’s role had been uncovered, anyone who’d sided with him in the past would also be under suspicion. Todd still couldn’t figure out whose side they were really on, so he accepted Gregg’s declaration of support with just as much honesty as it had been given.

      Todd left the three sitting at the hotel’s bar while he returned to town. He didn’t want to leave Linda alone for too long: she and her friends had a habit of getting into too much trouble on their own.

LEARN TO FLY

Wolf loves these creatures.
They follow him around and
live in a cave in his mansion.
Are they bats?
Or are they creatures who
turn themselves into bats to fly?
Find out in THE DEAD GAME by Susanne Leist
And learn how to fly.

http://www.amazon.com/author/susanneleist
http://www.outskirtspress.com/thedeadgame

DEAD IN THE BASEMENT

You are in the basement of End House.
The door locks behind you.
There’s no way out.
You look down and find yourself standing in water.
Water that wasn’t there a minute ago.
From the ceiling, large cages begin to descend.
They have sharp edges, like knives, to better catch
their next victim.
You must dodge the cages to reach the other side.
Circular saws fall from above, looking for heads
to chop off.
You reach the far wall but find three closed doors.
What’s behind these doors?

Read THE DEAD GAME to find out.

http://www.amazon.com/author/susanneleist

http://www.outskirtspress.com/thedeadgame

A RAY OF LIGHT

A RAY OF LIGHT

A RAY OF LIGHT

In the dark world of vampires and shape-shifters, there is a ray of hope. As The Dead walk the earth, the humans and human vampires of Oasis rally together to find a way to save their town.  The Dead are playing an evil game with their lives. But who is their leader? Is it one of their own?
Read The Dead Game and find out.

THE DEAD GAME -- DAY 59

     They stepped into a drafty master bedroom,  illuminated by lit candles encircling the huge canopied bed. The candlelight created shadows that swayed back and forth across the ceiling and walls. Linda felt like the shadows were reaching out for her.  She backed away in horror, not knowing if she was imagining them or not.

     She didn’t want to move any closer to the bed, dreading what she might discover there. Anything was possible, from what they had already witnessed in this house. But Todd and Shana kept moving forward.  She moved with them toward the bed.

     What she found there exceeded all her frightening expectations. On the white quilt lay a human skeleton with its arms resting at its sides. The skeleton began to bleed, slowly at first, and then profusely from the deep gash in its bones from the long, serrated silver knife sticking out of its chest. In the stream of blood were worms—scores of worms—inching out from the deep hole, spreading across the white quilt.

     Linda couldn’t believe her eyes. She gasped. More and more worms were climbing out from the body, falling in groups from the bed to land on the carpet.

     A new doorway emerged on the far side of the room. She watched the enormous worms spread across the floor, and realized that their squishy bodies were blocking their path to the door. They were circling her feet, trying to climb up her shoes. She stomped her feet to dislodge the worms latching onto her heels.

     Looking over her shoulder, she noticed Shana backing into a corner. Her eyes appeared huge and saucer-like as she stared at the worms crawling closer and closer to her. She wasn’t making a sound, but Linda could hear her shaking—as if her bones were rattling inside her quivering body.

THE DEAD GAME -- DAY 54

     They entered a dark and musty-smelling living room. The room was lit by the orange glow radiating from the fire in the wide brick fireplace on the far wall. Two old, shabby couches faced one another in front of the fire. The only other furniture in the room consisted of two empty end tables. The wallpaper had a greenish color, and was peeling off in many spots.

     As they stood before the fire, the intense heat began spreading toward them. It felt much hotter than the heat coming from the fire alone, Shana thought—and that couldn’t mean anything good for them.

      She noticed a dark substance dripping down the walls. She grabbed hold of Todd’s arm and pointed. “Something is trickling down the walls!”

     Todd walked over to the wall beside the fireplace to examine it closer. He touched the wall and then checked his finger. “It’s just blood,” he remarked.

     “What do you mean ‘just blood’? How could that be unimportant? If there’s blood, then there could be dead bodies of animals…or even people!” cried out a frantic Shana. At times she couldn’t believe how callous and unaffected Todd could be about the people around him.

THE DEAD GAME DAY 52

     The animals’ noises grew louder and more vicious-sounding. Mike turned around to find the cages wide open. The animals were in the middle of the room, saliva dripping from their open mouths…advancing on them…stalking their new prey.

     “Hurry up! Quickly open the door! The animals are loose and are coming toward us!” Mike could hear the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears.

     “I can’t find the opening on my own! Help me! If we hurry, maybe we can get out of here in one piece!” David shouted at them. He was searching the bricks around the door to find the one that would open the huge metal door for them.

     They joined him in the search.

     Mike knew that they had only a few precious seconds to spare before they were eaten alive by the wild animals. He could hear them breathing right behind him. He imagined their hot, heavy breath on the back of his neck, their sharp teeth glistening, preparing to dig into his soft flesh. He closed his eyes in defeat.

     “I found it!” screamed David. He pushed the lever that opened the door wide open. After they hurried through, the door slammed shut on the animals eager to rip them wide open.
      They found themselves outside by the pool.

Okay, a more vicious animal.