Grave Redemption

By Christina P. Cantrell

The Ravenous Tavern, standing dark and beautiful at the edge of town, holding untold secrets of the night. Through the dark streets surrounding it walks the hidden dangers, and the destiny of one young woman. No past, no future, and desperate for the acceptance and kinship they offer. Haunted by faces from a long forgotten past and voices in the night. Keri joins the dark ones thinking they would give her everything she wanted, only to learn everything comes with a price. Now, she must learn about her past, face her nightmares, and accept what fate brings next.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469779157

Christina P. Cantrell

Christina Cantrell has always been interested in the darker side of life, and was inspired by games such as White Wolfs Vampire the Masquerade, Dungeons and Dragons, and World of Warcraft. Christina was always creating new characters in her very vivid imagination and would spend hours building entire worlds and playing stories out in her mind, which is where the Redemption series first began to take shape. She spends her spare time building and playing on her role-play forum, Armentorp Asylum. While living in her quiet country home with her three children not far from where she grew up, Christina is currently working on her Redemption series, as well as a line of children’s stories.

Book preview

Prologue

I step into the light now, shading my dark eyes from its bright rays. Watching the world around me, taking in each moment with great anticipation for what lies ahead. Touching everything, to feel its warmth and life on my fingertips. So many years since it had all happened, and still all is as new to me now, as the day I had been set free. In the many years since the beginning of this crusade I have come to treasure all gifts bestowed upon me. Not only the material possessions, but the things taken for granted as well. All the inconceivable sights around us, from the grass and flowers beneath our feet, to the essence of the very people themselves. All things missed by others, things long forgotten to be there, considered to be ordinary things. By no means is anything around us ordinary or unimportant. The sounds vibrating on the breeze, flowing through our bodies each having its own distinctive purpose, and one just as amazing as the next. Smells surrounding us, teasing our senses, holding the power to say when it’s time to feed, or making us smile or turn away. They are such powerful things of our beautiful world. Every sensation new and wonderful, not the slightest thing taken for granted. I cherish everything about it, the green grass beneath my bare feet, lovely flowers of all different shades and their sweet fragrant essence hanging on the breeze, teasing the senses, forcing emotions to run rampant. My mind dizzying as they surround me bringing memories both pleasant and fearful. Most of all, and perhaps one missed more than all else, the bright warm sunshine falling on my pale skin, warming me like nothing I’ve ever felt. I love to hear the birds singing their cheerful little songs, our children frolicking without a care in the world, during the day. Never the night. I am terrified of the darkness and all that awaits me there, the memories that forever haunt me with the darkness. There in that darkness is where all my nightmares lie, the shattered remnants which were once my desires and fantasies. They are buried there with all of my companions, kindred, and all the things I once loved so. So much left behind, only to gain more than I could imagine. It amazes and even scares me that I once lived within the very darkness that torments me now. All the nightmares and the creatures within them were my very life. I never saw the daylight or the delight it brings. My happiness and warmth were found in this darkness, and my heart was plagued by its torments. This is where my world was for many years, and still is. It is an eternal struggle to remain on this side, to continue to fight and follow the light. It guides me, giving me courage to not follow the whispers in the night that call me to the other side, to the Dark Realm, the realm of nightmares and heartache, the place of despair. Everyday they beckon me to return and walk among the depraved souls again, and everyday I struggle to stay in the warm sun. I dread the night, and all the torment and agony it brings. As the sun begins to fade, and dusk settles, they begin to call me. Their voices almost a scream that races through my head, pounding and piercing through to my tattered soul. It makes my heart race, and I begin to sweat as I wonder how much longer I can fight. I wonder this knowing it is an eternal battle, which I have lost all hope of winning. The stories within these pages, are merely an attempt to calm these voices and the desperation to return to them, embracing them with open arms. I have hopes that the words that follow, will make them cease to call on me, or to teach others my story. Teach them what lies ahead, before their fate matches my own. Doing this before it is too late, and I slip away forever to the darkest realms imaginable. This is where I lived for many years, I had my own world there. That is where my friends and family remain, and they are the ones who call me. There are times I wish to slip away, letting the very darkness I now fear, consume my very soul.

Chapter One

Most people have warm memories of their childhood looking back often thinking on their family and friends and all their wonderful times together. Memories of warm smiles and safe hugs that fill the soul making a person happy and complete, letting them feel they truly have been loved. Sometimes though there comes a soul like my own, one that has a gaping hole with no such memories to fill it. All memories lost in the ribbons of time, consumed by whatever demons lie between now and the past. One that is condemned and searching for something, anything, that would relieve that empty dead feeling. I remember nothing of my past or of any such family. For as long as I can remember, since I was very young, I have been solitary and alone. As a young adult, I was given a job by a caring storekeeper who needed help doing small things like stocking the shelves, sometimes taking the money, sweeping, whatever he could find for me to do, and he paid me well. I had no friends to speak of, no one to talk to or to say something as simple as, How are you today, or How are you feeling? I was completely alone and very often this saddened me. I bought a small cottage outside of town and kept several animals that were much like myself, abandoned and alone. At nights I would be plagued by nightmares, unspeakable visions of ghosts calling out in the night, and everynight they grew more fierce, more terrifying. My greatest fear in the world was the old Tavern on the edge of town. It had been there for as long as I can remember but only recently had I started to fear it, trying to avoid it as much as a small child avoiding an old house they thought just might be haunted.

The first time I saw the tavern I stopped and stared just marveling at it’s beauty. It’s old wooden sign creaking in the chilling breeze sending chills throughout my body. Time slipping away and before I knew it hours had passed. It was so dark and yet so beautiful with its many gargoyles lining the roof. They were hideous yet strangely beautiful creatures that stared down on you with dark evil eyes, making you afraid to turn away yet making you want to run. It was a fairly large building, exquisitely built, the most beautiful I had ever seen. What made it amazing to me was, as large and beautiful as it was, that they used it as a tavern. As I stood there staring, I felt a strange, almost irresistible pull, like I belonged there, but fear kept me from entering. A strange feeling of what those walls concealed deep inside, and little did I know, I should have trusted that fear. Just inside those cold stone walls, lay every nightmare imaginable, and those nightmares, would soon become my future. That horrible wondrous place was destined to become my life, my nightmares, and ultimately, my very end.

I walked away that evening, maybe it was the fear, but the closer the sun came to rising, the more that something pulling me there faded, and my fears subsided. I felt safe again, and continued home, my thoughts of nothing but that tavern every step of the way.

Home at last, I felt fear no more. I went on with my duties and spoke with no one. I didn’t like people much, therefore I lived alone, with only my animals to keep me company. People I had found were greedy, spiteful, hateful creatures, with no love for anything but themselves. I remained as solitary as possible for the fear of what those people would ask for, what they expected of me. I had found in my experience those people you get close to, used and abused their friends for their own gain, and I wanted no part in that.

I spent my days gardening and caring for my many animals. They were my only true friends, with them I never had to guess or doubt how they felt. I could always tell by their actions and they expected no more than I gave. They couldn’t lie or hurt, and they were the ones I trusted, the ones I loved never people. When there was spare time, I might sit and read for hours or sit staring into the fire lost in it’s bright flames, letting them pull me into another world. Then at last, when I could fight the sleep no longer, I would slip into my bed cold and alone. I would lay there for hours to afraid to sleep, even to close my eyes for a moment. Nightmares, strange dreams of a life I knew nothing of, people and places far away, and a sister I never knew. Nightmares I call them, of being pulled away by the very darkness itself and being lost forever. Nightmares, without ever closing my eyes.

Awakening in the morning was a mixture of sweet relief of the long nights end, and of sheer dread of the day starting anew. I knew as the long day went on I would have to take that trip to town, and there was no way in without passing that dark beautiful tavern. I would continue the day doing my work with thoughts running in circles. Almost panicking the moment I realized it was time.

The closer I got the stronger the pull would feel, and everynight was the same. I would pass it by as quickly as I could going into town almost running when I came close, never a moment lingering. It was easy then, it was still day. The darkness had not yet surrounded it, cloaking it in it’s shadows bringing out it’s true beauty and it’s evident evil. Yes, I passed it by very quickly, my mind trying to stay on what I must do and the work that lay ahead of me.

I worked every afternoon at the town shop remaining very quiet, and very well known for that, not well liked but well known. The children feared me some rumoring I was a witch because of my solitary ways. They jeered staying clear of me out of their fear. Children can be so cruel, sometimes without even meaning to or understanding what lie before them. I worked diligently and quietly for hours welcoming the time I was there, for there my mind was on my work, never wandering to that place. That marvelous, beautiful, evil place.

When the night would begin to fall and it was time to go home, my heart would race and I had no desire to leave the store. No desire other than that pull. This night the fear was stronger than ever and I begged the store owner to let me stay. He refused and my heart sank, he did however offer to walk me home. I would have graciously accepted but for some reason that I cannot explain, I could not force the words. I simply shook my head and slowly walked out the door. Watching the ground pass with each step as my heart kept one step ahead of me, pounding as though it would leap out of my chest. Then, as my fears grew their strongest and my heart stopped in its place, there was the tavern. It was always the same dimly lit, deeply shadowed everywhere. The gargoyles faces, dark and staring. Their expressions giving their warning of the things that lie inside. The old wooden sign with the bright red lettering. The name stuck in my mind, Ravenous Tavern, the sound only bringing fear and wonder of what could be inside. Only this time there was a shadowy figure in the window, something I had never seen before. The terror seized me as the wind swept around chilling me, seeming to whisper in my ear. I froze there, unable to move, fear striking my very soul as the tavern beckoned me to enter. The terror grew as I realized the whisper I heard was not the wind. It seemed to be an echo somewhere deep in my mind, in a voice I had never heard before. That was the very moment my whole world changed, and I would never be able to return to the things I held so dear.

The first few steps my body felt so heavy that it took everything I had in me just to breathe, but to move, that was something entirely different. It was like my body was moving with a will of it’s own, I had no control. There was another force there, something else willing me to move, to continue closer to that tavern. It seemed like hours had passed before I reached the door, but I would later learn it was not hours, but mere moments. There, it was there before that door that I first felt the warmth, and my body relaxed. Then standing there taking in all its beauty, for the first time in a long time, I smiled. Opening the door was no more a difficult a task than opening the door to my own home. I realized as I turned the knob that all my fears had melted away in the warmth, and the thoughts turning to wonder and awe. I had never gotten close enough to realize how incredibly beautiful the place really was. Lovely roses of a deep red growing all around and to the side a courtyard filled with fragrant flowers concealed within a high wall of stone. A garden with benches and a fountain like nothing anyone had ever seen. No doors or gates were there to enter from the outside, only one way in, and that was through the tavern. I stood there for awhile, staring at its beauty and then without even realizing I had done so, I opened the door.

Chapter Two

My first steps inside and all I could do was turn and look to the outside, like I had forgotten or lost something the fear and pain returning for a fleeting moment, but faded again quickly. I instantly felt at home there. Looking outside however, the world looked so cold, uninviting and I wanted to shut the door on that world and stay in the warmth. Shutting the door was like stepping into the sunshine after a long storm, refreshing. I stood there, I didn’t know why, staring at that door after it closed, and a new feeling arose. A feeling something like grief, like I had lost everything. A feeling a person gets the moment they realize their life is over, just before they die and it made me ill. The feeling passed quickly but I still couldn’t force myself to look away from that door, and in those moments I decided to embrace whatever lay ahead. I have thought about those moments often, and always wondered if that was my biggest mistake.

I jumped nearly out of my skin when I finally noticed the person standing beside me with their hand on my shoulder. I quickly turned blushing at the startle he had given me. I knew the moment I saw him that he was the voice I had heard outside, the figure in the window. I didn’t know how I knew, something just told me this was the one beckoning me here and I felt the fear seeping back into my heart.

He was a tall man, strong in stature and strangely pale, he had a mysterious air about him, and