The Infinites: Not Everyone Stays Dead

By Erin D. Bambery

Elouise wants nothing more than to live a quiet life. She takes care to keep her past and her supernatural abilities hidden but she cannot hide from everyone. A young witch, reluctantly turned vigilante, Elouise is kidnapped and forced to live what she thinks is a nightmare before finding the inner-strength needed to save herself and the family

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Nov 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649905390

Book preview

PROLOGUE

T

he rain was splattering across her windshield as she recklessly skidded down the deserted roads back to her home. For her nine-month-old daughter, she would endure the torrents. She was desperate to get the medicine to her baby, who had a high fever according to her husband. If anything happened to her sweet baby girl, it was her fault for not having the medicine on hand. The woman barreled her car into the driveway and wasted no time exiting. She didn’t even kick off her shoes and instead trekked mud and water through the house, running helter-skelter toward the light coming out of the bathroom. She whipped into the room and saw her husband holding the baby in a tub full of water. A panic rose in her throat when she assumed that the fever had spiked and he was trying to cool her down. Then panic turned to confusion and confusion to terror as she fully understood what she was witnessing.

Her husband was not gently cooling off his sick daughter; he was holding her underwater as she kicked and thrashed in violent protest. The woman screamed and tried to tackle her husband, but his hulking size was too much for her to move. He roughly shoved her off as he continued to murder their only child. She herself dove half into the tub to pry the baby out of his hands and managed to lift the child’s head just a millimeter above the water. This was enough to hear a bloodcurdling scream explode from their daughter’s lungs with what sparse amount of air she had left in them.

The man turned and roughly thrust his wife directly into a wall, where she fell to the ground, completely unhinged and hysterical. Getting up, she reared back and took a flying leap at him, attempting a football tackle. This time her momentum took him over sideways, and he dropped the baby. The child hit her head under the water and ceased struggling. The woman screamed and tried to fish her daughter out of the tub. Her husband beat her to it and jerked the baby upward, dangling her upside down by the ankle. The woman shrieked and had to suppress every nerve in her body that was screaming at her to black out and alleviate herself from this hell. The man reached up to the child’s chubby neck and felt for a pulse. After a moment, he smiled, satisfied, and flung the body at his wife. She caught her lifeless daughter in her arms, screaming, and began trying to desperately resuscitate her.

Try all you want, her husband jeered. It’s dead. The devil took his henchman back.

The woman looked up at him, still pushing on the motionless baby’s chest. She didn’t speak; she just stared at him in absolute horror at what she was hearing.

"It’s not gifted like you think, he spat at her. It’s a demon. It was a demon."

"She is your child!" the woman screamed, wildly swinging at him. She took him and herself by surprise, landing a rock-solid punch directly into his nose. She felt bone being crushed beneath her fist as blood sprayed across the room. An unrecognizable gurgling noise came from her husband, and she did not hesitate to take advantage of his impediment.

The woman scooped up her limp daughter and bolted to the car, where she had blessedly left the key in the ignition. The woman sped out of her driveway, not even daring to look back in the rearview, and drove the agonizing ten minutes to the hospital in six. In the parking lot, she slammed her car against the curb in the fire lane and burst out of the vehicle, baby in hand. She thundered through the doors to the ER and shouted, Help my baby!

An hour later, the woman drove home with sobs racking her entire body. Her vision was blurred both by the torrential rain and her endless tears. She stomped back into her house and up to her husband, who was holding a paper towel to his nose in the kitchen.

They couldn’t bring it back, could they? he taunted while smiling maliciously. His distraught wife answered by slamming their daughter’s death certificate onto the table in front of them. He inspected it. Accidental drowning? he asked, turning his head to look at her.

She didn’t respond. She had no words for him. All she had left was fury at the ruthless and traumatic end to her motherhood.

You’ll come around, he said in an insidious tone. I saved us. You’re welcome.

CHAPTER 1

I

cannot see him, but I know he is there. He watches me from the woods, always hidden by shadow. I can feel his eyes on me and his desire to tear open my flesh. He knows that I feel his presence. Can he tell when I feel his absence? It’s been several weeks, and I was beginning to think he’d moved on. What a fool am I.

I continue walking up and down the footpaths, manicuring the plots. I have always taken pride in the upkeep of my three acres. I work very hard to make sure that my customers are satisfied here, in their final resting place. I kneel in front of a grave from 1778 and pull up the weeds in front of it that are choking the flowers. When done, I move on and water the flowers in front of my Lila-Belle’s grave. According to her epitaph, Lila-Belle passed from the Spanish flu at the ripe old age of eleven. I take extra good care of her. She’s buried here, all alone, an orphan like me. There are no other family tombs in the site, so I unofficially adopted Lila-Belle as a sister. We are each other’s family.

When I’m done watering, I look up, and my heart leaps into my throat. One of my graves has been freshly disinterred. I hurry down the rows of headstones until I am standing beside the grave in question. I take a cautious step forward and look down. The dirt appears to have lifted itself out of the ground and then completely vanished—six feet of heavy earth, gone.

The lid of the coffin has been partially torn off. There is mud splattered on the inside. There is no body. This grave was hollowed recently. I know because I was there. As the cemetery owner, I am always there when someone is buried. I know everyone who is in this yard.

I look up and see the cadaver lumbering toward the main road. His hair is rumpled, and his well-tailored suit is covered in dirt. He was barely thirty years old when he died. Now his skin is blueish and shriveled.

I pull out my wand and begin approaching. I can tell that I am still being watched from the woods. I keep my back to the trees and aim at the walking cadaver. As soon as I begin striding toward the zombie, there is a loud yell from the woods. I freeze. The zombie turns and sees me.

Without hesitation I shoot blazing flames from my wand in his direction. He lights up like a Christmas tree. Unaware that he is burning, the reanimated corpse starts toward me in a weird jog. His face and flesh are blistering and beginning to disfigure him. I turn around, and there are more. At least twenty recently exhumed bodies are coming toward me in all stages of decomposition. They must have come from the other field—and recently. I spin around wildly. I cannot possibly stop them all, not by myself. They’re closing in on me, faster than I thought these things could move. My only way of avoiding getting mauled is to run into the forest and weave through the trees. Run straight to him. I contemplate for a hot second and then decide to take my chances.

I careen into the forest as fast as my legs can carry me. I turn around and see that the fire has not stopped the first zombie and he is joining the others, hunting me, still ablaze. I don’t have time to launch an attack. I cannot stop moving through the woods. I can sense him in the trees. I hear the highway and desperately sprint toward it. If I can just get within plain sight of civilian vehicles, that will stop him in his tracks.

Then the beast is upon me. It leaps out of nowhere, and I skid to a halt, dead where I stand. I’ve never seen a real living werewolf in the flesh. I’ve heard them plenty of nights, read about them, of course, but I’ve never actually seen one before now. It is enormous. It stands like a man but easily clears eight feet and is covered in matted fur. Its face is a grotesque combination of human and animal. Its eyes are a soulless black, and saliva is dripping down its jaws. There is a horrific, still moment when neither of us moves. I am afraid to breathe. I hear the many footsteps slowly filling in behind me. I tremble and raise my wand. The beast lunges at me and roars. I scream and fall to the ground. It’s over now. I can’t run, and I can’t hide. I lean my head back with my eyes screwed shut and, almost inaudibly, whisper, Help me.

The sound of fingers snapping seems to come from all around me. The werewolf shrinks back with its head bowed. The cadaver army comes to a halt. I hear the burning zombie’s flames dying out. The forest is deathly silent. All I can hear are the sounds of my own breathing and blood rushing through my head. Then there are footsteps to the back of me. One set of footsteps coming closer and closer. He pauses immediately behind me. He is dragging this out. I can tell that he is relishing it. He crouches down as close to me as he can possibly get without touching me. I am surprised that I can feel warmth coming from his body. He whispers a single, raspy word in my ear: Wand.

I refuse to move. I will not relinquish my only weapon. He repeats himself, and I still stay frozen. The werewolf lunges for me, barking, and I instinctively role myself over. In my panicked scramble, he rips the wand from my hand. He may well have ripped out my throat.

Keep this somewhere, he says, handing it to someone I cannot see.

I stand up very cautiously. I open my eyes and finally, after all these years, lay sight upon him. He has dark, unruly hair. He is clean shaven. He is thin but strongly defined and well-dressed to accentuate it. He would almost pass for a normal person if he didn’t have dreadfully pale skin and glowing red eyes. A satisfied smile spreads across his face. Where his canine teeth should be, there are instead large fangs. He licks them. He looks exactly as he did in my dreams.

Elouise Alessia, he says slowly. He cups my face in his hands and gently moves my head around as he inspects my neck and face. I expect them to be ice-cold, but instead his hands are warm like a human’s.

I’ve been waiting so long for you. For this.

A chill ripples through my body as he spins me around, hands heavy on my shoulders.

I’d like you to meet my team. Your new family, he says.

I look around and meet the eyes of at least forty other beings. There are the zombies, and next to them, stand the werewolves. There are more than the one I encountered, and they are all equally terrifying. The ones staring at me most intently, however, are the other vampires. They are all uniformly as pale and red-eyed as he is. I see one of them holding my wand, and I instinctively lunge for it. My captor is ready for this and reaches for my biceps, pulling me tighter against him.

No, no, he says smoothly. You cannot have it back…yet.

I kick and fight, desperately trying to get back to my only chance of survival.

Stop struggling, he whispers in my ear. Stop wasting my time.

I stop and reluctantly submit to him, relaxing my muscles. He loosens his grip of me and moves his hands back to my shoulders instead.

Good girl, he says while gently pulling the hair back from my face. Everyone is staring at me, seemingly annoyed.

This is Elouise, he begins, addressing his entourage. Elouise has been taking very good care of our deceased friends for quite some time. She’s a very talented witch too. You’ll notice her handiwork on our friend Gregg there. He gestures toward the well-roasted zombie. Elouise will be joining us. I already have a nice room picked out for her. He turns toward the platoon of