The Ruler of the Vampires

By Jessica Shelton

After the loss of both parents, Florence Fletcher has to go live with family members who kicked her and her family out of the big house. She will soon learn what her family has been hiding, and she will have to face that person and stop them from doing horrible things. She will have to decide if she wants to stand up for what is right or make a run for it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889829881

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Meeting

Chapter 2: Thousands of Bugs

Chapter 3: First Day of Hell, aka School

Chapter 4: The Diary of Maryann VandenBosch

Chapter 5: That Bitch!

Chapter 6: The Next Day

Chapter 7: The Key!

Chapter 8: The Girl Is Purple

Chapter 9: The Long Drive!

Chapter 10: The House of the Dead!

Chapter 11: That Crazy Bitch!

Chapter 12: I Should Have Known

Chapter 13: Vampires and Ghosts

Chapter 14: The Writings of a Crazy Person!

Chapter 15: And the Truth Shall Set You Free!

Chapter 16: Clara, the Want to Be Queen of the Vampires

Chapter 17: School Sucks!

Chapter 18: You Can't Pick Your Family!

Chapter 19: Meeting Clara!

Chapter 20: I Told You So!

Chapter 21: The Great Plan!

Chapter 22: Making the Change!

Chapter 23: The Awakening to My New Life!

Chapter 24: The Missing Baby!

Chapter 25: Mildred, the Other Evil Bitch!

Chapter 26: Clara!

Chapter 27: The Long Drive!

Chapter 28: Ella, What to Do with Ella!

Chapter 29: Clara's Big Plan

Chapter 30: The Big Party!

Chapter 31: No Plan!

Chapter 32: The Plan!

Chapter 33: The Fight!

Chapter 34: Taking Over as Queen!

Epilogue

About the Author

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The Ruler of the Vampires

Jessica Shelton

Copyright © 2024 Jessica Shelton

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-987-4 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-988-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Prologue

The Start of It All

Today was the day Clara was hoping for. She had been waiting for what felt like a lifetime. She knew what she wanted, and there was nothing that could change her mind about this. She did not care that her family would have to pay the price. Her entire family was dead, so there was no way she would have anyone who would have to make that decision. She had watched everyone in her family slowly die from yellow fever. It had started with her husband of twenty years, then her oldest daughter, her oldest son, then her five-month-old twin daughter and son. She had done her best to save them all. Nothing that she did work. There was no medication for yellow fever. She was the lucky one who hadn't gotten it. She didn't feel that way. Her whole family, including her parents, were now dead. She didn't see how her family name could live on after that. Her parents only had one living daughter, and that was her. He had made the deal, and now he had to go through with what he had told her. She sat in the oversized chair by the fire. He was taking too long to get here, and her nerves were about to be gone when out of nowhere stood a noticeably short man. At first, she thought he was a child.

I didn't think you would show up, sir.

I always keep my word.

I do not agree with what you want, but I will give it to you, nonetheless.

I want to remind you what you have agreed to.

I don't need the reminder. I fully understand what I am walking into on this day, and I want it more than life itself.

Very well. We will do this.

She did not know that the man held a truth of his own. His plan had come out just the way he had wanted.

I have to be honest with you. I thought you might have been crazy for wanting it. I thought that you would have chosen to be with your family, he said.

No, I don't want that! I would never take my own life. I don't want to see what comes next after one passes away, she said.

Well then, you are ready to move forward with this? he asked.

Yes.

Good! Do you have the money we talked about the last time? he asked.

Yes. I am good for that. I sold everything that I could to get it, she said.

You didn't want to hold on to any of their things? he asked.

No, just unwanted memories I don't need. In a huge brown bag was over $10,000 in large bills. I don't care about the money either.

Very well.

She handed over the money.

Meet me on the first of January at 12:00 a.m. at this address, and I will do the rest.

Very well, she said.

And without saying a word, he took the money and left her at the tavern.

Chapter 1

The Meeting

I knew that I was different somehow. This always made me feel fearless. I never thought something could scare me to my bones. I had never been the one to let fear hold me back. I thought of myself as the warrior who ran into the war. Most people would never face their fears. They wanted to live in a bubble where everything was perfect. My biggest mistake was using my autism as a crutch to get out of doing something I didn't want to do. My story starts like all the others. I lived in a small town called Cape York, Australia. It was the type of town that belonged in a Stephen King book. The drive was exceptionally long. I couldn't believe they hadn't driven to the airport to get me. I didn't want to spend money to rent a car. I had to rent one. The car was beautiful. I would be sad to give this car back. I would have to try to hold on to it as long as I could. It was a long drive to a house I didn't want to be at in the first place. I didn't very much care for my cousins. They got on my nerves and acted like they were better than me. I knew it had not changed. They didn't even show up for my father's funeral. Everyone in the family hated my father. I finally got to the house at one in the morning. I started up the long driveway to my new home. Well, new to me. It was built in the late 1800s. I didn't know who built the house. All I knew was that it had been in my family forever. As soon as I saw the house, it made me think of a big mausoleum. I couldn't help but think of how many dead people it could hold. I pulled up to the enormous mansion. Standing on the entranceway of the house were the caretakers, aka my cousins. I didn't like them and knew that they were not taking care of the place. They had lost their home and were given the place to live in and take care of. If it had been up to me, they wouldn't have moved in. I didn't know why I didn't like them. I just knew that I wished I had other family that would have taken me in. I had family members in California I could have stayed with. I was not sure they really did any cleaning at all. The man was very tall and thin, and at once, he made me think of the Slender Man. He looked to be at least a hundred. The woman was very round and exceedingly small. She looked like a witch from one of those black-and-white movies. Then there was Ella, their daughter. She was just as round as her mother and had long bright pink hair that came down all the way to her back. It almost touched the ground. She was in all pink from her head to her toes. All three of them looked like they hadn't eaten in years. When I went up to them, a really nauseating odor hit me. I thought the smell was going to burn my nose right off my face. The three of them looked like they had stepped out of a Stephen King book. I had to fight the need to run for it. There was no way I could handle that smell. I knew I was going to throw up on everything and everyone. It might have made them smell better. Before I could make a run for it, the woman spoke up. With a ratlike voice, she asked if I was Florence. I wanted to lie and make a run for it. The smell still burned my nose, and I thought I was going to lose my snacks of peanuts and Coke.

I felt my mouth open and heard myself say, Yes, I am Florence.

Good. Glad you finally showed up. I don't have time to just sit around and wait on people who have no respect for other people's time. I heard someone clear their throat, and she gave him a dirty look. Come on. I don't have time to waste.

It was at that moment that I knew I would not like Mildred.

I'll show you to your room. Charles will take your things up tomorrow.

I wished I had run when the door opened. The odor that came out was so strong that I thought it was going to put me on my butt. From the way it looked, Mildred wasn't a good cleaner. We walked for what seemed like a lifetime. We made it to the room. It was a huge room. I felt my mouth fall open. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. It was wall-to-wall purple everywhere. Everything in the room was a different type of purple. One side of the room sat a small living room, and the other side was a huge four-poster bed.

To the right is the closet, and to the left is the bathroom. That was all Mildred said. With that, she was out of the room.

I was relieved. I didn't think I could handle that smell much longer. All I wanted was a hot shower and some sleep. I opened the door to find a bathroom fit for a queen. The bathtub was so big that I could lay down in it and still have room. The shower was just as big as the bathtub. Ten people could easily fit with no problem. There were places for people to sit. After the hottest shower I had ever taken, I realized I had enough time to sleep. However, I did not sleep good at all. I felt like I was being watched. I couldn't shake the feeling.

Chapter 2

Thousands of Bugs

The next day wasn't a good one. I had extraordinarily little sleep. The smell gave me a headache. Then Charles and Mildred woke me up by slamming their way into my room. Charles was loaded with my stuff, and Mildred had a book bag.

She said that she knew I had quit school in my last home and that it wasn't okay here. She said she had already gone down to Mary High School and signed me up. I was so mad that I was shaking. How dare her. That was my decision to make, and school was something I didn't think I needed now.

Your mother went there, and now it is your turn. She acted like I didn't have any rights to pick where I wanted to go. You need to hurry up. School starts at eight thirty.

After only getting a few hours of sleep, I wanted to call everything under the sun. But I held my tongue and said thank you instead. No need to be rude to Charles. He didn't act like a real see you next Tuesday type of person. I guess I was up for the day. Before I could ask where the kitchen was, they had left the room. I hadn't even heard them leave. They moved so fast for old people. It had been a lifetime since I had been in the house. I could still remember the last time I was here. It was Christmas. I remember because Mildred had run out my father and me out of the house.

After he was cosght takingthings from the house, he was banned. After I got the uniform on, which I hated, I went to the hallway, trying to remember how to get to the kitchen. The doors were the first thing I noticed. There were so many of them. It was hard to believe that so many people lived here at the same time. I wanted to open all the doors to see what was inside. As I walked by them, I could have sworn I was being watched again. What's funny was that all the doors had names carved into the wood. All of them were in unique colors. I came in front of one ugly brown door. The name on the door was William. I already knew where my grandmother's door was. It was the pink door right beside my door. I remembered that room well. I would have to see if I could go see if it looked the same way when Grandmother was alive. For some reason, William's door stood out to me the most. Before I could think about what I was doing, I reached out and tried to open the door. I just knew I needed something in that room. I didn't know what I needed, just that I really needed it and needed it now. A huge black bug came out of the keyhole of the door. At first, it just sat there. I felt like it was judging me. I must have failed! The sound that came from the room scared the hell out of me. It sounded like thousands of bugs. I felt them on me. Before I could do anything, two very thin arms shot at me and pulled me to my feet. I had lost where I was. It took me a minute to get my eyes to stop swimming. I felt better when I saw that it wasn't a ghost but was only Charles.

Sorry, miss, didn't mean to scare you. Mildred thought you might have gotten lost. Said I should go find you. I am glad that I did. It is easy to get lost in this place. He went on like he