Kayla And The Devil Read online

  KAYLA AND THE DEVIL

  by Bryan Smith

  First Digital Edition

  Copyright © Bryan Smith, 2011

  All Right Reserved

  www.bryansmith.info

  Cover design and eBook Creation by Stephen James Price

  www.booklooksdesign.blogspot.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel is set in a fictionalized version of the area immediately surrounding Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. I lived in this neighborhood for several years and many of the details are accurate. However, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a student at Vanderbilt. Readers who are actual Vanderbilt alumni should consider the version of VU portrayed here as existing in an alternate reality, as I have taken numerous liberties for the sake of the story. For instance, the dorm where the main character lives is a total fabrication. One of the bars mentioned late in the book no longer exists. However, this being my own fictional creation, the bar does exist in the alternate reality portrayed. And so on and so forth.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I want to acknowledge my late wife, Rachael Wise, who passed away in April of 2011. This is the first piece of fiction I’ve written since her passing. This novel is something of a departure from my previous books, which have all been horror fiction. Although this tale involves supernatural subject material, my treatment of it is different here, more in the vein of urban fantasy than horror. And urban fantasy was a genre Rachael much enjoyed. As always, this book was driven by an idea I felt compelled to write, but the feeling that I was writing something Rachael would have enjoyed undoubtedly provided extra motivation.

  I also need to thank a number of the usual suspects. For various reasons, I am indebted to the following for their friendship, assistance and advice: My brothers, Jeff and Eric Smith. My mother, Cherie Smith. Matthew Shannon Turbeville and Keith Ashley, lifelong friends. Thanks also to Tod Clark, Brian Keene, Paul Legerski, Derek Tatum, Brittany Hudson, Kim Myers, Kent Gowran, Mark Hickerson, Joe Howe, Ben and Tracy Eller, John Barcus, Paul Synuria II, KAOS, Shane Ryan Staley, Jeff Burk and Rose O’Keefe at Deadite Press, John Hornor Jacobs, and all the regular commenters at my Facebook page.

  For Paul Legerski

  1.

  The only thing on Kayla Monroe’s mind in the those last moments before she met the devil was kissing. Not a desire to kiss a particular person, but the act itself. It was one of those random things she would start thinking about and obsess over for hours until the wheels in her head spun around again and landed on some other trivial but fascinating subject. The part of it she couldn’t get past was who came up with the idea in the first place. And also why. She kept trying to picture it. Two gross and hairy cave people suddenly deciding to make out while they weren’t busy painting cave walls or dodging dinosaurs. Except, no, wait, that was wrong, because the dinosaurs died out way before the first humans showed up. But anyway…so what made one of the horny primitives decide to press his or her mouth against the other cave person’s mouth? It wasn’t like it was at all necessary, much less intuitive. Surely they would have been driven by instinct only, with the primary mandate being ‘Stick dong in vag, thrust, repeat as necessary.’ She tried to imagine the reaction of the cave person on the receiving end of the very first face merge. Without discussion regarding the particulars beforehand, surely that person would have freaked the fuck out and been all like, ‘Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to steal my breath or some other crazy caveman magic shit?’

  Actually, it probably would have been more like huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-SMACK!

  Followed no doubt by a great deal more tedious grunting and stupid caveman gesturing. Holy shit, but life in the long, long ago would have sucked.

  Anyway.

  Bottom line, somehow it had happened and kissing was invented. Which was a good thing, because kissing was fun. At least it was when she doing it with a guy who had a clue and didn’t immediately start trying to shove his tongue halfway down her esophagus. The ones who were good at it knew how and when to shift from soft and sensual to hard and passionate. There was an art to it, a skill few of the boys in her early dating life had mastered. She’d damn near choked on more than one dude’s tongue in those days. It wasn’t until she was in her final year of high school that the guys she was getting with got good at it.

  She’d gotten around quite a bit back then. Matter of fact, certain other girls had called her a slut. Right to her face, even. Fucking bitches. Anyway, she’d never really thought of herself as possessing loose morals. She was just…friendly.

  Oh, but how things had changed. If only those girls could see her now. Here she was, halfway through her sophomore year at Vanderbilt University, virtually surrounded by good-looking eligible guys, and she hadn’t been on a date with anyone in months. It wasn’t that she’d gained weight or suddenly turned hideous. She wasn’t supermodel-level stunning, but she had better-than-average looks. This wasn’t ego or delusion. She’d been told she was “hot” and “sexy” maybe a million times in her life, and she could see the truth of that any time she looked in a mirror. She had a nice build, with a slender but curvy body, tiny at the waist and bigger in the right places. Her face was cute, she had a nice, even tan, and her shoulder-length hair was that almost blinding shade of blonde that turned heads and caused abrupt double-digit IQ drops in most guys she encountered.

  On the romantic front, her first year at Vanderbilt had been a continuation of the life she’d known in high school. Guys had fawned over her as usual. They bought her drinks in the bars she got into with her fake ID and tried to talk her out of her clothes at the earliest opportunity (a few even succeeded). One or two losers classmates had even displayed creepy stalker-type tendencies for a while.

  But evidently something mysterious had happened over the course of the summer break, because ever since the start of the fall semester not one guy had showed even the slightest interest in her on a physical level. After two months of this nonsense, she got fed up and tracked down one of the stalker losers from freshman year, basically offering herself on a silver platter to the guy. And the creepy little fucker turned her down! She could have died on the spot. It was embarrassing. And inexplicable. The rejection itself had been bad enough, but what really put the icing on the disaster cake was the way she’d pressed the matter, grabbing at him and pulling at his clothes. In the end, he ran screaming from his dorm room to get away from her. He later sent her an email threatening to call the campus police should she ever come “sniffing around” again.

  It wasn’t just guys, though.

  In recent weeks, she’d made half-serious overtures to female acquaintances. Because even a girl would be better than no kind of bed partner at all. And, hell, this was college--wasn’t this the time to experiment? But even these Sapphic come-ons, usually made in an ostensibly joking manner, were rebuffed in the most emphatic way possible.

  So, apparently, she was a pariah. No one wanted anything to do with her at all, really. She had seen people cross streets or reverse directions to avoid encountering her. It was driving her crazy because she didn’t have the first clue why. And it was undoubtedly a big part of the reason why she would become so fixated on things like the origins of kissing. In truth, she frequently became obsessed with various aspects of human physical and emotional interaction. She was lonely and almost terminally horny, and, other than the unsatisfying solace of masturbation, there was no obvious solution on
the horizon.

  She was still obsessing over her predicament when she spotted the devil leaning against a tree in Centennial Park.

  2.

  Obviously she didn’t know he was the devil right away. He was a sexy devil, as the saying went, but in no way did any aspect of his physical appearance make her think he might be the for-real, literal devil of the fucking bible. Like, who could ever have seen that one coming? Looking back, she couldn’t fault herself for falling under his infernal spell, nor was she truly to blame for any of the really horrible stuff that came later. At least that was how she was choosing to see things, and Kayla didn’t give two shits about anyone else’s opinion.

  She liked to spend an hour or so at Centennial Park after her last class of the day, at least when it was nice out like that day. She enjoyed sitting at the base of one of the big trees and paging through her assigned reading of the day. Also it was fun to scope out the hot guys who’d come to the park to play Frisbee or toss around a football. She dressed skimpily any time she came to the park. The denim cut-offs she was sporting this time were super-tight and cut sinfully short, with the hip pockets showing beneath the ragged hems. She had on a flimsy lime-green halter top that exposed nearly her whole back and quite a bit of her front. Ordinarily an outfit of this sort would bring the guys swooping in like birds of prey. But she doubted that would happen now, given the way things had been going.

  The devil was leaning against her favorite tree, which stood near a sidewalk some one hundred yards from the Parthenon replica that sat in the center of the park. She liked to stare at the building sometimes when she was bored and imagine she was back in ancient Greek times, an era she was pretty certain wouldn’t be half as lame as ancient cave people times, despite the lack of iced mocha lattes and high speed Internet access.

  Her first glimpse of him rocked her. He was so hot the sight of him nearly induced instant orgasm. He was movie star handsome. A-list movie star handsome. Like some younger and infinitely hotter combination of all the qualities that got women all tingly about guys like Brad Pitt or George Clooney. He had a square, chiseled jaw, striking cheekbones that looked carved from granite, piercing eyes a startlingly brilliant shade of blue, a dark, smoldering complexion, and longish, slightly curly dark hair. Even better, he had a body that fit the amazing face, impressively built and probably a shade over six feet tall. Which was perfect. Kayla liked them tall, but not too tall.

  Her first thought upon seeing him was, Oh sweet Jesus, please let me have sex with this guy.

  This was followed immediately by an impulse to veer away from her usual spot and find somewhere else to sit in another part of the park. She wasn’t shy by nature, but the prospect of enduring yet another stranger’s inexplicable scorn trumped her attraction to the sexy beast.

  She was turning her body to do that very thing when he smiled broadly and raised a hand in greeting as he called out to her. “Hello!”

  Kayla froze.

  She frowned at the smiling stranger.

  She craned her head for a long, pointed look over her shoulder. There was no one else in the immediate vicinity. No other hot girls. No hot guys, either. No kids. Nobody. She swiveled her head around again and, still frowning, pointed a finger at her chest. “Are you talking to me?”

  He was still smiling in that sly, panty-dampening way of his, all ingratiating, cheerful good humor--which was always nice, but when coupled with this dude’s looks, it was devastating. “Of course! Who else?”

  She hadn’t smiled much lately. Being treated like you have the plague for months on end tended to leech the humor out of a person. So she was surprised to find a smile trembling at the edges of her mouth now. It felt good but also kind of weird, like putting on clothes you haven’t worn in years. She experienced a burst of annoying emotion and had to fight tears. The last thing she needed now was to look like a weepy idiot in front of this crazy-hot stud.

  She shrugged her backpack straps higher up on her shoulders and took a few tentative steps in his direction. “Um…do I know you?”

  Please say yes. Please, please, please…

  “No.”

  Damn!

  The answer disappointed her, but she was not surprised. She would not have forgotten a guy like this. Anyway, she was relatively certain he wasn’t a Vanderbilt student. It wasn’t that he looked old. He didn’t. But he projected a level of supreme self-assuredness that was not at all typical of the college guys she knew, not even the cock-of-the-walk jocks. This dude was all grown-ass man. So maybe he was a hotshot young executive, the kind who starts fast and rises rapidly through the ranks. That would account for the outsized confidence. But…no…nothing about him said corporate, either. There were plenty of those types in this part of the city, but this guy would look just as out of place in a throng of Armani-wearing bankers as he would at a frat party. She sensed a ruggedness beneath the surface. A toughness she didn’t associate with the white collar crowd.

  He was a mystery.

  Which, big surprise, only added to his allure.

  Her tentative smile remained in place as she drifted inexorably closer to him. “So…if you don’t know me, why so friendly?”

  There was a playfulness in the cast of his features as he said, “Should I not be friendly?”

  He remained leaning against the tree, with his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of jeans that looked painfully tight and with his legs crossed at the ankles. Kayla had never seen anyone look so blissfully carefree.

  She came to a stop four or five feet in front of him. The urge to get closer still was almost irresistible, but she already felt perilously weak in the knees at this range. Any closer and she feared she might spontaneously combust.

  Her fragile smile disintegrated, twisting again into a frown. “This is some weird shit.”

  He laughed, sounding genuinely delighted. “So you’re mystified by the concept of a stranger being nice to you.”

  “No one’s been nice to me all fucking semester, dude.”

  The lines of his mouth shifted in a way meant to approximate a frown, but there was a blatant falseness to it. His abundant good humor was still evident by the playful glint in his eyes. “That’s a shame. A tragedy, really. You seem like such a nice girl.”

  She grunted. “No shit. I’m, like, one of the nicest girls fucking ever, especially to guys who look like you.”

  His features shifted again, the faux-frown melting away as the sly smile reappeared. “Is that so?”

  Her frown deepened as she maintained eye contact with him and tried to get a better sense of him. She hadn’t exaggerated. Literally no one had been genuinely nice to her all semester. Especially persons of the male persuasion. Without exception, the guys she’d hit on before it all got too depressing and she gave up reacted to her overtures in obnoxiously negative ways. There had been quite a range of ego-deflating rejection methods, from stalker-boy’s screaming flight from his dorm to a succession of guys who simply chose to ignore her and pretend she wasn’t there. Those stone-faced assholes hadn’t been the worst of the lot. The worst were the ones who actually sort of cringed and turned up their noses at her before scurrying away.

  “Yeah. That is so. So tell me, stud. Why are you still talking to me?”

  He laughed yet again, then pushed away from the tree with smooth, sinewy ease and moved another foot or so closer to her.

  Kayla sucked in a breath and tried hard not to tremble. If he noticed her nervousness, he was choosing to ignore it, which only caused her already overpowering lust for the guy to intensify a thousand fold.

  “I’m talking to you for a lot of obvious reasons. You’re a pretty girl. I like pretty girls.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  His expression darkened a moment. “Excuse me?”

  She shook her head and laughed. “It’s nothing. I’m just glad you’re not gay.”

  The dark look was instantly gone, so quickly she could almost believe it had never been there at all. He smiled
again. “I am many things, but that is not one of them, I assure you. And yet, I am drawn by more than just your beauty. I’m good at reading people, you see. In fact, I’d venture to say that I’m better at it than anyone you have ever known.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  A strangely stiff nod. “Yes. And I can see that you’re almost desperately lonely. You need your worth as a person acknowledged and validated. You crave basic human companionship because you’ve been deprived for a long time.” He was still smiling, but there was a tinge of sadness in the expression now. “Am I close to the mark?”

  Kayla realized with horror that tears had welled in her eyes. She blinked the moisture back, not wanting to seem weak. Yet a single stray tear escaped and etched a slow, wet path down her cheek. She wiped it away with an annoyed flick of her hand, took a deep breath, and launched into a detailed account of her tale of woe. It poured out in a breathless rush and she heaved a big, weary sigh as she concluded the story. “And so, yeah, I’ve basically been fucking shunned since the start of the semester.” She managed another fragile smile before saying, “And I really don’t know why I just told you all that, but screw it, it felt right for some reason. I just don’t know what’s up, man. I was starting to think I smelled funny or something and just didn’t know it.”

  “You smell nice.”

  “Well…thanks.” She squinted at him suddenly, studying his expression for signs of hidden malice or deception. “And you’re not just fucking with me, right? There’s not something obvious about me I’m somehow missing that explains why people find me repulsive.”

  “You’re not repulsive.”

  “Awesome. That’s the single nicest thing anyone’s said to me in months, seriously. So, since you’re so good at reading people and understanding shit, could you maybe tell me why this is happening to me? You have any idea at all?”