The One Who Waited (Tainted Love Tales Book 1)

The first book in the Tainted Love Tales series. Alice Payton was eight years old when it began. Night terrors brought with them a violent apparition. For years she lived in fear of it, a victim to its power and inexplicable need for her until she was able to finally move on and leave it all behind her. Or so she thought... Eleven years later, Alice has matured into a young woman and, having left behind the memories of her childhood, returns to her old home during college break. There, she finds herself drawn back into her past, and into the arms of the one who waited...

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She was cowering again. Hiding beneath her sheets, the end tucked beneath her shivering little body so that not even a bit lay exposed. Clutching her teddy bear to her chest, she shut her eyes tight, trying to slow her breathing. She knew that, if she couldn't slow it, the feeling would only get worse, until she felt suffocated in the already airless space and was forced to throw back the covers and make a dash for her parent s room. She considered this for a moment. A sound confirmed that he was still standing there. His long, thin hands hovering inches above the blanket. Hovering, but never touching. Never. "Can't get me under the blanket, can't..." she whispered to herself, her voice coming out strained and afraid. I can wait... He never spoke. It never spoke. Alice wasn't sure which of the two it was. On the rare occasions that she had mustered enough courage to shift the blankets, just enough to peek through a tiny crack, she had glimpsed it for a fraction of a second. I can wait for a long, long time... That tiny glimpse she had stolen had been enough to confirm that it looked at least somewhat human. But when it had moved out of her sight, it had been as a shadow moves, blurring into the air and moving about to another corner of the bed. Alice remembered that glimpse. A mixture of white and black, though she couldn't be sure as to what combination those colors were put to. I can wait all night, and the night after that... Except for its hands. Alice knew what they looked like. Long, chalk white and thin, like a vampire from a movie. Only she knew it was no vampire. It was much scarier than any vampire she had seen on television. She had seen its hands when it had tried to grab her once; She had returned home late from a birthday party. It had been dark, and the lights in her room had been out. She had heard him moving around inside, pacing, waiting for her. Bravely, Alice had stepped into the room, found the light switch by the door, and flicked it on. Nothing. The bulb had gone out, and her father had yet to replace it. It had taken her a second to realize this, and then she had turned, her hand on the doorknob, pulling the door open wider to step into the flooding light in the hallway. Alice had put one foot onto the floor outside her room when she had felt a hand wrap tight around the ankle of her other foot. Letting out a strangled yelp, she had fallen face-first to the floor. Her father came running in moments later, summoned by the almost ear-piercing shrieks of his eight-year-old daughter. She had been sitting in the closet when he found her, shivering violently. Ever since that night, Alice had always made sure to open the door wide when she came into her room after dark, looking in to make sure he was not hiding in a shadow nearby. Her parents worried, of course, but thought less of it than they should have, as with all parents, pegging it to the ordinary fears of a growing child: to a fear of the dark, a fear they trusted her to grow out of. And the night after that... It never spoke, but she knew what it was thinking.

About the Author

Erika Griffin was born in Slovakia in 1984 and has moved around too much to grow up in any place in particular. She currently lives in Canada with her family.

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