Unusual Noises

By M.E. Clayton

What happens when a weekend getaway turns into a house of horrors?

The unimaginable.

Saint
With only a couple of months left until graduation and a job already lined up, Saint Hendrix’s life was looking pretty good. With a wonderful family supporting his dreams, great friends that came with great memories, and a secure future, he shouldn’t have any complaints in life. With the world being what it was, Saint knew just how lucky he was to have the life that he had.

Nevertheless, one thing was missing from Saint’s life, and that was Verity Mercer. With both of their best friends dating, and with them being around each other all the time, it’d been hard not to fall for the serious spitfire. However, one disastrous date later, Verity couldn’t stand him, and he had only one chance to win her over before graduating from college and both of them going their separate ways.

Verity
With only a couple of months left until graduation, Verity Mercer was ready for the next chapter in her life, even if she still didn’t have a job lined up yet. Fortunately for her, she came from a successful, loving, supportive family, so if all else failed, she could always go to work for her dad. While that was something that she hoped to avoid, she also recognized it for the blessing that it was.

Nevertheless, life wasn’t as perfect as she’d like it to be. Though blessed beyond what most people deserved, she had a thorn in her side by the name of Saint Hendrix and avoiding him hadn’t been working as well as she’d hoped. Granted, she had only two more months left before she never had to see him again and thank God for it. After all, a girl could only resist for so long.

When the perfect vacation goes horribly wrong...
When their best friends plan the perfect spring break getaway, Saint’s eager to use the time to win Verity back. As for Verity, still not sure why she allowed herself to be manipulated into going on the trip, she plans on avoiding Saint like the plague. However, that plan fails spectacularly when she finds out that they’re sharing a room together; something that everyone ‘forgot’ to tell her.

Still, everything changes when they begin to suspect that the retreat isn’t all that it seems. It takes only one night for them to realize that something is very wrong, and when people start disappearing, they find themselves in a real-life horror movie. Instead of working things out between them, Saint and Verity find themselves in the middle of a nightmare, and not everyone will make it out alive.

NOTE: This book contains adult language, adult situations, explicit sexual encounters, violence, graphic violence, murder, and mention of rape. If sensitive to any of the aforementioned issues, please do not purchase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.E. Clayton
• Release date: Jul 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215356852

M.E. Clayton

M.E. Clayton works fulltime and writes as a hobby only. She is also an avid reader and Pinterest addict. When she's not working, reading, writing, or on Pinterest, she is spending time with her family and friends, or her dog, Boy, or her cat, Seatbelt. She lives in California with her husband and enjoys doing nothing but reading. Seriously. She does nothing but read. However, that's how she likes it.

Book preview

Just a couple of things before I let you go and get your read on. While I am doing my best to work with better editing and proofreading software, all my books are solo, independent works. I write my books, proofread my books, edit my books, create the covers, etc. I have one beta who gives me feedback on my stories, but other than that, all my books are independent projects.

That being said, I apologize, in advance, for the typos, grammar inconsistencies, or any other mistakes I may make. Since writing is strictly a hobby for me, I haven’t looked into commitments in regard to publishers, editors, etc. My hope is that my stories are enjoyable enough that a few mistakes, here and there, can be overlooked. However, if you’re a stickler for grammar, my books are probably not for you.

Also, I am an avid reader-I mean an AVID reader. I love to read above any other hobby. However, the only downside to my reading obsession is when I fall in love with a series, but I have to wait for the additional books to come out. So, because I feel that disappointment down to my soul, when I started publishing my works, I vowed to publish all books in my series all at once. No waiting here…LOL. Now, the exception to that will be if enough readers request additional stories based off the standalone, such as in Facing the Enemy. At that point, if I decide to move forward with a requested series, I will make sure all additional books are available all at once. As much as this is a hobby for me, I am writing these books for all of you, as well as myself.

Thank you, for everything!

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I really appreciate you reading my book and I would love to hear from you! Now, unfortunately, because I do have a full-time job and one part-time job, plus a family that I love spending time with, I’m not very active on social media. However, for the sites I do participate in, here are my social media coordinates:

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Dedication

For anyone that loves scary movies as much as I do!

Prologue

Her tearstained face didn’t move me.

Her strangled cries didn’t faze me.

Her begging didn’t touch me at all.

Her bloodied body didn’t stop me.

She was nothing but a dirty whore, and no matter the tears, screams, and struggles, she loved this. She loved everything that was being done to her, and I knew it for a fact. After all, I’d already seen everything that she was capable of. I’d seen what she liked, and this was exactly what she preferred.

Watching her wrists leak blood from her valiant efforts to free herself, I felt no guilt. Had she been a good girl, then she wouldn’t be in this position. Had she been the kind of girl that wanted to be loved and cherished, then I never would have picked her.

However, that’s not what she was.

Instead, I had watched her do the filthiest things to those men. I had also watched as they had debased every inch of her body, her whorish moans begging for more. She had violated everything that we were about here, and she’d had no shame in mocking us.

She wasn’t mocking us now.

Right now, she was fighting for her life, but the joke was on her. She was never going to leave this place alive. She had more nights like this one to look forward to, and when there was nothing left of her, that’s when she’d be disposed of like the trash that she was.

Staring at her, I could hardly make out the hazel color of her eyes anymore. Every vein in her eyes had popped, making her look almost demonic. However, the fight in her made this all that much more satisfying. Breaking someone’s pride was a different kind of high. The weak ones didn’t feel quite as rewarding as the ones like this one.

As she kept struggling, I thought about all the stuff that she’d said upon meeting her, and I couldn’t help but grin. People liked to talk a big game, but they were very rarely as tough as they wanted to believe themselves to be. Oh, occasionally, you came across someone that walked the walk, but that was rare. Fear was the only thing that could genuinely reveal someone’s true character. Just ask anyone that’s ever been snitched on by someone that they had trusted with their life.

Well, she wasn’t so tough now, was she?

She was no longer tough, confident, strong, or even pretty. She was no longer strutting around here, tempting men that weren’t hers to tempt. She was no longer using her feminine wiles to control the narrative. She was nothing but a pathetic mess on the floor, because that’s what she deserved.

Some people might consider me evil for reveling in her suffering, but I wasn’t evil. Besides, those people were part of the problem. They were the type of people that had allowed this type of behavior. Nowadays, everyone had an excuse for their deviant actions, and that’s all that they needed to get away with it. There was no one being held accountable for anything, and that’s where I came in.

Instead of letting this morally corrupt disease spread her beliefs to others, I was fighting the evil at its source. I was ridding the world of the unnecessary, one person at a time. I also knew that I wasn’t the only person that felt this way. However, with no desire to go to prison, I knew that I couldn’t do this as regularly as I’d like. So, I made sure to pick only the very deserving, and Dina Truman deserved this.

Please… she begged. I’ll do anything…just…just let me go…

You’d think that she’d be resigned to her fate already, but hope was stronger than fear. Hope was the strongest emotion that humans possessed, and it took a lot to extinguish it completely. For two days, this degenerate had endured the worst that could be done to her, but she was still begging for her life; she was still hopeful that God would intervene. Well, she should have given God more consideration when she had chosen how she was going to live her life.

Be grateful for the blood, you whore. It makes great lubrication, though you don’t deserve it.

She started screaming again, setting the tears aside for a while, switching to a new tactic. Unfortunately for her, this entire room was soundproof, so she could scream until her vocal cords broke and it wouldn’t make a difference.

I watched as she clawed at anything that she could get her hands on, but it was useless. All that struggling was absolutely useless. She was already dead, though she refused to believe it. I mean, the writing was on the wall, and it’d all been written in her blood.

Again, hope was stronger than fear, but my fight for the better cause was bigger than both.

Chapter 1

Saint~

While most college students were headed to Cancun, Cabo, Daytona Beach, Padre Island, or Key West for spring break, I was headed to a cabin in some place that I’d never heard of. It was some small retreat that looked like the perfect setting for some deranged killer to lose his fucking mind at. Granted, if he was a deranged killer, then he probably had already lost his mind, but still. Yeah, the pictures of the cabins looked inviting, but the surrounding wooded area was creepy as hell.

Nevertheless, I was going to spend my last spring break there because I was fucking stupid. I was hung up on a girl that hated me, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Even though we were only a couple of months away from graduating from Monarch University, something was preventing me from moving forward until I exhausted all my options.

As I packed my bags, I had to laugh at how even my parents were onboard with this insanity. Graham and Nelle Hendrix were the very epitome of determination and perseverance. Dad was a structural engineer, and the designs in his head were worth millions. Mom was a civil rights attorney, and whether her clients could pay or not, she fought the good fight, no matter how bloody. With no siblings to share the burden of a happy childhood, I had spent most of my young life learning to do whatever it takes to succeed in whatever it was that held my interest, and Verity Mercer was what was holding my attention these days.

When I’d started going to Monarch University, I’d been eager like all the other wide-eyed freshman. I’d been ready to experience everything that was the college life, and I hadn’t disappointed myself in that respect. I’d done it all, from the sleepless nights to the endless partying. I had even made the basketball team, sports something that I had always enjoyed playing. With graduation on the horizon, I had no regrets where college was concerned.

Grabbing another pair of jeans, as I thought about it, I didn’t have many regrets at all. My childhood had been idyllic, and my parents had been great, despite their demanding careers. I could even remember sitting in my mother’s law office as a child, playing in the corner while she saved the world. Both of my parents hadn’t ever had a problem taking me to work with them, and they’d been lucky to be successful enough that they could.

A typical young guy, I’d done it all. My parents had made sure to sign me up for every sport that had been in season, and after-school activities had been aplenty. We had taken family vacations, had attended family reunions, had holiday dinners, and whatever else you could think of when you thought about good, hard-working, wholesome families.

Now, was that to say that things had been perfect? That would be a no. Like any other teenager on the planet, I’d given my parents their fair share of headaches and sleepless nights. I’d been caught drinking while underaged, sneaking out of the house, skipping school, and I had even gotten caught with condoms, something that my mother had lost her shit over. It’d been one of the most embarrassing moments of my life when she’d told me that she had expected me to chase girls once puberty hit, but if I got someone pregnant, it’d be the very last thing that I’d ever do with my penis because she would cut it off. When Dad hadn’t advocated for the safety of the family jewels, I’d had no choice but to believe her. Luckily, her threat had worked, and I carried a condom around with me like I carried my driver’s license.

So, with a blessed childhood behind me, a memorable college experience, and my future as a chemical engineer already mapped out for me, I really had no complaints. I’d even been fortunate enough to find a good friend in Cree Edmond. Most people lose their high school friends after graduation, and I’d been one of those people. My life had taken me to Monarch University, and it’d been so easy to make new friends. Sure, social media made it easy to keep in touch with the people in your life, but liking a post and hanging out with someone was not the same thing.

Cree Edmond had come into my life during our sophomore year of school, and it’d been instant magic when he’d met me at basketball tryouts, asking me what does a White boy know about basketball. We had both ended up making the team, and it’d been a no-brainer to room together when our junior year at Monarch hit. While I knew lots of people and partied with anyone that was up for a good time, Cree was my best friend, and he was going to continue to be my best friend, no matter where our lives took us. He had a degree in mathematics, so it’d be easy to see our professional paths crossing in the future. Though we weren’t looking to work in the same city, we both had plans to live in California. I already had a job waiting for me at Lorax Engineering, and my father’s reputation was partly the reason why. With as impressive as my father’s resumé and reputation were, I’d been viewed as worth the risk of hiring.

Though, even as best friends, we were complete opposites. Where I was twenty-two, six-foot-two, muscular, had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, Cree was also twenty-two, six-foot-two, muscular, and had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. However, his skin tone was a lot darker than mine. Cree was Black and if someone were to ask me to describe the exact shade of his skin, I’d say Black, but that wasn’t true. Black people had a million shades of color to their skin, and Cree fell into the mocha chocolate category. I, on the other hand, would say that I was a normal shade of tan. While Caucasian, I wasn’t of the ghostly-white variety.

So, back to why I was going to a creepy retreat for spring break, rather than going somewhere cool for our last hurrah of our college years. During the summer before our junior year, Cree had hooked up with Lulee Fable, and according to him, it was love at first sight. After about a month or so, Lulee had been over our place more often than not, and it’d been easy to see early on that they made a great couple. The same age as us, Lulee was about five-foot-five with blonde hair and blue eyes, and the girl was as smart as a whip. Her degree was in political science, and it was a good thing that she was so slender. As unfortunate as it was, people still found it hard to take blondes seriously if they came with a porn star body, and that really was a shame. Granted, she had a face that reminded me of that model Marina Laswick, so men were probably still going to get sidetracked by her beauty.

At any rate, with Lulee, came her roommate and best friend, Verity Mercer. The first time that I’d met her, I had almost swallowed my tongue. However, Cree had made her off-limits, not wanting to risk his relationship with Lulee if things hadn’t worked out between me and Verity. With respect to our friendship and knowing how much he wanted to make things work with Lulee, I had kept my hands off Verity, though it’d been hard as hell. Luckily, we’d all had such busy lives back then that I hadn’t run into Verity often. However, whenever I