(Shocked that I'm updating so fast? Don't be this story is haunting me. Heads up though, I probably won't update again till the weekend. I'm not sure though. I might shock us all. This one is shorter than the last one, but it works. Lots of Damley in it. Thank you for the reviews last time, and I hope you enjoy this one just as much (if not more)!)

Disclaimer: If I owned anything relating to OTH or TVD I wouldn't be freaking out about affording college next year, now would I?

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A Damley Short Story

Parade of Unholy Dead Things

P2: Never Torment the Dead

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"I hate Mommy!" He yelled before running out of the room with a fury and passion that he inherited from his mother. Nathan turned and chastised Carrie for being unsympathetic and followed his son out of the room.

Haley felt her whole world fall apart. She fell to the floor like all the walls in her perfect world had. She hugged her knees to her chest as sobs consumed her body. And it was her alone in the room. The newest member of the living undead crying by her lonesome in her former living quarters.

Haley was doing her best imitation of Edward Cullen, except for the fact that no one was sleeping, but she was creepily watching her friends and family. Everyone she loved kept coming and going. As morbid as it sounded, Haley was actually enjoying herself. She got to see what the people who she loved unconditionally really thought of her.

Nathan: he thought she really left him. He didn't think she was missing, but he thought he had pushed her away completely. He should have known better.

Jamie: his heart was broken. He didn't know what to believe. Would his Mommy really leave him? She would never leave him.

Carrie: the bitch was happy she was gone, that was obvious. She would fire the traitorous bitch if she survived.

Peyton: she was worried, but not about Haley. She was worried that Haley went back to her old habits of running when things got rough. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Peyt.

Lucas: thought something had to be wrong. He knew Haley and she wouldn't leave Nathan and Jamie. His best friend would never abandon her family. He always knew her better than anyone else.

Brooke: was heartbreaking. She wouldn't stop crying. She knew something was wrong with Haley. She just knew her friend was in deep shit. She would never love anyone like she loved Brooke Davis – her rock, biggest supporter, and sister.

Haley watched with morbid fascination as the people she loved cried over her. She realized it was probably the last time she would ever see her family. She had no hope in surviving, not when she felt herself getting weaker by the minute. She was dying. Slowly getting weaker as the pull her body had on her got stronger. She would be dead by the end of the day. In only mere hours.

Nathan left Jamie with Brooke and Carrie (something neither women appreciated) when there was a knock at the door. Haley stayed where she was, lounging on top of the kitchen counter. Usually she wouldn't have appreciated someone sitting on her clean counter, but she was a ghost. What harm could it really do? She absentmindedly ran her hand through a bottle of mustard that was left on the counter from lunch. It felt weird.

Nathan gathered everyone's attention when he entered the room. Brooke's hazel eyes, Carrie's brown eyes, Jamie's blue eyes, and Haley's transparent brown eyes all focused in on him. He explained that it was the cops at the door.

"Have they found anything?" Brooke asked her eyes red and swollen from crying.

"Yeah," Nathan breathed out, looking utterly destroyed.

Morbid curiosity made Carrie ask, "what?"

"Yeah, what?" Haley echoed, even though she knew no one could see her. Did they find her body? Was she dead? She didn't feel dead. She felt almost dead, but not quite there.

"Her car," he started, but had to pause and run his hands over his face in frustration. Haley was shocked to see tears escape his blue eyes (Damon's were bluer).

Brooke turned to Carrie. "Could you take Jamie into the other room?" She asked and Carrie nodded her head, with a small smile on her face. Brooke wanted to slap it off, but there was a time and a place for everything.

"No!" Jamie yelled, shocking the entire room, but not Haley. Her son was too much like herself – he didn't want to be treated like a baby. He had a right to know. "I want to know."

"Son," Nathan said in a warning tone, but that didn't stop Jamie. He wanted to know, and he would know.

"Mommy would tell me," he said in a small voice, and Haley's heart broke. She would have told him to. He was right.

"He's right, Nathan," Brooke chimed in. Haley jumped up from her seat and approached her son. She hovered her hand right above his shoulder, giving him the only comfort she could. Nathan nodded his head once.

"They found her car. It was turned over right out of town," he told them solemnly. "She's officially a missing person's case." The silence in the room was deafening.

The town decided to hold a search-party party. The town's citizens would gather at the river court and in the surrounding businesses in Haley's memory. Volunteers would pile into cars to look for her, while others would be together for moral support. The service was Peyton's ideal. She wanted to get people's hopes up. They could not lose hope. They would find Haley, Peyton was sure of it.

Haley was shocked by the number of people who showed up in her honor. There was a staggering number of volunteers, and some businesses even went as far as to hand out free refreshments. There was crying. There was reminiscing. There was laughter. There was hope. Something Haley herself didn't have. They were searching for her body outside of town, in surrounding areas – because of where they found her car. But her body was in the cemetery, in the middle of town. She decided that her killer was a cruel, cruel man. Scattering her car and her body so far away from each other. It wasn't fair! She had no chance at surviving.

She saw plenty of people she recognized. Co-workers, old friends, and acquaintances all littered the depressing party. One face stood out though. Damon Salvatore. Her murderer.

What the hell was he doing there! How dare he show his face! She couldn't help the memories that assaulted her mind.

"You are a fire cracker," he told her in what seemed to be an affectionate voice, but she sensed that it really wasn't. He turned her quickly and her back hit the wall, the pain great enough to bring tears to her eyes.

"Stop, please. I'll do anything!" She stressed. She just needed to get free…

"Aw, don't be like that," he sneered around his fangs. "You're just one more little bitch I'm ridding from the world," he told her in a sweet tone. "No one will even miss you." And he went for the kill, his fangs ripping into her flesh mercilessly.

She shook her head to physically remove the memories of her almost death from her mind. She watched with tears in her eyes as he approached Nathan and gave his condolences. She felt herself get angrier by the second as he bent down to Jamie's level and said something to her son. She was too far away to tell what. She didn't want to be anywhere close to the man who ruined her life.

She watched Damon from afar for the rest of the night. Watched how he flirted with Brooke and Carrie. Watched as he fit in perfectly – he was the perfect liar. The perfect predator. When he left, she felt compelled to follow him. Just like how she felt compelled to stay with her body. It was the strangest thing, but oddly easy to figure out. He had her blood rushing through his system. He owned a part of her. She was a part of him. She felt the same pull to Jamie, because they had the same blood running through their veins. She could probably find her body, Jamie, and Damon no matter where they were; without even thinking.

She followed her pull to Damon thirty minutes after he left.

She followed him to the only motel in the small town of Tree Hill. It was a small rundown place, but the town didn't receive many visitors so they didn't feel the need to fix it up. She floated through the door, down the halls, and into his room soundlessly. She watched his body tense up from behind, and wondered if he could feel her presence. He was pouring himself an alcoholic drink, and she found it oddly fitting that her murderer was a drunk.

"You are a bastard," she mused, not expecting him to hear her, but he whipped his body around automatically. He stared at her in shock, his jaw hanging open and his blue (so very blue) eyes wide. Her expression must have matched his because he could see her! What the hell?

Before she could contemplate why he could see her or how, he had lunged for her throat. And, as to be expected, he went straight through her and crashed into the wall with a surprising force. She guessed vampires really did have super strength. Super speed too.

"Well that was rude," she pointed out, turning to look at his stiff, ridged body. He was delicious. She shook the lustful thought out of her mind. He was a bastard who murdered her – or at least tried to murder her.

"I killed you," he commented, his shock at seeing her showing through. She wanted to point out that she was still alive, but dying. She wanted to order (beg) him to save her, but she held her tongue. If he knew she was still alive he would probably just finish the job, and she couldn't have that. She had to do everything in her power to survive (for Jamie) and if that included lying to her murder, then so be it. Did the moral code even count when it concerned the person who murdered you? She wasn't sure.

"I know," she told him in a bored tone. She walked over to his bed and flopped down onto it. "I'm a ghost," she said in a cheerier tone, plastering a fake smile onto her face.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "There are no such things as ghosts," he told her, fixing her with a stern look as he stood in front of the bed.

She raised one eye brow doubtfully. "You ran straight through me," she bit out slowly, as if he had a mental handicap.

"A fluke," he told her in his signature bored tone, but then did something that shocked her. He lunged onto the bed and landed in her. She bounced off the bed quickly and sent him a disapproving look.

"So not cool," she told him, shaking her limbs out. That had felt bizarre. Like she was in his body. She wondered briefly if she could possess him. Like ghost possession.

"Maybe you are a ghost," he conceded, adding a tiny shrug to the end.

"So, how does it feel?" She questioned, sitting on the edge of the lone desk in the room.

"Hmmm?"

"How does it feel to know you can't even murder somebody right?" She questioned, her head tilted to the side as she studied him. She was taunting him, she was aware of that fact, but it was something to do. Plus he was a bastard, he deserved it.

He glowered at her and mumbled something under his breath that she couldn't hear. "You're dead, aren't you?"

No. "Yes, but I'm still here," she told him with a shrug. "Therefore you suck at, well…sucking," she told him with a cheeky grin.

"Clever vampire pun," he deadpanned.

"I thought so," she shrugged again.

"So why are you even here?" He questioned and sat up in his bed. He ran a hand over his face. She was giving him a massive headache.

She leveled him with her glare. "'Cause you suck at the one thing you're supposed to be good at. You know, feeding on people."

He sighed. "Not why are you still on the earth, I couldn't care less about that, but why are you bugging me?" He asked her, really wanting her to leave him with fuck alone.

"Because you killed me. I have the right to haunt you," she pointed out what she thought was the truth. And it probably was, but did anyone really have a handbook on how to behave as a ghost?

"Oh, goodie me," he drew out sarcastically. He studied her thoughtfully. "You know, I would have made your death more painful if I had known you'd be this annoying," he told her with his signature smirk.

"I think you made it plenty painful," she told him; wincing as she remembered the pain she felt when he murdered her.

He used his vampire speed to be in front of her in a second. He put his hands on either side of her, and put his face right in front of hers. She found his closeness distracting and terrifying.

"Trust me," he drew out quietly, he hovered a hand over her face – pretending to caress it. He moved his mouth to her ear. "I could have made it so much worse."

"Get away from me," she hissed threateningly. He just smirked and moved ever closer.

"Ooh," he taunted. "I'm so scared." She tried to push him away, but her hands went straight through him. "Stop," he mock-whined. "It tickles."

"I hate you," she breathed out, tears lining her eyes.

"Many people do," he answered cryptically.

"I can see why," she answered and moved out of his arms. She fixed him with a glare while he just sighed tiredly.

"Are you trying to annoy the fuck out of me?" He finally questioned, having had enough of hearing her voice.

"Yes," she answered honestly.

"Great," he said sarcastically. "I'm being haunted."

"And you deserve every minute of it."

Damon finally had had enough. He blurred over to her and got into her face menacingly. "Listen here, Ghosty. I don't care if you're dead and I certainty do not care if I was the one who murdered you. You are becoming a pain in my ass, and if you don't shut your annoying little trap I'll rip your perfect little son's throat out. Literally," he threatened, and smirked when she tensed up. "Do we have an understanding?"

She gave several jerky nods in response.

"Great," he grinned and sauntered back over to his bed. He grabbed his alcohol and looked at her thoughtfully. "You know Haley; you should never torment the dead." He raised his glass to her, as if he was toasting her.

Haley stayed where she was, starring at her murderer in shock. She was quiet as a mouse, but she did not move an inch.

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Lucas Scott was lost. Not literally, but figuratively. His best friend was missing. As in gone. He didn't know what to do. She had always been there for him. Had always been his rock. He needed some understanding so he went to the cemetery – to visit the one person who had always given him the most understanding. Keith. As he walked through the cemetery he let his mind wonder.

From afar he saw someone sitting at Keith's grave and decided to turn around and give them some privacy. He turned and started walking away, but then took pause. He turned and looked to Keith's grave. He studied the person sitting at the grave from afar. He made out the shape of a small woman and the fact that they weren't moving. He took off into a sprint. It was Haley, he just knew it was.

When he reached the grave he realized he was correct: it was Haley. A muddy, unconscious, blood covered Haley. He felt his world fall out from under him. He reached for her throat to check for a pulse and (thank God) found one. He scooped her up in one quick motion, noticing how her head lolled to the side. How she wasn't dead he didn't know.

He ran off to his car with her in her arms, not knowing if she would survive, but knowing that he had to try to save her.

Because a life without her was unimaginable.

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(I hope you enjoyed it! She's been found! YES! And what did you think of Damon's threats? Did I do him justice? Before anyone asks, the only other TVD character that is coming in is Stefan (and Katherine later). This is supposed to be set years before TVD really is. Season five of OTH. So, you wanna know why I updated so quickly? I'm stressed out of my mind and writing helps me release steam. Why am I stressed? In just a few hours (as soon as they post it on the 1st) I find out whether or not I got into my dream college. Wish me good luck, and REVIEW! Tune in next time; we get to see how Haley is in the hospital. Plus Damon and Haley bond a little.)