Books of the Dead (Book 1): Sanctuary From The Dead Read Online Free PDF

look younger.”  I didn’t know if it was the right thing to say or not, but it filled the silence and she didn’t seem bothered by it.
    “I am small for my age,” she said.  “I owe you my life.  You were very brave to rescue me.”
    “Any one of us would have done it.”
    “But I only saw you.”
    “There were others.”
    “You led them, though.”
    “Where did you come from?” I asked. 
    “We were outside a town called Lucasville,” she said.  “The, the, the...” she trailed off.  “The monsters came and filled the road.  My parents drove off into a field and we got away.  But then our car got stuck.  So we ran to a nearby house.  The people took us in.”
    I’m not sure I wanted to hear her story.  She came in alone so it couldn’t be good, but I stayed and listened.  It seemed that she wanted to tell it, to get it out there.  Maybe she needed to.  I guess if she lived through it, I could hear it. I couldn’t have known then that she would never tell anyone else at the church about it.
    “They were good people.  Their names were the Underhills.  They spoke of the people here at this church quite often.” 
    The Underhill family had been charter members of the church and were an institution when it came to service and devotion to the congregation.  There were several branches of the family involved at the church and it was hard to swing a dead cat on a Sunday without hitting an Underhill.   None of them were at the church now.  The last we had heard from any of them was over a C.B. radio a week into the Outbreak and the signal was weak and full of static.  They seemed to be holding their own, but we never heard from them again and expected the worst.
              “You don’t have to tell me,” I said.  “We can talk later.”
    The warmth of the light in her eyes dimmed, covered by a dark cloud.  Despite that desperate need to tell her story, her tone of voice was matter-of-fact, almost remote as if she were telling someone else’s story.  “No, please, I want to.”
    “Okay,” I said.  “What about your parents?”
    “My father worked at university.  I was born in India.  We have been in America since I was five.  He got a job at Ohio...” she trailed off, getting lost in the worst images of her past.
    “Ohio State?”
    “Yes.  Ohio State.  We were on our way to one of his conferences on that day.  The Underhills were so nice to us, but those monsters were all around us and food started getting low.  My father felt badly because they were so generous with us and we were taking what they had.”
    “It’s okay, Naveen,” Kara said moving in beside me.  A sense of relief came over me to have ‘ a real adult’ come to the rescue.  “They did what any of us would do.”
    She let out a breath and looked to the ceiling.  Then she started.
    “The monsters were still out there and we couldn’t leave.  The Underhills didn’t want us to, but we couldn’t stay there forever.  That’s what my father said.  They gave us keys to a car and we left.  We thought it might be safe, but it wasn’t.  We hadn’t made it far when they came and got around the car, shaking it again and again.  We couldn’t go anywhere.  My father ran them over.  It was scary.  The car got stuck so we had to run again.  They got to my mother.  My father went to save her but couldn’t.  One of those monsters even bit him.  By then we knew what a bite meant.  We were able to get away, but he began getting sick and I didn’t like the way his eyes looked.   He found me a bicycle and told me I had to ride.  He had drawn me a map to this church because the Underhills thought it would be safe.  He told me to leave but I didn’t want to.  He slapped me.  He had never hit me ever before.  He said I had to go.  So, I did.  I rode without looking back.  I was so tired.  We had not had much to eat before leaving the Underhills.  I had to stop twice.