Club Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

possible for me to be. Or at least I thought I was. Subsequent revelations would prove me wrong.
    I stomped inside my house and locked the door behind me. A lock wouldn’t keep the vampire out, of course, but lack of an invitation to enter would. The vampire could definitely keep any humans out, at least until dawn.
    I put on my old long-sleeved blue nylon gown, and I sat at my kitchen table staring blankly at my hands. I wondered where Bill was now. Was he even walking the earth; or was he a pile of ashes in some barbecue pit? I thought of his dark brown hair, the thick feel of it beneath my fingers. I considered the secrecy of his planned return. After what seemed like a minute or two, I glanced at the clock on the stove. I’d been sitting at the table, staring into space, for over an hour.
    I should go to bed. It was late, and cold, and sleeping would be the normal thing to do. But nothing in my future would be normal again. Oh, wait! If Bill were gone, my future would be normal.
    No Bill. So, no vampires: no Eric, Pam, or Bubba.
    No supernatural creatures: no Weres, shape-shifters, or maenads. I wouldn’t have encountered them, either, if it hadn’t been for my involvement with Bill. If he’d never come into Merlotte’s, I’d just be waiting tables, listening to the unwanted thoughts of those around me: the petty greed, the lust, the disillusionment, the hopes, and the fantasies. Crazy Sookie, the village telepath of Bon Temps, Louisiana.
    I’d been a virgin until Bill. Now the only sex I might possibly have would be with JB du Rone, who was so lovely that you could almost overlook the fact that he was dumb as a stump. He had so few thoughts that his companionship was nearly comfortable for me. I could even touch JB without receiving unpleasant pictures. But Bill . . . I found that my right hand was clenched in a fist, and I pounded it on the table so hard, it hurt like hell.
    Bill had told me that if anything happened to him, I was to “go to” Eric. I’d never been sure if he was telling me that Eric would see to it that I received some financial legacy of Bill’s, or that Eric would protect me from other vampires, or that I’d be Eric’s . . . well, that I’d have to have the same relationship with Eric that I had with Bill. I’d told Bill I wasn’t going to be passed around like a Christmas fruitcake.
    But Eric had already come to me, so I didn’t even have the chance to decide whether or not to follow Bill’s last piece of advice.
    I lost the trail of my thought. It had never been a clear one anyway.
    Oh, Bill, where are you? I buried my face in my hands.
    My head was throbbing with exhaustion, and even my cozy kitchen was chilly in this small hour. I rose to go to bed, though I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I needed Bill with such gut-clenching intensity that I wondered if it was somehow abnormal, if I’d been enchanted by some supernatural power.
    Though my telepathic ability provided immunity from the vampires’ glamour, maybe I was vulnerable to another power? Or maybe I was just missing the only man I’d ever loved. I felt eviscerated, empty, and betrayed. I felt worse than I had when my grandmother had died, worse than when my parents had drowned. When my parents had died, I’d been very young, and maybe I hadn’t fully comprehended, all at once, that they were permanently gone. It was hard to remember now. When my grandmother had died a few months ago, I had taken comfort in the ritual surrounding death in the South.
    And I’d known they hadn’t willingly left me.
    I found myself standing in the kitchen doorway. I switched off the overhead light.
    Once I was wrapped up in bed in the dark, I began crying, and I didn’t stop for a long, long time. It was not a night to count my blessings. It was a night when every loss I’d ever had pressed hard on me. It did seem I’d had more bad luck than most people. Though I made a token attempt to fend off a deluge of self-pity, I wasn’t too