Darkest Before Dawn (A Guardian's Diary Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

flashlight held firmly in the other. If it’s a bad guy, maybe you can club him to death with a crossbow, or better yet, light his way to you! I clicked off the light and brought up the bow, resetting it and glared at the bushes, daring them to move wrong.
    Bushes; I was warning bushes, really? Get on the bike, Emma! Choices, shit, choices were overrated. I could see a few here, though.
    One: Stand here like a blooming idiot and shoot the bushes.
    Two: Get on the bike and pretend I didn’t threaten to murder bushes. Well, in my head I did.
    Three: Go into the bushes and search out what had moved and kill it.
    I moved toward the bike and lowered the crossbow. Well played bushes, well played. I straddled the bike and started it. Once I secured the crossbow to the bike’s saddlebags, I took off again. I headed back to town. It was safer there because there were a lot more places to hide. I needed to check the fish traps and then make sure they still had bait, but I wasn’t giving away their location to any animals, or friggin’ bushes! It would just have to wait for tomorrow.
    In town it was deathly quiet. It was weird sensing the silence. It was one thing to wish for it, but another to hear it. Crickets were the loudest, but on a calm evening, you could hear frogs, birds, and other critters rustling around in the night. Tonight there were only the sounds of crickets and my motorcycle. I climbed off the bike in front of one of the houses I knew needed to be cleared. I had been here earlier today and had to abort what I was doing when I heard that car going through town.
    Inside were four bodies. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson, and their once beautiful twins, all of them had died in that house. No one was sure how the Rh Viridae virus had picked its targets, or why it had allowed some of us to live. There was no rhyme or reason to how it selected to kill us. It just did.
    I walked into the house and stepped right back out. Yuck. The dead stank! You’d think after all this time I’d be used to it. No such luck! I brought out the coroner’s cream and lifted the mask only far enough to place it on my upper lip and then dropped the mask back into place. I scanned the area as that tingling sensation of being watched came back.
    If someone was out there, they were keeping their distance. Which suited me just fine, but it still made me itch to figure it out. I went back inside the house and carried out the twins, one at a time, in a sheet, and just barely managed to keep the tears in my eyes. I’d known this family, and had babysat the twins for extra money on the weekends. I placed them on the wood pile I’d stacked earlier today, and then went back inside for their parents. Mrs. Jameson was easy, but Mr. Jameson had some extra weight which sucked. I got him out, placed him with his family, and looked around the street.
    Where was this person hiding? The houses on this block all had dead corpses still inside, which would make it unbearable to sit inside, or hide. Not to mention the diseases that came from the dead, from not being able to bury them correctly. I brought out the fuel and splashed it over the unfortunate family and then got on my knees and said a quick prayer to the heavens that they be accepted with only my humble blessing to send them on.
    When I got back up to my feet, I brought out the book of matches, struck one on the cover and tossed it in. The flames leapt to life, and tears fell for the family. They’d been damn good people, and no one had deserved what had happened—no one.
    Flames as big as this in the night would be seen a long way off, so it was time to go. I would probably come back with a team of girls tomorrow and finish the next few houses. I turned to head back to my bike, but someone was standing close to it. On instinct, I pulled one of my handguns from its holster and aimed straight for his heart. I couldn’t speak, because I’d give myself away. I tilted my head, and cocked the weapon.
    He held up