Dead to the World Read Online Free PDF

hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.
    My old house has been added onto over the years, but it hasn’t ever been more than a humble farmhouse. A second story was added around the turn of the century, and two more bedrooms and a walk-in attic are upstairs, but I seldom go up there anymore. I keep it shut off, to save money on electricity. There are two bedrooms downstairs, the smaller one I’d used until my grandmother died and her large one across the hall from it. I’d moved into the large one after her death. But the hidey-hole Bill had built was in the smaller bedroom. I led Eric in there, switched on the light, and made sure the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn across them. Then I opened the door of the closet, removed its few contents, and pulled back the flap of carpet that covered the closet floor, exposing the trapdoor. Underneath was a light-tight space that Bill had built a few months before, so that he could stay over during the day or use it as a hiding place if his own home was unsafe. Bill liked having a bolt-hole, and I was sure he had some that I didn’t know about. If I’d been a vampire (God forbid), I would have, myself.
    I had to wipe thoughts of Bill out of my head as I showed my reluctant guest how to close the trapdoor on top of him and that the flap of carpet would fall back into place. “When I get up, I’ll put the stuff back in the closet so it’ll look natural,” I reassured him, and smiled encouragingly.
    “Do I have to get in now?” he asked.
    Eric, making a request of me: The world was really turned upside-down. “No,” I said, trying to sound like I was concerned. All I could think of was my bed. “You don’t have to. Just get in before sunrise. There’s no way you could miss that, right? I mean, you couldn’t fall asleep and wake up in the sun?”
    He thought for a moment and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I know that can’t happen. Can I stay in the room with you?”
    Oh, God, puppy dog eyes . From a six-foot-four ancient Viking vampire. It was just too much. I didn’t have enough energy to laugh, so I just gave a sad little snigger. “Come on,” I said, my voice as limp as my legs. I turned off the light in that room, crossed the hall, and flipped on the one in my own room, yellow and white and clean and warm, and folded down the bedspread and blanket and sheet. While Eric sat forlornly in a slipper chair on the other side of the bed, I pulled off my shoes and socks, got a nightgown out of a drawer, and retreated into the bathroom. I was out in ten minutes, with clean teeth and face and swathed in a very old, very soft flannel nightgown that was cream-colored with blue flowers scattered around. Its ribbons were raveled and the ruffle around the bottom was pretty sad, but it suited me just fine. After I’d switched off the lights, I remembered my hair was still up in its usual ponytail, so I pulled out the band that held it and I shook my head to make it fall loose. Even my scalp seemed to relax, and I sighed with bliss.
    As I climbed up into the high old bed, the large fly in my personal ointment did the same. Had I actually told him he could get in bed with me? Well, I decided, as I wriggled down under the soft old sheets and the blanket and the comforter, if Eric had designs on me, I was just too tired to care.
    “Woman?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse.”
    “Thank you, Sookie.”
    “Welcome, Eric.”
    Because he sounded so lost—the Eric I knew had never been one to do anything other than assume others should serve him—I patted around under the covers for his hand. When I found it, I slid my own over it. His palm was turned up to meet my palm, and his fingers clasped mine.
    And though I would not have thought it was possible to go to sleep holding hands with a vampire, that’s exactly what I did.

Chapter 2
    I WOKE UP