Living Dead in Dallas Read Online Free PDF

many miles we’d put between us and Bon Temps before Bill had begun our conversation. Not so very many, I reassured myself, and patted myself on the back that I was wearing sneakers, not high-heeled sandals. I hadn’t brought a sweater, and the exposed skin between my cropped top and my low-cut blue jeans felt goosepimply. I began to run down the shoulder in an easy jog. There weren’t any streetlights, so I would have been in bad shape if it weren’t for the moonlight.
    Just about the time I recalled that there was someoneout there who’d murdered Lafayette, I heard footsteps in the woods parallel to my own path.
    When I stopped, the movement in the trees did also.
    I’d rather know now. “Okay, who’s there?” I called. “If you’re going to eat me, let’s just get it over with.”
    A woman stepped out of the woods. With her was a razorback, a feral hog. Its tusks gleamed from the shadows. In her left hand she carried a sort of stick or wand, with a tuft of something on its end.
    “Great,” I whispered to myself. “Just great.” The woman was as scary as the razorback. I was sure she wasn’t a vampire, because I could feel the activity in her mind; but she was sure some supernatural being, so she didn’t send a clear signal. I could snatch the tenor of her thoughts anyway. She was amused.
    That couldn’t be good.
    I hoped the razorback was feeling friendly. They were very rarely seen around Bon Temps, though every now and then a hunter would spot one; even more rarely bring one down. That was a picture-in-the-paper occasion. This hog smelled, an awful and distinctive odor.
    I wasn’t sure which to address. After all, the razorback might not be a true animal at all, but a shapeshifter. That was one thing I’d learned in the past few months. If vampires, so long thought of as thrilling fiction, actually did exist, so did other things that we’d regarded as equally exciting fiction.
    I was really nervous, so I smiled.
    She had long snarled hair, an indeterminate dark in the uncertain light, and she was wearing almost nothing. She had a kind of shift on, but it was short and ragged and stained. She was barefoot. She smiled back at me. Rather than scream, I grinned even more brightly.
    “I have no intention of eating you,” she said.
    “Glad to hear it. What about your friend?”
    “Oh, the hog.” As if she’d just noticed it, the womanreached over and scratched the razorback’s neck, like I would a friendly dog’s. The ferocious tusks bobbed up and down. “She’ll do what I tell her,” the woman said casually. I didn’t need a translator to understand the threat. I tried to look equally casual as I glanced around the open space where I stood, hoping to locate a tree that I could climb if I had to. But all the trunks close enough for me to reach in time were bare of branches; they were the loblolly pines grown by the millions in our neck of the woods, for their lumber. The branches start about fifteen feet up.
    I realized what I should’ve thought of sooner; Bill’s car stopping there was no accident, and maybe even the fight we’d had was no coincidence.
    “You wanted to talk to me about something?” I asked her, and in turning to her I found she’d come several feet closer. I could see her face a little better now, and I was in no wise reassured. There was a stain around her mouth, and when it opened as she spoke, I could see the teeth had dark margins; Miss Mysterious had been eating a raw mammal. “I see you’ve already had supper,” I said nervously, and then could’ve slapped myself.
    “Mmmm,” she said. “You are Bill’s pet?”
    “Yes,” I said. I objected to the terminology, but I wasn’t in much position to take a stand. “He would be really awfully upset if anything happened to me.”
    “As if a vampire’s anger is anything to me,” she said offhandedly.
    “Excuse me, ma’am, but what are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
    She smiled again, and I shuddered.