Out of the Dark: An apocalyptic thriller Read Online Free PDF

“Melissa, you have to listen to me,” Laura said softly, keeping a close eye on Trevor as she spoke and pulled the brush gently through her daughter’s hair. “I know it’s going to be hard for you to understand, but you have to try and you have to trust me. You need to stay away from people, Mel. If you notice Trevor or me coming at you and you think something seems wrong, run away and hide. Don’t trust any other people, all right? Do you hear me, Mel?”
         “But, Mama, what’s wrong?” Melissa asked tearfully. “I don’t want to have to run away. I want to stay with you.”
         “Something’s dangerous with me right now, and with Trevor,” Laura struggled to explain. “I’ll try to keep it from hurting you, baby, but if you can tell we’re not really us and we’re trying to do something bad to you, you have to run. Run and hide.”
         Laura was not sure Melissa understood, but the girl nodded morosely, nonetheless. Laura just hoped that she could keep control of herself and Trevor long enough to figure out a way to ensure Melissa’s safety.
         “Okay, you’re done,” Laura announced, trying to keep her voice light as she showed Melissa her own reflection on the mirror mounted to her dresser.
         The girl’s eyes lifted half-heartedly to the mirror, briefly taking in the ponytail her mother had fashioned for her. She nodded again and then hugged Laura around the waist, feeling small and delicate in her mother’s arms.
         “Don’t leave me, Mama,” Mel begged in a whisper, and Laura squeezed her tightly in response.
         “I’ll try not to, baby. Now let’s go get some breakfast before we try to find your daddy.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
         At the time of breakfast in the Walker home, the missing member of the household finally awakened. Sam was groggy and disoriented, and his head hurt like hell. When he rolled over, his back screamed a protest at him for daring to lay unmoving on the frozen Michigan ground for so many hours. Cursing it for the several kinks he now had in his neck, Sam lifted his head to remove the helmet he still wore.
         That was when he saw Dennis, laying facedown beside the truck, not ten feet away from where Sam himself had collapsed. He was not moving.
         Memories came back to him in Polaroid flashes; the fire, the dead man (Sam knew he’d been dead. There was no question.) And the girl, the girl with her freakish teeth, and then the way Dennis had screamed before darkness had overtaken Sam’s senses and rendered him blind and deaf.
         Sam scrambled over to his partner and turned him face up. There was blood on his uniform, blood on the ground and even before Sam met Dennis’ blank, forever staring eyes, the feeling of death had been all around him.
         He was torn open, torn the way the man they had pulled from the house had been. Logic dictated the girl had killed them both, and yet that same part of the mind screamed that that was a pure impossibility. Little girls did not grow wolfish teeth to attack and tear apart grown men!
         Scuttling away from his partner on all fours, Sam retched and brought up nothing except bile. Dennis was one of his oldest friends, one of the people closest to his heart, and he was dead on the cold, hard ground and no one except Sam seemed to care. There had been no one around to help, and even now there was no one near to help Sam take care of his fallen comrade.
         Sam wanted to take Dennis home to the dog that had been like a child to him and the house that was as familiar and comfortable to Sam as his own. He wanted to bury his friend, yet somehow he knew funeral services were the last thing on the mind of the world right now. Even so, Sam considered them to be something that should have been in great demand. He didn’t know what was happening, but he did know it was death. Death all over, death all