Pray To Stay Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

right of the old man’s narrow hips.
    “ Oh,” Daniel said.
    “ Should we just keep going?” Kimberly asked.
    “ We need gas,” Guy said.
    “ Food and gas,” Richard said, as if it were a punch line meant to revive the chuckle.
    “ I need pads,” Colleen said, and shot a hateful glance back at her brother, who looked away, his veil of hair dropping.
    “ Nobody do anything,” Guy said.
    “ It’s a good thing you said that,” Daniel said. “Because I was about to rush out there and beat his face in with my bare hands.”
    “ Your brother’s an asshole,” Guy said to Colleen, opening the door and getting out of the van. He stood with the door between him and the man on the bench, returned the old man’s wave. “Hey, man.”
    “ Hey, man.” To the old man’s right, barely seen in the gloom, something moved on the other side of the glass door leading into the place.
    “ Guy,” Colleen said, her voice an inch above a whisper.
    “ Everything cool?” Guy asked the old man. Either he hadn’t heard her or he was choosing to ignore her.
    The old man sat up and leaned forward, his bushy brow knotted. His fifties, Colleen thought. He was maybe in his early fifties. “Everything sure as hell ain’t cool, my man. You haven’t heard?”
    “ We’ve heard,” Guy said, stepping from behind the door, his hands held at chest height. “I mean between us, is all.”
    The big dog lifted its head and surveyed the visitors. Finding them of little to no interest, it seemed, it settled its snout onto its paws and closed its eyes.
    “ Is everything cool between us, you mean?” The man laughed, and Colleen realized that he was older than fifty. “I guess so. You’re not dead and you don’t look like you want to eat me, so, yeah. We’re cool.”
    “ Okay, good.”
    “ You see any of them yet?” The old man asked.
    “ Just a deer,” Guy said. “A few miles back. But no people. You?”
    “ Nothing, except on the news.” The old man sounded disappointed. He nodded toward the door. “Food inside. Misty cooked it a few hours ago, but it’s good.”
    “ Sounds good,” Guy said. He looked at Colleen. “Let’s go in.”
    They filed out of the van. Colleen looked from the road to the store and back again, expecting to simultaneously be assaulted by walking corpses from the road and gunfire from within the shadowy confines of Misty’s Food and Gas. Guy walked over to her, placed a hand on each of her shoulders.
    “ You okay?”
    “ Yeah,” she nodded. “Not really.”
    Nearby, Richard and Kimberly went through a similar ritual, their words hushed. Daniel shuffled along behind them, head low, hair in his face.
    A bell jangled as they entered the store. The smell of food greeted them. The woman behind the counter—sixty-ish with a head of thick, closely-cropped silver hair—regarded them with an expressionless face and unblinking eyes. She looked like the guy on the radio had sounded: completely shaken. Behind her, a small black and white TV droned and flickered, the antenna atop it a mad jumble of tinfoil and coat-hangers.
    “ Hello,” Guy said, and the woman gave a curt little nod, the corners of her mouth barely twitching into the shadow of a smile. A short, portly man with a neatly-trimmed beard, a receding hairline, and thick glasses stood near the counter, hands perched on his round hips. He’d been watching the television, and Colleen suspected he was the form she’d seen moving around within the store.
    “ Can I use your phone?” Guy asked.
    The woman gave him a disappointed little head shake and pushed the phone across the counter him. “You can, but you won’t be able to reach anyone.”
    Guy took the phone, dialed, waited. He looked hopeful for a second, his eyes wide, and then his hope was washed away by disappointment. He went through the ritual once more before placing the phone onto the cradle.
    “ The lines are busy,” he said, facing them.
    “ Dammit,” Richard said. Kimberly