The Dead List Read Online Free Page B

neck screeching in pain. My lungs cramped.
    Reality washed over me like a draft of frigid winter wind. Whatever he wanted was worse than what could happen in the darkness of the woods. He was going to kill me.
    Oh God. Oh God, not like this. I didn’t want to die like this, on the side of the road, for no reason whatsoever. I didn’t want to die at all.
    A different kind of panic took root in me and I swung my arms, pounding them off his arms and chest, but nothing seemed to faze him. He leaned back, avoiding a direct hit to the face, but my fingers grabbed ahold of the hood. With a burst of energy, I yanked it back.
    Horror took away the last little bit of oxygen my lungs had desperately tried to survive on.
    What stared back at me was something out of a horror movie. The attacker’s face was covered by a clown’s mask—the hard, plastic kind. Ghostly white skin with small, red blush on the cheeks greeted my horrified stare. The eyes were wide, with three lashes painted in black. Above the holes were two half circles painted in black. The tiny, pert tip of the nose was painted red and its lips were carved into an obscenely wide smile, revealing fake buckteeth.
    Full of terror, I reached for the mask, but the thing holding me down jerked out of the way. The hood slipped further down, revealing a blue frizzy, curled wig.
    A cramp seized my entire body, causing me to jerk against the road. This… this was going to be the last thing I saw, I realized dumbly as I tried to smack at him again, but my arms weren’t cooperating with me. Muscles useless, they fell to my sides, lying at what felt like an unnatural angle.
    The clown mask grew closer as it leaned in, stopping a mere inch or so from my face. The pounding in my chest slowed as it tilted its head to the side, watching me from somewhere in the dark holes.
    My lips worked around a word that couldn’t be uttered. Please . I repeated it over and over, mindlessly. Please .
    A soft tsking sound radiated from behind the mask, and it shook its head side to side slowly. Tears welled up, spilling down my cheeks and the image of the thing blurred as darkness crept across my vision.
    Then its hands were gone and my lungs expanded frantically, dragging in greedy gulps of air. I didn’t understand, but I could breathe! It lifted me by gripping my shoulders, raising me up like dead weight and—
    Bright lights flooded the road and the thing above me froze. It stilled for a second and then it slammed me down. The back of my head cracked off the road, blinding me as darkness exploded all around.
    Arms were around me again. There were voices—voices I recognized and should’ve meant safety of some sort. Someone was yelling. Feet pounded in every direction. I couldn’t lift my head, but I could see again and all I could see were the stars.
    As they blurred, they still looked like tiny tiki torches. The embrace tightened, lifting me up toward them as a voice rasped in my ear, “I got you.”
     

Chapter 2
    Attempted murder brought in all the cops from the land I liked to call everywhere .
    I tried to sit up in the hospital bed, ignoring the tender pull against my ribs and the dull ache in the back of my head. Mom was right by my side, gently coaxing me to lay back. Her normally coifed blonde hair was a mess of waves reaching her shoulders and her hazel eyes, more green than brown, were full of concern.
    “Baby, just lay back and relax,” she said, smoothing the thin blue blanket over my hips. “Don’t move around too much.”
    “Listen to your mother,” a voice traveled from the edge of the bed.
    My gaze darted over to where my father sat. The fact that the two of them were in the same room together, let alone within touching distance of each other, signified how big of a deal this was. Obviously, almost being strangled to death was a big deal to most people and would generally bring divorced parents into the same room again.
    My brain hurt.
    “Mom,” I sighed, glancing at