Undead Read Online Free Page A

Undead
Book: Undead Read Online Free
Author: John Russo
Pages:
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ran as fast as her legs could carry her up the steep grade of the gravel road. She fell. Skinned her knees. Picked herself up and kept running and the man kept coming after her.
    She reached the main highway, at the top of the hill. And she kicked her shoes off and began to run faster—on hard blacktop rather than gravel—and she hoped to spot a car or truck or any kind of vehicle she could flag down. But there was nothing in sight. Then she came to a low stone wall, on the side of the road—and she knew there must be a house somewhere beyond the wall. She struggled over it and considered hiding behind it, but she could hear the rasping breath and plodding footsteps of her pursuer not too far behind her and he would be sure to look for her behind the wall—it was too obvious a hiding place.
    Then, looking ahead for a moment to get her bearings, she thought she could make out a soft glow of a window in the distance, across a field and through the leafy overhanging branches of scattered trees.
    In the dark, stumbling over boulders and dead branches and gnarled roots, she ran toward the lighted window across the field.
    She came to a shed first, at the edge of a dirt road leading to the house. Beside the shed, illuminated in the glow of a naked light bulb swarming with gnats, stood two gasoline pumps of the type that farmers keep to supply their tractors and other vehicles. Barbara stopped and hid for a moment behind one of the pumps—until she realized that she was too vulnerable under the light from the shed.
    As she turned, the light revealed her attacker coming closer, shuffling toward her across the dark field with its shrubs and trees and overhanging foliage.
    She ran toward the house and began calling for help as loudly as she could yell. But no one came outside. No one came out onto the porch. The house remained silent and cold, except for the glow of light from one solitary window.
    She pressed herself against the side of the house, in a darkened corner, and tried to look into the window, but she could see no signs of life, and apparently no one had heard her screams and no one was coming out to help her.
    Silhouetted in the glow of light from the shed, the man who killed her brother was drawing nearer.
    In panic, she ran to the rear of the house and into the shadows of a small back porch. Her first impulse was to cry again for help, but she silenced herself in favor of trying to stay hidden. She gasped, realized how loud her breathing was, and tried to hold her breath. Silence. Night sounds…and the sound of the wild beating of her heart…did not stop her from hearing her attacker’s running footsteps slowing to a trot…then a slow walk. And finally the footsteps stopped.
    Barbara glanced quickly about. She spied a rear window and peered through it, but inside everything was dark. The pursuing footsteps resumed again, louder and more ominous. She pressed herself back against the door of the house, and her hand fell on the doorknob. She looked down at it, sure that it was locked, but grabbed it with a turn, and the door opened.

C HAPTER 2
    She entered quickly, as quietly as possible, and closed the door softly behind her, bolting it and feeling in the darkness for a key. Her hand found a skeleton key and she turned it, making a barely audible rasp and click. She leaned against the door, listening, and could still hear the distant footfalls of the man approaching and trying to seek her out.
    A tremble shot through her as she groped in the darkness and her hand touched the cold burner of an electric stove. The kitchen. She was in the kitchen of the old house. She pressed a button and the stove light came on, giving her enough illumination to scrutinize her surroundings without, she hoped, alerting her pursuer to where she was. For several seconds, she maintained a controlled silence and did not move a muscle. Then she got the nerve to move.
    She crossed the kitchen into a large living room, unlighted and devoid
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