Better off Dead A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer - By Eva Sloan Page 0,79

sniffled and then looked back up, shaking her head. “All you have to do—” she reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand, something sharp biting into her palm, “Is forgive me.”

Suddenly the pain in her hand was nothing. What she felt was like the weight of the world tugging her by the guts down to the ground. She fell to her knees, one hand still clutched in Abbey’s grasp, the other tried to hold herself up from being crushed to the ground. Even with the pain, she could feel things. Somehow she knew, could feel, that her blood and Abbey’s were mingling together, their two powers mixing—and that Abbey was directing Lucy’s horrible power, focusing its flow straight down into the graves of her mother and father.

Lucy felt Abbey’s parents jerk as their bodies filled with her power…was it life? Was it their spirits? Lucy couldn’t tell, and before she could look deeper she felt herself being pulled in a hundred different directions. It was excruciating, and confusing, and made her stomach lurch.

One moment she realized she was screaming like someone was killing her, the next moment the contents of her stomach were being disgorged through her mouth and splattering on the dried out grass of the graveyard.

“Come back to me,” Abbey cried out, her voice shaking with grief and terror. “Mom…Dad…I need you to come back to me…I can’t do this, I can’t live any longer without you!”

And like a tidal wave, Lucy and Abbey’s power burst from them and into the ground, and then it blasted back up at them both, knocking them back five or more feet. Lucy smacked her head on the cold ground, which was better than on a grave stone, but it still hurt, and the dizzy, blacking-out feeling didn’t mix well with all the other nauseating, gut wrenching pain, and electrical shocks that were still surging though her body and mind.

Lucy just lay there for a moment, feeling the power wash out of her body and seep into the ground around her. The earth was cold beneath her, yet she was covered in sweat. Her mind was still electrified, and she could feel things all around her moving, encroaching toward her. She leaned up and pulled herself onto her knees, looking around her, expecting to see things running at her. But nothing stirred, not even Abbey.

She lay there on her back, not moving, her eyes closed. Lucy crawled over to her and shook her, calling out her name, though her voice was hoarse. No response. She felt for a pulse and thankfully found one, then leaned down until she could hear her breathing.

Thank god. Lucy looked around, felt in her pockets for her phone—it wasn’t there! She’d forgotten it. Damn it! She felt the pockets of Abbey’s black cargo pants; lots of pockets, but no bulges big enough to be a phone.

I’ve got to get her out of here, Lucy told herself. She just had to choose: go and get help, or try and drag Abbey’s unconscious body to safety. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck, but she so didn’t want to leave Abbey there alone. Not with what just happened. Who knew what was coming? And truthfully, she didn’t want to come back to this place for anything.

So Lucy stood up, feeling her head pounding and pitching on top of her shoulders. She held her head for a moment until the world stopped spinning. A few deep breaths and she opened her eyes. The night fog had cleared a little, but she still couldn’t see the perimeter of the grave yard. Which way had they come in?

Crap!

She leaned down to grab Abbey under the arms when she heard a crack, the kind like a limb getting split off a tree by lightning. Lucy gulped and looked up. There directly in front of her was a hand covered in dirt and clumps of grass, sticking out of the grave of James and Julie Adams.

~*~

Lucy felt a cold stabbing fear in her gut. It wasn’t that horrible pulling feeling anymore. No, this was pure, undiluted fear. If she weren’t so tired she might’ve screamed, she might’ve turned and ran, right then, forgetting about Abbey lying unconscious and defenseless at her feet. But she was both exhausted and acutely aware of what was going on around her.

It was a chaotic mess. It wasn’t just Abbey’s parents digging themselves out of their graves, the cemetery was vibrating with activity—not life…just two hundred corpses rising,