PROLOGUE

the lights flicker in my room i can here shouts coming from down the alley

there

are other noises too snarling and wheezing big tears trickle down my face where

is

my daddy he said he would be coming back but now its just me and mommy

who is still huddled in a corner her gypsy costume tinkles as the coins shake

from her sobbing somethings wrong but what a loud growl comes from the

alley

mommy stands up and starts pushing my dresser in front of the door her

costume rattles in an eerie way suddenly gun shots ring from the darkness i

hear glass shatter as they hit the windows of are old volvo then silence a few

minutes pass then a thud thud thump someones walking up the stairs

suddenly there's

a knock on the door and a voice whispers through the key whole Rita its okay

its me Gabriel mommy sobs with relief i can't understand why she is sad in the

first place but i trust that we are okay now Gabriel walks over to my bed

and coos softly come her Fortune who's my pretty girl and wraps me in my

pink blankie he quickly lifts me up i notice my mommy is packing are

emergency backpack and i get scared my mommy only packs up when

tornado's come Gabriel puts me in a papoose and i rest my head against his

chest mommy pulls out a knife from the back pack and Gabriel's got a gun i

feel tiny and useless but i never would want them to leave me so i simply

grab gabriels shirt and hold tight they start towards the door but i remember

salty my new kitten and start bawling mommy looks at me and i point to salty

she tries to calm me but i must look so pitiful because she finally scoops the

kitten up and puts her in her carrying case i am sated so i remain quiet

holding my kitten in the little leather bag close to my chest i resolve to never

let go and Gabriel starts towards the door mommy follows and we creep out

into the night the gunshots have stopped and i here faint slurping noises i

look in front of us and see a few creatures i can't see them properly but there

pale grey eyes glow in the moonlight i turn away and Gabriel mommy slip

past the demons and they ignore us intent on the flesh of my neighbors i look

closer and see mister Dickinson who owns the hardware store down the road

i see Bobby May who has a look of pure terror i see Travis who just got home

from military school a week ago i pause on his face he looks to young for this

fate but i know demons don't take favorites i look for daddy's face but i don't

see him it gives me some hope but not much we continue on past the

hospital the church and the dump when we come to super market its

crowded with demons most making on people i see a couple backed up in a

corner and point Gabriel takes a knife and runs over pushing it through the

demons head crunching through bone to the brain the thing goes limp the

couple is shaking but thanks us mommy quickly asks if we could trouble

them for a ride they nod there consent a girl seth red hair and a splatter of

freckles in a torn white dress and a brown haired man with spectacles we

clamber into a three door grey van i sit in the middle Gabriel and mommy on

either side of us are supplies were loaded into the back we head off mommy

is looking at a map and giving the couple ideas they talk for a while

eventually we decide to head out of Georgia and head up north in the hope

that we might come to a secluded hunting lodge and live there to wait out the

demons we ride through South Carolina traveling on I95 we quickly travel on

until we get to Pennsylvania it took us eighteen hours of siphoning off cars

and eating granola bars salty is a bit shaken but is laying next to me i feed

her some canned tune which she eats hungrily we stop at a big blue

farmhouse there are oaks and pine mommy says she choose here because

of the big stone fence and the seclusion Gabriel and Joshua who we find out

the couples names are joshua and jillian but they said we could call them

josh and jill were just married when the demons struck which explains jill's

white dress i feel bad for them there fairytale wouldn't come true but i know

were all very lucky i look up to see Gabriel has come back i hold my pink

blankie and he lifts me and salty up out of the car and we traipse across

fields to the house the first colors of lilac ravaging the sky I'm carried up the

stairs into an old bedroom and layed down on the bed the room looks

ransacked it seems as if it was once lived in but the hosts had no more need

of the abandoned farm house i try hard to fight off the exhaustion but i am

only six i fight and strive but i fail and succumb to the darkness