Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Read Free Page A

spoke testified, rang true, and was
admitted.
     
    Bang . . .
     
    The iron gavel slammed again.
     
    “I trusted you. You let them take me. You let them
have me. YOU LET THEM CHANGE ME! ”
     
    Eric’s very soul screamed under the weight of her
words. They were true, and each one she spoke tightened the noose of judgment
around his neck.
     
    BANG . . .
     
    Michelle lifted her head, revealing her angelic face,
emerald eyes now corrupted into glossy, obsidian orbs.
     
    “ I loved you Eric,” she hissed , “and you
left me to die .”
     
    With a casual, almost nonchalant toss of her head, she
lowered her perfectly white teeth to her own shoulder and tore off a patch of
flesh.  He watched in horror as Michelle snapped her neck skyward and then down,
like a crocodile pulling a newborn zebra from the muddy bank into the watery
depths.
     
    BA-BANG . .
.
     
    The window shattered with the guilty verdict, and
Michelle’s hand—once soft and holding his—shot through with serpentine
quickness. Long, delicate fingers that should have been wearing a ring . . .
Eric’s ring . . . now descended and crushed with vice-like strength around his
already damaged neck.
     
    “ I . . . loved . . . you ,” Michelle spit each
word out with venom as she thrust his head backwards, opening his mouth, “ and
. . . you . . . left . . . me . . . to . . . die .”
     
    Utterly helpless with undiluted terror, Eric watched
as Michelle brought her left arm through the window, and almost reverently
placed it in his open mouth. Glistening eyes the deep, deep black of a starless
night leaned in close.
     
    “ Eat ,” she whispered as she forced his jaw
shut, tearing off a small, ragged bit of her flesh.
     
    “ Eat ,” she said again as her powerful fingers
forced him to chew, “ and pay for your crimes .”
     
    “ Eat ,” Michelle gave a vicious, victorious howl
as he swallowed, “ and serve me .”
     
    The fibrous, fleshy chunk left a vibrantly sizzling
trail as it descended into his stomach. Almost with a detached awareness, Eric began
to note the hordes of gray-skinned figures closing in on the truck as the final
sliver of light, of hope, slipped below the horizon.
     
    His eyes now closed, and with a strange, tingling
warmth on his lips, he began to hear the whispers.
     
    Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside . . .
     
    Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside . . .
     
    Tap . . . tap . . . tap . A spasmodic tremor jerked Eric awake. Eyes wide with
the vivid recollection of the nightmare, he took gasping, shallow breaths as
his pounding heart raced. He was on his side, still in bed with Michelle.
Almost in the exact position he fell asleep in—foreheads almost touching. Light
was trickling through a partially opened blind above the dresser, and in the
unseen recesses of the floor beside the bed he could hear Max softly snoring.
     
    The pillow underneath his face was damp with hot, sour
sweat, and he could feel his hair plastered against his skull. Forcing his
breathing to slow down, Eric felt the razor edge of adrenaline-induced panic
dulling as it slowly receded.
     
    With an apprehensive shadow of fear creeping into his
throat, he delicately issued the mental command for the toes on his left foot
to slowly wiggle. They did. Reassured, he checked off his other limbs. All were
present and accounted for. A deep, slow breath followed, and then another, and
then a third as his heart descended into double digits.
     
    Casting his eyes slightly upwards, Eric studied
Michelle’s sleeping face. The fine, delicately chiseled features displayed both
beauty and toughness . . . vulnerability and determination. A light, almost
invisible scattering of freckles decorated her cheeks, now partially covered by
a swirling descent of her long reddish blond hair. He could see her eyes
shifting underneath their lids as she dreamed.
     
    With another shiver of memory, he said a quick prayer
that her dream was better