Prologue
The stench of gun powder lingered in the air. The pool of blood formed slowly at his feet. Johnathan Murphy didn’t mean to pull the trigger. He didn’t want to. His quivering hands tried to let the pistol fall, but his pride would not allow it. Where there should have been regret, Johnthan’s heart filled with anger. She should have shut her mouth. She should have listened to him when he was talking. She should have stopped crying on that sofa like a wounded animal and just let him have one damned moment of peace.
If anything, he convinced himself, it’s her own fault.
“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let some dumb bitch disrespect me,” scolded the dead body as though it were taunting him, even now. “I’ll be damned if I let anybody disrespect me, especially in my own home.”
Now what, tough guy? the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like his dead wife asked. Now you’ve got a kid and a dead body to take care of.
“Shut the fuck up,” he countered with a smile, “I know what I’m doing.”
Do you? You look about as worthless and weak as ever. Look at your hand shaking. You can barely hold that gun. Shit, I’m glad you shot me.
Johnathan knelt beside the corpse and forced whispered worst through clenched teeth and spit, “Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you again.”
Dumbass, her voice replied with a slight laugh. I’m already dead, and I figure as soon as the cops show up, you’re dumb ass is gonna be right here on the floor beside me. Looks like I win.
“SHUT UP.” He shot back up on his feet just as a voice called out from behind his front door.
“Police.” Then the door came bursting open. “Hands where I can see them.”
He didn’t think. Didn’t need to. He turned around and lifted his gun. The impact he felt in his chest was like nothing he’d ever felt. He staggered back a step as his gun fell from his hand. A warm rush of air washed over him.
“You bitch,” was all he could manage to say. It was all the air he had in him, and despite his attempts at taking in more, his gasps bore no fruit. The sensation in his legs faded and he dropped to his knees in a puddle of his wife’s blood.
A door down the hall opened. He knew the sound well. That little brat of his was peeking out of his room again. It irritated him as he fell forward toward the floor. The floor failed to meet him.
Instead, Johnathan found himself tumbling forward. Below him darkness. Above him the world fading into nothing. He could see the underside of his home. His dead body beside his wife’s, the bitch cop grabbing hold of his boy, the stupid kid crying like a baby. For a moment, he was relieved to be through with it.
Heat. That was the next thing he felt. The heat rose to meet him and howled in his ears. Its turbulent roar deafening. Another sound came weaving its way into the rushing wind. A scream.
It wasn’t just a single scream though. There were many. He turned his head to either side in horror. Others were falling all around him. Each just as terrified as he was. Then he looked down.
Below him, rushing up at a frightening speed, was nothing but stone, bodies, and blood.
“Of shit,” was all he had managed to say before he found himself nearly fused to the bloody stone upon impact. The pain was like nothing he’d ever known.
For a moment, silence and darkness was all he knew. He felt pain in every part of his body in equal intensity. He felt himself jerk and twitch as the pain punched at him randomly throughout. It wasn’t until his hearing returned that he understood what was happening. Bones snapped back into place, one by one, in excruciatingly quick movements. The sight of it came flooding in all at once, just like his hearing, and he wished it had not.
The people around him wailed and writhed in endless pain as they fell, boke, then snapped back together.
“There you are,” a familiar voice came calling. He turned his head, still unable to move the rest of his body.
“Andrea,” he grunted, drops of blood spraying with each syllable. “What the hell’d ya do to me? You fucking bitch.”
“You did this,” her expressionless voice replied from an equally vacant expression.
A black spot expanded from her chest. He knew it was a hole, but it seemed impossibly deep. His legs and arms cracked and snapped. She stepped closer, stumbling like some lifeless doll.
Johnathan pushed through the pain, pushed past the terror. He let his anger take the wheel as it always had.
“Get the fuck away from me. I’ll kill you again if I have to.”
Two white eyes came shining through the darkness in his late wife’s chest. They crept closer until he could see the teeth just beneath them, smiling.
“I’m already dead, dumbass.”
The monster inside Johnathan’s wife fell out of her with a juicy thud, and she took another lumbering step forward. He managed to get his feet under him but found himself too weak to stand.
“I said, get the fuck away from me.” His demand melted into screams as the monster lunged at him. His dead wife followed close behind.
A smile on her face.
