Chapter 1 - The Awakening
Slowly, weakly, his hand began to rise.
And then his fingers brushed her hair.
Madison froze, her breath hitching in her tiny throat.
The chapel descended into a dead, suffocating silence.
Sarah, Madison’s mother, felt her knees threaten to buckle beneath her.
She watched in pure horror and disbelief as her deceased husband’s fingers tangled clumsily into their daughter’s blonde curls.
It was not a muscle spasm.
It was a deliberate, conscious movement.
Arthur’s chest shuddered, rising with a sudden, violent intake of air that sounded like a drowning man breaking the surface.
His pale, waxy eyelids fluttered open, revealing bloodshot eyes that darted frantically around the room.
A woman in the third row screamed, dropping her purse to the polished floor with a loud clatter.
Chaos erupted in the chapel in a matter of seconds.
Mourners scrambled backward, knocking over wooden chairs and trampling the white lilies.
Sarah pushed through the paralyzed crowd, her maternal instinct overriding her terror.
She grabbed Madison by the waist and pulled her out of the satin-lined casket.
Arthur groaned, his voice raspy and broken, like grinding stones.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, the neat grey suit wrinkling around his shoulders.
He looked directly at Sarah, his eyes wide with a desperate, manic intensity.
She clutched Madison to her chest, unable to speak, unable to even breathe.
Arthur opened his mouth, struggling to form words with a tongue that had been medically paralyzed for three days.
He reached out a shaking hand toward her.
Sarah took a hesitant step forward, tears streaming down her face.
Arthur leaned over the edge of the casket and grabbed her wrist with surprising strength.
He pulled her close, his lips brushing against her ear.
May you like
He whispered a single, terrifying sentence.
The people who killed me are locking the doors.
