Also by Erin E. Breckenridge
Life, Death and the Things Between
Life, Death and the Things Between Part 2
Blight of the Deadby Erin E. Breckenridge
2017 Erin E. Breckenridge
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by … Stewart Parkhurst
Illustrations by Mary Breverly
http://aworldingraphite.wix.com/art
Dedication
Dedicated to Henry Greene who is my brother in every way but blood. To my husband, Danny Breckenridge, who loves all things macabre. Of course, to my father Sebe Morgan, whose love of horror rivals my own, and to my mother Sally, where all founts flow creative.
Prologue
Chapter One Raven Wakes to Unpleasantness
Chapter Two Raven and Henry Seek Safety
Chapter Three The Ray of Hope
Chapter Four The Mom and Pop
Chapter Five The Eavesdropper
Chapter Six Exodus
Chapter Seven Barbara Jean and Louise
Chapter Eight Trouble Finds Liz
Chapter Nine Merging of the Groups
Erin’s Bio
Blight Part 2 … Coming Soon
The year is 2010 in a dimension similar to our own, though things have progressed a little differently. There are many worlds that run parallel to the one in which we live, some so strange that the human mind would not survive and others analogous enough that nothing would seem amiss. The world in which we are about to plunge has many things the same. Earth, and it is still called that, developed a little differently. California is full of mountain ranges, so crowded that the peaks lead right up to the coast, stopping only a few miles from the sea. The town of Hallows Point where our prose begins was one of many cities that sprung up after the famous gold rush, which in this world occurred in the early 1700’s. Our story takes place along the range of Rocky Sierra Mountains in California and Oregon. It was once beautiful and sought-after countryside and many folks made their home there, but no longer. All states are stricken with a plague of the dead and there will be no escape.
We delve, oh reader, into this world to see what transpires there. A virus runs unchecked through the people killing quickly, but the fallen do not stay down. The bodies of the victims rise with a hunger for the flesh of the living.
Prologue
The sun set over the sleepy town of Hallows Point, nestled in the California coast between tall mountains and crashing waves. Sporting a maximum of three hundred occupants, depending on the time of year, Hallows Point was in full tourist swing. October was the busiest time of year. Hallows Point had been the scene of a massacre in the mid 1800’s; an event of infamy and terror that took place on all hallows eve. They called it The Day of Blood and Madness.
A drifter came into town one night, riding the edge of a destructive storm. He was tall and lean with dark brown hair and an old-fashioned looking gun belt. He strode through the quiet town, at that time it had less than a third of the population, and headed for the local tavern. His cowboy boots were loud on the wooden floors, puffs of dust rose from the ground in his wake. The bar was full. Many of the townsfolk had chosen to seek shelter there, hiding from the rain and wind. They sat chatting uneasily, peering through the windows at the slackening rain outside. A table with three young men glanced at the stranger and away, dismissing him.
“Can I help you, sir?” the barkeep inquired, surprised to see anyone walking around after such a storm. He held a dirty glass in one hand and a rag in the other. Polishing the glass, the bartender raised his brows in question. His face was heavily jowled and he wore a much-stained apron over a round belly.
The drifter sneered, saying nothing at all. He strode to a table and sat, putting his boots up and crossing his legs.
The barkeep, put off by the stranger’s rudeness, peered at the man suspiciously. “Why are you here?” he asked, frowning.
The drifter just smirked and settled more comfortably into his chair.
The patrons were all looking his way now, expressions ranging the gamut from amusement to outright fright.
Pounding his fist on the table rhythmically, the drifter began to sing in a loud and rather tuneless voice.
The barkeep stepped back, confused and wary. The young men at the table rose from their chairs and surrounded the stranger. Three men of strong bearing and hardened features, they cracked their knuckles and glowered.
“I think you should stop all that noise,” the largest man said. He worked for the smithy, standing tall and heavily muscled. His eyebrows were singed and his skin was bronzed from the forge.
The rest of the townsfolk, sensing trouble brewing, gathered in a group at the back of the tavern, thirty strong, palpably hesitant to approach the singing stranger.
Continuing to bellow loudly, the drifter sneered and pulled out his Colt Peacemakers, pointing them, one at the group of young men and the other at the crowd. Men and women screamed and cowered, trying to crawl behind tables and hide beneath chairs. Their voices were raised in a cacophonous din of terror.
The three men tried to stop him, diving on the table and reaching for his pistols.
They were simply too slow. The drifter fired rapidly, reloading with insane sped; hands a blur of motion. The smithy’s apprentice took three bullets to the stomach. They tore through his flesh, ripping through skin and viscera. He screamed and reached for his abdomen, face pale and rigid. Blood bloomed like roses through his clothing in a
