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Back Up From the Grave Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Dedication
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. An excerpt from Halfway to the Grave
  44. An excerpt from One Foot in the Grave
  45. An excerpt from At Grave’s End
  46. An excerpt from Destined for an Early Grave
  47. An excerpt from This Side of the Grave
  48. An excerpt from One Grave at a Time
  49. About the Author
  50. By Jeaniene Frost
  51. Copyright
  52. About the Publisher

Then I burst through the doors right before they shut and thick bars slid into the doorframe in some sort of automated lockdown. Once in the hallway, I ran toward the cluster of thoughts approaching me instead of away. As soon as the soldiers rounded the corner, I flung myself forward, belly-flopping onto the tile with enough force to break my ribs. The pain was fierce and immediate, but their shots went over my head. I kept my arms straight out as momentum and the polished tile carried me forward while I fired until both guns were empty.

The guards dropped with multiple thumps. They’d been outfitted with Kevlar vests and mesh steel collars around their throats, but while their tinted visors were proof against mind control, they weren’t bulletproof.

I dropped my handguns into my pockets along with the extra clips. Then I snatched up as many of their assault rifles as I could carry.

Now this was more like it.

Not a moment too soon, either. In the hallway ahead, another stampede of booted strides sounded. I glanced around, decided being out in the open was too risky even with my new arsenal, and propelled myself upward hard enough to blast through the ceiling. It left my head ringing with more than the sounds of gunfire as the next set of soldiers found their buddies and began shooting at the hole I’d made, but I was long gone from it by then. The outer shell around this facility was too reinforced to blast my way to daylight, yet like most hospitals and laboratories, it had interstitial spaces between its floors.

And this one, at least, wasn’t guarded or equipped with automated lockdown doors.

I jumped over pipes and other equipment as I ran toward what I guessed was the vampire cell section, based on the thoughts of the employees plus the fact that it had a solid wall of steel going all the way up into the next floor. Before I could attempt to shoot my way through the base, though, I had to duck a barrage of bullets. The soldiers had found their way into the space between the floors, too.

“We have Specimen A1 cornered above Section 9!” someone barked.

That was followed by a reply I didn’t catch when I had to dodge another hail of gunfire. I took cover behind one of the steel buttresses, keeping low as I fired back. With the distance and smoke from all the gunfire, I didn’t have nearly the same success rate. Only a third of the guards dropped with their visors shattered, and I heard more reinforcements coming.