BooksBarbecue
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

Bones didn’t have my hesitance. He also didn’t have over sixty percent of his flesh, but that was the point. He grasped my arm and yanked me out of the panic room, then propelled me down the hallway. I let him lead me, still trying to grapple with the reality of his being here, let alone trying to make sense of the condition he was in. Bodies of guards littered the hallway, their heads ripped mostly off and puddles of their blood causing me to slide once or twice as we ran. Red lights flashed, and alarms blared, but we didn’t encounter more guards, and if this section had employees, they’d long since evacuated.

Then a large set of double doors barred our path into the next section. From the empty security station, the entry guard had left his post, and through the small viewing panel, I didn’t see anyone in the room beyond, either.

“Initiating Dante Protocol for Section 13 in fifteen seconds,” a computerized voice intoned over the com system.

I cast my senses outward trying to discover what that meant, and the thoughts I caught were ominous.

They can’t incinerate Section 13! There might be survivors!

Oh, God, I’m gonna die . . .

That’s right, burn every one of those fuckers!

“They’re going to torch this section,” I told Bones, then shook him when all he did was close his eyes.

“Bones! We have to go now, or we’re going to burn.”

He still didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t he hear me? Maybe not, it didn’t look like much of his ears were left under that shock of white hair.

I grabbed him and tried to fly, intending to blast us through the ceiling into a section that wasn’t about to be barbecued, but he planted his feet and wouldn’t be budged. How he managed that while looking like an extra from Night of the Living Dead was beyond me, yet I might as well have been trying to lift a mountain.

“No,” he said in that guttural, unfamiliar voice.

“Five seconds until Dante Protocol in Section 13,” the warning system intoned.

Bones still didn’t move. If I flew away without him, I had a chance of making it, but I’d rather die than do that. Freaky-looking or not, this was Bones, and my place was with him, in life or in death. I threw my arms around him and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping the fire was so intense that this would be quick—

Explosions did go off, causing everything to shudder as though we were caught in an earthquake, yet there was no heat or pain. After a few seconds, I dared to open my eyes.