The Resurrected Compendium (51 page)

“Forgive me,” Abbie said, and took the knife, which entered each of their skulls with no more resistance than cutting into pumpkins left to go soft on the vine.

“I love you,” she said as they both fell and went silent.

The pulse of light overhead went brighter. In the distance, the humming went on, the high pitched whine got louder, but it was all far away and not here. Nothing was here but the weight of her children against her and the stink of their blood and the burning salt of her tears.

All around her, the forest spoke. She knew the rancid, rotten smell of those flowers. She saw them blooming in the trees, on the crimson vines creeping across everything, taking it over. Coming closer. Covering everything. Soon, in minutes, even this bare patch of grass would be devoured by them, but against her, the children were still and silent.
 

Something stirred in her guts and tickled the back of her mind. A knowledge. Understanding. Abbie looked upward to the light in the sky and listened to it calling. She smiled as she pressed the knife to her own eardrum, pressing deep and deeper, the pain a spark that would become an inferno in a moment of pressure. She smiled and jammed the knife deep into her brain, cutting off the final spark that had made her Abbie, not giving anything else the chance to take her over.

In her last thoughts, she smiled, because she had done it. She had saved her boys from becoming whatever this was. She had saved herself.

And all around her, the flowers bloomed and died and bloomed again, and all that was left of everything and everyone was the hush and shush of growing things.

About the Author

I was born and then I lived awhile. Then I did some stuff and other things. Now, I mostly write books. Some of them use a lot of bad words, but most of the other words are okay.

I can’t live without music, the internet, the ocean or Coke Zero. I can’t stand the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves me cold. I write a little bit of everything from horror to romance, and I don’t answer to the name “Meg.”

* * *

Megan Hart is a USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly and New York Times bestselling author who writes in many genres including mainstream fiction, erotic fiction, science fiction, romance, fantasy and horror. Learn more about her by visiting her website,
MeganHart.com
. Find her on Twitter at
twitter.com/megan_hart
and on Facebook at
facebook.com/megan.hart
. If you liked The Resurrected, please tell all of your friends to buy it. If you hated it, please tell all your enemies to buy it. If you’d like to tell the author about it, drop her a line at
[email protected]
, but remember that your mom told you if you don’t have anything nice to say, it’s best to say nothing at all.