Forever Between (Between Life and Death Book 2) by Ann Christy Page A

that includes speech. He’d barely begun using Sam’s name when Sam went in-betweener. And even though I’d been acting as his mother since he was a few weeks old, he’d never said my name at all, only squeezing his little fists at me with a grunt when he wanted something.
    But in the year and a half since we’ve been here, with safety and regular meals and a dose of sunshine every day—assuming it’s shining—he’s blossomed. His size, his skin tone, his level of alertness and yes, his communications, have all improved to such an extent that it surprises me to look at him sometimes.
    “Emily is going on one of her trips. She’ll be back,” I whisper, trying to push back my nervousness on that score and sound confident.
    His little brows, so dark they look like someone drew them on with magic marker, come together and there’s doubt in his eyes. He’s too young for that kind of uncertainty, so I smooth the space between his eyebrows with my thumb and keep smiling. Either he’s too tired to carry on asking or he’s satisfied, because he snuggles down more comfortably into my lap and closes his eyes. Within a few minutes, I see his lips part in sleep and his heavy baby breaths begin.
    I lean back against the wall, careful not to jostle Jon, and settle in for a long night. There won’t be much sleep for me tonight.
    *****
    It’s strange to think it, but by the morning of the third day, I’m actually okay. Even little Jon isn’t asking anymore, simply choosing to go about his toddler day as he normally would. If he’s noticed the time passing, I can’t tell. I’m glad he’s still little.
    She said she’d be back after no more than three days, so she’s either gone or on her way. There’s no rule that says that’s true. She could be laying somewhere, suffering but alive. I don’t think so, though. Emily would blow her own head off her shoulders or take a head-first dive off a building if that was going to happen. No, she’s either dead or on her way back.
    I hope she’s on her way back. I hope.
     

Today - Farmer John
    Riding along the highway is hair-raising for the first hour or two. Deaders are everywhere. They litter the roads, lay in piles under trucks with their faces glued to the undercarriages, or wander about in random directions. After the first fifteen minutes, our tag-team approach of one set of eyes on the road and one set ahead of us goes by the wayside. It’s all we can do to keep up with weaving around debris and deaders.
    Lucky for us, they are so slow they almost look like a slow-motion movie.
    Once we hit that stretch of houses, we speed up and spend a lot of time looking over our shoulders. The houses are older, but were well kept until this happened. Not one of them looks inhabited. They could be, but if they are, whoever is inside has taken pains not to be seen.
    A tiny commercial area comes up almost too fast. It’s the center of some old, little town that used to exist before the city we live in stretched its arms to enclose everything. An old-fashioned clapboard gas station and a matching grocery store put some perspective on how people shopped before we got used to having everything the minute we wanted it. An antique store—or maybe junk shop—looks interesting, and a row of offices in a one story building fill out the rest of the commercial properties.
    All of it is abandoned, windows broken in most of them and the grocery store clearly emptied out a long time ago. Drifts of last fall’s leaves lay piled up inside the askew doors. Deaders are thinner on the ground here and I’m guessing that this whole area was deserted before everyone was killed off. I hope that wherever it is they wound up, they’re safe there.
    Just as Charlie said, the land goes rural almost immediately after that. It’s all farm houses and barns set well back from the road, long untended tobacco and cotton fields fronting the properties. A few years of winter and summer have left the old