Countdown to SHADOWS HAVE GONE: Excerpt 7 #dystopian #romance #EOTWAWKI

Shadows Have Gone, the third book in the End of All Things series, will be released on March 26. I'm doing a countdown during the two weeks leading up to its release with a new excerpt every day. Stop back tomorrow for something new!

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    “Dad and Mom were getting worse, fast, but me and my brother were okay. Since Mom didn’t want to go to the church, Dad decided he was going to put himself and Mom out in the garage, isolate themselves, and hope my brother and I didn’t get it, too.”

    “He made me promise, promise, I wouldn’t let them back inside, no matter what.” Kaden looked up at Justin.     “Not an ordinary promise, like ‘I promise I’ll mow the lawn.’ But a real promise. You know what I mean?”

Justin nodded.

    “I kept that promise. Even when . . .” Kaden took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. They were shiny when he opened them again. “We had seen on the news how the Infection made people crazy. Sometimes, even gentle, sweet people could get violent or do crazy stuff because they just weren’t . . . right. You know what I’m talking about. I’m sure you saw it, too.”

    Carly and Justin exchanged a look. They had. And not just on the news.

    “Dad knew it, too. That’s why he made me make that promise, just in case. Mom was already raving when they went out there. But after they shut themselves in the garage, I never heard anything out of her again. Just Dad. Just Dad. He cried. He pounded on the door and screamed. And cried. I cried with him. I knew it wasn’t really him. My dad would never say the kind of stuff he was saying. But it still stuck with me. I hear it in my head sometimes, in his voice. Sometimes, at night, I still hear him screaming, begging me to let him in.”

    He glanced over at Carly, then back at the cairn, and his voice was gruff. “That’s why I know ghosts are real. Not visible phantoms floating through a house and throwing stuff. But the ghosts in your mind. They haunt you. Sometimes forever, I guess.”

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