Bethesda – Lisa Morris

The hand holding my knife fell to my side, but I didn’t put it away or step closer. “Happy?” he asked. “No. I’m stuck in this damn town with a car that won’t start and a cell phone that won’t work. I’ve got a killer headache, and almost everyone I’ve met is dead.” “I’m not,” he said.

I arched an eyebrow. “I dunno. You’re pretty pale.” “I work nights!” “Uh huh. This town has been fucking with me hard ever since I rolled in here. How do I know you’re not just a vampire or something?” He stared at me like I was crazy, which, on second thought, maybe I was. “Please. If I was a vampire, I’d just charm you into liking me, no pick- up lines needed.”

I wrinkled my nose. He had a point. “Fine. But how do I know I can trust you?” “I guess you don’t. But I’ll tell you one thing. You can’t trust them,” he said, giving me a hard look. “Trust who?” “The Barbs.” I blinked. “Barbs, plural? But not the dead one downstairs, right?” He chuckled. “Not the one downstairs. They seem to stay away from her.”

“How long have you been here?” He fixed me with another hard stare. “Too long. I lost track. The days all blur together after a while. If you don’t mind…what year was it when you…” His voice trailed off. “It’s 2024,” I said. “October…well, eleven now, 2024.” “So I’ve been here for about six months…” “Six months? Why don’t you just leave?” “It’s…complicated. How much do you know about this place?”

“Um, not much. My car ran out of gas right in front of the gas station last night. I’ve been wandering around trying to figure this place out. I really have to get home. My dad’s dying, and⁠—” “Last night?”

written by Lisa Morris published by Quill & Crow Publishing House This book is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialogue, and characters, except for some well-known historical and public figures, are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2026 Lisa Morris All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Quill & Crow Publishing House, Ohio. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S.

copyright law. Printed in the United States of America Edited by Cassandra Thompson ISBN: 978-1-967911-22-6 ISBN: 978-1-967911-21-9 (ebook) Publisher’s Website: quillandcrowpublishinghouse.com 1kitap1.com/en To all those who’ve tried to leave and feel like they keep getting pulled back in. Keep going. 1kitap1.com/en CONTENTS 1. Bethesda 2. Into the Night 3. Nice to Meet You 4. Soul Food 5.

Barb 6. Antique Sideshow 7. Make Yourself at Home 8. Small Town USA 9. Getting Down to Business 10. Take Me to Church 11. Brainstorm 12. Critical Mass 13. Back Home Again in Indiana New Beginnings Acknowledgments About the Author Thank You For Reading Trigger Index 1kitap1.com/en CHAPTER 1 BETHESDA IF I’D KNOWN I’d end up in a town full of corpses, I would have sucked it up and flown to my dad’s instead. But I didn’t, and I have to get this all written down before I forget.

Because whatever happened to me has me questioning everything. It all happened on one fateful October day, at an hour too early to be morning and too late to be night. I crept along the freshly chip-n-sealed country road at a snail’s pace, with my dad’s advice in my brain on repeat, warning me not to drive too fast in the dark. Something about deer and cornfields. Hitting one of them—either deer or cornfield—was not something I wanted to experience. My sister had called me the day before (I let it go to voicemail, of course, because I hate her) to tell me that if I was going to come back home, then now would be the time since Dad had little of it left.

The news wasn’t a surprise, since we all knew he was losing his battle with leukemia, and I’d made peace with it.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 29b1f97a954d32e6
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 4,729,266 bytes (4.51 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781967911226, 9781967911219
• Pages: 154
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 219.12 minutes
• Total Words: 43,823
• Total Characters: 238,010
• Average Words per Page: 284.56
• Average Characters per Page: 1545.52

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