VALERIE
Dowson was dead.
They led us to his corpse, and I did not expect such brutality. Such pure c*****e as I looked upon him. Blood poured from an open wound in his neck. Another in his stomach. His eyes were frozen, wide in disbelieve. In horror. He laid in a puddle of his own blood, and something about the coppery smell of it was turning my stomach.
Alyssa made a sound of distress at the sight of him and twisted away to hide her face in Ralph’s chest. He seemed unprepared for her reaction and hesitated, unsure of what to do but to let her hide there in his arms. She had probably never seen such a horror like this, but I had. I had lived it once before, and many times in my memory since then.
The sight of Dowson’s corpse was nothing more than an echo of my family. Of what had happe
