Read In the Dead: Volume 1 for Free Online Page A

you?” Randy asked as he pushed back with as much force as he could muster. The guy still didn’t let go, but he did stagger backward. Randy saw the big driftwood log a few feet away and pushed harder, guiding his attacker toward the debris.
    Just as he’d hoped, when the man’s ankles hit the log, he lost his balance and toppled backward, taking Randy with him. But his grip loosened as they hit the sand and Randy was able to roll free. He popped back up on his feet immediately and lifted his hands up in a defensive stance.
    “ What the fuck, asshole?” he asked a second time as he looked down at the stranger who had attacked him.
    The man wasn’t moving, just lying there, staring straight upward with blank, open eyes.
    “ What’s wrong with him?” Nadia asked as she looked down with Randy.
    “ I don’t know. Stay back.” He pushed her behind him and leaned down to shake the man’s leg. He didn’t move and he didn’t blink. “I-I think he’s dead.”
    “ How could he be dead?” Nadia asked, her tone growing high pitched. “He just tripped.”
    “ Maybe he was sick or something.” He stared down at his hand. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and the skin around where he’d been bitten was starting to turn gray. “He was definitely sick.”
    Nadia crouched down and poked the man with her finger. He didn’t move, of course, pretty much solidifying the fact that he was dead. And wasn’t that going to be fun to explain to the cops when they came.
    “ What are you doing?” he snapped as he watched Nadia lift the guy’s head from the sand and look under it.
    “ I just can’t believe that he would-” She started and then let out a gasp of breath and dropped the dead man’s skull against the sand. It made a hollow thud. “Oh Jesus,” she whispered as she dropped back on her ass and scooted away from the corpse. “Oh, Jesus, Randy. He hit his head. There’s a rock under there and his skull is half-crushed.”
    Randy blinked. They hadn’t fallen that hard. Had they?
    “ His skull is crushed?” he repeated.
    She nodded. “It looks like somebody went all ‘Goodfellas’ on him.”
    Randy bit his lip and then grabbed the corpse’s shoulder and flipped him over. Sure enough the back of his head was a bloody mess of broken bone, hair and brain matter. His stomach turned as he let the body go and turned to pace off a few feet.
    “ Oh shit,” he whispered. “I’m going to go to jail. Not white-collar jail, either.”
    “ No!” Nadia insisted as she rushed to his side. She grabbed his arm and made him face her. “You were defending yourself.”
    “ It’s not going to look that way when the back of this dude’s skull is crushed in on the beach behind the house where I’ve been hiding out from the feds!” Randy insisted. His chest was starting to feel tight now as he imagined the headlines.
    Fugitive Turns Murderous in Seaside Village
    He was going to end up getting featured on Dateline or 48 Hours .
    “ Did you call the police?” he asked.
    His voice sounded flat and faraway. For a long moment, Nadia just stared at him and then she shook her head. “I-I couldn’t. Both the phones were dead.”
    He wrinkled his brow. “Both?”
    She nodded. “The cell couldn’t find a signal and the regular jack phone was just a weird busy signal thing.”
    “ Look, let’s go in and turn on the radio and see if they’re talking about a car wreck up on the highway. And then… I-I just have to think and I’ll walk up to the next cottage and see if we can use their phone.”
    Randy ran a hand through his hair. Everything was over. He knew it now.
    Nadia glanced at the body again. “Should we… cover him up?”
    He shuddered. Since he’d flipped the corpse, he didn’t see the blank, cold eyes anymore, but there was still the matter of the gaping hole in his skull. “Yeah. I’ll grab the blanket from the porch. You go in and turn on the radio.”
    She squeezed his arm once and then moved into the