Rick Yancey

Do you believe in God, Evan?___ure I do.___ don__. I mean, I don__ know. I did before the Others came. Or thought I did, when I thought about it at all. And then they came and_ I have to stop for a second to collect myself. __aybe there__ a God. Sammy thinks there is. But he also thinks there__ a Santa Claus. Still, every night I said his prayer with him, and it didn__ have anything to do with me. It was about Sammy and what he believed, and if you could have seen him take that fake soldier__ hand and follow him onto that bus____ losing it, and it doesn__ matter to me much. Crying is always easier in the dark. Suddenly my cold hand is blanketed by Evan__ warmer one, and his palm is as soft and smooth as the pillowcase beneath my cheek.__t kills me,_ I sob. __he way he trusted. Like the way we trusted before they came and blew the whole goddamned world apart. Trusted that when it got dark there would be light. Trusted that when you wanted a fucking strawberry Frappuccino you could plop your ass in the car, drive down the street, and get yourself a fucking strawberry Frappuccino! Trusted_

His body is pressed against my back, his arm is wrapped protectively around my waist, his breath a delicious tickle against my neck. The room is very cold; it would be nice to climb under the covers, but I don__ want to move. I don__ want him to move. I run my fingers along his bare forearm, remembering the warmth of his lips, the silkiness of his hair between my fingers. The boy who never sleeps, sleeping. Coming to rest upon the Cassiopeian shore, an island in the middle of a sea of blood. You have your promise, and I have you.I can__ trust him. I have to trust him.I can__ stay with him. I can__ leave him behind.

Too many people say something when they really have nothing to say.

We have just discovered our dear colleague butchered in a hotel room, and you wish to discuss literature?

And it occurs to me that there__ no real difference between us, the living and the dead; it__ just a matter of tense: past-dead and future-dead

To hold on, you have to find something you're willing to die for.

Nothing is more painful than the loneliness of being with someone who is never completely there.

If you don't kill all of us all at once, those who remain will not be the weak.It's the strong who remain, the bent but unbroken, like the iron rods that used to give this concrete its strength.

I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. ___ow I lay me down to sleep__ To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn__ sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.

Is this how humanity waves good-bye?Hell no.

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.

You can only call someone crazy if there's someone else who's normal.

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

The doctor was a private man, engaged in a dark and dangerous business, and could ill afford the prying eyes and gossiping tongue of the servant class.

The world existed for a very long time before this particular set of seven billion billion atoms came along and it will go right on after they're scattered up, down and sideways.

You never know when the truth will come home. You can__ choose the time. The time chooses you.

You're never perfectly safe. No human being on Earth ever is or ever was. To live is to risk your life, your heart, everything.

She's hurt and still imagines I'd worry about him for even a second ? I touch her shoulder. Her touch her shoulder. Her dark hair brushes the back of my hand. Her dark eyes shine. Their brightness goes all the way down."You found me," she says.I kneel beside her. I take her hand. "I found you"."My back is broken,"she says. "I can't walk."I slide my arms beneath her. "I'll carry you".