Read Online The Tome of Bill (Book 7): The Wicked Dead by Rick Gualtieri - Free Book Online

that.
    Fuck! I hated when my subconscious pointed out something I really didn’t want to dwell upon. At least, I hoped it was my subconscious. I truly wasn’t sure. I’d been feeling stirrings in my head lately that suggested maybe Dr. Death was waking back up again – violent, sexually aggressive, or overly morose thoughts that seemed to pop into my mind from out of nowhere. It was possible the events of the recent past were just getting to me, but somehow, I didn’t think that was the case.
    That made my course of action with Christy more imperative than ever. I needed to find a way to chain up Dr. Death for good before he was back with a vengeance.
    That was the fear I really didn’t want to dwell upon. If that monster woke up, I could find myself once again occupying my mental apartment – blissfully unaware of the real world around me as he slaughtered everything he could get his claws on.
    Yeah, thinking about Sally was far less disturbing. Well, maybe not really. That thought of her being dangerous might be worth listening to. She was a killer. I wasn’t about to fool myself into thinking otherwise. She’d been a killer before she met me and, despite mellowing out a bit, still didn’t have any problems with taking lives if the need arose. The Sally who was with my friends now was a bizarre mix of the past and present. I had no idea how she’d react if pushed the wrong way. Well, okay, it would probably be with snarky violence, but the real question was, how far would that violence go?
    We’d only been living under the same roof for a few days and she hadn’t given me cause to worry about anything other than her sense of self-entitlement, but then again, she was smart. More than smart enough to realize the capabilities the rest of us brought to the table, with maybe the exception of Tom.
    This was maddening. I wasn’t Batman; I wasn’t used to distrusting the other members of my personal Justice League and forming contingencies just in case. Although, maybe the new me – the one trying to keep his head out of the sand of blissful ignorance – needed to.
    Ugh! This line of thinking was giving me a headache – not helped by the loud snores that had begun to permeate the quiet of the room. Whoever coined the phrase “sleeping like the dead” was full of shit.
    I grabbed a pillow from Dave’s couch and threw it at Mike, who snorted once and then turned over – ending the worst of it for the time being.
    The thing was, no matter which way I turned, there were potential pitfalls staring me in the face. Sally’s memories were just one. We had prophecies, explosive powers, and more standing in our path. Hell, none of that even counted the big stuff, like the nigh-invincible vampire we were tasked with somehow killing.
    “And that doesn’t even scratch the surface about the world ending,” I said to myself. Hah! Forget stepping into shit over my head. I was sinking in the Challenger Deep of latrines.
    These thoughts and others haunted me as I closed my eyes and attempted to drift off to sleep.
    * * *
    An odd sensation, like something crawling on my skin, dragged me back to consciousness. Pity, too. Sally and my third grade teacher, Mrs. Moranisberg, had just asked me to be the judge in a best blowjob contest and were busy arguing over who would go first.
    “Hurry up!” a whispered voice commanded.
    “You can’t rush art,” came the equally quiet response.
    What the?
    I cracked my eyes open and found Mike and Carl standing over me. Before they could say a word, I followed their guilty gaze up to Mike’s hand, which was holding a Sharpie right above my forehead.
    Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!
    “Um, hi, Bill,” he said.
    “I told you you were taking too long,” Carl muttered.
    “You’re probably wondering what...”
    I cut off Mike’s pathetic excuse by way of an uppercut to the jaw, which sent him flying across the room.
    I grabbed Carl by his shirt and flung him over my body in