Summary

Chapter 1

Sixteen year-old Eleanor Fitt is in line at the telegraph office when she hears a woman scream that the Dead have descended on them. The Dead alarm, consisting of bells, rings out. In the week before, several bodies have escaped the grave in Laurel Hill Cemetery. Eleanor rushes to hide in the clerk’s office. She had been waiting for her brother, Elijah, to come home from three years abroad on the New York train, though he has not shown up. When he missed the train the week before, he had telegraphed Eleanor; now, he has not, and she knows something is wrong. Suddenly, one of the walking Dead reaches through the window, though it does not attack Eleanor, and she wonders why. She then finds a letter, delivered by the corpse. She hears a loud crack, and the alarm bells die...