At 2:00 a.m., my eyes flew open. Dogs barking outside. Headbutt, who had been curled at the foot of my bed, now stood at the window, eyes unblinking, ears peaked. I lay still, listening.
Another sound.
Thump… Thump… Crash. The garbage cans?
Damn raccoons.
A growl thrummed in Headbutt’s throat.
Nonnie’s porch light switched on and shone against my bedroom wall.
I climbed out of bed and peered out the window to find a full moon, not a cloud in the sky. Things looked right enough. But Little Allie wasn’t convinced.
A few minutes later the sound came again. Thump… Thump… Thud.
What the hell?
Something, or someone, was in my backyard.
I threw on my Wonder Woman robe, shoved my phone into the pocket, then grabbed Hawk from the nightstand.
Stepping softly down the hallway, I nearly collided with Capple, as he rounded the living room wall.
“Shit,” he hissed, lowering his weapon.
Footsteps padded out from the darkness in the hall behind me. “What is it with this neighborhood? Don’t you people ever sleep?”
“Damn it, Leo,” I whispered. “Go back to your room, lock the door, and don’t come out until I tell you.”
Leo’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Hawk in my hand. He did a 360 and retraced his steps down the hall, feeling his way along the wall. His door closed softly, followed by an audible click, as the lock tumbled into place.
I turned to Capple and said, “You take the front yard. I’ll take the back.”
Capple nodded and disappeared into the living room, while I crept into the kitchen. The glow from Nonnie’s porch light filtered in through the curtains on the back door, illuminating not only the ugliest linoleum floor ever, but the shadow of the person standing outside my door.
I darted forward, and took cover beside the refrigerator.
Then Nonnie’s unmistakable voice blared through the door.
“Miss Allie?” she said, banging on the door. “Someone out back. Let me in.”
I raced across the kitchen, unlocked the door, and threw it wide.
“Come here,” I said, pulling her inside.
Headbutt howled and scooted past me, then tore, bulldog-style, across the backyard. Only one thing could make him move like that.
Nonnie wrenched her arm loose from my hand, pushed through the door, and scrambled after Headbutt.
I flipped on the backyard floodlight, and sprinted after them both, pulling out my phone and speed dialing Rico.
“Get over here, now,” I yelled. “Ferris, too! Code… Oh, what the hell. We got biters!”
Headbutt bayed furiously and disappeared behind the tool shed, with Nonnie trailing, maybe twenty yards back.
Next came the sounds of breaking glass and Headbutt’s frenzied snarls.
I raced past Nonnie, yelling, “Get back inside, now.”
After rounding the corner of the tool shed, the source of the commotion came into view, and I skidded to a halt. A deadhead, of the corpsicle variety, flailed helplessly, impaled on a jagged spike of glass rising up from the broken window frame.
Despite my order for Nonnie to return to the house, she had followed me, wringing her hands, sobbing hysterically. One look at the corpsicle found her crossing herself and slowly backing away.
Leo, the last to arrive, put his hands on his knees and gasped for air. Nonnie launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around him, nearly tackling him in the process.
Those two would be the death of me yet.
“Damn it, Leo. I told you to stay in your room.”
Headbutt sunk his teeth, gum-deep, into the rotter’s leg and shook it like a rag doll.
The biter writhed against the serrated edges of the glass, shearing off bits of zushi that splattered like chum bombs on top of Headbutt.
Every time that crazy dog jerked his head, flesh flayed off the rotter’s leg in long wet strips, exposing degloved muscles that glistened like fish bellies in the moonlight.
I leveled Hawk and took aim, but had second thoughts. It was the middle of the night. The homeowners association already hated me. One more hundred-dollar fine and I’d have moths flying out of my pockets.
So, I pulled open the door to the tool shed, reached in, and wrapped my fingers around the first object I came to—a hoe.
I owned a hoe?
What the hell, the business end of that thing would shred a biter into coleslaw faster than a Veg-O-Matic. I turned, raised the hoe high, and whaled it down on the deadhead’s skull.
Brains and bone splattered like blowback from a gunshot. The biter’s body sank deeper into the jagged glass and severed at the ribcage, leaving its top half still impaled on the glass, leaking liquid decomp on two generations of worthless shit shoved inside the shed. Its bottom half slid slowly down the shed’s vinyl exterior, painting it, and my yard, zushi red.
Damn it. A middle of the night, make-it-go-away-before-dawn kind of clean-up. Jimmy at Splatz would charge me an arm and a leg for this mess. So to speak.
Thoughts of the clean-up cost disappeared when Nonnie screamed on the far side of the shed.
I tore around the corner and found her backed up against the siding, another corpsicle gnashing its teeth, inches from her neck.
Leo pulled on its arm to keep it away from her, but the arm came off in his hand.
Freaking corpsicles fall apart faster than pork roast in a crockpot.
“Leo. Get back to the goddam house,” I screamed. “I’ve got this.”
The rotter turned and lunged at me. I swung the hoe like a Louisville Slugger and took its head clean off, sending it into the Winstel’s backyard, leaving a juicy trail in its wake.
Well, crap. Another job for Splatz. After tonight, Jimmy should dedicate a wing to me.
Nonnie headed straight for me, waddling faster than any gum-grinder I’d ever seen. I put my arms around her and told her everything would be fine.
Then Leo moaned.
I let go of Nonnie and whirled around to find him curled into a fetal position on the ground, his muscles randomly contracting.
“Nighthawk,” he whimpered. “Help me.”
Oh, God. No. No. Not now, Leo. Not now.
I knelt down and swung his arm across my shoulder. “Stay with me, Leo. Let’s get you inside, so you can take your meds.”
Everything was falling apart, dammit.
C’mon, Rico. Where the hell are you?
I glanced up to find Capple ambling toward me, his weapon at his side.
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Where the hell have you been?” I asked.
“Securing the front yard. Like you asked.”
“Were there any biters out there?”
“No,” he mumbled, eyes glued to the corpsicle’s jawbone that lay at his feet.
I reeled at the sound of footsteps. Rico and Ferris sprinted toward us from the side yard. Thank God.
I turned back to chew Capple a new one for taking his sweet time, but the words caught in my throat. A biter had grabbed Capple from behind, its teeth inches from his neck.
I had no choice but to pull Hawk and squeeze off a shot, drilling the rotter’s forehead. The bullet blasted out the back of the deadhead’s skull, blowing biter bits all over Capple.
“Grab Leo,” I yelled to Rico. “He’s having another seizure.”
Rico and I carried Leo back into the house, with Nonnie in tow, while Ferris and Capple cleared the yard, making sure we’d seen the last of the biters.
If my neighbors hadn’t been awakened by the barking dogs, the crashing garbage cans, or the sound of breaking glass, the gunshot might have succeeded. But they’d seen and heard some weird shit at my house over the years. Two-to-one, they’d rolled over and gone back to sleep.
We got Leo into the house and laid him on the kitchen floor. His muscles had stopped contracting, but the whites of his eyes had turned a sickly beige, and his irises, a golden yellow.
“Nighthawk,” he rasped. “You look funny.”
“It’s okay, Leo.” I held him and jabbed the medicine into his thigh. “Just relax. You should feel better any time now.”
He lay in my arms, looking at the ceiling, tears welling in his eyes, no doubt wondering what muscle contractions and visual changes meant. It was probably better that neither of us knew.
Misplaced or not, the anger that burned inside me exploded. I slid out from beneath Leo and jumped to my feet.
“What the fuck were you thinking out there, Crapple?”
“It’s Capple,” he said with a snarl. “You want to tell me what you mean by that?”
I poked my finger in his face. “Nonnie moved faster than you did. What the hell took you so long? You trying to get me killed?” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “If you’re going to work with this team, you’d better get somethi...”
The power cut off. I dropped to the floor and dragged Leo beneath the kitchen table, then pulled the chairs in as far as they’d go, to hide him.
“Nonnie,” I whispered, “Crawl under here with Leo. And whatever happens, keep quiet.”
“Wait,” she said, yanking open the cupboard door above the stove.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She pulled out a giant box of quinoa and plunged her hand inside it. “A gift from my Mortie—God rest his soul. I bring when Leo tell me about zumbas. Just in case.”
She slid her hand from the box, pulling out a .44 Magnum and a gallon-size baggie of ammo.
God help the zumbas—and anyone else within range.
Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed the cast iron skillet from the burner on the stove.
“Now, I ready,” said Nonnie, the world’s only two-fisted zumba killer.
While my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I heard Rico, Ferris and Capple scrambling for cover in the living room. Once they got into place, an expectant hush fell over the house.
I crawled away from the table, feeling my heart beat quicken. With Leo and Nonnie hiding there, that was the last place I wanted to be when trouble started. But my options were limited. I crept across the room and hunkered down between the refrigerator and the stove.
Spread out, in the dark, not knowing exactly where my guys were—that’s as dangerous as it gets. God help me if I took one of them out by accident.
“Rico?” I called softly.
“Here,” He said, raising his arm high enough for me to see that he was concealed behind the arm of the couch.
Fingers drummed against the side of the entertainment center that held my fifty-two-inch pride and joy. “Over here,” Ferris whispered.
“Here,” muttered Capple, followed by the unmistakable cocking of a gun.
I followed the sound and choked back a laugh. Moonlight, streaming through the picture window, illuminated a lone drapery panel that stuck out a good eighteen inches further than the others.
For the third time that evening, the sound returned: Thump…thump… Bam. Thump…thump… Bam.
Sweat trickled down my forehead.
Thump…thump… Bam. Again. And again. And again. Then more of the same sequence, faster, and over-running the sequence before, until the expectant hush that had filled the house, only minutes earlier, had been replaced with an incessant, relentless pounding.
In one horrible moment of clarity, I realized what they were doing. They were trying to break down the doors.
But, just as quick as the pounding started, it stopped. The four of us stepped out from behind our cover and silently huddled together, back to back, in the center of the living room, guns at high ready, peering into the darkness, waiting for whatever was coming.
The kitchen door splintered and a corpsicle broke through. I fired, sending its head airborne. Another deadhead tumbled in behind it. And then another. And another. Then the picture window exploded and a tide of biters rushed inside.
I brought Hawk to bear and wondered what it would be like to be eaten alive.