Page 10 of Grave Danger

“But that’s normal stuff. We don’t go looking for dangerous things every day.”

“True. But we’re the best qualified around here to keep the dangerous things away from people who aren’t even aware that dangerous things exist.”

“Lucky bastards.”

Demmy smiled. “I agree. Look, I know we didn’t ask for any of this, but I see it as not having a choice.”

“We could choose not to do anything about this one,” Cody said. “We could sit this one out.”

“Could you really live with yourself if someone died because the mayor has somehow come back to life and dug his way out of the grave and you were the first person to run into him and didn’t try to stop him? You wouldn’t feel at all guilty if someone got bit by him and died? Or, worse, what if they turned themselves and this, whatever this is, started spreading?”

“You’re a regular fucking ray of sunshine this morning, aren’t you?”

“I’m just trying to help you see things as I do. If we can help somehow, we should.”

“You really do just want to do good, don’t you?”

Demmy nodded. “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

Cody hesitated, thinking about it. Then, with a deciding nod, he said, “As long as my husband is by my side and not taking wildly dangerous risks, I absolutely do.”

“Well, good. Because I’m not going anywhere, hot stuff.” Demmy held up his left hand and pointed to the silver wedding band. “You put a ring on it. You’re stuck with me.”

Cody smiled, and it seemed to fit better on his face than it had earlier. “Good thing, because you’re not getting rid of me, either.”

“Six and a half feet of hunky male beefcake?” Demmy sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll keep you.”

Cody cleaned up the kitchen while Demmy took a shower and dressed. Then Cody showered and dressed, and they headed for the door. Before Demmy could open it, however, Cody stopped him with a quiet, “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Demmy turned to him.

Cody pulled him close and gave him a soft kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Good. Now let’s go hunt down a zombie.”

The main office of the Hollow of Eternal Rest Cemetery was a tiny space wedged inside a large stone building. When Cody and Demmy entered, a few employees stood in a group behind a front desk, leaning in and talking over each other in quick, quiet voices. At the sound of the door, a woman looked up and broke away from the others.

“Hello, may I help you?”

“Yes,” Cody said. “We’re looking for the plot number for Mayor George Clarke. We’d like to pay our respects.”

“Oh.” She looked over her shoulder toward the people she’d been talking with, and Cody noticed they’d gone quiet and were looking at him and Demmy.

“Is there a problem?” Demmy asked.

The woman turned back with a forced smile. “No, no problem. It’s just… There’s some groundskeeping work being done in that area right now, and we’re supposed to keep people away from there for the rest of the day.”

“Sounds like some pretty intense groundskeeping work,” Cody said. “We won’t bother anyone. We just want to make a quick visit to his grave to pay our respects, and then we’ll be gone.”

“Yes, I understand. It’s just that the groundskeeping crew is really busy and, um, stretched a little thin, so they’re not able to handle people out in that section, you know? So maybe another day to pay your respects?” The woman’s voice shook a bit, and she looked between them as she talked. Cody almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

Before Cody could say anything more, however, Demmy leaned on the counter and lowered his voice. “Is everything all right? You seem very nervous.” He leaned a bit to one side and looked past her. “All of you seem very nervous.”

“No,” the woman practically shouted, then tittered nervously. “No. We’re not nervous. We’re just talking about a, um, a new company policy that came out. That’s all.”

The door opened behind them, and Cody looked over his shoulder then whispered a curse that caught Demmy’s attention. Lucia Durant, deputy with the Parson’s Hollow sheriff’s department and one of Cody’s many ex-girlfriends, walked through the door. She was followed by Deputy Ryan Zellmer, and a man wearing a dark blue suit with a patterned tie. The man in the suit wore glasses with the kind of lenses that darken automatically when exposed to sunlight, and he dropped his chin to look at Cody and Demmy over the tops of the frames as they entered the low lighting of the office.