Page 106 of Grave Danger

Another arrow stuck into the skull of a woman in a dirty, tattered wedding dress, and she slumped down out of sight. Demetrius sat up straight and looked side to side.

“Someone’s out there!”

“Yeah, and they’re all hungry.”

“No, someone living! With a bow and arrow or a crossbow or something.”

Cody popped his head up and rested his chin on the seat back. “What? Where?”

“I don’t know, I can’t see them. But they’ve killed two—”

Another arrow landed, but this time it stuck in the neck of a zombie, leaving it upright.

“Holy shit!” Cody shouted.

He climbed into the front seat, nearly smacking Demetrius in the back of the head with his shoe. “Where are they?” Cody gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward, turning his head side to side. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

A gunshot made them both jump. Another zombie dropped out of sight.

“Whoever they are, they’ve got arrows and guns.” Cody laughed and clapped his hands. “Yes! Thank fucking God. Finally, someone’s saving our asses for a change.”

Gunfire took down several more zombies. The herd turned toward the sound and staggered off down the road. That opened up a clear line of sight. Two pickups were parked on either side of the dotted yellow line a short distance away. Headlights set to high flooded the interior of the Cadillac with light, and Demetrius and Cody both held up hands to shade their eyes as they heard gunfire and watched more zombies drop.

“It’s not the sheriff’s department,” Cody said. “They don’t have pickups.”

“Not state police or military either.”

“Must be some good ol’ boys from the farms going around and helping out.”

“God bless the good ol’ boys,” Demetrius said.

It took some time, but eventually all the zombies fell to either arrows or bullets. Demetrius opened his door and started to get out, but an unseen man in one of the trucks shouted, “Stop!”

He pulled the door shut and looked all around for any sign of threat. Nothing moved, and he watched the trucks pull up, big tires rolling slowly over the bodies. The trucks stopped several feet away and a few men clambered out. As they passed in front of the headlights of the trucks, Demetrius was surprised to see they were older than he’d imagined. Much older. One had thick white hair, and the other two were bald, one of them slightly stooped. But he held a hunting rifle like he knew how to use it.

The men bent over, grumbling and grunting with the effort, and peered underneath the car.

“Got a few live ones stuck underneath,” the man with the white hair said. “We gotta stick ‘em.”

One of the bald men returned to the trucks and pulled a long pole with a sharpened end from the back. He approached the Cadillac and handed the pole to the white-haired man. Meeting Demetrius’s eyes through the glass, he shrugged and said, “My back’s knotted up. Simon has to do this part.”

The white-haired man, apparently named Simon, jabbed the long pole under the Cadillac a few times before straightening once more. He held the spear like a staff and nodded at them.

“Okay. Safe to come out now.”

Demetrius eased the door open and looked down. A number of hands stretched out from under the car, fingers curled into claws but finally still.

“Shit,” Demetrius whispered. He put his foot way out, stepping over the hands, giving them a wide berth even though he knew the bodies were finally dead once again.

Picking his way around the back of the Cadillac, he made a face as he stepped in something slick. Deciding not to identify it, he continued around the car until he stood beside Cody and assessed their saviors.

“Thank you,” Cody said. “We wouldn’t have been able to get out of there if you hadn’t come along.”

“You’re welcome, young fella,” Simon said, then squinted at them. “You two look familiar. You got family in Parson’s Pines?”

“Yes!” Demetrius practically shouted. “We both do. My aunt, Amelia Waugh, lives in a condo there with Otis Bogdanovitch. And Cody’s grandmother, Felicia Bower, lives in the nursing care section.”