Chapter 9

chapter nine Without streetlamps or cities to light the sky, it's impossibly dark. Trees, unattended and overgrown, loom over us like shadowy figures. But as we ride, the clouds shift, the moon shines bright, and the sky seems extra huge. The stars look so big they could blind you. Rover quietly carries us down a winding road. Houses have begun to crumble as the Vine-Thingies choke them. Up ahead, zombies shuffle across the road, following the sound.

"It's like the Pied Piper of Hamelin," Quint whispers. "He was a dude who played a flute that lured rats to their death. The rats just followed the sound. They couldn't help it." "That happened?" I say. "When? Like, back in the nineties?" "No, Jack. It's a myth from the sixteenth century." "Oh." As we near Main Street, the crowd of shuffling zombies grows thicker. Oddly, they take no interest in our fleshy bodies. They are focused on only one thing: The Shrieking. I feel Quint's fingers tighten around my jacket. "Um, Jack. Could we find a more—uh—secure place to figure out what's going on?" "Good call," I say. "Higher ground. We can see how big this zombie parade really is." I tug on Rover's reins, steering him down a cramped alley. Ahead of us looms the Old South Graveyard. "Jack—really?" Quint groans. "Things aren't creepy enough with the zombies and the whistling?

You're taking us into the town graveyard?" "There," I say, pointing to a giant tomb atop the hill at the center of the cemetery. "We'll be able to see most of Wakefield from there." With barely a running start, Rover bounds over the cracked stone wall and we land inside the cemetery. Rover makes his way up the sloping hill. Then he springs forward, and we land atop the tomb. And from there, we see it all. Zombies as far as the eye can see... "It is definitely a pied-piper sort of thing," Quint says. "There must be thousands."

I raise my camera to snap a photo but suddenly feel Quint's fingers digging into my neck. I spin around. Quint looks like he's about to cry. Or vomit. Or both. At the same time. Which is just a really weird, awful image. "What is it?" I ask, but then I feel it, too. A quaking at my feet. A rumbling from inside the tomb. I look down. The stone beneath us is beginning to crack. "Quint," I say softly, my skin beginning to crawl with fear. "Let's go home. Now. Both of us." But it's too late—

BOOM！ I'm flung through the air like a rag doll. Quint smacks into a headstone. Rover hits the grass, flips, and tumbles down the hill. "Quint, duck!" I shout as chunks of stone and concrete rain down. The rubble pounds the grass like a meteor shower. It's like the tomb was detonated from the inside out. Like something suddenly ripped through it... Woozy, gripping the damp dirt, I get to my knees. And what I see—it makes my blood run ice cold...

THE HAIRY EYEBALL MONSTER. Reddonk size, Single, Solitary, super-scary eyeball could really use a haircut. The long fur on the monster's back straightens and stands up on end. The hair is no longer just hair —it's a million silvery, spiny quills. I quickly snap a photo. The flash explodes like white phosphorus in the darkness. The eyeball's iris splits open with a nauseating SHLUCK sound and the beast emits an earsplitting roar. The open iris