October 15, 12:59 a.m.
Tuscon, Arizona
“Come on, baby, you’re not scared are you?” Tyler Henderson had said the same thing to three different girls already this month, and it worked every time. You talk to a girl, you get her out to the gates of the cemetery, and you make her afraid you’ll think she’s chicken. Ninety percent of the work is done. God, he loved October.
Annabell Crane was just like all the rest – young, flexible, and naïve. She was a senior at the same high school he’d dropped out of, and while he typically preferred his meat a bit younger, she had a mouthwatering innocence, a total virginal quality to her, that had made her impossible to resist. His hand was wrapped around her arm as he led her into the graveyard, and he could feel the gooseflesh on her skin. She shivered, although from cold or fear he couldn’t tell, and she was clutching the strap of her gargantuan purse and holding it close to her face like a security blanket.
“I don’t know about this,” she said. “Tyler, it’s freezing out here. Why don’t we just go home?”
“My parents are there, baby. This way we can be alone. Don’t you want to be alone with me?” He pulled her deeper into the graveyard, twisting around through the rows of headstones and memorials, leading her inexorably towards the mausoleum.
“Of course I do,” she said. “But I don’t want to freeze my ass off either.”
“Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll make sure your ass is nice and hot.” He reached back and goosed her as he said it, and she jumped a little in his hand. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before he didn’t have to go through her jeans or that mousey (but oh so deliciously tight) gray sweater to pinch her soft parts right up close. She wasn’t looking in his eyes at the moment, but if she had, she would have seen a devilish reflection of the full moon gazing down at her.
When she got to the mausoleum, he waved her into the pitch-black crypt. She hesitated at the door. “I don’t want to go in there,” she said. “It’s probably full of roaches and spiders and things.”
“It’s fine,” he said, a hint of agitation in his voice. This was going to happen, why did some chicks have to make a goddamn production out of it? He produced a Zippo lighter from his pocket and flicked it, giving off a soft orange glow. He stepped into the crypt and used the Zippo to light the candles he’d put there earlier, surrounding the green sleeping bag unrolled in the center of the room. “Look, no creepy-crawlies to worry about.”
“What is this?” she said, sounding appalled. “You planned this?”
“Ain’t it romantic?”
“It’s disgusting! There’s dirt and cobwebs and… look, you tracked in more mud!”
He glanced down to see a pair of size eleven muddy prints leading to where he stood. “Must have been a fresh grave out there somewhere. No big deal.” He kicked his shoes off, one of them bouncing off the nameplate for HAROLD ANDERS, 1942-2002, leaving a muddy streak across his first name. “Come on, sugar. Just relax.”
“No. No way. I’m getting out of here.” She turned to leave, but he was between her and the exit before she could blink.
“Look, sweetheart, I’m gonna have my fun tonight either way. It’d be nice if you had some fun too, but it’s not a requirement.” He had her up against the wall of the mausoleum, her back pressed against the names of the dead, her head turned to evade his stale breath as his smile drew closer and closer.
She looked past him, trying to find a way out. It would be one of those, he thought. Okay, if that’s the way she wanted it, he would—
What was she smiling at?
There was a sharp, searing pain in his shoulder and he screamed, lashing back and striking somebody who had crept up behind him. (And she saw him, the bitch saw him and she didn’t say a word!) He turned to see a lanky, gray-haired man in an impeccably tailored Italian suit that was covered in thick, fresh mud. The man’s skin was ashen, his eyes sunken, and his mouth and neck were red with Tyler’s blood.
“What the f—did he just bite… what the hell…”
Annabell, though, was still smiling. “Zombie,” she said. “Cool.” She calmly reached into her purse and pulled out a small pistol. She aimed it at Tyler’s attacker and squeezed the trigger once. The report was louder than he would have expected from a gun so small, and it still echoed in the mausoleum after the zombie stopped twitching.
“I knew there was something going on in this cemetery,” she said. “I just didn’t know what.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What kind of monster it was. I came prepared for anything, though.” She opened up her huge purse and withdrew a pair of wooden stakes, a vial marked “Holy Water,” a silver knife, and a good old-fashioned taser. “The taser was in case the worst thing around here was you. Nothing personal, but I needed some bait and I didn’t feel like playing the part myself. You… well, your reputation precedes you, Tyler. Oh, that reminds me…”
She opened up her gun and shook the bullets out. “Silver,” she said. “They’ll kill anything a lead slug can, but they’re the only thing that works on a werewolf. They’re expensive, though, so I don’t use them if I know I don’t need them.” She began to reload the gun, drawing duller bullets from her purse.
“I… I got…”
“Bit, yes, I know. And that means you’re running out of time.” She raised the gun, pointing it at Tyler’s face.
“What? No! No, I-”
“Again,” she said, “nothing personal, but I’m damn sure not going to walk away and let a new zombie pop up. Sorry, Tyler, but you didn’t have much to live for anyway.”
She squeezed the trigger again.
