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that moment I saw everything.
    Harrigan and Jed were still crouched by the corner of the house, and between us, spread across the long green lawn of the back yard, were the dark shapes of at least a dozen dead bodies. They were misshapen mounds, their limbs twisted at impossible angles, their corpses torn and dismembered. They were young and old. They were terribly mutilated.
    They were the reason I had tripped and fallen.
    I had stumbled over the dead.
    I stared aghast – and then, mercifully, the night slammed down like an anvil and the back yard became dark once more.
    But the image of that instant was burned into my mind and it stayed with me for long seconds afterwards as my panic returned, multiplied many times over.
    Were they dead? I mean really dead.
    Or were they undead?
    Was I standing in a macabre slaughter-yard… or was I about to be set upon by the bodies in the grass, as they rose up from the ground in demented madness and tore me to pieces?
    Fear paralyzed me – turned my limbs to lead. I shrank down against the fence and for long seconds I could do nothing more than concentrate on breathing. I closed my eyes and the image of the bodies littered across the lawn came back to me in gory detail. I saw the horror of their pale faces, their bloodied, muddied torsos and the gnawed, severed limbs – and it was so vivid and so confronting that I started to shake. I tore my eyes open, expecting the night to be filled with black hunting shadows – but there was just the howl of the wind and the drumming hiss of the rain. I drew a deep breath and forced myself into action. I fumbled the cigarette lighter from my pocket and flicked it.
    The lighter sparked, then was immediately extinguished by the swirling downdrafts of wind. I did it again. And again.
    Half a dozen times I flicked the lighter, sending an intermittent pattern of split-second sparks like a marker beacon. Then I leaned back against the fence, and waited – either for the mutilated bodies to rise, or for Jed and Harrigan to find me.
    It was impossible to see anything in the crushing dark of the night. Down low against the fence, the ambient orange glow from the distant fires was blocked out, so that all of my senses were heightened – and all of them were utterly useless. My sense of smell was overwhelmed by the thick cloying stench of rotting corpses, and the smell of muddy earth and grass.
    I waited.
    The trembling in my hands became worse. I was shaking like a leaf. I told myself it was the soaking cold – and maybe it was. Maybe.
    My teeth began to chatter and I was overcome by the sudden urge to run – to run anywhere. Just to flee like a coward. I wanted to be away from this place. I wanted to be away from the fear. I wanted to be safe – and I wanted to see again. More than anything else, I wanted that. The crushing dark and the horror-fueled images in my mind sent my imagination into overdrive. The clatter of the helicopter became the menacing scream of a horde of zombies. The slap of the wind against my neck became the fetid gasping breath of the undead. Alone in the dark, I felt myself unraveling.
    I heard it too late – the splashing sound beside me of heavy footsteps. Then I saw movement – just the flicker of a darker shadow, but by the time I saw it, it was too late to react. I had time for a final gasping choking breath – and then whatever moved in the night was upon me.
    “Fucker!”
    It was Jed. I felt him crash into me and then slump down against the fence, the heat of his body hard against my shoulder. He was panting, his breath sawing raggedly across his throat. Not a second later, the shape of Clinton Harrigan appeared as a drifting black shadow a little to my left. I choked down a cry of panic that was rising up into my throat, and was overwhelmed by a surge of relief. They had found me.
    “Fucker!” Jed said again, snarling. He was angry, but it was anger mixed with his own fear, and it flamed as he fumed in