“Regan, remember that you don’t know these … creatures,” Sofia comments, almost as if she can read Regan’s mind. And with Sofia, you never know. “They’re the enemy, and we need to destroy them in order to protect the town and the family you have that’s living.”

  Regan nods along, but still, why couldn’t it have been anybody else’s family?

  “And I’m going to get the proof we need so people will start listening to us for a change.” Bennett holds up his phone, ready to take a video.

  Not like having proof has stopped the parents from doubting the kids before.

  Parents, am I right?

  The four wait in the quiet. It’s almost too quiet. Occasionally, there’ll be the hoot of an owl, which makes Regan jump, which then makes Darius yelp. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into a half hour. After forty-five minutes, Bennett takes out his phone to text his friends.

  “Come on …” Sofia says quietly as she tightens the grip around a baseball bat. “Come on …” Then she lets out a yawn.

  Goodness, zombies can be so inconsiderate of others’ time, huh?

  It’s almost unbearable just waiting for something to happen.

  It’s not like they want to come face-to-face with zombies, but there’s also this thing where you just want something to happen.

  Our time is precious, you know?

  Like, you have stuff to do, right? You can’t just sit and wait for pages and pages and pages for action to happen. You want to get right to it, don’t you? Enough of this incessant babbling from a narrator. You want excitement! Blood! Guts!

  Me too.

  Which is why it’s just so frustrating that nothing is happening. I keep typing and typing and nothing. Just the click-clack of the keyboard but no zombies, just the babble of a clearly unhinged narrator.

  Wouldn’t it be great if I stopped stalling and just got to it?

  Oh, you want that?

  Are you sure?

  Because let me tell you something: You may think you want to see a super intense scene involving these kids and zombies, but I don’t want to be responsible for your nightmares. So if you continue reading, it’s at your own risk.

  Yes, yes, you’ve heard this before. It’s like Give it a rest, lady, we get it! But I just want to make sure you’re really listening to me.

  So here we go.

  Something is going to happen.

  No more stalling.

  I swear.

  I’m totally on your side on getting to the action.

  Like I said, I’m done with stalling.

  Seriously.

  Totally done.

  Like, for real this time.

  “Where are they?” Sofia whispers. (Told you I was getting to it! Sometimes you can trust a ginger. Sometimes.)

  “Maybe it’s just the three we saw yesterday?” Regan says with hope in her voice.

  Even though those three still need to be dealt with.

  Speaking of, where are those zombies?

  “Plus, we also have the people who went missing. I don’t think we’re lucky enough for there to only be three,” Darius says right as the ground below him starts to rumble.

  Darius takes a step back, trying to get his balance as the grass shakes. He looks at the grave it’s coming from: Jonathan Joseph Charles, born in 1942, died in 2013. As Darius leans forward to read the worn description of Jonathan, dirt explodes in his face.

  “Ah!” Darius calls out.

  While the instinct for most is to run away from explosions and noise and dirt flying everywhere, Darius plants himself and gets the bat ready. There’s a sound of cracking wood, and then more dirt erupts from the grave. A bony hand pops up, and Darius watches in horror as an arm with flesh peeling off digs upward.

  The zombie moans as it makes its way out of the ground.

  “You can do this,” Darius says to himself as he waits for the head to appear.

  A mound of dirt comes up as the zombie pulls its body up.

  Darius is stunned as the zombie—with its tattered suit and tie—looks up at him with its white skin and dark circles under its eyes. Oh, and if you’re wondering what a body that’s been buried for over ten years smells like (to use a very scientific medical term) Peeeeee-Yooooou! Like, those super stinky clones from book one smell like sunshine and roses compared to the rotting flesh with the, um, maggots crawling in the zombie’s eye sockets and open wounds.

  Hey, you asked! I mean, maybe you didn’t … My bad!

  Anyhoo, Darius freezes at the sight.

  “What are you waiting for?” Sofia asks as she rushes over.

  Darius pulls the bat back and swings at the zombie’s head but misses, causing him to tumble into the grave, right next to the zombie.

  “Ah!” Darius screams as he tries to claw his way out, kicking fiercely so the zombie doesn’t bite him.

  (See, I told you things were going to get intense, but some people never learn.)

  The zombie grabs Darius’s shoulder pads, its teeth biting only inches from Darius’s arm. Darius pushes himself up with all his force and gives the zombie a kick before scrambling out of the grave. He’s panting and looking over every inch of his body to make sure he hasn’t been bitten.

  The zombie follows Darius’s path up out of the grave, and before Darius can even realize what’s happening, the zombie is standing over him. And the zombie is tall, well over six feet, and is currently towering over a shaking Darius, whose bat is several feet away.

  “Ah!” Sofia screams as she approaches the zombie with her own bat.

  There’s no way Sofia—who is under five feet tall—will be able to reach its head to kill it.

  “Take that!” Sofia exclaims as she takes the bat to the zombie’s knee.

  CRACK!

  The zombie goes down and nearly lands on top of Darius, who quickly jumps up. He bends down to grab his bat, but the zombie is clawing toward Darius. Its mouth is only inches from Darius’s ankle. Darius finally gets the bat and then …

  THUD!

  He takes the bat and brings it down on the zombie’s head.

  Again.

  And again.

  Black gunk from inside the zombie’s head sprays Darius and Sofia.

  Gag.

  Darius lands one more final blow and the zombie’s head is basically a pile of mush. Believe me, you only want me to describe it as mush, as you truly don’t want to know the horror that is inside a zombie’s rotting head. (I think we all learned our lesson over the smell. Oh wait, there’s another lesson. I’m sorry with all this learning. You know what that means: Joke time! Okay, here you go: Why couldn’t the skeleton fart in front of his friends? He didn’t have the guts.)

  Now back to the zombie bashing.

  Darius pokes at the lifeless zombie in front of him.

  “Is it … dead … again?” Sofia asks.

  “It is. We did it!”

  “Nice job!” Sofia gives him a nod of respect.

  “Well, I’d be zombie toast if you didn’t get its knee.”

  Sofia turns around to where Bennett is filming and Regan is frozen. “No thanks to either of you.”

  “Hey!” Bennett protests. “We now have proof, because of me.” He holds up his phone, which has footage of Darius killing (or is it re-deadening?) the zombie.

  “Yes, you’re the real hero here, Bennett,” Sofia says dryly. “Standing around and filming while the rest of us risk our lives.”

  “Aw, come on, Sof.”

  “It’s Sofia.”

  “Ah, Regan, you okay over there?” Darius asks an even-paler-than-normal Regan.

  “That’s my great-uncle. Well, was. I mean, like, many years ago, before I was born, but still. My dad knew him.” Regan shivers, and she puts her arms protectively around herself.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be here,” Darius suggests. “This has to be hard for you.”

  And there it is.

  It was only a matter of time before Darius, Sofia, and Bennett would want to get rid of her. Maybe this is the excuse they all need for Regan to get lost, and it’s not like she wants to fight zombies.

  But no. This started with her family and Regan needs to fix this, regardless if any of them want her there. And maybe, just maybe, if she can help, it’ll erase all the bad vibes that come with being a Wilder / Charles.

  Regan is going to do whatever it takes to get rid of these zombies and curse for good.

  “I can do this.” But the waver in Regan’s voice isn’t giving the rest of the group confidence.

  “It doesn’t really matter, as it’s not our problem anymore.” Bennett swaggers to the group as he holds up his phone. “We have proof. Our parents have to listen to us now.”

  Darius nods along. “We should go to my mom. The video will explain what’s been happening to the tourists. She’ll have no choice but to believe what’s right in front of her.”

  “Sounds good,” Regan says, hopeful that the adults can take over from here.

  As the four start walking away from the cemetery, the ground begins shaking again.

  “I thought it was only one a night?” Bennett says.

  Darius shrugs his shoulder. “That’s what’s been happening. At least my mom thought it was one grave a night.”

  Now, you and I know better at this point with the kind of luck these kids have been having. So we know what’s coming next, even though they might not.

  BAM! There’s another explosion of dirt in the corner where the Charleses’ graves are.

  The four take their bats and start approaching the grave.

  But then another grave explodes.

  And another.

  It feels like an earthquake with all the rumbling and dirt flying all over.

  As the dirt clears, the outlines of several zombies come into view.

  “We need to leave,” Sofia says, but when she turns around, the three other zombies have come back.

  The children are surrounded.

  So there’s only one choice.

  Want to guess what Sofia’s about to say?

  Yup.

  “Run!”

  Our poor kids.

  Running for their lives. Again.

  Having to convince adults there’s something wicked going on in Cauldron’s Cove. Again.

  After sprinting (seriously, the foursome should try out for track with all this running they’ve been doing) to Darius’s house, they don’t even pause, but run inside and lock the doors behind them.

  They don’t even notice that they’re covered in a combination of dirt and black zombie guts, and smell like rotting flesh.

  In short, they are a hot mess as they are about to see the mayor of Cauldron’s Cove.

  But to Darius, she’s just Mom.

  “Mom!” Darius calls out as he runs into the living room.

  Darius’s mother is dressed in a smart black pantsuit, but with a shirt decorated with cartoon witches—as when one is the mayor of Cauldron’s Cove, they have to dress the part: sensible, but with a wink to the town’s love of all things witchy.

  As long as it’s in the form of fake-broomstick bumper cars at Broom Broom Speedway or spiced pumpkin scones at Witches’ Brew and SandWitch Shop. Not if it’s real. Especially not if it’s deadly.

  “Mom!” Darius calls out again.

  His mother holds up her finger and scowls at him, which causes the others to stop in their tracks. We’ve all seen that look from parents. The you-better-be-seen-not-heard-because-I’ve-got-important-adult-stuff-going-on-and-my-patience-is-already-wearing-thin look.

  “I just don’t understand,” she says into the phone as she curls a finger around one of her locs that she usually wears in a high bun. But once the mayor gets home, she lets her hair down, literally. “Where could they go? The police have looked everywhere—the woods, the levee—we’ve knocked on every door. People don’t just disappear.”

  “We know what happened!” Darius screams out.

  His mother’s head snaps to him, and she gives him another look.

  The one that you know you’re in so much trouble it’s best to run into your room and hide under your covers. Yeah, that bad.

  There aren’t many things worse than being in trouble with your parents, but being eaten by a zombie is definitely one of them. So Darius refuses to give up.

  “We can help! You need to listen to us!” Darius’s voice is in hysterics.

  I mean, the dude just killed a zombie and ran for his life, so do you blame him?

  (Me neither.)

  Mayor Washington puts her hand over the phone. “Darius Reginald Washington, you get your—” But his mom stops when she takes in the state of the children. Her eyebrows knit with concern as she talks into the phone. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

  She hangs up and walks over to her son. “What on earth happened to you?”

  “It’s zombies!” Darius exclaims.

  I mean, he probably should’ve warmed her up to the idea, but we don’t have time to mess around. Ergo, Darius goes all in. And I mean all in.

  “It’s Ann Wilder. She’s a witch who cursed Cauldron’s Cove back in the 1600s when the town burned her alive, and for whatever reason the curse finally has been unleashed, and it started with Ms. Stein and these monsters she cloned from us, but we were able to destroy Ms. Stein’s lair, but it didn’t break the curse, and now it’s zombies that are from Ann Wilder’s family, and, well, it’s Regan’s family, too, and we were just in the cemetery and they came to life from the grave, and it was crazy and dirt was flying everywhere, and I smashed one of them in the head to kill it—well, to make it dead again—but more just kept coming and coming, and they were after us, and now they’re probably everywhere, and they are the ones responsible for the missing people, and so now that you know the truth, you need to get the police over to the cemetery right now, and they need to kill the zombies, but remind them the only way to do it is to destroy their brains, and hopefully when all the Charleses who died in the last fifty years are killed again, the curse will finally be broken.”

  Darius finally takes a breath.

  His mom’s mouth has dropped open. She blinks in shock over her son’s revelation.

  “And we have proof!” Bennett says as he pulls up the video.

  Mayor Washington nods slowly as Bennett shows her the video. It’s dark because, you know, it’s nighttime, but you can clearly see something come up from the grave and Darius and Sofia battling it. The mayor cringes when Darius bashes in the zombie’s brains.

  “See!” Darius says as he points to the screen. “It’s real.”

  Mayor Washington walks over to the kitchen counter and places her hands on it to steady herself.

  Poor Mayor Washington. Of all the times to be the mayor of Cauldron’s Cove. Her job is hard enough without having to deal with zombies and a witch’s curse.

  What is she going to do?

  “Darius,” she begins.

  (Here it is. An adult is finally going to be useful!)

  “I don’t have time right now for pranks.”

  (Or not.)

  “But, Mom—”

  “I cannot believe my own son would do this to me. I have enough with all the tourists’ shenanigans this time of year. We have a lot of eyes on us right now with the Zombie 5K this weekend and Halloween coming up. I’m dealing with missing tourists and you come into my house—the home that your father and I have provided for you—to start stirring up trouble. I don’t think so, mister.”

  “But, but …” Darius blinks a few times, probably realizing that his own mother isn’t going to believe him. Again. “We have proof. You saw the video.”

  His mom actually rolls her eyes. Like she didn’t just witness her son bashing in a zombie’s head.

  “You kids with your videos and social media. I’ve seen the Senior Center put on a more convincing performance.”

  Oh, she did not just go there. Here’s something you should probably know so you realize how insulting that comment is: The Cauldron’s Cove Senior Center’s yearly Halloween show is a legendary event in town. Mostly because of how hilariously cringeworthy it is. And not because it has rotting brains spewing from a bashed-in head, but because it’s just bad. Last year’s show had the seniors wrapped in toilet paper trying to be mummies and shimmying and shaking their tushies to the “Monster Mash.”

  So for Darius’s mom to suggest that is more real than a video of an actual zombie being beaten in the head by her son is just wrong.

  I’m going to keep saying it because … Parents, am I right?

  “But, Mom!” Darius tries. Again.

  “I will not hear it!” She then turns to the rest of the group. “And I’m going to talk with all your parents as well. First detention, and then those stunts you pulled in town. Need I remind you that I was told you were at the library when you were clearly doing some prank at the cemetery of all places.” (Yep, those little white lies were eventually going to catch up to them, which will make the parents not believe them when they say things like “There are zombies,” even though THERE ARE ZOMBIES! Yep, I broke out the all-caps because ZOMBIES, PEOPLE!)

  Mayor Washington looks out at the foursome. “I honestly don’t know what’s been going on with you all.”

  “It’s the curse!” Darius exclaims. He throws his head back in frustration. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Because why would Helen Harris lie about you stomping through her picnic?”

  “It wasn’t me—”

  She waves her hand at him. “Oh yes, it was your clone. Honestly, Darius.”

  Ugh.

  How annoying it is that parents never seem to forget the one time you did something bad. It’s like, you do all these things right— make your bed, do the dishes, mop the floor, take out the trash, don’t put your boogers under the kitchen table—but they never remember that. Just the bad things. Yes, I know I broke your favorite vase, but I was only eight and it was an accident, and now I’m a somewhat mature adult scaring children for a living. Just get over it, Mom!

  (It appears that Darius isn’t the only one with parental issues.)

  Mayor Washington rubs her eyes from the stress of it all. She walks over to her son and places her hands on his shoulders.

  “I am only going to say this one more time, and I need to make sure you understand me, Darius.” She takes a deep breath. “I do not want to hear another word about curses or zombies, do you understand me?”