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“I think we better call an ambulance,” said Chase. He glanced around at the parking lot, wondering if more people had followed Kinnard’s example. And then he saw two zombies, also tied up and lying near the police station entrance. He hadn’t seen them before, which meant they must have beendelivered recently. He glanced around for a sign of UPS or FedEx but then caught sight of Wilbur Vickery entering the police station. He hollered, “Wilbur! Are those your zombies?”

Wilbur turned back and ambled up.“Yup, those be mine,” he said good-naturedly. “Found them in my store fridge this morning, trying to crack open a can of Dr. Pepper. They were easy to catch, so I figured I’d better bring them over.” He now glanced down into Kinnard’s truck. “Will you look at that. More zombies.”

“Yeah, looks like we’ve got ourselves a regular zombie invasion on our hands,” Kinnard confirmed.

And as if to prove his point, suddenly a small army of walking dead now came staggering past. There were at least thirty of them, and they all moved unsteadily in the direction of Town Hall. And before the eyes of the stunned onlookers, one by one they all jumped into the fountain that had been erected in the middle of Town Square, and dunked themselves straight into the water.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Wilbur. “Those are some real peculiar zombies.”

“Most zombies eat brains, but these just want water,” Kinnard agreed. He made a face. The owner of a liquor store, he wasn’t partial to plain old water as a beverage.

He was right, Chase saw: the zombies were gulping up the water and really getting soaked.

He picked out his phone.“I better call the mayor. This is getting out of hand.”

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Charlene Butterwick had never in her wildest dreams expected her political career to start off with such a bang. She’d only ever harbored the ambition to go into politics to help her fellow townies and be of service to her community. She didn’t want to become governor or president, just be the best mayor she could be. But she never thought she’d be faced with a zombie invasion her first week in office. So when she arrived for work that morning and saw a dozen zombies crawling all over the fountain in Town Square, with more arriving to join the party, she gulped and swerved and almost drove her car into the statue of a former mayor. Her phone chimed and when she picked up, saw that it was Chase, her brand-new chief of police.

“Um, Madam Mayor?” said Chase. “It would appear we have a zombie problem.”

“I can see that,” she said as she glanced over and saw Chase standing outside the police station holding up his hand.

She parked her car in her designated spot, got out, then quickly tripped over to where her chief stood.

“We caught one in my bathroom this morning,” Chase said by way of introduction.

“And I caught one in my jacuzzi,” said Kinnard, proudly pointing to the trussed-up zombie in his flatbed truck.

“And that’s my haul over there,” said Wilbur Vickery. “I found them having a go at a Dr. Pepper.”

“The one we found in our bathroom is at the hospital right now,” said Chase. “They’re not actually zombies at all, but suffering from some kind of debilitating disease.”

“Zombies are sick people, Chase, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?” said Wilbur. “They’re infected with some kind of virus, which makes them undead. So they’re dead, but they’re also not dead. And the virus is infectious. It spreads, so you gotta make sure they don’t come near you, and especially that they don’t bite you and eat your brains. That would be bad.”

“This lot doesn’t seem all that interested in brains, though,” said Kinnard. “They like water.”

“Yeah, they don’t seem to go after other humans like most zombies do,” Wilbur conceded. “But don’t let that fool you. That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.”

“What do you want to do, Madam Mayor?” asked Chase.

“Charlene, and I think we better call in some help. This is not something we can handle on our own.”

“The FBI?” asked Wilbur.

“The FBI don’t deal with zombies,” said Kinnard. “You need to call in the army. They need to set up a perimeter and cordon off this whole town.”

“Let me talk to the County Executive,” said Charlene. “I’m sure there’s a procedure we need to follow when dealing with this kind of thing.”

Kinnard raised two very bristly eyebrows.“Well, good luck with that.”

Chapter 21

The chatter in the waiting room had become deafening. You can probably imagine how much noise dozens of cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters and other pets can make, and when you add in the excited conversations of dozens of proud pet owners, a Metallica or Iron Maiden rock concert is probably the only thing that even remotely compares.

But when the doors of the room suddenly swung open and a man with a white mustache and white goatee appeared, the chatter died away and all eyes fastened on this remarkable apparition.