Worse than being punched in the chest, Jamal Morris clutched the wooden stake that had been shot deep into his heart as he stumbled backwards, and fell into an open grave.
Flat on his back. On the hard, damp dirt.
Stunned, his vision swam and a ringing filled his ears. Oddly, his mind tried to analyze the dirt of the grave that he laid in. Was it fertile? Could a garden be planted here instead? Was it hallowed so the dead couldn’t rise from this grave? Fuck, now I’m going to be dirty.
Shock did weird things.
The sliver of a moon high in the Miami night sky, smiled down at Jamal. Still trying to come back to his senses, his mind made a zombie-ized Cheshire cat from the stars around the moon.
“You can’t help that, Jamal.” Zomb-Cat said, “We’re all dead here.”
No, they weren’t all dead.
Not yet.
Take, for example, the mother fucker—and his mother fucking friends—who drove a mother fucking stake into his new, seven hundred, mother fucking dollar, burnt umber Burton Brothers suit. A suit that Jamal had bought specifically not to offend Perry, the prissy shapeshifting necrophile necromancer known to grave rob in the Ashton Homes Cemetery.
Only to be ambushed and staked by some gung-ho ass-hats.
Jamal sat up, and rubbed his head. His vision was clear and steady. A slight ringing still played on his ears, but the world made sense again. Mainly from discomfort, Jamal tried to pull the stake out. Nope. The fucker was in there deep.
He sighed and stood. His brown-black Johnston Murphy dress shoes—shoes that he had shined to a high gloss—sunk into the earth.
Jamal mumbled, “Mother fuckers.”
Now he looked like shit. And this was the one night he specifically didn’t want to look like shit. If he had known this was going to happened, he wouldn’t have changed out of his favorite stained, threadbare t-shirt, worn thin blue jeans or holey—not holy—tennis shoes.
Rustling sounds came from above. As did whispers. “Did you get him?” A woman’s voice.
“Yeah. I got him.” The guy sounded like a palooka. Jamal hoped the guy had something on the ball. Nothing was worse than being bested by someone who had no idea what was happening.
The woman. “Where’d he go?”
“Dunno.”
She asked, “Where’s Mark?”
“Dunno.” He was sounding more and more palooka-ish by the moment.
Jamal squatted and went to fully leap out of the grave. While his forward movement was on point, he had no hops. Only lifting a foot from the ground, he thumped into the earthen wall and fell backward.
The stake must’ve been bathed in holy water by someone who believed.
He stood. He was going to need help. And the only folks who could help him were the ones who got him into this mess.
They took turns whisper-calling Mark’s name.
Mark wasn’t going to answer. Mark had an accident.
Really, an honest accident.
A guy, probably Mark, had rushed Jamal from the bushes. He swung a silver-plated sword above his head like a two-hour YouTube kendo practitioner who obviously skipped the history and breathing lessons to get the good stuff. Jamal simply dodged. After Mark missed, he tripped forward as he freaked-out-swung at a second target. He struck the statue and fell into its arms. The sword had come from his hand in an odd sounding rebound.
The silver-plated sword went straight up, and came straight down just inside of Mark’s left collar bone; and probably through his heart. Jamal wasn’t sure, but the dude didn’t move again.
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