The rest of the windshield shattered and a young boy tried crawling across the dash. A single blast sent him reeling back outside. Then the pounding on the vehicle increased, and it began to rock from side to side. They’re trying to turn it over! He dumped his gear into the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel. The engine revved with the first turn of the key, so he slipped it into reverse and stomped on the gas and backed over a few of his attackers. And when he’d reached the middle of the road, he shifted into drive and steered the squealing vehicle straight at the front yard, plowing through what was left of the fence like a stampeding elephant, the van’s wheels cutting furrows all the way across the lawn. He stopped it a few feet from the walk and swung out the door, weapons hanging from him like apples on the tree.

“Cocksucker,” someone said from up close. He spun with the shotgun leveled, expecting attack, but the vampires were just coming back from the road and were wary of him now. The voice had to come again before he could trace it to its source, an older man on the ground by his feet who struggled and cussed but couldn’t lift the van’s front tire off his chest. The soldier just ignored him and went around the vehicle toward the porch.

They were gathering again—Lord, he thought, how many of them are there!—but they didn’t charge him, now that he was armed. He’d left bodies all over the yard, and the gaping muzzle of the shotgun kept them at bay. Stiles backed up the walk, keeping all of them in sight.

Thud.

The weighty blow came out of nowhere and caught him in the middle of the back. It knocked the air from Stiles’s lungs and drove him to his knees, and a second blow sent him farther down, onto his side and grimacing from the pain. The dark world spun madly and he could barely focus on the swaying figures looming above him, one face so scarred and bullet-ridden he could barely recognize it as Dutch Larson. Both he and his mousy wife were there, Dutch as animate as ever since Ladonna had climbed from her hiding place and pulled the silver cake knife from her husband’s chest.