By the time Tick reached the forest-lined road that led to town, the sun had made its last glimmer upon the world and gone to bed for the night. Now past eight o’clock, darkness settled on the town of Deer Park, Washington, and Tick felt himself shiver despite the warm and comfortable air.

He couldn’t believe it was here. The Big Day. The Big Night.

As he walked down the lonely road, the constant buzz of the forest insects broken only occasionally by a passing car, he ran through everything he needed to do in his mind. Even though it seemed so simple, he knew he only had one shot at this and didn’t want to mess everything up. Dual feelings of excitement and apprehension battled over his emotional state, making him nauseated and anxious for it to be over, one way or another.

He arrived at the town square and passed the fountain area, where the shooting display of water had been turned off for the night, and made his way down the small one-way lane that led to the old city cemetery. A few people walked about the square, but it mostly seemed vacant and silent, like a premonition that something very bad was about to happen to this quiet and unassuming town.

Quit freaking yourself out, Tick told himself. Everything’s going to be fine.

The entrance to the Deer Park Cemetery was a simple stone archway, both sides connected to a cast-iron fence encircling the entire compound. There was no gate, as though those in charge figured if some psycho wanted to visit dead people in the middle of the night, more power to them. As for grave digging, that had gone out of style with Dr. Frankenstein a couple of hundred years ago.

Tick paused below the chipped granite of the arch and looked at his watch, clicking the little light button on the side to see the big digital numbers: 8:37. Just over twenty minutes to go.

The moon, almost full, finally slipped above the horizon, casting a pale radiance upon the hundreds of old-fashioned tombstones; they seemed to glow in the dark around the chiseled letters declaring the names and dates of the dead. Barely defined shadows littered the ground, like holes had opened up throughout the graveyard, zombies having escaped to wreak their nightly havoc.

Once again, Tick shivered. No doubt about it, this was plain creepy.

Hoping it didn’t matter exactly where he stood when he performed his little song and dance as long as he was inside the cemetery, Tick stayed close to the entrance, near a tight pack of graves reserved for young children. Tick pulled out his flashlight and flicked it on, examining some of the names while he waited for the last few minutes to pass. Most of the names he didn’t know, but he did recognize a few that had been much-publicized tragedies over the last few years. A car accident. Cancer.