Three on the ring.

All blank.

Somewhere above him, he heard a scrape that might have been talons dragging across the tin roof.

He sprinted out into the yard.

Halfway to the curb, he looked back just in time to see an abby leap down off the roof over the porch.

It hit the ground and charged.

Ethan stopped at the sidewalk, spun, raised the shotgun, and fired a slug through its sternum.

Inside the house, screams rose up.

The station wagon was the closest.

Fifty-fifty chance of being Maggie’s car.

Ethan pulled open the passenger-side door, dove in, and shut it behind him.

Climbing in behind the steering wheel, he jammed the first key into the ignition.

Nothing.

“Come on.”

Key number two.

It slid in nicely.

But it wouldn’t turn.

An abby exploded out the front door of Maggie’s house.

Number three.

Four abbies appeared behind the first—as two of them rushed out onto the grass to their dying friend, the last of the three keys failed to even enter the keyhole.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Ethan ducked down in the seat and crammed himself against the floorboard.

He couldn’t see a thing, but he could hear the abbies in the yard.

They’re going to look in and see you and then what? Go right now.

Reaching up, he grasped the door handle and quietly tugged.

The door creaked open.

He slithered out onto the pavement, staying low against the car, hidden from the view of the house.

No abbies in the street.

He rose up until he could just see through the windows.

Counted six of them in the front yard, and through the open door he could see two more eating what was left of Hecter.

The Jeep was parked a few feet up from the station wagon’s bumper.

He grabbed the shotgun out of the front seat and crawled across the pavement.

Risking visibility for several seconds, he passed between the Buick and the Jeep, but they didn’t see him.

Ethan stood, stared through the plastic windows of the soft-top.

Some of the abbies had gone back inside.

One was still crouched over the carcass of the abby Ethan had just shot, whimpering.

The driver-side door was unlocked.

Ethan climbed in, set the shotgun between the seats.

He got the first key in as an abby screamed.

They’d seen him.

They were moving his way.

He turned the key.

Nope.

Started fumbling for the second key and then realized there wasn’t time. He grabbed the shotgun and jumped down out of the Jeep, ran into the middle of the road.

Five were already running at him.

No misses or you die.

He shot the one out in front, and then the two to the left, backpedaling in the street as the last pair closed in.

It took three rounds to bring down the fourth.