It sits next to Woodland Cemetery in a far corner of town The cemetery is hilly and wooded Not much daylight gets through Stan Summer is Jared’s best friend They are both in sixth grade and after school or on weekends Jared often rides his bike to Stan’s house To get there he rides through Woodland Cemetery At the edge of the cemetery a path enters the forest That path leads to Hilltop Cemetery Stan lives on the other side of Hilltop Jared and Stan always it was funny that they both lived next to cemeteries But then spooky things started to happen thought I saw them again last night Jared said as he took his seat behind Stan in school The grave robbers Stan asked Yeah They were dragging another body Jared was sure that they had dug it up from a grave He hesitated to tell Stan about his nightmare He decided to keep it 8
to himself for now Where did they take it Stan asked Jared shook his head They didn’t take it anywhere They disappeared when I yelled at them They just vanished Yep Jared said They vanished like ghosts Stan let out a whistle He seemed to be thinking hard Maybe it was a bear he said It was dark out Maybe it was a bear dragging a dead deer How could you be sure it was people It wasn’t a bear Jared said The moon was bright I could see them pretty well If they vanished what happened to the body I don’t know Jared said It wasn’t there this morning Their sixth grade science teacher entered the classroom Stan turned around in his 9
seat to face the front Jared tapped Stan on the shoulder Let’s have a Zombie Hunters meeting at lunch Jared whispered I’ll send Mitch a note You tell Barry Mitch Morris and Barry Bannon were tough kids Jared had never really liked them very much but recently they’d formed a bond All four boys had a strange thing in common They each lived on the edge of a graveyard One day Mitch had heard Stan telling Jared about an eerie voice he kept hearing in the dark Mitch said he’d heard the same voice a few nights earlier It had been coming from Evergreen Cemetery Mitch told his friend Barry The four met a few times to discuss scary things they’d seen or heard They called their group the Zombie Hunters Sometimes Jared thought Mitch and Barry were making things up No matter 10
how scary Jared’s stories were Mitch and Barry had scarier ones Jared didn’t always believe them But they did seem to know a lot about ghosts mummies and vampires At lunch the four boys took their trays to the corner of the cafeteria What’s up asked Mitch He usually talked the most He swore he came face to-face with a werewolf carrying a bloody 11
