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November 1st, 1994
Summerville, South Carolina.

The slip of a moon cast little illumination on Roland Makepeace's hardware store, two officers sent by Sheriff Henry Jackson to check out reports of several bodies seen sneakin around back. Roland wasn't alive, the title transferred to his wife, now widow, Dorcas, who kept the business goin with her young daughter, Tracy.

But tho Summerville was quiet enough, when two women alone at night hear strange noises outside their window, the law is called, for sure.

Both men were Summerville locals, though the older by a decade, Lindsey Winters, had spent a good many years in Charleston learnin his trade and getting married. But when Henry's second retired, Lindsey moved his wife n daughter back home.

"Some cats kickin up a fuss, most likely. " he muttered to Owen Everly, all eager at twenty-one. "But Dorcas has been real skittish since she lost her family back in 79. "

"They got et? " asked Owen curiously. While most of his relations were eager to spin a tale about almost anything, two points in time were virtually taboo among those who'd lived long enough to remember.

"Caught sleeping. " Lindsey told him as they approached the narrow access to the small backlot behind the store. "Mom, Dad, and a baby brother. But you didn't hear this from me. Ok? "

People didn't like to think on it, the nation twice cursed since 1969 when the unbelievable happened. This was when the unburied Dead first rose up from morgue and funeral parlor to begin the wholesale slaughter of the Living. But if such unnatural murder weren't bad enough, the demons clothed in the rotting form of familiar faces continued on to consume the warm yielding flesh of their mortal victims!

But somehow the humans prevailed, beating down the walking corruption with gun and club. After several months of Hell on Earth, the carnivorous corpses were finally sent to eternal rest, seemingly for good. Unfortunately, a full decade later, they returned, stronger and far more persistent in their single-minded quest to fed upon the human cattle!

This second plague lasted a year before the Dead were put down, yet again. But the scars it created among the collective psyche of the survivors, even after almost fifteen years, remained strong still.

"I hear somethin. " Owen whispered, the white fencing to their right shimmering dimly from the sparse illumination through shuttered windows. Dorcas slept lightly, all potential access to shop and home secure against intruders. Especially at night.

She kept a loaded shotgun by her bed, to protect her now college age daughter from the dark and what lurking shades it might contain.

With her husband dead and safely put to rest after his heart failed at forty, her fear had become more intense over the three years since his passing.

Lindsey listened carefully as they stopped by the back corner of the faded red wood wall to their left. A low rattling and heavy breathing gave notice that the intruders were definitely not animals. At least not the kind on four legs.

"You can draw your weapon, but keep the safety on for now," he counciled the kid in a low voice, Owen looking spooked by all the Dead talk. "You cover my back, let me take the lead. "

They were five figures, cloaked in shadow, bumping around amidst the rows of trash bins. All stared up at the second story bedroom window as some moaned lightly, swaying ungainly from side to side.

"Christ Almighty... " remarked Owen in a too loud voice for his partner's like. "Are they zombies? "

But Lindsey didn't buy it, spying tell-tale bottles dangling from a couple of spectral hands, the two spooks snickering. "It's the law, fellas. " he told the ghosts in a firm no nonsense tone. "Y'all get out of here and leave Dorcas alone... "

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