The hairs along her arms prickled with nervousness.
While mentally running through excuses to be checking on them in case it was just more of that flirt-yell thing Marrit and Vic seemed to have going on, she toiled at top speed straight up the hill, cursing under her breath when her feet came down on unseen rocks. She pushed ahead, trying to spot a way through the thick line of snow-covered prickly phlox without getting herself scratched up when she heard cursing.
Then a sound, pop-pop-pop, only sharper, sending echoes up the mountain. Firecrackers?
That’s not firecrackers, she thought, the back of her neck prickling. She ducked instinctively, realized that was a useless move, and threw herself behind a huge pine. Shaking, she inched around the rough bark to peek at the snow-covered road.
She froze, staring at the half-buried Jeep.
Standing near it, side by side, were two wolves.
Facing it was a snowmobile with the same two men who’d come to the house to beg for handouts: one tall and blonde with crazy eyes, the other short and mean-looking. The short one was driving. The tall one held something she’d only seen on cop shows—an automatic weapon.
Pointed right at Joey, who stood some thirty feet away, hands up, palms out.
As Doris watched, horrified, the blonde one stroked the automatic weapon with nervous fingers, jerked it toward the air, and let off another brief burst.
“Now, who are you! How many shifters?” the mean one shouted. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re going home,” Joey said in a low, coaxing voice. He took a step toward their snowmobile, then another.
“You’re cops!” the tall, crazy-eyed one yelled on a panicky note.
“I’m not a cop. Look at me—I’m too old to be a cop. I’m a teacher—that’s my Jeep. It’s not a police vehicle. Let’s part peacefully—” He took another step.
“Stop right there,” the crazy-eyed one shrieked.
“If you’re not cops, you’re still trouble. I smelled those two wolves on this Jeep,” the mean one snarled. “You got no business up here.”
“We’re on our way out,” Joey said in that soothing voice, smiling his sunny smile. He looked harmless and friendly, but Doris could see that it wasn’t working. The men only seemed to be growing more belligerent.
The twins looked ready to pounce the second those men’s attention shifted. Joey took another small step forward, his voice soothing. He and the twins outnumbered the two men—but they had no weapons. If they only had a distraction . . .
She had to help. But what could she do? Doris hit her palm lightly against the tree’s bole, desperate for an idea. As she moved, something bumped against her hip. She slid her hand into her pocket, wondering what on earth—and her fingers closed not on a weapon that had somehow snuck in there, but the plastic bottle of chocolate syrup that she’d taken away from Pink, and meant to return to the kitchen.
And then she remembered what Joey had said about the men. And how she’d met Joey in the first place.
With shaking hands, she dropped her sensible coat, shook the bottle, and with a breathed out, “You can do this,” upended the chocolate over her hair, her face, and down her front.
The gooey stuff was even more viscous in the cold air. She smeared her hands over it, rubbed them over her face, then stared down at the black rivulets covering her hands that looked exactly like some horrible form of blood—
Doris stepped out from behind the tree, stiffening her entire body, and started shambling forward.
“Bra-i-i-i-ins,” she croaked.
Snap!
All heads turned her way.
“BR-R-R-A-A-I-I-INS!” she moaned.
“I knew it!!!” the tall one shrieked. “I KNEW zombies are real!”
—and he swung the weapon toward her.
She stared in horror at that obscene little hole, then flung herself behind a tree as a flash of silver arced across the road. The gun went off, obliterating a branch ten feet above Doris and sending a shower of pine needles drifting down.
The gunfire stopped abruptly.