Outside, the prowling cat's attention had been caught by something near the end of the driveway. A
small globule of blue light hovered in the air, darting between the trees, heading toward the lot next
door. Motionless, the cat waited behind a neatly trimmed Japanese cherry tree, its eyes glinting with
anticipation.
The blue light moved closer, and the cat leaped from its hiding place, one paw reaching up to slash it
with unsheathed claws. As the cat connected with its prey, the globule pulsated suddenly and pain shot
up the animal's leg. The cat gave an indignant screech, men turned tail and bounded back up the drive.
As if satisfied, the light bobbed and continued on its way.
St. James's Church had stood on this spot for a century and a half, long before the street had a name
and the mansions were built. It was a small, compact building with barely enough space to hold the
Sunday congregation, but its graveyard was immense.
The blue light zigzagged between some maple saplings, then arced over the wooden panel fence that
separated the garden from the cemetery. As it hovered six feet above the neatly dipped grass between
the sea of tombstones, lines of force began to emanate from its interior, like tiny streaks of lightning,
the energy lines darted through the burial ground, homing in on the graves.
As the light touched each grave marker it expanded and brightened, causing a tracery of fine blue
veins to sparkle and spread across the tombstones. An eerie silence fell, broken only by the hooting of
a nearby owl and the occasional muffled peal of laughter from the party next door.
Suddenly, the lawn in front of one tombstone began to ripple slightly, as if something was trying to
force its way up from below. A skeletal hand burst through the surface with sudden force, knocking a
long-dried bunch of flowers off the grave. The ground heaved and buckled as, a hundred years after it
had been laid to rest, a corpse began to hoist itself out of the ground.
Throughout the graveyard, the scene was repeated a score of times and more. Long-dead bodies,
festooned with scraps of moldering grave-clothes, hauled themselves out of what should have been
their final resting place. Their bony limbs jerked and shuddered spastically as they rose to their feet,
eye sockets empty and sightless.
Responding to some unseen signal from the still-hovering globule of light, the zombie corpses turned
as one and began to shuffle toward the mansion next door.