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  GRAVE DANGER

  CRITTER CATCHERS: LEVEL UP - BOOK ONE

  HANK EDWARDS

  STARTLED MONKEYS MEDIA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Grave Danger ©2022 Hank Edwards

  Cover design by Ron Perry Graphic Design

  Book design and production by Hank Edwards

  Editing by Jerry Wheeler

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Printed in the United States of America

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  First Publication, 2022

  SYNOPSIS

  Things have been quiet for the Critter Catchers of Parson’s Hollow. Sure, married business owners Cody and Demetrius have critters to catch: raccoons, chipmunks, and the odd possum or two. But there’s been a refreshing lack of monsters.

  Until Cody hits a man with his truck on a dark, lonely stretch of highway, and he’s shocked to discover it’s the town mayor… whose funeral they attended the week before!

  Cody and Demetrius are back in the thick of things, this time trying to figure out why the dead in Parson’s Hollow won’t stay buried. The situation quickly takes an ominous and deadly turn when multitudes of the undead close in on them and those they love. While fighting for their lives, the Critter Catchers realize this time they’re going to have to level up their game to win.

  They just might not have enough credits banked…

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Also by Hank Edwards

  CHAPTER ONE

  Driving home from the Hollow Leg bar on a quiet, still night, Cody Bower ran over the mayor of Parson’s Hollow.

  As he drove along Route 118, a winding stretch of two lane blacktop hemmed in on both sides by thick woods, his happy whistling was interrupted by a man lurching out of the trees into the path of his truck. He caught a momentary glimpse of the man’s face and registered a flash of recognition before shouting, “What the fuck?” Jerking the wheel didn’t help as much as he’d hoped. The passenger side of the truck took the impact, and the tires on that side thumped over the man.

  “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

  Jamming down the brake pedal, he skidded to a halt, the backend fishtailing along the road. Once the truck had come to a stop, Cody hit the emergency flashers button and stepped out.

  The night was clear but dark. The moon had yet to rise, and the town didn’t have funding for streetlights this far out. Only his flashing taillights illuminated the road, pulsing a sinister red glow across the figure lying a dozen feet away. They were pushing deep shadows into the spaces between trees crowded close to the gravel shoulder. He approached a few feet, then stopped. The taillights blinked with a steady red intensity. Cody had trouble breathing, and his body had gone cold as his mind thrummed with shock. What the fuck had he done? It hadn’t been his fault. The guy—it looked like the mayor, but that was fucking impossible—had walked right out in front of him.

  Whatever had happened, a rational part of Cody’s brain was certain it couldn’t be the mayor lying in the road. It had to be someone who resembled the mayor. High ranking city official or not, the truth of the matter was Cody had definitely hit him, run over him in fact, and he absolutely felt like he was going to be sick.

  A sudden movement from the body made him jump and take a step back.

  “The fuck?” Cody whispered.

  Another movement, more pronounced than the first as the man pulled an arm in close, dragging it along the road with an eerie scraping sound. It stopped at the side of his chest, and all was silent again. Then Cody watched in horror as the man slowly got to his knees, his movements jerky and awkward, painful to watch. The steady flash of red light showed the damage to the side of his head and face, and he held his left arm at a strange angle. Cody’s stomach twisted into a brutal knot that threatened to expel the burger, fries, and two beers he’d had at the bar with Jugs. He was thankful he’d stopped drinking when he did so he wouldn’t blow past the legal limit when the sheriff’s deputies eventually showed up. Swallowing past the lump of fear in his throat, Cody took a step toward the man.

  “Hey, buddy, you okay? I’m really sorry, I didn’t see you. Jesus, you came out of nowhere. Like, literally, nowhere. There’s just woods out here, and I wasn’t expecting someone to come walking out in front of me in the pitch dark.”

  The man unsteadily rose to his feet. His dark suit was torn in places and splattered with what Cody hoped was mud. A dirty, frayed tie hung askew from his neck. He stood swaying slightly and staring out into the woods across from him. With a sudden movement that made Cody jump, the man took a shaky step toward the dotted yellow center line. His left arm swung like it might no longer be attached at his shoulder, and Cody feared losing his dinner if he saw that again. Then the man cocked his head, twitched it around on his neck and fixed him with a look. A rattling shudder of recognition and terror ran through Cody.

  This was definitely George Clarke, the mayor of Parson’s Hollow. He’d run over the mayor of their town. That in and of itself was a terrible, awful thing. But even more upsetting was the fact that a few days ago, he and Demmy had attended the mayor’s funeral.

  Hadn’t they? He recalled having to remember how to tie a fucking tie. And how the skin of his neck had broken out for a couple of days from the rub of the collar. Not to mention how hot Demmy had looked in his own sport coat and tie, no matter that both were years out of style. Yeah, that had really happened and hadn’t been some kind of amazingly detailed fever dream.

  “What the fuck?” He rubbed his eyes and squinted, sure there was some kind of mistake.

  The man faced him. The taillights pulsed the same moment he took an abrupt and unsteady step toward Cody. There was absolutely no doubt about it. George Clarke stood a dozen feet away only days after Cody had paid his respects at his casket.

  “Um, Mr. Mayor?” Cody said. “You don’t look so good.”

  Another unsteady, and unnerving, step closer.

  “Okay, keep it together, Bower,” Cody muttered as he took a step back. “There’s a logical explanation for this. This isn’t the actual mayor, it’s just someone who looks like him. Everyone has a doppelgänger somewhere in the world.”

  Adrenaline flushed any trace of alcohol from his system. It was, unfortunately, a sensation with which he had become very familiar the last few years.

  What the fuck was going on here?

  “You stay put, buddy. I’ll call for an ambulance.” Cody backed up another couple of steps. “You wait right there, Mr. Mayor, or whoever the fuck you are. Maybe, you know, take a seat on the side of the road or something.”

  He trotted back to his truck and sat in the driver’s seat, leaving the door open and one foot on the road. He grabbed his phone from the console and dialed 911.

  “Parson’s Hollow Po
lice, what’s your emergency?” The woman’s voice was cool and efficient.

  “Yeah, um, I’m out on Route 118 between the Hollow Leg and town, and someone, some guy, walked out of the woods right in front of my truck, and I, um, I couldn’t stop in time and I… well, I hit him.”

  “Okay, sir. What’s your name?”

  “Cody Bower.”

  In the moment of silence that followed, Cody checked his phone to see if he’d lost the connection. Then the woman spoke again, but her tone had a touch of frost different from her previous efficiency, and he wondered if she was someone he’d dated and dropped somewhere along the way. That list was long, he knew, and he always seemed to be paying for his past, even now that he’d figured all that shit out and was happily married.

  “All right, Mr. Bower, I’ve dispatched a deputy and an EMT.”

  “Okay, thanks.” He heard a far off siren start up. “I can hear them now.”

  “Are you injured, sir?”

  “Me? No, I’m not injured.”

  The truck door wrenched open wide, startling a shout out of him. Cody dropped the phone and heard it hit the floor mat on the passenger side. Fingers gripped his thigh and a terrible odor washed over him as the man—it’s the mayor, it’s the goddamn mayor!—let out a deep and creepy moan.

  “What the fuck?” Cody shouted, realizing in the back of his mind that it had become a kind of mantra for his evening.

  He jerked his leg free, but the mayor leaned around the frame and into the cab. His eyes were pale and lifeless, mouth stretched open wide to reveal teeth crusted with something thick and dark. The tie hung down, and in the glow of the interior lights, Cody recognized it as the red power tie the mayor had been wearing at the viewing.

  “Fuck!”

  Cody pushed himself over the center console into the passenger seat. George Clarke put one hand on the driver’s seat cushion and stretched the other out toward him. Dirt lined his chipped and broken fingernails, something the mayor would have never allowed while he’d been living. The man had a regularly scheduled manicure while he’d been alive.

  And what the fuck was actually happening right now?

  Unable to tear his eyes from the mayor, Cody ran a hand back and forth across the interior of the passenger door behind him, desperately searching for the handle. George Clarke tried to get a foot up into the truck but missed, and he made a low, guttural sound of impatience that sent a cloud of noxious air over Cody. He coughed and turned away long enough to locate the door handle and yank on it. The door swung open, and he stumbled out onto the shoulder of the road. Standing on the gravel, Cody gripped the outer edge of the door tight and looked through the truck at the mayor.

  “What the fuck?” Cody repeated, but softer this time.

  The siren was closer, and he looked away a moment, squinting to see beyond the apron of light thrown out by the headlights. No sign of any emergency vehicle yet, but they couldn’t arrive fast enough. He looked through the truck’s cab again, and his breath caught in his chest.

  It was empty.

  “Shit.”

  Still holding tight to the edge of the passenger door, Cody looked toward the front of the truck but saw no one in the glow of the headlights. He turned to the back in time to see the mayor lurch toward him, the intermittent red glow of the emergency flashers casting deep shadows across his expression of murderous rage.

  “What the fuck?”

  Cody backpedaled, finally releasing the passenger door. The mayor moved fast, however, and snagged the sleeve of Cody’s shirt, twisting his fingers into the material. With an adrenaline-fueled yank of his arm, Cody pulled free of the mayor’s grasp. But he was too close to the edge of the drainage ditch, and his foot slid down the grassy side. He stumbled into the ankle-deep standing water at the bottom and walked backward as the mayor staggered down the embankment after him.

  “What the fuck?”

  He’d shouted it this time, and was about to say it again when the backs of his legs hit something, and he sat down hard in the stinky water. The shock of his fall rattled up his spine and his teeth clicked together. His truck’s headlights provided enough light for him to see a large tree branch lying across the ditch, as well as the mayor stomping over it toward him.

  Cody crabwalked back a few feet, then scrambled up the embankment onto the gravel shoulder. A sheriff’s car pulled up, lights flashing and siren abruptly cutting off. Cody was on all fours looking up at the cruiser when the driver door opened and Deputy Ryan Zellmer stepped out.

  “Son of a…” Cody grumbled.

  Zellmer was the newest member of the Parson’s Hollow sheriff’s department. He was young, brash, and carried a hell of a grudge against Cody and Demmy. Two years ago, Zellmer’s father, Wayne, had been a sheriff’s deputy during the werewolf invasion of Parsons’s Hollow. Unfortunately, Wayne Zellmer didn’t survive the night. Ryan Zellmer, nineteen at the time, had joined the department shortly afterward to honor his father.

  And make life hard for the Critter Catchers he held responsible for his father’s death.

  “Stay where you are, sir,” Zellmer said, one hand on the butt of his service weapon.

  “Ryan, hi, it’s Cody Bower,” Cody said, starting to get to his feet.

  “It’s Deputy Zellmer, and I said stay down!”

  “Okay, okay.” Cody dropped to his hands and knees once again. He looked over his shoulder but didn’t see the mayor. Well, that was good at least. Wasn’t it? Probably was. He didn’t think Deputy Zellmer would intervene if the mayor started eating Cody alive. Hell, he’d probably cut chunks off of him and hand them over.

  “What’s going on here?” Zellmer slowly approached Cody’s truck, ducking this way and that as he looked it over. “We received a report of a pedestrian accident.”

  “Yeah, that was me. I mean, I called it in. I was driving home and the may—” He stopped and cleared his throat, nervously looking over his shoulder but still finding no threat. “And a man stepped right out in front of my truck. I didn’t have time to stop, and I hit him.”

  “And where is this man now?” Zellmer moved out into the road, keeping Cody in his sightline, hand still on his weapon as he checked the area behind the truck. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “I know. He got up and, well, he came after me.” Another look back, but still no sign of the mayor. Once again, what the fuck?

  “He attacked you?”

  “Yeah. I ran back to my truck to get my phone and he…” Cody winced and adjusted his position. “Look, can I stand up and lean on the truck or something, please? This gravel is digging into my knees.”

  “In a minute.” Zellmer returned to stand before him. “You said he came after you?”

  “Yeah, he came up to my door and grabbed me and was trying to… I don’t know what he was trying to do.”

  “Where did you last see this man?”

  Cody looked over his shoulder and gestured. “Down in the ditch. I went out the passenger door to get away from him and fell into the ditch, and he came down after me.”

  “Stay here.”

  Zellmer eased up to the edge of the embankment. He pulled a flashlight from his gun belt and directed the surprisingly bright beam into the ditch. Cody got to his knees and craned his head to see as well. There was no sign of the mayor or anyone that remotely resembled him.

  “I don’t see anyone.” Zellmer turned back and gave Cody a critical look. “Have you been drinking tonight, sir?”

  “Not enough,” Cody said.

  “Please get to your feet.”

  Cody stood up, wincing at all the little aches and pains. He gave Zellmer a shaky smile. “I’m not crazy. You can see the dent in the front quarter panel of my truck.”

  Zellmer tipped his head and directed his light at the area. “There is some damage, but it could be old.” He shone the flashlight in Cody’s face. “I’m going to give you a field sobriety test.”

  Cody sighed. “Yeah, all right.”

 
Zellmer called in and canceled the EMT, then he put Cody through test after test, ending with a breathalyzer. During the entire experience, Cody kept an eye out for the mayor but saw no sign of him. When Zellmer finally, regretfully, pronounced Cody sober enough to drive, he delivered a stern warning about driving after consuming any amount of alcohol. Cody nodded through the lecture, definitely not thinking that the young little shit was barely old enough to drink himself, and then watched as Zellmer slid into his patrol car and drove fast off into the night.

  “Dick.”

  Cody walked around his truck, wincing at the dent in his quarter panel. He stood and looked out into the dark woods. Nothing moved or made a sound, so he got into the truck and grabbed his phone from the passenger side footwell. He had three texts and two missed calls from Demmy.

  He connected the phone to the entertainment system and called home before putting the truck into gear and heading off down the road, definitely driving much slower than before.

  “Hey there,” Demmy said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. But it’s been a weird night.”

  “Uh oh. How weird?”

  Cody let out a long breath. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Okaaay.”

  “We attended the mayor’s funeral last week, right?”

  “Um, yeah. Last Tuesday. Why are you asking about George’s funeral?”

  “Because I hit him with my truck out on Route 118.”