Once they passed the rusty gate, the skeletons started moving toward them. Chuck picked up speed and was shocked to see the four legged skeletons were actually moving fast. The bipedal skeletons only advanced at a slow walk but the four legged variety could actually run. It didn’t look like they could run as fast as the truck which was a relief. He quickly realized that without the truck they would have a real problem making it out of the huge graveyard.

The road was clear at first but soon skeletons starting walking out on the road in front of them. Chuck didn’t slow down and just winced as he plowed through them. Luckily there weren’t that many yet that found their way to the road. The sun was now behind the clouds again and it looked low in the sky. Either they were in the cave longer than he thought or the days here were shorter than they should be. He mentioned it to Tess and she agreed that it was getting dark fast.

The thought of them driving through the graveyard in the dark did not make him happy. The road was relatively smooth so he gradually increased the speed. They still hit the occasional skeleton that wandered into the road but otherwise it was smooth sailing. That is until the sun set and it became pitch black. There was no moon and if there were stars, they were obscured by the cloud cover.

The headlight and spotlight provided some light but Chuck decided to slow down to be on the safe side. Tess noticed it first and pointed off to the side as some bipedal skeletons were caught in the glow of the lights. Instead of walking, they were now running. He had a bad feeling and sure enough one of the four legged skeletons was now running beside them, snapping its jaws.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It was easily going twice as fast as during the day. Chuck didn’t know how or why but the darkness seemed to be strengthening all the skeletons. The skeletons inside the dark cave seemed the same as those outside so it must have something to do with the time of day and the sun going down. Getting out of the graveyard was more urgent than ever now.

The pickup lurched as they ran into another skeleton in front of them but the impact was a lot harder this time. It wouldn’t take too many more of those kinds of impacts to damage the pickup. He immediately switched strategies and actively tried to avoid hitting the skeletons instead of just plowing through them. This meant he had to slow down which allowed more of the four legged skeletons to catch up to them. Things weren’t looking too good.

He glanced at Tess and she seemed to read his mind as she grabbed the shotgun. She aimed it out the window and fired it at the closest four legged menace, obliterating it. Chuck heard some noises in the back end and briefly looked behind to see that R2 had engaged one of the skeletons that had somehow jumped into the back. R2 made short work of the skeleton so he concentrated on the road in front of them.

In the darkness he had no way of knowing how much progress they were making. All the graves that flashed past them in the beams of the headlight looked the same. The road stayed straight as an arrow and was surprisingly smooth. Tess fired off a few more blasts of the shotgun before reloading.

It seemed like the skeletons didn’t know what to make of the pickup and just kept running at them and occasionally trying to scratch it with their claws or bump into it but didn’t do much damage. Chuck could only hope the night lasted as short as the day seemed to and they would safely make it to the other end of the graveyard and past the cemetery gate.