by Greg James
“Then you will die, Audric.”
“I welcome death for I know she is safe and that I will go to the Lord’s Heaven whereas you are all destined for Hell.”
“Enough!”
Sounds of fighting followed and faded as Vera crawled further away. Rain fell on her as she reached the end of the tunnel and the outside. She drew her knees up and pushed herself forwards – diving out of the tunnel’s mouth and sliding down the slight incline behind her home. She rolled over onto her back and lay there for a few moments, feeling light rain falling onto her face, as she caught her breath.
She could smell something burning. Vera looked up and saw the hovel was alight; tongues of flames reaching into the night sky, billowing smoke spreading out as a grim shroud.
“Father!” she screamed, “No!”
She scrambled to her feet only to be seized by hands from behind. Kicking and struggling, she was unable to break free. Hooded figures emerged from the surrounding trees. One of them stepped forward – a jewelled amulet hung on a golden chain around his neck. He drew back his hood and Vera screamed at the sight of the leering, rotting head beneath.
The figure held something up that glistened in the moonlight. It was Audric’s head; the skin hung from it in torn strips and blood oozed slowly from the ragged neck to patter like raindrops on the ground. His eyes were gone and in the gory holes left behind, twin crimson flames flickered silently. The mouth shaped itself into a smile of bloody, broken teeth. “Hail Lord Akarath,” it said, “for he is the one and you are the chosen. Your blood will open the way and the earth shall bleed beneath his feet!”
Vera screamed and fainted dead away.
*
She awoke on wet ground. The rain had stopped and the sky through the trees was clearing. Her head hurt. Her body ached. She stayed on the ground waiting for the pain to subside. It didn’t. She could feel the heaviness of her body and hear the slow flicker of each thought as she gingerly got to her feet.
Christ, I’m soaked through. How long’ve I been out here?
It couldn’t have been long, but it felt like forever. The car was wrapped around a tree. Fragments of glass winked at her with the light of emerging stars. The shattered radiator spoke with a thin, hissing voice.
This is what I get for hurrying, she thought. I could’ve taken the main road, gone the long way ‘round, but no, I took the shortcut and look at the state of me. How’m I gonna get home now?
Vera stood, swaying slightly; breathing in the world, remembering what happened.
The man in the road – his face, the state of it.
He must’ve been ill or something to be out in the woods like that on a night like this.
Bloody idiot must’ve escaped from a home or something.
She put her hand to her head and it came away wet. There was blood in her hair. Exploring with her fingertips, she found the lips of the wound. It didn’t feel that deep but head injuries could be bad.
The world moved in slow, sick revolutions and she had to take in several deep breaths to keep from falling to the ground. There was a lingering taste of bile in the back of her throat.
I need help.
There was the embankment she’d come down. It wasn’t too sheer a slope. She might be able to climb up it and get back onto the road. Flag someone down; if there was likely to be anyone passing along this way at this time of night.
Apart from me, she thought, the silly cow who should’ve known better.
Vera didn’t want to be alone in the woods. It was cold, wet and dark. She was hurt and bleeding as she wove towards the embankment. Grass and damp soil felt cool under her bare soles. At the foot of the embankment, she reached out to steady herself against the bole of a tree. Her fingertips touched old cloth and cold flesh. She took her hand away.
The shadows of the trees drew back as the moon shrugged off embracing clouds, revealing the man from the road; how he walked, how he breathed, as he came out from amongst the trees. Moonlight fell on a skinless face and a lipless mouth that hung open, showing a broken nest of crumbling teeth.
Vera turned and ran.
She ran for her life – and the zombie followed her.
The trees reached out to tear and scratch at her skin. The undergrowth stung her feet with nettles. Coarse leaves fluttered by, slapping at her face. Nocturnal eyes flickered and flashed, observing from their perches. She passed through the woods as a rush of shadows moving ahead of the zombie tearing its way through the obstructing foliage. On and on he came; unrelenting as a nightmare. The moon and stars were her sole witnesses. The light cast by them as pitiless and long-dead as her pursuer.
Feels like I’m the only thing alive out here, Vera thought.
Her legs were starting to cramp, her lungs were burning, and her vision was a blur. She stopped to catch her breath. The sounds of the zombie weren’t that far away – but she had to rest, just for a moment.
Just gimme a minute, one minute.
His soft, wet hands reached out and fastened in her hair, pulling hard, making Vera yell and twist away. Hair torn out at the roots left behind pain; bright and bristling, and then she was running again, aching and tired, so tired, trying to get away. The trees opened out, showing the way into a clearing. Moonlight formed a path across withered grass to a small cottage. There was no light burning behind its windows. The cottage itself looked pale, cramped and sunken in on itself against the overwhelming dark of the woods.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Vera ran to the cottage and tried the door. It was locked. She looked back over her shoulder. The zombie wasn’t at the clearing yet but would be soon. The light of the moon would lead him to her. She could smell the deep rot of him already. Padding her way around the cottage, she groped along the outer walls – searching for a window. She found one. Vera hooked her fingertips under it, held her breath, and pulled. It didn’t move. Unsteady footsteps reached her ears. Every breath he made was a ragged tear. He was through the trees. He was coming; staggering across the open ground.
She tried the window again. The metal was rusted and warped by age. She yanked at it, tearing fingernails down to the quick. Her hands bled and she was sure the zombie let out a hungry groan. He could smell blood. One last time, she pulled at the latch. The elderly metal shrieked in protest – and moved. Grinding out rust, Vera opened the window.
I think I’ll fit. I hope I do.
Something rotting, reeking, reached out to her with putrescent arms. The zombie groaned forlornly and lurched forward. She breathed in and pulled herself through the window – catching her hipbone painfully on the frame. Biting through the inside of her mouth, tasting blood, she wriggled and kicked against thin air to get through the slender space. Vera saw the zombie as a shadow close at hand. The world spun around her, jarring bones against hard angles, as smears and blurs groped across her vision. She couldn’t seem to free herself from the unforgiving grasp of the window frame.
The smell of him reminded her of compost heaps on fire in autumn. She remembered when something crawled into one of the local heaps. The sound that the poor thing made when they set it alight. No-one could tell from the bones what it had been, but Vera couldn’t forget its cries as the fire found it and roasted it down to the bone. Someone should’ve done something. No-one did. They all stood there, friends and neighbours, listening to the thing in the compost heap as it burned alive.
The zombie grabbed her ankle, breaking her reverie, and Vera lashed out at him. His greasy fingers let go. Her foot caught him in the chest, unleashing a dry gasp, and allowing her to finally scramble and kick her way through the window; scraped and bruised from head to toe. Before exhaustion washed over her, Vera got to her feet, closed the window and latched it.
She sank to the ground and watched as a moist, black hand groped at the glass. He couldn’t get in. Her legs couldn’t hold her up any longer either. The last traces of adrenaline ebbed away and she slumped into a doze, listening to the empty sounds the zom
bie made outside.
*
Vera was underground in a rough-hewn stone tunnel lit by old-fashioned torches. The air was damp and she was being led along by two men; one on each side, with hands gripping her wrists and the crooks of her elbows. They were holding her tight enough to bruise, as if they thought she might try and get away. They were wearing loose, hooded robes so she couldn’t see their faces. She looked down and saw she was wearing a smock of thin, white muslin. It was almost see-through. The odour of mould in the air was getting stronger. It was making her eyes water and her throat close up. She wanted to speak to the men but found she couldn’t.
The tunnel opened out into a chamber with an altar cut from the bedrock at its centre. More hooded figures stood in watchful silence against the chamber walls. Their hands were clasped before them and their heads bowed as if in prayer.
Vera’s mouth was dry and her heart was starting to beat faster. She tried to pull free from the hands of her captors, but her body would not obey. She was only an observer here – caught in the trap of her own flesh. She was led her to the altar, where there were channels carved into the stone. She remembered seeing something about that on a documentary. In medieval times, the blood of sacrifices was caught in the channels and collected to be offered up to pagan gods.
There was nothing she could do to resist the hooded men as they laid her out, spread-eagle, on the altar. They bound her wrists and ankles with leather thongs, and then stripped off the muslin smock. She wanted to shout, to scream, to kick, fight, and bite them – but she couldn’t.
The other figures came forward. One by one, they lowered the hoods. Vera could see what they looked like and wished, at the same time, that she could not. Their eyes were empty holes. Their faces were crumbling masks of decay. They cast off their robes, revealing the spoilt flesh of their bodies to her. Slowly, their hands began to move down their torsos, past their abdomens, to explore the sagging lengths of their rotten cocks. Mildewed fingers sank into pubic bushes that were nests for white worms. They began to masturbate their dried, dead roots until they hardened and wept thick tears composed of blood-flecked pus and maggots.
Vera shrank in on herself as their lukewarm discharges stained her body. She felt the wet heads of each bare cock rubbing against her flesh. The dead priests came closer and closer, pressing in upon her, pushing themselves into her; fingers in her mouth, teeth gnawing her earlobes, foul tongues wetting her anus and armpits. She felt fingers etching out hieroglyphs on her skin using their spilt fluids. They touched her. They tasted of her. She was the festering centre of their worn-out flesh. Then, one by one, they withdrew. One remained, standing over her, bearing a weathered cup of clay in his fleshless hands. He upended it, emptying something warm over her pubis. Vera craned her neck to see what it was – it was blood.
The bearer set down the cup and took up something else; an old, ragged sack. Something was writhing about, captive inside. She could hear the small sounds it made. The bearer unfastened the rope tied around the neck of the sack and, with a gesture, the inhabitant of the sack was set loose; it was a rat. Vera watched it scrabble across her naked flesh towards the fresh gore spattered over her pudenda. She felt minute teeth begin to gnaw and tear away at tender flesh and delicate muscle. She wept. She thrashed. She screamed. She wanted to die.
The dead priests were masturbating again as the rat went about its agonising work, and a moment came when she was able to see through the tears blinding her eyes. The rat – it was nowhere to be seen – then bright pain washed through her as she realised the truth.
The rat had eaten its way inside her.
*
Vera didn’t know how long she lay there; passing in and out of consciousness on the floor of the cottage. It was the quiet returning that made her come to. The zombie had gone. There were no more sounds from outside. The sound of night had returned instead; the low murmur that can only be heard when all other sounds cease.
Vera tried to get up and couldn’t, at first. Her muscles were knots and her head was hurting. She put her hand to the wound and the scab that had formed over it. Something warm leaked out. She examined her fingers. The wound was getting infected.
Forcing herself upright, she leaned against the wall. The gloom of the cottage steadily resolved itself. The window she’d clambered through had been set back behind a shallow flight of stairs in the hallway. There were dividing walls on the left and the right leading into what she guessed must be the kitchen and living room. The stairs would lead to bedrooms and bathroom, she guessed.
Vera swayed from wall to stairs for support. She pulled herself along with the help of the bannister and groped with her toes to find the first step. Her ascent was a slow and broken thing. Each step ended with having to stop, take a breath, and grit her teeth. At the top of the stairs, she found two doors facing her. One was open. The other was locked with a key. Vera pushed the first door open; half-walked, half-fell across the threshold and fumbled for the light switch.
The light came on – it was the bathroom. Vera couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she staggered over to the sink and opened the mirrored cabinet above it. There were the usual bottles, jars and half-used tubes of ointment inside. She took down a bottle of rubbing alcohol, unscrewed the cap and lowered her head over the sink. With her fingers, she felt for the wound and, when she found it, she carefully picked away at the scab. Blood and pus ran out. She used the liquid from the bottle to wash it away and clean the wound. It stung like shit but it had to be done. Afterwards, she closed the cabinet and looked at herself in its stain-speckled mirror. Her dark hair was hanging in wet tangles. Hazel eyes stared back at her, underscored by grey shadows. Her lips were colourless and tight with pain.
“Not looking your best, are you, eh, Vee?”
Vera ran some cold water from the tap and splashed it on her face.
What was that?
A sound. Something had fallen.
There it was again – coming from the next room.
Vera went to the bathroom doorway, reached over and tried the handle of the next door. The door jerked and pulled away. The handle ground violently against its mounting. A lonesome moan came from the other side. She ran down the stairs before looking back. The door continued to tremble in its frame but didn’t open. Whatever was in there couldn’t get out – for now.
Vera sat down by the front door. Her eyes wandered and she saw a shape on a table. It was what she should’ve looked for earlier; a telephone. The old kind with a cradle for the handset and a finger wheel for dialling.
She dialled 999. The chimes as she turned the finger wheel seemed to echo in the cottage.
A voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
She could hear a light whisper; a rustling like old leaves.
“Hello? Can you hear me? It’s a very bad line.”
She could make out words being spoken but not what they were.
“Are you there? My name’s Vera. I was in an accident. I need an ambulance and police. I’ve been attacked.”
The voice was dry as earth and no longer whispering. It said, “… they are awake …”
Vera dropped the ‘phone and left it hanging. She watched it sway back and forth, twisting on the end of its black cord as the voice spoke again.
“… they are awake … they are awake … and they are going to eat you …”
Upstairs, the rattling of the locked door began again.
Outside, she heard the sound of footsteps, saw a shadow at the window, and others emerging beside it. The light of the moon was soon obscured.
The hoarse cries of the living dead could be heard from all around.
Vera went through the ground floor of the cottage looking for a weapon. There was nothing in the kitchen except for old knives and forks; all blunt. In the living room, there was a rifle mounted over the fireplace. She took it down from its mounting. It wasn’t loaded but better than nothing. The stock had a decent heft to it, at least.
<
br /> The windows of the cottage were rattling violently in their frames as the dead outside battered at them. From somewhere, she heard wood splinter and tear. The locked door upstairs crashed open. Uneven footsteps stumbled down the stairs, soon reaching the ground.
This zombie had been an elderly woman at some point but now it was withered skeleton dressed in loose puckered skin and a nightdress. Its eyes were pockets of ooze and its jaw worked fitfully as ragged breaths escaped from its lungs. It swayed from side to side, seeming to get its bearings. Its roaming eyes fastened on Vera as it lunged forwards – arms thrown out, fingers hooked into claws. Vera yelled and swung at the dead woman with the rifle. It struck aside the outthrust arms with a dry, satisfying crack. The zombie stumbled on its feet, righted itself and attacked again.
“Fuck off, you dead cunt,” Vera swore.
She held the rifle up, grasping it with both hands to ward off her attacker. The dead woman’s fingers scrabbled at the wood, grasped the weapon and tried to pull it away from Vera.
“I said, fuck off.”
She kicked the zombie. She caught it in the chest and felt something give. There was a wet sound of old flesh tearing and the zombie lost its footing. Holding onto the rifle’s stock, the zombie dragged her down with it. Vera gasped as the fall drove the wind from her – and jerked her head up as the zombie’s mouldering teeth snapped close to her face. She twisted away as it thrashed about on its back. Its pus-clogged eyes followed her, and its gaping mouth let out a groan. The zombie dropped the rifle and tried to rise again.
Vera kicked it down. It tried to grab her legs. She dodged away and picked up the rifle. Turning around, she took a deep breath, raised the rifle and drove its butt into the zombie’s face. Hard wood rang against bone. She stumbled and put one of her feet down into something soft – the hole she’d made in the zombie’s stomach. Worms, maggots, and soft mould squelched and moved wetly between her toes. The rank stench of offal and shit stung her nostrils.