Among the Roaring Dead by Christopher Sword Page A

sleeping bag about two feet from the man’s outstretched hand. Normally, another person would be able to grab it first, but the thing was crawling forward with one hand, inches at a time, never taking his bloody gaze from Jess’s position.
    The man’s eyes were wrong, somehow. They were soul-less, foreign things like a shark’s, and he moved like a thing possessed – slowly snapping his jaws and reaching out for Jess as if he were a meal. He grabbed hold of Jesse’s foot and tried to bite it, but the material of his shoes protected him, despite the man thrashing his head, as if that might pull it off.
    Jess reached down and grabbed the stick while the man continued to inch forward. Jess shuffled backwards, held the stick with both hands and plunged it down onto the back of the old man’s head like a stake. His aim was off and he connected with the back of the neck. It seemed like he partly decapitated the poor old bastard. There was blood, and lots of it, but it didn’t spray out like you might see in a horror film. It seeped out like dark red syrup.
    It didn’t stop the old man, who continued to crawl forward, even with a deep gash, exposing a third of his neck.
    Jess brought the stick down again, and again, his eyes closed to the carnage but still aiming for the remainder of the neck. He opened his eyes and the head rolled away. It came to a stop against one of the boxes. The body fell and the head too was finally stilled – frozen in a half-moan.
     

Chapter 8
    Jess sprinted out of the tent on all fours like an animal. Something had got on his face and he struggled to see. His hands and feet tore at the ground, and he pulled himself away from the tent, turning and tumbling, and ripping at the grass and the earth. When he finally stopped for a breath, he wiped the blood from his face. At first he thought it was his own, streaming from his nose or some unknown cut he suffered in the fight. But it was not his blood and it was everywhere. On his clothes, in his hair and on his face. He could even taste it. He screamed from somewhere deep within without really meaning to.
    He panicked, thinking about infection and transmission through the exchange of blood. Other viruses passed from infected-to-new-host that way.
    He ran again – terror propelled him now. Even on all fours his footing slipped beneath him due to the urgency of his movement and the snowy ash underfoot. He went shoulder first into a tree but bounced off it, pain searing the flesh. He continued running. His mind wanted him to move faster than his feet could manage, his head and torso moved too far out in front of him and he crashed, tumbling down a hill, hurting his shoulder and plunging face-first into the river. He knelt in it, the cold water coming up to his waist. His chest was heaving from the effort and he took big, deep gasping breaths of air. He looked down at himself, seeing and the dirt and grime and blood, which he slowly washed from his face.
    The water was freezing. It moved rapidly around him, silently moving like an oil spill all around him. He didn’t know how clean it was, but it removed the blood from his skin.
    Something collided with his leg. He looked down and saw something yellow protruding from the dark water. He reached down and pulled it out. It was a toy - a child’s toy. A white helicopter with Police printed in blue on its sides. Four long yellow blades attached to the top looking like a big X.
    Something else bumped into him in the water, wrapping tightly around his right ankle.
    Jess pulled his leg up out of the water and with it came a small child who gripped his leg like he was holding on for dear life.
    Half the child’s face was raw - like old, rotten hamburger with, strands of grey, sinewy flesh hanging from where his cheek and nose should have been.
    Jess kicked it off and ran up onto the grass. It was scratching at the water, trying to follow.
    What came next Jess swore he would never repeat aloud to another person