Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead by Stephen Charlick

wrist he felt the mould covered skin begin to stretch and tear under the force of his pull and then suddenly, quicker than he expected, he was face to face with the corpse. For a second the Dead man looked at him, his decaying features transforming into a look of surprise, a look far too human for Cam’s liking. Then, without thinking, Cam tugged on the Dead man again, pulling him towards him and beyond the sight of any of his Dead comrades. Keen to be closer to the living flesh that consumed his very existence, the Dead man willingly obliged. With his milky gaze fixed on Cam the cadaver was oblivious to the foot stuck out to trip him and as he fell to the road in a heap of tattered rags and emaciated limbs Vincenzo’s club was already flying through the air to smash down onto his skull. With a wet ‘crack’ the Dead man’s skull split, sending dark putrid decaying brain matter splashing across the road surface.
    Panting, Vincenzo looked up at Cam and a brief nervous smile twitched at his lips. Brief, for as his eyes flicked over Cam’s shoulder he saw another two of the Dead had inadvertently followed their cadaverous brother and with them his smile was gone.
    ‘Cam!’ he managed to say as the first of the Dead, a woman, reached out a filthy claw to grab his friend.
    Spinning his head around, Cam’s reaction was a fraction too late and as the hungry cadaver lunged toward him, its slug like tongue lolling inside a blackened gaping maw, he knew he had neither the space or time to swing his crowbar to save his life. So he did the only thing he could think of, he threw himself backwards to the ground, taking the Dead woman with him. Landing hard on his back and knocking the air out of him, Cam struggled to keep the Dead woman’s snapping jaws away from his face. Above him he could hear the sounds of running footsteps coming from the second cart and Vincenzo fighting with the second Dead figure just to his left. Suddenly the Dead woman’s weight was lifted partially off of him and he felt a sudden spray of something wet and stinking splash across his face. Fighting the urge to vomit, he swiftly pulled himself out from under the Dead woman’s body just in time to see Fran yanking the hunting knife free from the back of the now lifeless woman’s skull.
    ‘I told you to wait inside,’ he panted, wiping the stinking gore from his face with the back of his sleeve.
    ‘You’re welcome,’ she sarcastically replied, reaching out a hand to pull him up.
    ‘What? Yeah… thanks,’ was all Cam could say, noticing Vincenzo already had their second Dead visitor on the ground, frantically reducing its skull to a pulp of torn skin and smashed bone.
    Foolishly engrossed in his work the young Italian had made a fatal mistake; he had turned his back on the Dead. Unlike Cam it was clear he wasn’t going to be given such a lucky escape. Almost as if in slow motion, Cam watched as a Dead man with much of the flesh missing from one of his arms, dart forward, open mouthed to the back of Vincenzo’s neck. Behind the falling Dead man, Cam could see Phil already reaching to grab hold of the back of the Dead man’s jacket, hoping to prevent the tragedy but it was to be too little too late. With a look of pure terror suddenly twisting the young man’s face, Dead teeth savagely bore down into him. Cam watched helplessly as the skin on Vincenzo’s neck puckered under the pressure of the Dead man’s bite and then began to tear. By the time Phil’s fist had made contact with the back of the Dead man’s jacket the damage had been done.
    ‘No!’ cried Cam, the world suddenly speeding up again with the spray of bright red blood erupting from Vincenzo’s neck.
    ‘Fuck!’ shouted Phil, violently throwing the Dead man to ground to stamp on his head. ‘You fucking piece of shit!’
    Rushing over to Vincenzo, Cam fell to his knees in front of the terrified young man only partially aware of the sounds of Tyrone and David finishing off the