Death Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

come free.
        Then they noticed the smell. A fetid, choking stench which smelt like excrement and made them gag. Steve felt his muscles contract, the hot bile clawing its way up from his stomach.
        'Keep pushing,' shouted Mackenzie, tearing the lump of wood from its earthy home until the many-rooted base was at a ninety degree angle to the ground. Both men put their shoulders to it, preparing to push it over.
        It was then that they looked down into the hole.
        Mackenzie opened his mouth to scream but no sound would escape. The cry caught in his throat and rasped away. His eyes, riveted to the sight below him, bulged madly, the blood vessels in the whites threatening to burst. Steve made no attempt to stop himself and vomited violently, not quite daring to believe what he saw.
        Lying in the hole, its body coated in thick slime, was a slug the size of small dog. Its body was a sickly greyish white colour, covered from head to tail with thick slime. As the horrified men stood transfixed, its twin antennae slowly grew towards them, lengthening like car aerials, until they had reached their full height. The bulbous eyes waved gently at the end of the antenna and the abomination slithered forward.
        With a scream of sheer horrified revulsion, Mackenzie snatched up the crowbar and struck the creature. It made a hideous gurgling noise, the antenna retracting swiftly. Mackenzie struck again but, seeing that the blows were having little effect, he grabbed the axe, lying discarded by the tree stump and brought it down with terrifying force on the monstrous thing.
        His blow split it in half and, a shower of virulent pus-like blood spouted into the air, some of it spattering him. Screaming like a maniac he brought the axe down again, this time splitting the thing lengthways. A reeking porridge of blackened entrails spilled onto the ground, the stench nearly making Mackenzie faint. Sobbing now, he brought the axe down once more, this time slicing off one of the antenna. He sank to his knees, the slimey mixture of yellow blood and dark viscera covering him. He gripped the axe and screamed.
        Steve Pike lay unconscious behind him.
        
***
        
        It was a full hour before Mackenzie was able to think clearly, or even to look at what remained of the thing in the hole. God alone knew how long it had been there, what it had fed on. And only now did he see that it had been lying on something. A box of some sort.
        Steve had come to about twenty minutes ago, seen the creature's body and thrown up again. Mackenzie didn't blame him. Now both of them sat looking down into the hole left by the torn up tree stump, wondering what was in the box on which the slug had been lying.
        'It looks like a coffin,' said Steve, quietly.
        Mackenzie nodded and leapt forward, tentatively touching the wooden lid. It was soft to the touch, like mildew. He poked it with the crow bar and a lump fell off. Both men stepped back.
        'What if there's another one of those things in there?' said Steve, apprehensively.
        Mackenzie ignored him and stepped down into the hole. Christ, it was deep, a good three feet deep, the rim of it level with his waist.
        The sky above was growing dark and he had to squint to read what was on the lid.
        'It's a name or something,' he said.
        Steve swallowed hard and looked around him. The wind had sprung up and the trees were rustling nervously. 'For Christ's sake hurry, Mack,' he said. Night was drawing in fast, clouds gathering like premonitory warnings above the cemetery. Birds, returning to their nests, were black arrowheads against the purple sky.
        Mackenzie bent and looked closer. There was a name plate but the name had been scratched out making it unreadable. Only the date was visible, caked over with the mud of four hundred years.
        1596.
        'Christ, it's old,' said Mackenzie.
        He