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were being
eaten alive by dozens of snarling corpses, each one more rotted and disfigured
than the next.

Antonio punched the gas, and just as he swung the BMW back onto the dirt road,
Sammy Tucci was standing there waiting.  Antonio tried to swerve, but lost
control and careened into a tree at full speed, the front of the vehicle
crumpled in on itself and Antonio’s head slammed against the steering wheel
hard. 

He tried in vain to wipe all of the blood out of his eyes, but he was having a
hard time figuring out where all it was coming from.  Suddenly, through
the sticky red liquid he saw a mottled pair of hands reaching through the
shattered hole in the windshield and he screamed.  The hands grabbed him
by his hair and the lapel of his tailored suit, savagely yanking him through
the jagged hole as though he were nothing more than a doll. 
    On his back, pinned by the monstrous strength of the
rotted corpse atop him, Antonio managed to look up into the face of his
attacker – it was Sammy.

“No Sammy,” Antonio pleaded, as Sammy’s rotted lips curled back in a
snarl.  This thing that had once been human – a human Antonio had shot and
killed – readied its rotted jaws.
    “I’m sorry!  I’m
sorry!”

And with one vicious motion, the left side of Antonio’s face now hung from the
blood-streaked mouth of his old partner Sammy Tucci.  Sammy, it appeared,
reveled in the taste for just a moment as his head cocked to the side. 
The beast chewed the ragged flesh, before going back for more.

Chapter 11
    Even through the door, Michael could hear their insistent screams. 
    He knew he was next.  There was little here he
could defend himself with, so instead, he hid in the one place he thought they
might not find him. 
    Michael climbed inside the long vacant chamber of
the body incinerator.

The monsters were already at the door of the crematorium, and as they slammed
their bodies against the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame, Michael
slipped feet-first into the incinerator’s main compartment.  He pulled the
door closed behind him just as the main door to the building broke inward, sending
an army of ravenous ghouls shrieking down the corridor. 

Michael held the door shut tightly as the vengeful spirits piled into the main
furnace room of the crematorium.  Now the sounds of a dozen fists beating
away wildly at the door to the furnace was deafening and he wondered just how
long he could stay that way inside this chamber that had consumed so much
flesh.
    How ironic, he thought, that he should be locked
away inside the crematorium, assaulted by the hordes of corpses that should
have been there instead.

He screamed for them to leave him alone, but there was no such luck.  The
noise continued.  As he gripped onto the handle, pulling it downwards with
all of his strength in an effort to stop them from opening the door, he
suddenly realized there was nothing pulling back on it. The creatures were not
seeking to reach him inside the furnace.
    Removing his hands from the rusted, burnt handle, he
stared at it, confused.
    Why? Suddenly, Michael heard a sound he’d not heard in years.  It was that
rushing whoosh of gas followed by the steady click of the starter.

“No…”

In less than a second, every last bit of breath was ripped from Michael’s lungs
as the fire erupted all around him, hot upon his skin.  He pushed at the
door with all his strength, but it was pinned closed – they hadn’t sought to
get to him, they had meant to keep him in there while he burned.  In one
horrific instant he felt the skin on his arms and legs beginning to bubble up
and peel away as he screamed in silent agony.  His hair curled in on
itself before it fell away as ash. 
    Michael stopped trying to scream, he could no longer
take in any oxygen before the fire ignited it.  His body began to quake
violently, the pain incredible and absolute – a single second that seemed to
stretch on forever.  
    In his final