Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the living flesh just out of his reach but if the girl manage to pull herself to his shoulders Phil knew she might just be able to latch onto the edge of the hole to pull herself up. He could see the scenario playing itself out in his head. With the knife strapped to his calf he would give the girl the peace of true Death only for her corpse to fall and then be used as a stepping stone for the other Dead below him. Before long another would manage to somehow get within reaching distance and so the mound of corpses on the table would grow until nothing could keep them from clambering into the loft space with them.
    ‘No, we need to get out of here…’ continued Phil, looking away from the ravenous corpses to the worried faces of the group. ‘Going down there isn’t an option.’
    ‘Right… Out it is then,’ said Tom, smashing away at a few more of the loose tiles.
    Hunched over against the eaves of the roof, Charlie carefully stepped from one joist to the next to join Tom by the opening. Peering down he was relieved to see the moss clogged guttering only less than a metre away from him and to their left, tantalisingly close, the corner of the roof with a sturdy looking drainpipe running to the ground.
    ‘Think we can get down that?’ he asked, looking back at Tom.
    ‘Most of us, yes,’ he replied, glancing over his shoulder before continuing, ‘but what about Carmella?’
    ‘Carmella will climb down if that is the only way,’ came the young Italian woman’s voice from behind them. ‘I… I will not let my baby die here…’
    ‘Carmella,’ interrupted Vincenzo, turning his wife’s face to look at him, ‘do not speak of such things, all will be fine. We will get to the carts and leave this place of death behind us. We will find a new home… I promise.’
    Tom and Charlie shared a knowing look. They both knew Vincenzo was making promises he simply could not keep. For nothing could be promised in this world of the Dead, especially a future.
    ‘OK… Now we just have to hope there’s not too many of the Dead down there waiting for us…’ mumbled Charlie, leaning forward trying to get a better look at the dark grounds of the Institute around them.
    The Carmichael Institute with its long winding drive way, small woodland that ran along one of its high boundary walls and the rolling lawns, that had been turned into a patchwork of vegetable gardens, had seemed an ideal place to build a sanctuary against the Dead but with those very Dead now stalking its shadows the survivors realised getting out alive may prove impossible.
    Suddenly, as Charlie planned the order they would descend, a man broke free of the small woodland to his right. With his head spinning left and then right the man paused before sprinting from the trees as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. Unsurprisingly a second figure, a woman bloody and ravaged, abruptly pushed through the tree-line a few seconds after him. Taking only a moment to latch her Dead sight on the fleeing man, the Dead woman bounded after him. Stupidly the man turned his head to see how far his pursuer was behind him and it proved to be his undoing. Without looking where he was going he ran straight into a low water trough that ran along a patch of runner beans and cabbages. With a crash the man went down, a tangle of limbs and bean poles. As quickly as he tried to right himself, the Dead woman was quicker and before he had even got to his knees she was on him. Almost launching herself at the terrified man, the Dead woman dived for the exposed flesh of his neck. With a scream that ripped through the darkness, Charlie and Tom watched, unable to help or tear their eyes away, as the Dead woman slowly drew back her head. The further she pulled back, the higher the man’s screams rose in pitch. But skin and flesh can only withstand so must abuse and as his screaming suddenly turned to a wet choking sound, the Dead woman finally tore free her prize. Greedily chewing on