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

the stolen flesh, her hands continued to dart forward to rip and tear at the man’s neck, such was her need to consume the bloody flesh in front of her. The man’s struggling began to weaken and as his blood rained down upon them both, baptising him into a world of Death and horror, he mercifully died. The Dead woman forced one more chunk of flesh from the man’s chest into her mouth before stopping. For a moment it looked as if confusion flitted across her Dead features, unable to  understand why the tantalising flesh that moments ago had enraptured her so now held no interest at all. But her slowly decaying brain could no longer process or manipulate such a quandary before her, so pushing herself up from the man’s blood splattered death bed among the cabbages, she ran off in search of the living.
    ‘Jesus,’ whispered Tom, looking at the man’s still and ruined body below them.    
    Both men knew what would happen next and sure enough within a few minutes of his death, the murdered man’s right hand suddenly began to spasm as if a bolt of electricity had shot through it. With his blood covered fingers seemingly to clench and unclench of their own accord, his left leg also began to twitch, kicking out against one of the broken bean poles. Then without warning the man abruptly sat up. Seeing the world for the first time through his milky film-covered eyes, the Dead man seemed to look about almost as if searching for something. A cry of pain from somewhere in the grounds and his head snapped sharply to the right. Somehow the Dead man knew this signalled the presence of something he needed desperately, something that would quench the burning hunger that raged at his very core. Pushing himself shakily to his feet, it took a moment for whatever had caused his corpse to reanimate to fully take control of his dead limbs and after only the smallest of uncertainty with his first step, the man was off.
    ‘I think we should try to get down there while we have the chance,’ said Charlie, watching the Dead man sprint off into the darkness.
    ‘Hmmm…’ replied Tom, wondering just how many of the hungry corpses were roaming the grounds. ‘Before any more company turns up.’
    ‘Right… Sorry Phil but I need you to go down first,’ said Charlie, turning back to the group. ‘You’re the heaviest and if the drainpipe will hold you, it’ll hold all of us.’
    ‘Great,’ Phil mumbled, making his way over to the hole in the roof.
    Pausing as he ducked to step through the gap, Phil pulled the hunting knife from the sheath on his calf and put the blade between his teeth. If he met with unwanted company when he got to the ground, he wanted to be ready for it. Using one of the exposed beams for support, he slowly edged out onto the roof. As he did so, a final roof tile slipped free to fall and smash on the ground below him.
    ‘Fucking great,’ he garbled past the knife between his teeth.
    The corner of the roof was barely a metre away but Phil was still grateful when his fingers finally latched onto the thicker corner tiles. Now that he had something to grip onto, it was an easy task for him to pull himself over to where the clogged guttering met the sturdy looking drainpipe. Despite the building being quite old, Phil could tell that no corners had been cut in the construction and as he got down on his stomach to lower his legs over the edge of the roof he hoped this had stretched as far as the drainpipe fixings as well. With his legs at last dangling over the lip of the roof, Phil was about to begin his descent when from somewhere in the grounds an owl hooted. Phil froze in his movements and looked back over to the gaping hole in the roof where Charlie held his hand for him to stop. They had all heard this owl before, it was well known to them and as a signal it meant they may just finally have been given a break. Sure enough as Phil hung mid-air craning his neck to see below him, the welcome sight of one of their carts