Necrocide

Chapter 15

"O'CONNOR!!!!!"

Aaron's name echoed through the Bowland Fells as Bloodletter continued screaming angrily. If he ever ran into him again, his life would be over before he could completely turn.

"No, no, no, no..." Aaron repeated to himself as he raced through the forest. He was wheezing and panting with exhaustion, probably the last few times he ever would.

He could see the destroyed hospital coming up beyond a path between two trees. He crossed through the trees, officially entering the Dead Center. Only a few Deadmen stood around the area. Aaron's heart ached when he noticed most of them were women and children.

He rarely saw undead children and he loathed encountering them. Not only were they the least reluctant to attack, the DZI were ordered to kill them on sight. The worst part was the fact that they had to use blades to commit a silent strike so they couldn't alert the other Deadmen. So when the job was done, you'd have the corpse of a child with a stab wound or deep incision in its head.

Aaron scanned the buildings around him. He wasn't awake when Harry took him to the Dead Center; he'd fainted at a shack in the middle of the woods. He could be anywhere in the Bowland Fells, and night was falling. He needed a motorcycle or even a simple bike to make it back to Matheson.

Most of the buildings around him were old shops. Each building was a two-story brick building that was either a cafe or a fish and chips shop. There were also two empty pubs, but he wasn't in the mood for a drink. However, next to one of the pubs was a closed garage. There was a small gap at the bottom of the garage door propped open by a cinderblock.

Aaron ran to the garage door, ignoring the suspicious views of the Deadmen around him. They seemed more like unknowing citizens witnessing a crime in progress rather than the flesh-eating monsters Aaron used to see them as. He struggled to push the door up, but several seconds later he sent it back up to the roof.

The inside of the garage was finally revealed to him. In the middle of it was a motorcycle, just like Aaron was hoping for. At the end of the garage was a desk with a lantern and a toolbox on it. Even a dusty radio sat in the corner.

"Well that's convenient," Aaron told himself. "Now, if this baby actually works, that'd be great."

Aaron walked into the garage and approached the motorcycle. He detached the chains and slowly rolled the motorcycle out of the room, still keeping the kickstand on the floor. He went back in to grab the lantern, additionally finding a note.

The note pretty much proved that things were mostly going Aaron's way that night, even at the sacrifice of another person's luck.

To the lucky/unlucky bastard who found this (unless you ignored this note and went ahead and stole my bike), congratulations! You have a ride out of this shithole of a forest. I doubt you have enough time to think about this, but you may be wondering what happened to the wanker who wrote this. That's easy: I'm dead.

Don't worry. I'm upstairs in my bed with a bullet in my brain, so there's no way they can get me. And I never had a family to care about or kill out of mercy. Now you just need to worry about getting your arse to safety. I put enough gas in the bike to get you to the closest Babel Towers (Lovecraft and Matheson, I think) and back. And there are matches in the drawer underneath this if you need to light the lantern. Good luck, mate.

And whatever you do, beware of the Man in the Red Mist! You can carry a weapon or cover yourself in Deadman blood, but you're royally fucked if that Bloodletter creature sees you.

- (names aren't important anymore)

"That's a real gent," Aaron said. "Kinda wish I could pay him back in some way."