The Earthdead

By Mark James Wooding

A certain fungus brings corpses back from the dead. After the dead revive, they become stronger, faster, and smarter than they were. They can also travel underground. And there's only one item on their menu: human flesh.

Two local lodges, the Community of Men and the Community of Women, must once again step up to defend the county against an evil that most people don't even believe exists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark James Wooding
• Release date: Sep 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463347461

Mark James Wooding

Mark James Wooding began his working career as an unskilled laborer. In the opinion of those with whom he has most recently worked, the term 'unskilled' still applies. It's the 'laborer' part they question.Mr. Wooding currently lives with his family in Henrico, Virginia, and will probably continue to do so until the authorities find him.

Book preview

The Earthdead

by

Mark James Wooding

Copyright © 2018 by Mark James Wooding.

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

******

Table of Contents

In Search of Food

Unusual Absence

Her Greatest Fear

An Old Wives’ Tale

Under the Ground

Suspicions

Excuses

Skepticism

Where Were You?

The Lodge Mobilizes

The Hunt

Cleanup

Escape

Bad News

Teachers to the Rescue

Something is Wrong

Please Help

Initiation

Revenge

Not This Time

In Search of Food

Rebecca woke up. Something heavy was pressing down on her entire body. She couldn’t move. Even her fingers and toes were locked in place. She tried with all her strength to move her legs, her arms, her head, but nothing budged.

Exhausted, she gave up.

She wasn’t breathing. She should have been breathing. She didn’t understand why she didn’t need to breathe.

There was something in her mouth and in her nose.

It was dirt.

She couldn’t see it, but she could taste it. And she could feel it on her fingertips. She could feel it on her face. She didn’t understand why she was covered with dirt.

Her head hurt. She couldn’t think clearly. She wanted to touch her head. She tried to move her arms again, but they remained firmly in place.

She remembered that her husband had hit her. Henry had been mad at her. And drunk. They had argued, and he had hit her. Now she was underground. Why was she underground? She didn’t have an answer for that question.

Something was happening to her skin. She could feel it changing. Something was growing inside of her, too.

She was tired. She had so little energy. She drifted off to sleep.

Many hours later, Rebecca woke up again. She could feel the dirt weighing down upon her.

She heard something. Footsteps.

It sounded like two people. One of them was heavier than the other one. She could hear them walking around, and she could hear voices. She didn’t know what they were saying. Then the heavier person went away.

The lighter person was still there. Rebecca could feel the vibrations in the ground as that person moved around.

Rebecca was hungry. Very hungry.

She thought about moving toward the footsteps, and her body began moving.

It was her skin. Her skin was displacing the dirt around her. She was slowly moving toward the footsteps.

Now she could feel the dirt on her scalp. She thought about her beautiful hair. How could she feel the dirt on her scalp if her hair was still there? What had happened to her hair?

It was easy to move through the loose dirt. But the dirt was only loose for about a foot. When she got to the harder soil, she couldn’t move as quickly.

Something else was slowing her down. It was her clothes. They were in the way. As the skin around her body tried to move through the dirt, it shredded her clothes. Soon the clothing was past her, and she could feel the dirt on the skin around her entire body. Without the clothing, she could move faster.

Her arms were now able to slowly move through the dirt. She moved them until they were stretched out in front of her, as if she were flying through the dirt.

Her fingernails scratched at the packed soil in front of her. Her skin pushed the soil around her and behind her. It enlarged the underground path as she headed closer to the source of the footsteps.

She couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore, but she could hear someone singing. She knew she was close.

Slowly she changed direction. She moved upwards.

There were roots in her way. She had to go back the way she had come. The dirt was already loose, so it was easy to travel through.

She found a place where she could move upward between the roots. Slowly, quietly, her hands broke the surface. The dirt fell from around her so softly that the singing person couldn’t hear it.

When Rebecca’s arms and head were completely above the ground, she lowered her arms and used them for leverage. She slowly lifted herself out of the ground.

Crouching in the shade, the light hurt her skin. She wanted to go back into the ground, but she needed to eat. Rebecca was careful to avoid the direct sunlight. She didn’t know how much it would hurt, and she didn’t want to find out.

She looked at her skin. It wasn’t at all like she remembered it. Her skin was no longer smooth and soft. It was now crusty, almost scaly, and had a reddish tint. She passed her left hand over her right arm. It felt like sandpaper. She ran her hand over the top of her head. Her beautiful hair was all gone. There was only the rough skin.

Rebecca squatted on the ground and looked around her. She knew where she was. She was in the woods by Center Lake. There was no sign of anyone other than the singing person. The singing was coming from the other side of a tree in front of her, and just past the tree was the lake. She could see the end of a fishing pole, and the fishing line going down from the pole to a bobber in the water.

Silently, Rebecca stood up. Her hunger was more insistent. She needed to eat.

Her footsteps made no sound as she carefully moved towards the tree that blocked her prey from view. She quietly placed her hands on the tree trunk, and she peered around the tree.

There was a boy sitting cross-legged. He was lightly pulling the fishing rod so that the bobber in the water moved slightly to the left and then to the right. As he played with the fishing rod, the boy kept singing.

He looked about ten years old. He was wearing blue jeans and a red t-shirt. He was barefoot.

Rebecca could smell him. The boy smelled delicious.

She had never thought about eating a person before, but now she couldn’t imagine eating anything else. It was exactly what her body needed.

Her mouth watered. There was still dirt in her mouth. She let the muddy drool fall from her lips. The boy didn’t hear it.

Rebecca moved quietly around the trunk. When her prey was within reach, her hand darted out and grabbed the boy by the neck.

The singing stopped. The boy dropped the fishing rod and he struggled. Rebecca easily held his neck in her grip.

She felt strong. She had never felt this strong before. She liked the feeling.

Soon the food stopped moving. Its body hung limply from her hand.

Rebecca looked around again. There was still no sign of anyone else.

She walked back to the spot where she had emerged from the ground. She only had to think about which direction she wanted to go, and the rough skin of her feet began moving