Tent Flap III
Dappled sunlight skated across Gordon’s eyelids but it was the gunfire which brought him to his senses. At least he thought it was gunfire. The reports were muffled and distant, the shouts which accompanied them oddly harrowing. He opened his eyes and the blurred vision cleared into a woodland canopy on a clear, crisp day.
The pain of his groin still ached with the throb of his pulse, but he crept to a sitting position. His nose finally caught up to the rest of his senses, and the stink of the grave assailed him. He looked around and nearly placed his hand on the putrefying corpse behind him. Pain forgotten, Gordon flew to his feet and stumbled back from the body.
What he believed to be a man had been here long enough for nature to reclaim him. Bugs and vermin and other decomposers had performed their work well, and the grasses and weeds flourished in the nooks and crevices of rotted clothing and flesh. One eye socket was a moss filled patch.
Gordon scanned his surroundings. Distant sounds reached him, but he recognized none of the features of the land upon which he now stood. His mind canted at the displacement and he grounded himself once more, seeking what comfort could be found in the familiar reality of the corpse. Morbid curiosity guided him to investigate the fallen and forgotten man, and of course, as soon as he was within arm’s reach, the long dead figure grabbed him.
Primal shrieking emerged from Gordon as the undead drew him close. A rasp of words punched into his mind. “This land is a mockery to those who paid in blood.” Gordon’s psyche gave out and he collapsed unconscious onto the thing that held him.