Necrocide

Chapter 11

Aaron had been wandering the forest with Harry for half an hour. They passed by familiar-looking trees so many times Aaron thought they were lost. And the sky didn't look so different either. Nothing but gray clouds blocked out by the green treetops.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Aaron asked.

"I'm positive that I'm most likely sure where I'm going," Harry replied.

Aaron raised his brow in confusion. "What the hell kind of answer was that?"

"I dunno, mate. Most Deadmen are nomadic. You either go where the food is or follow the Abnormals."

"What's your reason?"

"Mostly food. But don't worry. I only eat the dead ones."

"What do you mean?"

"I only eat humans when they're already dead. It's harder to eat when they're screaming and squirming. Gets blood all over the place."

Aaron winced in disgust. "That's very humane of you."

"Plus, I don't like killing people. It feels terrible, especially because my instincts keep trying to convince me that I should enjoy it. The crazy shit I do when I feel hunger pains."

Aaron gulped. An array of thoughts filled his head, most of which involved the horrific scenario of him eating one of his own friends. Would he really be that unstable once the turning process had completed?

"I...uh," he tried to speak. "May I ask what humans taste like?"

Harry glanced back at Aaron before returning his view to the endless forest in front of him. "It's hard to describe it in a way that doesn't sound mental. But it kind of tastes like veal to put it lightly. With a bit of a metallic aftertaste because of the blood."

Aaron grimaced. "That's..."

"And some of the other Deadmen say that children apparently taste best. I personally hate seeing children get hurt, so I only eat the adult corpses."

"That doesn't make it better. In fact, I probably won't be eating for the next few days."

The two of them passed by a seemingly abandoned campground. Three tents were set up around a pile of charred logs. One tent was crushed underneath a fallen tree while the others were still standing. However, Aaron couldn't help but notice the tents' small paint jobs.

Both tents had originally been yellow, but the passing of time had turned them brown with dirt. One of them stood out the most thanks to the splashes of red surrounding the long tears across its front. The sheet of fabric that worked as the tent's "door" dangled open, still stained with blood. Aaron stepped inside.

The first things he saw were the rotting corpses of a mother and child lying on a mattress with bullet holes in the middle of their skulls. Even though their eyes were missing along with the teeth, there were expressions of pure terror on their withering faces. And it didn't help that a spider crawled out of the child's hollow eye socket.

Aaron started gagging. The horrific sight combined with the smell that was equally as bad were too much for his stomach. He struggled to hold back vomit as he picked an old photo up from the floor. In the photo, a mother and a father were holding their little boy in the air, wide smiles on all of their faces. The sun was shining and the campground behind them was bright and lively. On the back of the photo was a message.

Family camping trip in the Bowland Fells! Best vacation ever!

However, the message was scratched out with black pen and another message was written underneath, clarifying how this family's trip concluded.