The Boneyard *ON HOLD*

Chapter One

Chapter One

Maison

Heart pounding, blood roaring in her ears, she ran. Darting through the woods, tripping over roots and rocks that laced their way across her path. The girl paid little mind to the stories haunting the back of her mind, they were nothing but myths, told to keep the young children from venturing off into the woods. The stories of the man-eating beasts who could kill and gut the strongest of men and leave nothing but his battered carcass behind, every bone licked so clean one could see their reflection on their surfaces. The stories of young children going missing in the woods, running off for a game of hide and seek, never to be seen again.

One root got the better of her, and she went sprawling across the dirt track. The sharp tang of blood filled her mouth, and released a string of curse words under her breath.  Scrambling to her feet, she continued at a slightly slower pace, bursting into a secluded clearing where she finally paused to truly catch her breath. Panting, the girl tore a strip of cloth from her tunic and wrapped it around the gash on her hand. Already, the blood was seeping through the fabric, staining it a pinkish grey, but that couldn’t be helped. The dirt probably wouldn't help infection, but being a superstitious person, she wasn't taking chances leaving a trail of blood for the mythical creatures to follow.

A quiet snort brought her attention back to the clearing, and her breath caught in her throat.  The stallion stared calmly back at her, blood dripping from his muzzle, and what looked like part of the small intestine draped from the four spires protruding from his forehead.  That wasn’t the worst part; on the ground beneath his hooves was the mangled body of a young man. A man who had once been quite handsome, though now his face was shades of purple and black bruises and was swollen with death.

There was a gaping hole where his stomach used to be and his chest cavity was completely collapsed, exposing broken ribs sticking out at awkward angles. The man’s inner organs were spread across the dirt, the lower half of his body, the spine cleaved in half and flashing it’s bloody white head to the world, accompanied by mangled and broken legs, lay a few feet from the carnage. Blood had pooled in the rivets of the earth, and soaked the grass beneath the stallion's darkened hooves.

The girl gasped in horror, the stories of the baby-eating unicorns that roamed the countryside had seemed so unreal at the time, never once did she suspect that they actually existed in flesh and blood. The stallion let loose a low snarl, his lips peeling back to reveal bloody gums and teeth.

Horses shouldn’t look like that…

She scuttled backwards, eyes wide and her heart hammering in her chest. The stallion’s nostrils flared at the scent of fresh meat, and his blue eyes seemed to light up, sparkling in the fading light.

Was it her imagination, or was the… horse… licking his lips?

The stallion advanced slowly in a zombie-like shuffle, His head slightly cocked, much like a very large, underweight  puppy.  She could see the scars clearly now, they crisscrossed his face, and marred his chest. They looked recent, though the scabbing and darker color of dried flesh told her that they were also aged. She couldn’t pinpoint what would actually get close enough to harm this… this creature.

As the stallion edged closer, the girl realized that he was very zombified. More so than she'd initially thought. The scars, blood soaked muzzle and the string of intestines, slowly slipping from his horns, good enough to be out of a horror story. He did have good height, though the skinniness made him look smaller than he truly was. His pelvic bone jutting sharply from his back, and his skin stretched tight over a ribcage that looked too big for his body. She could clearly see his spine, small bumps rising from his back, which dipped into a deep sway from lack of muscle structure. He walked with a limp, an injury to his hind leg that forced him to shuffle. Mud and dried blood caked around his pastern, remnants of a hunting trap perhaps?

At some point he'd been a magnificent stallion, but now his coat was dull and muddied, lack of muscle made the rest of his skin sag, and hollowed his eye dimples to the point where they were black holes on the top of his head.  He paused now, watching, his bright blue eyes dusty looking, and his left one bloodied and clouded, marred by the scars across his face. The only sound was the pair's ragged breathing, and what sounded like the squelch of blood beneath their feet.

His ears flicked, suddenly uninterested and he hobbled back to his carcass. The girl released the breath she'd been holding and took a step backwards, keeping a careful eye on the zombie stallion. She tripped as she reached the edge of the clearing, twisting her ankle painfully and causing her to cry out. Flinging her hand out to catch herself, she scraped past a tree as she crashed into the bushes.  

"Damn it..." She hissed, trying to hold back the hot tears threatening to creep down her cheeks.

The stallion's head shot up. His large head swiveled towards her and his ears pricked.

"Fuck." Glancing at her hand, the girl saw that her makeshift bandage had slipped, and her blood had spilt to wet the grass. A brilliant beacon of light in the onsetting darkness, immediately advertising her body as the stallion's next meal.

He began to shuffle towards her, this time much more rapidly, a strangled moan sounding from his bloodstained muzzle. Zombie Horse. His eyes hungry, and very, very empty; as though all the life had simply been drained out of them. His pace quickened, into a lurching, broken trot as he moved across the clearing towards her.

The girl tried to stand, but it was useless. Her ankle giving way before she could get it beneath her. The joint was already inflamed and throbbing with what felt like poison filled needles. She scrambled backwards, feeling the stallion's hot breath on her legs, and the drops of drool that fell from his lips. Her head slammed into the trunk of the tree behind her, and she pulled her knees to her chest, letting the tears flow freely. She was going to die. Sheltering her face behind her arms, the girl waited for death to come.