ENGL1007 First Draft, Extended

"That was not backing me up," Charlie said as they walked toward the bus stop. "What you did back there? That is not being a good wing-man."
"Maybe I'm just not a good wing-man?" Jen replied.
"That's not it and you know it," she insisted. "You know I like Sam but you told Susan that he was totally into her, which by the way is a total lie because he doesn't even look at her. What if she asks him out because you said that? What if he says yes? Why would you do that to me?"
Jen shrugged.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"It's going to rain," Jen said absently, peering up at the sky. Charlie stifled a frustrated growl.
"Jen, you always do this!" She cried. "Why are you so immature? I'd have a better friendship with a toddler. I'd have a more meaningful conversation with an ATM."
"I can be meaningful." She sounded hurt, but not for the right reason, Charlie thought.
"Not when it's important, Jen, and that is the prob-"
"I told you it'd rain!" She interrupted, holding out her hand to catch the first few drops of evidence. "Didn't I say it would rain?"
They ran to the shelter as the rain set in, and sat perhaps a little further apart than they normally would have.

"I think this is a bigger problem than you realise," Charlie said finally, with a sigh.
"Why?"
"How can we be best friends if you can't even pay attention when I'm talking to you? Let alone back me up against boyfriend-stealing bitches like Susan Macleod?"
"He isn't your boyfriend, Charlie."
"Well he should be."
A bus rattled past and they peered after it in the dying sunlight.
"That wasn't ours, was it?" Charlie asked, as ever paranoid that one day their bus would not stop for them.
"Nope, that was the Glenelg bus."
"Good. But seriously. How could you not remember that I liked him? How long have I been talking about him for, now?"
"A couple weeks."
"At least!"
"Only just. Before that it was Mark, and before him it was Sean, and Michael, and Hayden..."
Charlie glared at her.
"Are you calling me fickle?""Pretty much," Jen replied cheerfully. The rain was getting heavy - she splashed her feet in the little puddles that were growing beneath the bench.

“What about the sports carnival last week? You followed him around all day.”
“With a clipboard,” Jen added, sketching its shape out in the air.
“Yes, well, didn’t you speak to him then? About something? I.e. me?”
“No. We didn’t talk.”
Charlie felt like tearing at her hair with frustration. Was Jen being deliberately thick-headed? Another bus rattled by, sending up a fountain of spray.
“Marion Centre,” Jen said helpfully.

“If you can’t give me one good reason why not, then I honestly think I will have to go find a new best friend.”
“It’s hard to have a conversation with someone’s tongue shoved down your throat and,” she added quickly, “before you go jumping to conclusions I was not personally involved. I was referring to Sam’s throat and Henry’s tongue.”
Charlie gaped.
“Henry – as in that girl from Aberfoyle Park? Henrietta Price?”
“Nope. Henry as in Henry Thomas. The guy that cooks.”
Charlie was silent for a long time as the information sank in.
“And Susan’s going to ask him out, right?”
“God yes. She thinks she’s a sure thing.”
The silence stretched out a little more. The rain poured down. A bus stopped before them with a hiss of its brakes.
“That’s ours, Jen,” Charlie pointed out, grabbing her bag and trying to dodge the puddles between them and the roadside.
“Aren’t you going to apologise?” Jen complained as she followed her, searching her pockets for her bus ticket. Charlie looked back over her shoulder with a cheeky smile.
“After you spent the last half hour torturing me? I don’t think so. And besides, that’s what being a best friend is all about, Jen. You don’t have to say you’re sorry.”

That Was Your Bus, Frank

I saw him at the station. While everybody else rushed around - between buses, checking timetables, checking their impatient watches - he simply waited. Still, calm, exuding patience. I was surprised to see such poise in someone so young - in high school still, by the uniform he wore. His bag was startlingly red on such a grey afternoon - red as virgin's blood? asked the poet-voice in my mind, red as hell's flaming waters?
He wore white shoes - white as sun-bleached skulls? - and a blue shirt - blue as the unpolluted sky! - and grey trousers - grey like winter rain and old men's whiskers,the poet suggested, grey like the falling ashes of a funeral pyre.
He hadn't looked my way yet so his eyes remained as mysterious as the untold secrets of the earth, as the epiphanies of angels. I imagined they would be deep, like the ocean's unfathomable depths.
I listened with amusement to the poet's ramblings, only half aware that they were of course my own. It was amazing, in a way, the amount of beauty that could be found in one young man. It wasn't that his looks were so extraordinary, but just the way that the colour and the light played on his stillness and - he moved suddenly, noticing me looking at him, and strode over.
"Hi," he said, flashing me a smile that caught the light and sparkled like a mouthful of stars. I could not think of a single thing to say.
"You're a symphony!" I blurted out, because the poet was never lost for words. My cheeks flushed immediately; he laughed.
"Do you have the time?"

Unspoken?

"I don't believe in love," he announced, leaning back and folding his arms and obviously waiting for my response.
"Why not?" I replied, because it was my role to turn the statement into an argument.
"It's crap. It's a Hallmark holiday! It's a Hollywood cliche!"
"I am surprised that you'd say that, love used to be all you talked about. You're a poet after all, Frank."
"Maybe I used to be. But lately I don't feel like one. It's like... I am all out of fancy words. And so what if I am? Love, liberty, the beauty of the world? In the end we all die alone."
"I don't think you should give up so easily on love," I said, sadly, even though it was probably a lost cause. "Who knows who you will meet tomorrow?"
He just shook his head, dissatisfied with my logic or maybe my girly sentiment, and ordered another drink.

Say Unto Me This Proverb

It was heart-breaking to witness, the deconstruction of a man. Even one as bad as this man was, who had sinned more than most people would in a dozen lifetimes. Even though the jury had deemed it appropriate and even though, outside the facility, crowds were clamouring for his blood. It was still a terrible thing, to see a human being on that table, with his skull opened and his brain hanging out, as the doctor stimulated first this nerve centre and then that one. The drug was in full swing, making the man relive each crime with painful, hyper-real clarity. The scientist - for all he liked to be called doctor, she knew that his true profession was very different - activated the man's senses and nerves and pain centres. He saw each crime through his own eyes of course, but the sensations were mapped directly from his victim's brains.

Classical music floated around the room as the operation continued, because he fancied himself a conductor, or some kind of artist.
Art! It was torture. For the criminal on the table, yes, but also for the nurse who must watch it all, ready at any moment to assist. For the nurse who was carrying a secret beneath her dull eyes, a secret that was hot and heavy in her pocket.
"Have you no compassion?" She asked in a dead whisper. He glanced at her briefly, without comprehension.
"Of course."
"For the victims," she supplied, "What about your victims?"

"I am not a criminal," he replied with absolute conviction. "I'm only doing my job."
He still had not stopped working. The criminal's mouth gaped in a silent scream. His eyes writhed - it was all the movement he had left. They had disabled everything else so that he could not possibly escape.
"You are a sinner also," she said softly, dangerously. Her hand closed around the grip of the hypodermic needle as she walked over to his side. He still was not bothered, he did not even flinch as she put a hand on his arm, and as the needle sank into his neck he only blinked. He slid to the ground silently, staring up at her in mute surprise.

"He's down," she announced, speaking to the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling. Soft thuds from outside the room told her that her colleaques were there - they burst into the room, drawing in their wake the hiss of the airlock.
"Surgical containment?" The leader asked briskly, helping to haul the paralyzed scientist onto the spare table.
"Within acceptable limits," the nurse replied, checking the display by the door.

"Physician," he muttered, as the bone-saw buzzed, and the scientist's eyes screamed. "Heal thyself."

Invasion

Morgan woke, without really knowing why. She was comfortable enough, everything was still and quiet, and yet... her heart was pounding, her eyes were darting around the room as if she could see in the dark. She couldn't, of course, only the dim shine of stars and the dull glow of the hallway light from beneath her door.
She closed her eyes, knowing that she could hear better with less input from her other senses. It was as if her ears were wiggling with effort, stretching and growing to catch every little sound. Distant traffic, her mother muttering in her sleep and her little brother snoring, a ticking clock - and the creak of the old floorboards of the stairs.
There's somebody in our home, she thought, panicked. Somebody who is not allowed.
Battered by the harsh winter winds, the tree outside her window tapped against the glass.

Leap of Faith

"Help is coming," said a voice in my ear, though there was nobody there. "We’ll get you out of there."
On another day I may have been afraid, that I was hearing voices, that I was going crazy. But that much I already knew, because if I wasn’t crazy then it meant that what I was seeing was true, and it meant that I had just killed my family.
"Who are you?" I asked, searching for comfort. My voice was swallowed up in the roar of the flames but they heard me anyway.
"Friends."The voice was strange – disjointed, fractured, echoing. Not comforting at all. The fire was all around me and I could see my clothes beginning to burn, though I felt no pain. Shock, I told myself.
"Just hold on," the voice insisted, "We’re nearly there, Amy. Just hold on."
I wondered how they knew my name, but not for long, because the house was beginning to groan. The fire was eating it up. It was going to collapse. It was going to bury me alive.
"Please hurry," I begged, truly afraid for the first time.
"Close your eyes," the voice whispered and I obeyed without question as the first slab of roofing fell in a fountain of sparks. A second crash followed it but of a different timbre, this one accompanied by a glittering shower of glass. Footsteps pounded across the floor, hands grabbed at my arms, dragged me until I ran with them. I hesitated, knowing the window was close, and a ten-story drop below it.
"Trust me," said the voice.
I nodded, and jumped.

I Am My Own Bad Habit (Galatea Extended)

as if they are precious
I collect the bruises you give me
and I hoard your curses and insults
and I gasp
..........drowning
..................without your scowl
.
your carressing fists
your stranglehold embrace
your poisoning breath as
you call me back -
"I love you
...................don't go"
so I stay
.
yes I have been oppressed but
we are both
the oppressors
.
.
.
(I'll fix this, I'll work this out)

Long Ago, Far Away...

Once upon a time, in a land not so very different from our own, three sisters lived alone in an old house in the woods. The oldest sister was called Vanesse, the middle sister was called Clarine, and the youngest sister was called Gisette.
Now it just so happened, as it often does in these kinds of tales, that Vanesse and Clarine were the children of their father's first wife, who had turned out to be a terrible and nasty witch. He had made her leave the moment he found out, but had allowed their daughters to remain with him, because everyone knows that a witch makes a terrible mother.
In time he married again, a woman who was kind and gentle and not at all like the witch. She was generous and loving to everybody, and treated the witch's daughters like they were her own. After a little while she did have a daughter of her own, who she called Gisette, and whom she would have loved more than anything in the world if she had not, tragically, died not long after her baby was born. The girls' father was overcome with grief, and scarcely had he arranged for the baby to be cared for than he died of a broken heart.
Vanesse and Clarine were not fond of their sister. They blamed her for her mother's death, and hated her because everything their father had possessed he had left to the helpless baby. Perhaps he had recognised the jealousy in his eldest children's hearts, and thought that this would improve the girl's chances of life under her sisters' ravenous gaze.

We Are Eve, We Are Galatea

we are human because we fell
from grace
Eve's sacrifice
considered a curse
must we forever carry the blame?

...............................................................

women have been oppressed
but we are both
the oppressors

ENGL1007, Short Story Assignment (Part One)

"That was not backing me up," Charlie said as they walked toward the bus stop. "What you did back there? That is not being a good wing-man."
"Maybe I'm just not a good wing-man?" Jen replied.
"That's not it and you know it," she insisted. "You know I like Sam but you told Susan that he was totally into her, which by the way is a total lie because he doesn't even look at her. What if she asks him out because you said that? What if he says yes? Why would you do that to me?"
Jen shrugged.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"It's going to rain," Jen said absently, peering up at the sky. Charlie stifled a frustrated growl.
"Jen, you always do this!" She cried. "Why are you so immature? I'd have a better friendship with a toddler. I'd have a more meaningful conversation with an ATM."
"I can be meaningful." She sounded hurt, but not for the right reason, Charlie thought.
"Not when it's important, Jen, and that is the prob-"
"I told you it'd rain!" She interrupted, holding out her hand to catch the first few drops of evidence. "Didn't I say it would rain?"
They ran the last few metres to the bus shelter, sitting perhaps a little further apart than they normally would have.
"I think this is a bigger problem than you realise," Charlie said finally, with a sigh.
"Why?"
"How can we be best friends if you can't even pay attention when I'm talking to you? Let alone back me up against boyfriend-stealing bitches like Susan Macleod?"
"He isn't your boyfriend, Charlie."
"Well he should be."
A bus rattled past and they peered after it in the dying sunlight.
"That wasn't ours, was it?" Charlie asked, as ever paranoid that one day their bus would not stop for them.
"Nope, that was the Glenelg bus."
"Good. But seriously. How could you not remember that I liked him? How long have I been talking about him for, now?"
"A couple weeks."
"At least!"
"Only just. Before that it was Mark, and before him it was Sean, and Michael, and Hayden..."
Charlie glared at her.
"Are you calling me fickle?""Pretty much," Jen replied cheerfully. The rain was getting heavy - she splashed her feet in the little puddles that were growing beneath the bench.

Better The Devil You Know

It had been a long day in Hell. He had been raking in the sinners lately, and of course it was her job to keep a record of them all.
"So none of them slip away," he would explain with that toothy, sleazey smile when she asked, for the millionth time, why she needed to chronicle each soul that entered his fiery domain.
"The clipboard is getting heavy," she pointed out, and he was courteous enough to look back at the wagon and the panting demons in it's harness. "I will need another."
"It's on my to-do list," he promised, patting the digital-personal-organiser in the pocket of his shirt. She'd given it to him for Christmas. She knew he didn't use it.
"I'll be needing another shipment of pens, too," she added, "The scribes go through so many that it just isn't funny any more."
"Then make them write in blood!" He snarled. "Money doesn't grow on trees, you know!"
Mirith sighed. He would bring it back to money.
"Don't talk to me like you're on a tight budget," she replied firmly, straightening his tie despite his protests that it was fine, not too loose at all, was she trying to kill him or something? "I'm the one who oversees the accounts, after all."
"Mir, honey, darling," he crooned, pushing her hands away and putting his arm around her shoulder. "What would I do without you? I know you work hard and you just don't get enough credit for what you do. Would you like a raise? I think I need to give you a raise."
"Please," she rolled her eyes. "You can't afford a box of pens but you can raise my salary? What's the point? I'm going to be here forever anyway. And don't try to charm your way out of this, either."
"I am charming, aren't I?" He smiled widely, white teeth gleaming in the bloody light. Someone not so far away screamed.
"And handsome," she replied, because they both knew it.
"Would you say I was - devilishly handsome?" He prodded, and she couldn't help but laugh, even though it was far from the first time he'd made that same joke. She could remember the first time, if she concentrated. It was a long time ago, countless generations ago; she'd been alive, then, and foolish enough to frequent shady bars after dark. He'd been masquerading as a mortal man that night (he often did) and had like the 'cut of her jib', as he so eloquently put it. She'd been little impressed by this supposed drunken sailor, but he really was handsome, yes devilishly so, and she had always been a sucker for a flirt.
"Pens," she repeated firmly, "And a new clipboard."

Five Minutes More...

when she played
the angels stopped their work
and gathered round to hear her song
and I never could decide
where spirit ended and her flesh began
or if she were
an angel all along

An Immortal Legacy

"Make something with me," she said to the Carver.
The Carver looked at the board, where his beautiful pawns lay broken and discarded by the childish goddess who was even now leading her partner around the room. He looked at the other gods, idle and content in their idleness, and knew that he needed something more.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, let's make something special."
They wasted no time in getting to their work, because what was there to hold them back? The materials they needed they gathered from around the garden of the gods, the physical elements of fire and earth and water and air. This part of the story you can imagine, I think - immortal hands shaping the form of the very earth we inhabit now, though at the time it was a far more wild and fearsome place. The first beasts and foliage were more rough and primitive than those to which we are accustomed.
"It is not complete," the Carver said, when they had stopped at last. They looked down at the world that they had created and knew that this was so.
"It needs art and music," the Sculptor replied, glancing at the sisters.
"It needs laughter and passion," the Carver agreed, nodding at Love and Lust.
They looked down at their work, and at the materials that remained. There was not a lot.
"We will make something like ourselves," the Sculptor whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder. "To enjoy our world and to care for it."
The Carver took up his tools, and fashioned eight figures from War's abandoned pawns, and four of these they called men and four they called women.
"From these a mighty population shall spring," he announced, setting them gently down, pleased with his work. "Thought mortal, they shall be immortal in their legacy."
The Sculptor took up her tools, and from the materials that remained of their world building, she shaped eight spirits to inhabit the figures, two each of fire, air, earth and water.
"From these a might spirit shall grow," she announced, carefully fitting the spirits to their forms, smiling with pride. "They will pray and love and hope as we never have."
And then they set the figures down in their new world, and awakened them with a whisper, and watched proudly as they came to life.

In A Time Before Time

There was a time before time, when men and beasts and the stars themselves did not exist. The very earth was nothing - there was only the realm of the gods, a garden of beauty surpassing anything ever witnessed by the mortal eye. It was here that the immortal beings resided, wiling away the ages with the passtimes they are known as the patrons of. The Carver with his knife, ever replenishing the pieces broken in War's vicious games. History watched from the sidelines, gathering dust, waiting for the times when she would grow tired of the game and then she would consent to dancing with him. The sisters of Art would play music for them, Melody and Harmony and Cadence with their flutes and drums. And the other gods would watch, and pursue the things that they enjoyed, but one day the Sculptor tired of it all.

An Evening's Entertainment

Every culture has stories, that have grown and changed over time just as the people who tell them have grown and changed. They reveal more than you could imagine about the nature of the teller and their world, but that is not the reason that you have brought me here today. You asked me here to tell stories. I will tell you the stories that laid the foundations for all others. I will tell you the first stories.

Soft To-night The Spice-Wind Comes

Cassiara couldn't sleep. The wind whispered through the trees, and strange moonlight shadows played on the canvas above her. She could hear her bodyguard's soft breathing at the tent's entrance, and the rough snoring of the men in other tents around them. And another sound, one she did not recognise - a scratching, and a kind of wailing hum. She stood, pulling her blanket around her gaainst the chilly air outside. Asima was awake within an instant, courched ready, eyes and teeth and dagger glinting in the half-light. Cassia put a hand to her ear, then pointed outside and Asima nodded. She could hear it too.
On soft feet they crept outside, following the sound into the soft-lit grove. There was little to be seen but Asima bade Cassia to wait as she checked all around. She returned with a frown, irritated by her lack of findings. Cassia closed her eyes, tilting her head as she listened carefully for the strange noises. And then they heard, very clearly, a soft screech from the cluster of newest saplings. Asima stepped between her mistress and the sound, stalking up to the little trees and peering among them.
Then she laughed - softly, yet it almost echoed in the still air. Her hand hovered over the trees for a moment before darting in. There was much scrabbling and several pained hisses before she finally straightened, returning to where Cassia waited, holding the struggling creature before her.
Cassia stared in awe at the little creature. It resembled a lizard most of all, long and lithe with soft sand-coloured scales. But it's claws - carefully restrained by Asima - were viciously long, and from its back protruded two wings almost as large as the body itself.
"A cinnamon-dragon," Asima announced, eyes gleaming with excitement.

The Desert at Thy Feet

Cassia headed deeper into the grove while the men set up their tents, inspecting the season's new growth. Their work was paying off - the trees were healthy and growing well.
"It would be a shame to lose this grove," Asima said quietly, as ever walking silently a few steps behind her mistress. "Truly its location is the real treasure of your mother's legacy."
Cassia nodded, unconsciously running her hands over the map-case that hung from her shoulders. It was in a code, of course, that none but Safa's most trusted allies had known. Yet if the map were to fall into the arms of enemies, they would decipher it sooner or later. The hidden spice grove, the secret to the wealth of the Baysan family, would be revealed.
"We shall not lose it," Cassia replied firmly. "Any who learn of it and do not seal a blood oath shall be killed."
Asima's eyes flickered momentarily back, to where the gatherers were already beginning their work.
"If a single one of them breaks from my service, they shall be fugitives from all men," Cassia said with an uncharacteristic fierceness. The map-case held the men's contracts too, signed with a drop of blood that sealed them to the oath until death. There were few laws more stringently upheld - an oath-breaker would be killed by any who found him. Asima nodded, but she was clearly not content. Cassia was not surprised - she'd known the woman since she was just a little girl, and Asima was never satisfied of her ward's safety.
"Master Baysan!" Cried one of the men, interrupting their discussion. Cassia went to where he crouched at the side of a cinnamon sapling. Before he even spoke she saw the problem - the bark was slashed all along its length, and bore but a few leaves and berries.
"Sabotage?" Asima suggested in a low voice, as ever present at Cassia's shoulder.
"Perhaps."
The other gatherers were watching her, too - what did they expect of her? To fly into a rage? Safa would have, undoubtedly, but Cassia was not so like hermother when it came to temperament.
"Work fast," she ordered. "The sun sinks soon and I do not wish to linger here many days."They jumped to obey her as if they expected to feel a whip sting their hides. There was a whip; it hung from Cassia's saddle, another thing left by her mother. The fearful respect they had shown had always amused Cassia as a child. These were men who boasted and bragged and could kill in mere seconds, and yet they had cringed and cowered at the feet of a woman.
"I miss her," she told her bodyguard. The other woman did not reply but Cassia knew she was there. "She was wise and strong and beautiful. I don't think I will ever be these things."
"You're a child yet, Cassiara," Asima replied finally, ducking into their tent ahead of her, ever wary. "Give it time."

Once More A Desert-Child

The spice-winds were fierce that day - they blew roughly through the caravan, fluttering robes and tugging at hair. Cassia smiled at its sharp scent but did not change her course. A lesser trader would have turned to find the wind's tail and the grove that lay there, but Cassiara Baysan was no lesser trader. Her mother, the great Trader Safa Baysan, had passed on many secrets before her death, and the most valuable of all had been the trick of the spice-hunt.

Prosevomit

Aria scrabbled amongst the debris of her room, searching in vain for a pen. Or a pencil, a crayon, a charred stub of wood - anything to leave a mark on the page, anything to pin down the words that were bloating her. She could feel the drug working its way through her veins, gathering up the shreds of poetry and carrying them along in a rush that spiralled on, in and in and always in, toward her heart until she thought it might burst. When she could find nothing to write with she bit down on her own fingertip until it bled, rather than put up with the mocking stare of the blank page. The marks she left were all but unintelligible which suited Aria just fine because people always started to ask questions when they read the things she had written.

Bibliomancy

Bibliomancy - A little known form of magic which relies on the written word. Adepts can give life to what is on the page, they are prized by kings and war generals to help imagine field reports etc. Rich lord sometimes hire them for an evening's entertainment, but other than that they are seldom noticed or even respected.
Bibliomancers often find themselves drawn to work in libraries, where they can find much comfort in the old tomes. Undiscovered mages of this branch generally find a fascination in books and storytelling.
A bibliomancer is also known as an illusionist; what they read is shown as images in air or on a screen. More skill can lead to sounds, smells, the need only to hold a book (not read it) or even just to speak the words at all. The most skilled Bibliomancers can make the listener's reality become that of their story.

It's Not Sounding Like Happy Times

"We should go," Charlie suggested, backing away as the two men began to stagger towards them. Jen nodded, white-faced, and they began to run, as quickly as they could with their backpacks still on.
"Wait!" Jen panted, as Charlie began to take hers off. "We'll need them. We can't just run forever."
Charlie frowned. Of course, Jen was right. They'd never make it to the next town, and that meant hiding somewhere.
"We can go to Salbrook," Jen suggested.
"Do you actually know the way?" Charlie countered. "Because I don't. And maybe this - this happened there too."
"Charlie I think we're in a horror movie," Jen said, half laughing and half crying. "I always wanted to be in a horror movie. But I'm not sure I want that any more."
"I know, Jen.." Charlie knew her friend was just working herself into hysterics. Somehow, though, Charlie was calm. She didn't know what was going on or what they were going to do, but she felt a kind of purpose. If Jen was going to collapse, then she would need to be strong for the both of them.
"What was it, Charlie?" Jen asked. "And - and how do we even know it was real? Maybe it's all just a hoax. We're on tv. Where are the cameras?"

Maybe They're All Dead

The screams grew louder as they drew nearer to the fairgrounds, and Charlie began to look anxious.
"That doesn't sound like happy times," she said. "That sounds like terror."
Jen nodded, suddenly afraid to speak. Charlie moved closer and took her hand.
"Don't be afraid."
They walked forward slowly, minds flickering over countless possible scenarios, each less likely than the last.
"The whole town is in there," Jen whispered. "What if something terrible has happened?"
"Except us," Charlie said firmly. "We're okay."
They were entering the car park when a man emerged from the big tent, running at them and shouting.
"It escaped!" He sobbed, and as he drew closer they could see that he was covered in blood from head to toe.
"What escaped?" Charlie asked, instinctively stepping between Jen and the man. He opened his mouth to speak but the words became a scream, as a second figure lurched into view and grabbed him with bloody hands.