The car’s interior lights spilled across the slaughterhouse floor, casting strange shadows that bobbed with Alex’s breathing. She lay back against the driver seat, her fingers tracing circles across the back of Will’s hand. The one he still had left. His skin was cold and clammy and pale.

This was stupid. Fucking Seth. Why did he leave her here? Would he really rather go off on his own, leaving Alex to babysit a dying man? And Will was going to die. Alex was sure of it. And on top of all of that, Seth expected her to get the car running. Even if Will woke up, he wasn’t in any position to hotwire the car.

She’d be better off leaving him behind. It was a fucked up idea, especially considering that Will was her boyfriend. But they hadn’t been dating for very long. Only a few months, and… shit! No, Alex couldn't think that way. She’d promised Seth that she’d fix the car, and she would try her best.

Alex let go of Will’s hand and hopped out of the car. It was true that she didn’t know how to hotwire a car, but she knew the basic idea. At least, she knew she needed to expose the wires behind the ignition. She could start with that, and if Will woke up, he could help her with the rest.

The oil lamp still burned atop one of the tables in the back of the slaughterhouse. Alex grabbed the lamp and carried it along the tables as she searched for a screwdriver. An assortment of tools were stored back here, but mostly saws and knives. Things used for carving meat.

Alex eventually settled for a small pocketknife. Hopefully, it would be small enough to fit the recessed holes in the car’s paneling. She put the oil lamp back where she’d found it and headed back to the car.

Something rustled in the corner. Alex jumped at the noise, and she stumbled back, hand against her chest. What the hell was that? She peered into the darkness, but the noise came from underneath one of the tables, where the shadows were pitch black.

Whatever made the noise must have been small. It was probably just some animal. A mouse or a rat or something like that. All this meat hanging around must attract a ton of creatures from the woods.

Alex hurried back to the car, hopped in the driver seat, and slammed the door closed. The interior light started to dim, but she pressed the button to keep it on. With the door closed, she felt much better, and she tried to relax the net of tension that bound her tight.

She just had to keep moving, keep her head straight, and everything would be fine. Alex unfolded the pocketknife as she traced the paneling under the steering column. A tiny screw hole marked the corner opposite the ignition.

Alex pushed the knife’s point into the hole and started to twist. The knife was too big to reach the screw, but that was okay. Alex would just have to carve away at the plastic until she could reach it. Long plastic shavings dropped to the floor as Alex drilled the knife deeper, until at last, the knife dinged against the screw.

After slotting the knife into the screw head and applying a bit of pressure, she was able to twist out the first screw. As far as Alex could tell, there were only two others, and she slowly removed those as well. That done, she plied her knife under the panel and wrenched it free.

The panel fell in her lap, exposing the wires beneath. Now for the hard part. The part she had no idea how to do. Alex supposed the next step was to cut the wires, but she didn’t know which ones she needed. She glanced at Will, but he was still passed out, looking not much better than before. Blood still leaked from his stump, even with the tourniquet tied tight.

Fuck it, how hard could hotwiring be? Alex grabbed a bundle of wires and sawed her knife through them. The first few broke easily, but as she snipped the last one, a jolt of static buzzed against her hand.

Alex cursed, dropping the knife. Her fingers stung, and the hairs on her arm stood straight up. So that one still had a current running through it. She fell back in her seat and caught her breath. Shit! Now what?

A hand slammed against her window.

Alex screamed, scrambled back. The interior lights spilled from the window, but she couldn’t see anything out there. The hand was gone, but a bloody handprint remained as evidence that she hadn’t imagined it.

She huddled against the middle console, Will pressing against her. Something was out there, and it wasn’t just an animal. Damn it, Seth. That idiot should have never left.

The knife still lay against the floor, where she’d dropped it. Alex quickly snatched it and held the knife close to her chest, as if to ward off whoever was out there. Could it be David, coming to finish the job?

Locked in the car, Alex should have felt safe. But she only felt trapped, confined, and with only the pocketknife as a weapon. There were more knives deeper in the slaughterhouse, much bigger ones. If she could just get back there.

Alex leaned closer to the window and scanned the surroundings. She still couldn’t see anything other than the bloody handprint. Leaving was a risk, but it was better than sitting there, defenseless.

Before she could regret the idea, Alex jumped from the car, slammed the door closed behind her, and ran into the slaughterhouse. She quickly reached the oil lamp’s light, and she turned around, peered into the darkness. Nothing.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Her heartbeat thrummed against her ears. Alex backed away, her breath held as she listened for movement in the darkness. Chains creaked overhead. A soft wind blew through the massive hole the propane tank had blown up.

Alex counted to thirty, waiting. Nothing happened. She was safe, for now.

A dark shadow launched through the air and punched Alex in the throat. She stumbled back, screamed, but her voice cut out as cold fingers closed around her neck. Alex flailed against the arm, but there was nobody attached to it. The severed arm was pale and bloody and it had chunks bitten out of it. This was Will’s arm, somehow brought back to life.

The reanimated hand squeezed against her throat, and Alex couldn’t breathe. Her lungs hitched in her chest, and she tried to pry the cold fingers away, but they were too slick with blood to get a grip. Her vision darkened, and Alex tottered backward, nearly fell over.

With the last of her strength, she jabbed the pocketknife into the meat of the arm.

The hand let go and fell to the floor.

Alex kicked the arm away, then scuttled back. She sucked in a lungful of air, bright spots dancing across her vision. The arm reared up, balancing on its fingertips. It waited for a moment, as if watching her, then it scrambled away, using its fingers like the legs of a spider.

What the hell was that about? Whatever it was, Alex didn’t want to let it get away.

She strode forward, then remembered that she needed a weapon. Pete’s corpse lay to the side, his guts strewn across the floor. Alex gagged at the sight, but she strode to the corpse and pulled the hatchet from his shoulder. This close, the pungent scent of his entrails filled her nose, and she quickly held her breath.

With the hatchet in hand, Alex grabbed the oil lamp and chased after the arm. It couldn’t have gone far. She checked the car first, to make sure it wasn’t after Will. He seemed fine. Well, not fine, but the same as before. Then she continued deeper into the slaughterhouse, holding the oil lamp low so its light swept under the heavy tables.

The hand shot out from a dark corner and scuttled across the floor.

Alex chased after it. The hand fled, faster than she’d thought possible. Of course, she had no baseline for how fast a reanimated hand could move. But it skittered over the floor, wove through a clump of tables, then escaped through the hole she’d hammered through the cinder blocks.

Alex followed the hand out into the parking lot. She was just in time to watch it race across the pavement, cross the gravel road, and escape into the cornfield.

Great. She supposed the reanimated hand was no longer her problem. But the bigger issue was why the arm had come back to life in the first place. It was probably related to those parasites. Which meant that someone might be nearby, controlling it.

As soon as the thought occurred, Alex swept her gaze across the lot, watching for movement. She jumped at the sight of a dark figure among the cornfields. Her heart raced, and her fingers tightened around the hatchet. But she’d scared herself over nothing. That was just the scarecrow again. Stupid.

Still, Alex stared at the scarecrow, a dark shadow amongst a sea of fog. It looked like it had gotten closer. Before, it had stood within the field’s center, now it teetered near the edge. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her. It was so hard to tell what was real anymore. After everything that had happened, Alex wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing was just a twisted nightmare.

Alex fell back into the makeshift doorway and leaned against the jagged concrete. She pulled out her phone and checked the timer. 6:19. Shit, there wasn’t time to chase after zombie hands and weird scarecrows. Seth would be starting his distraction any minute now. She needed to get the car running.

Before ducking back inside, Alex gave the scarecrow one last glance. It stood at the edge of the parking lot. Alex froze. The scarecrow had for sure moved this time, having left the field entirely and crossed the gravel road.

Against her better judgment, she walked closer, her oil lamp held high. The scarecrow’s stomach was plump, with tufts of hay poking through a stitched seam that ran down its chest. Its skin was pale gray, and strips were missing from its neck to reveal a dark red interior.

A few feet away, the stench hit her. Rot and mold and blood.

This wasn’t a scarecrow at all. It was a corpse, strung up in a twisted imitation of a crucifix.

Alex stumbled back. The corpse was of an older man, with patches of hair missing and deep lines in his rotting face. The farmers must have killed him and left him in the field. Why? As an example, maybe?

More importantly, how was he moving?

The scarecrow’s post was nothing more than an old stick, with a second stick lashed horizontally across the top. But the post wasn’t set in the ground. It was snapped off at the end, and the corpse was standing on its own two feet.

The corpse lurched for her.

Shit! Alex danced back and swung her hatchet in a wild slash. She missed, catching nothing but air.

Beady eyes bored into her, and the corpse’s lips peeled back to reveal razor teeth. It snapped at her, bones clacking together and blood frothing from its mouth. Its arms struggled against their restraints until the old wood snapped apart. Alex flinched at the loud crack. Now free, the corpse reached for her and scratched at the air.

Alex dropped the oil lamp and grasped the hatchet in both hands, reared it back in an overhead strike. The corpse lumbered toward her. It didn’t move fast. Though its arms were free, the long post was still tied to its back, and the shattered end scraped across the pavement as the corpse shuffled closer.

Alex swung the hatchet down as hard as she could. The blade hacked into the corpse’s skull, then the whole thing splashed apart, chunks raining down as if it were a rotten pumpkin.

The headless corpse stood still for a moment before falling limp against its post, then teetering over and slumping to the ground with a wet squish.

Absolutely disgusting. She considered hacking off its arms and legs, just in case breaking its skull wasn’t enough to truly kill it. But there wasn’t time. She needed to head back to the car.

Alex jogged over to the oil lamp, snatched it back up, and headed into the slaughterhouse. She hesitated at the entrance and glanced at the corpse. It still lay against the pavement, not moving. Good.

She turned into the darkness of the slaughterhouse, took a step. Then she doubled back to the parking lot, eyes wide.

Two more scarecrows stood at the edge of the road, their dark eyes staring straight at her.

Shit!