The boy, Jack, froze where he stood. His palms were sweating. His heart was pounding. He was terrified, but he didn’t move a muscle.

In front of him, just feet away, the monster languished and lugged its sluggish body through the open field. Its back was turned.

It was a human looking figure, head bald and smooth as an egg, but lanky and ghoulish in its posture. Its skin, jet black and greasy in the bright sunlight of the afternoon, appeared to be clothing its skeleton so loosely it drooped.

Jack still stood there, trembling, his mind racing with thoughts. He didn’t know how he’d missed the creature in all the sunlight. How he’d walked right up so close to it, in the middle of nowhere, without noticing it. The thought made him sick to his stomach. He wanted to puke.

The creature had a stench coming from it. It wafted in the breeze and drifted close enough for Jack to smell. It smelled of dead flesh. It smelled so bad, smelled so rotten, that the birds were now closing in. The circled the thing, clearly having picked up on the odor and come from miles away to get a chance at their next stinky meal.

The stench, too potent for Jack to withstand, made him react. Without meaning to, he coughed. Louder than he wanted to. Louder than he was supposed to.

In one swift and gangly motion, the thing turned around to face him. It positioned its head towards him.

Jack’s heart thudded at the sight.

It’s eyes were glazed over as though it had glaucoma for years, and scanned in his direction. Eyes glossy and stone white, it saw nothing.

Jack breathed slow.

Half of its face was falling off. When it moved—jerky and sudden like, in order to scan this way and that way with its dead eyes—a big clump of flesh on its face ripped and peeled down its cheekbone, revealing a colony of maggots bursting from inside of its skull.

Jack almost let out everything he’d just eaten that morning, but managed to swallow, and hold it in. He stilled his body, stiffening his legs into the ground, hoping that it wouldn’t notice him. But he couldn’t hold another cough any longer. After pinching his lips to cling to the spit in his mouth as long as he could—a few seconds or so—he let it out unwillingly. It busted out his mouth with suddenness, and the dust from the white ashen atmosphere stirred and blew into a small cloud in front of his face.

Fuck, he thought.

The creature, hearing Jack’s breathy cough again, cocked its head to the side animal like, and paused. Two slits where his nose would have been puffed and puffed, sucking in the scent of its surroundings. And then it noticed. It took in the scent and held it in its mouth as if to taste it, smacking its black lips together a few times. Then, as if it had learned something from the study of this taste, turned its head more accurately towards Jack and growled a low grumbling sound from deep within its throat. Then it grunted. Consumed by instinct, it took in a huge breath and released an all out dead and high-pitched sounding black howl.

“Run!” Jack yelled to the others. He was with a crew this time, but not everybody who usually goes came out with him, so the small crew couldn’t fight back. Not against this one. It was too large. Too aggressive. Too hungry. They’d have to run away now if they wanted a chance because it was also a skinnier one, more athletic. Some could be very very fast.

Jack turned on his toes and took off in the opposite direction. Half way through a step, in order to see, he put a hand up to shade the bright post-apocalyptic skies of the field, and turned his head to see what direction his buddies had taken off into.

A few yards away, his best friend, Bumpy, was high stepping it over the sun-dried and cracked soil beneath his feet. Bumpy, noticing Jack look towards him in mid-sprint, made a circular motion with his arm towards the crew, then pointed towards a group of dead trees in the distance. Jack knew by this gesture that Bumpy wanted everybody to take a different direction at first, make a wide circle, then meet back up in those trees somewhere. Jack nodded and gave the thumbs up, trying to keep his pace, and then turned.

Jack ran and ran, pumping his legs as best he could. As he breathed, he could hear footsteps, heavy and thumping just behind him somewhere. He didn’t want to, but he knew he’d have to look back. Without swinging his arms too much, he turned his head to peak over his shoulder.

The thing was now on all fours, back a ways, and desperately running in their direction. It hadn’t made a choice yet, just pumping its legs over and over as the group started to fan outward in different directions. Then it chose one. It was Jack.

Jack’s heart was about to explode out of his chest. He was scarred now. No, terrified. What could he do? Where could he go? They were all still stuck in the middle of an open field, Jack the most isolated of them all. He turned back to his front, trying to give himself better structure in his running motion because he couldn’t run as straight with his head turned. After a few more steps, he looked over his shoulder again.

The thing had gained on him. Caught its stride and grew faster. He could tell. Twenty feet away. Then fifteen feet away. Then five. Boom!

“Ahhh!” Jack yelled as he tumbled to the ground.

He felt his shirt rip as his shoulder hit the dry crusty dirt and tried rolling. But the weight of the thing, the shear heaviness of it—dead and greasy like something that had just crawled out of a slimy pool of water—pressed down against Jack as they both came to a dusty stop.

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Jack, so scarred now that he didn’t know what to do, panicked with the thing hovering just over him. It now straddled him, heavy in some kind of animal-like heat, snarling and dripping dead slimy skin all over Jack’s face. Suddenly and without warning, it lunged, opening its mouth wide and trying to take a bite straight out of Jack’s face, or neck, or shoulder. But Jack put his hands up just in time to pressed back into its neck, shielding the bite.

“Noooooo,” Jack let out through his teeth, using all his strength to hold the thing back. It lunged its head again, and again, but Jack turned this way and that way, missing the aggressive bites.

Then it stretched its neck out as far as it could, breathed in deep, and let out the loudest noise he had ever heard in his life, right into his left ear. Jack almost felt the pressure of his eardrum pop, as though the inner pieces of his ear were being banged on by something very tiny. Then the sound of everything went down until he couldn’t hear anything anymore. He could only see, the beast chomping and struggling over him as he held his arms out as best he could.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Jack felt the tremble of the ground somewhere close by, as though someone were stomping very fast with fast feet. It was getting heavier, as though getting closer, and when Jack turned to look, it was too late. All he saw was a shadow of hands and knees, striding towards him and the beast before diving outward and towards the ground.

There was a loud thud as he felt something plummet into him, but it didn’t hit him directly. Just his side. His ribs maybe. He rolled, feeling the momentum of it all, and ended up face down on his stomach.

Now there was nothing on him, but he couldn’t see because of all the dust that had been kicked up. It was in his eyes. And the bright ashy light of the sky didn’t help. He turned his head to look, but there was nothing there. Just a cloud of dust, kicked up from somebody that had just dove into and past him. Did he just get saved? He thought. By who?

After a moment, the dust began to settle and Jack noticed that he could now see through the little debris, but just only the outlines of silhouettes. A girl, one of his crew, had caught up to him and tackled the thing, and was now wrestling it barehanded.

He wanted to help, but as soon as he tried to get up, a sharp pain shot through his right leg. Something was broken, and badly. It hurt more than anything he’d ever felt before.

Then he looked back over at the silhouettes fighting and it happened. The thing he feared most. The thing they all feared most. Now on their feet, the girl squared up to the thing, and it swung a long lanky arm, missing her by only inches. But the second arm she didn’t see. It swung its other arm, the gangling athletic build of a bulbous shoulder turning first, then the rest of its lengthy built black arm following suit. She pulled back, trying to dodge the blow, but she wasn’t fast enough. The long sharp fingers of the thing, crusted and shaven down like knives, made contact with her torso the way waves hit a beach. He could see her body jolt from the sudden puncture, her body rippling in response to the power, and go limp.

Nooooo! Nooooo, he screamed in his mind. But there was nothing he could do but watch. He lay there, overcome with shock as he witnessed it drive its whole hand into her side. He knew it must be painful because she shook and trembled as though struck by lightning, her limbs straightening out from the reflex of being impaled so deeply. Then, with one hand, it lifted her up off the ground, unhinged its jaw revealing a second set of long sharp teeth, and bit straight into the side of her head. The gush of the crunch spewed out immediately, dripping down to the ground in one big splat like it had just bitten out of a peach.

As he sat there watching, someone had suddenly ran up to him and began tugging his arm, trying to get him to get up. He turned and saw that it was Bumpy. Bumpy was saying something, but Jack still couldn’t hear, so he motioned towards his ear to let Bumpy know that the sound in his ears had gone out. He saw Bumpy think for a moment, then point to his own lips. He wanted Jack to focus on his mouth to try to sound it out.

WE CAN’T HELP HER! it looked like he was saying. No, shouting.

COME ON LET’S GO! WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW!

THERE’S MORE COMING! LET’S GO, LET’S GO! THERE’S NOTHING WE CAN DO!

THEY’RE COMING!

At this, Jack tried as best he could to get to his feet. But he could only get to his knees first. The pain was still too overwhelming. Too hot, too stinging somewhere in the middle of some bone in his lower leg. He couldn’t tell exactly which bone, but it didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was getting up and running as best he could.

He motioned to Bumpy that his leg was hurt, and Bumpy studied it. Then Bumpy made a gesture as though he would help him.

With a big effort, Bumpy slid his shoulder under Jack’s arm and lifted him up off the ground, using his body as a crutch. Without hesitating, they both began to run off, Jack limping and Bumpy catching his weight every time he did.

After they’d made it across the field and into the group of dead trees, they went deeper until they finally found the rest of the group. Seven other boys and girls were standing in a tight circle, some of them leaning over, still trying to catch their breaths.

Bumpy led Jack to the nearest thick stump, and using his arm, lowered Jack to the ground as softly as he could. Jack fell, and as soon as his butt hit the ground, he leaned back against the tree stump, relieved of the pressure in his leg. It was over now. The feeling was great, or at least somewhat. It had taken everything out of him to get this far, and he feared he’d made his broken leg worse.

As he let out a sigh, he watched the group. Bumpy walked over to them with his arms raised as if to say, what happened? Then they were saying stuff to each other, each one taking a turn to zig-zag their fingers and hands, making quick-like gestures as though hand-explaining what route they’d just taken in the field. But they were also talking too, but Jack couldn’t hear a sound.

By the look on their faces, the conversation had quickly turned into an argument. Somebody said something to Bumpy, then gestured over towards Jack emptily, and finished with a big sweeping motion of his arms towards the sky. At this, nobody moved. Nobody except Bumpy. After what looked like a few silent seconds, Bumpy walked calmly over to the boy who’d just made the gesture, swung, and punched him right in the nose.

The conversation was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Jack, now feeling dizzy from dehydration and possibly an inner wound from the broken bone, took in a deep breath and let it back out.

He needed more air. He needed sleep. Or, at least it felt that way. He felt as though he were about to pass out. But before he could, he turned his body around on the stump and tried to look through the trees and back into the field as far as he could see.

There it was. Far out into the distance, almost a dot now, but still he could see. The girl, which he knew who now, and the beast. She now appeared to be laying flat on the ground, the thing leaning over her, its back arched, fully engaged in the consumption of its kill. Beyond, just a ways into the horizon, he could see a huge mass of them—something in the hundreds—now sprinting to join the meal.