Christmas Night Of The Living Dead Part 2

I slowly turned to the face the source of the wheezing that emanated from behind me. The dark bundle of rags heaved with deep breaths, the whole torso seeming to rise and fall with each inhale and exhale.

"Can I help you?" I asked trying not to slur my words in the cold.

The bundle of rags continued to look at me, I could just about make out a shape like a head upon shoulders that was fixated in my direction. The was something unnerving about the way the only sound that appeared to exist within the station, and the surrounding area, was the wheezing sound of the ragged creature before me. No cars, no excited, drunken revellers or stray cats fighting. The air was dead.

"I don't think the train to London will run, the snows coming down pretty heavily now."

Up until the point where he reached out towards me I had felt no fear, no anxiety about what this thing in front of me may have been planning to do. As soon as its hand rested on my arm I suddenly felt my heart quicken. The hand in question was bordering between the shades of blue and purple, one that had obviously been devoid of bodily heat and the circulation of blood that provides the skin with its natural warm pigments. The nails were dirty, almost black with the remnants of soil underneath them, once I had decided that I was in the presence of a reanimated corpse it was pretty obvious that the soil had come from where it had dug itself out from wherever it had been laid.

The fingernails that I would have expected to be brittle gripped my arm, instead of breaking away they embedded themselves in my skin. Tearing through not only the fabric of my overcoat and shirtsleeve, but the flesh on my arm. I tried to scream out in pain, but a combination of extreme cold, sudden shock and immense pain prevented any sound from leaving my lips. A sudden surge of adrenaline lifted my other arms and I landed a punch somewhere in the general vicinity of where I suspected the creature's head to be. My knuckles landed on the cold, hard flesh of what would've been a nose, I felt the bones break. Still the grip intensified. I swung again, hoping to find the same spot, not entirely sure why I thought a creature who doesn't feel pain would let me go if I punched it in the face. My punch was lower and instead of the nose I landed my fist in its open mouth, just in time to feel its teeth bite down on my fist and it was the bones in my hand that cracked this time. Now, fully aware of what was happening, I screamed.

It didn't take long for me to notice that my hand was no longer a composite of bones, muscles and flesh.

My heart increasing in rate, my body exuding sweat in the coldest night of the year. Unable to move, unable to process anything that was happening, I was exactly where the creature wanted me and took its opportunity well, forcing me down onto the ground. Its teeth started to gnaw at the thin skin that surrounded my skull, warm blood flowing down my face, some mingling with tears, some with sweat. When the first crack of teeth on bone vibrated throughout my body I held a slight hope that the skull would prove too thick and it would move on to a more easily digestible target, such as a fox or cat. The second crack dispelled any hope I had as the teeth forced their way through the bone. The cold night air swirled around the exposed bone and invaded the inside of my skull as all the nerves surrounding the brain were exposed. As the creature worked more of the skull bone away I thought my last thoughts, a regret that I never told Stephanie that I loved her...

THE END