Chapter 1

James and Abraham ran through the woods at full speed. Every weekend they went and played games near the swamp. Abraham's mother hated this tradition and regularly complained about it, but it never slowed the young boys down.

James was several paces in front of Abraham and he was sprinting to keep up and follow the laughter and taunting of his best friend. So it was rather surprising when he ran face first into the boys back. He fell over and began to yell when James spun around, wide eyed, and put a finger over his mouth with one hand and pointed toward the murky water with the other.

Abraham sat up and looked in the direction of the pointed hand and opened his mouth to ask what, still fuming over falling in the mud and twigs, but soon saw that there was no need to ask anything. It was impossible to miss the thing standing in front of them. Limping around aimlessly. It had red liquid dripping like syrup from it's mouth and it's leg had bone broken and ripping through it's molding grey skin. Black puss oozing from the wound.

James whispered something about a swampman but Abraham didn't hear. The creature clearly did though. It turned toward them and lumbered forward and gave off a deep moan. It's arms flew up and, limping toward them, bared it's teeth.

That was all it took for the two boys to run off as fast as they could back home. When they finally broke through the line of trees they collaped in Abraham's yard and looked back to see if the creature was still coming. When they didn't see it they decided to keep it between them and went home to dinner.

That night Abraham was woken by the sounds of a gun shot. He had heard this shot before. It was his fathers huntng rifle. He tired to pretend it had been a dream but as soon as he closed his eyes again another shot went off. He got up and hid in the closet, afraid of what might be going on. He father was a kindhearted and gentle man but because he had lost his job not long ago had taken up drinking, which had begun to cause problems in the family. Another shot went off soon after and Abraham began to cry softly, soon causing him to doze of on the floor of his closet.

He was shaken awake early the next morning by a police officer. He was taken away in a police car not knowing what had happened the night before. He later found out his father was charged with the murder of a man they called John Doe, his mother, and his older brother but never put in prison. He was instead put into a mental facility due to his claims that he had to kill his family because they had been biten by this John Doe and would soon become "zombies".

Fin