One

First draft of chapter one.

It was a perfect sunlit day, and the sky held a soft blue glow. Cory sat and watched as his daughter Emily played, there was a cool breeze that brushed across his face.

Emily ran towards him through a field of fine green grass speckled with the different colours of various flowers, clutching a bunch of daisy's in her hand.

Her smile spread far across her face, she was the happiest he had ever seen her. He called to her and made a silly face.

She giggled at him but the giggle soon corroded into an horrific gargle and then all at once her face grew distorted.

A hole which started out at about the size of a pin head started to develop in her cheek. It grew and grew until her jaw was hanging from the rest of her face by a thread of skin. Her eyes were a milky white and blood was dripping from every orifice of her head.

The perfect scene was over, he gasped in horror and then he heard an unearthly scream. He awoke with the scream still ringing in his ears and put his hand to his mouth. “He had come from one hell to another, this life was now a nightmare. His whole body wet with sweat he looked over to where Emily was sleeping, she was still there, she was okay, her little chest rising with each soft breath.

It was still dark and he wasn’t sure of the exact time, he reached for a small beaten water bottle and took a sip.

He remembered the good part of the nightmare how happy Emily had looked and felt a pang of sadness and gilt that hit him full force in the stomach. She would never be that happy again. Life was now a nightmare that would never allow her to be that happy. He would try to give her the best childhood possible but knew her life wouldn’t be what she deserved.

Cory left the room to use the toilet, they were staying in an old country pub that also acted as an hotel. He looked at himself in the mirror, he was dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and dark jeans.

His thick brown hair was hanging lazily over one eye, he brushed it away with his hand. Once he had finished he entered the hallway which led back to his room, the pub was eerie in the dark what with all the windows being boarded up. The fact that it was lit up by candle light made it even creepier, but ghosts were the least of john’s troubles, the real dead were outside.

He saw a humanoid figure at the far end of the hallway and his heart almost leapt out of is chest but as it approached him he realized it was the women who had seen this morning. She had a light blue t-shirt on with the sleeve rolled up.

Her hair was long and light brown in colour and she had piercing green eyes. He smiled at the women and realized to himself that he did not yet know her name. She smiled back at him.

“I figured we don’t even know each others names yet, I’m Cory” He held out his hand.

“I know, Emily told us this morning, clever girl you have there, I’m Laura.” she replied and shook his hand. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I couldn’t sleep.. you know with everything that’s happened recently” Cory replied.

Laura looked at him with sadness in her eyes “Listen we’re all keeping a record of how we got to where we are, we’re hoping we gain some information about those things, anything could be useful”

“You know where I was and what happened...” but before he could finish she cut him off.”

“Obviously I know how you ‘bumped’ into me” she smirked “But what about before that, any encounters you had with the stiffs. How you found out about it. Everything.” She handed him a journal and a pen.

Cory knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon, so he took the journal and said he’d give it a go. As well helping out the others he wanted a record to give to Emily when she was old enough.

He opened the journal and started to write.