Chapter 1 - Draft - Not Complete

Valley of the Dead

Chapter One

Together

A lonely house sitting upon a hill in an abandoned town is not the place one is drawn to for safety or to avoid a scare, but for two men this is the safest place they can stay for now. Sean was keeping watch in the window on the top floor while his brother Mark was in the same room sleeping on the bed beside him. Sean was a middle aged man with short thick black hair and a large thick black beard, he gave off a presence that he was a man that has seen more pain than any man deserves to see. While his brother was in his late twenties with medium length hair and piercing green eyes.
Staring out of the window in to the black of an October night he hears a soft crackle of a boot stepping on the ground and a quiet shriek, Sean lifts a rifle that he has standing next to him and stares down the scope in the direction of the noise. Through the bushes he can see a silhouette of a woman slowly walking along a road around 500 meters from the house. Sean grips the handle of the rifle tighter in anticipation of not who the woman might be, but what the woman is.
The woman wearing clothing that looked as if they have not been washed in months, blood can be seen on his shoulder, patches of his hair are missing and his skin has a tinge of green.
"Don't turn round" Sean whispers under his breath.
The woman turns around and stares up to the house, Sean wonders if she can see him or if she is mindlessly gazing in his direction. Then the woman slowly tilts his head like a bewildered animal and all of a sudden the man starts running up the hill. Sean turns around and thinks about waking Mark, but holds off and turns back to the window. The woman is now running faster and more wild falling over bins and hitting anything in her way. The noise attracts the attention of more strange looking people, who start appearing from nowhere. Men, Women and Children all with appearances of the dead. The numbers are now in the dozens running towards the house.
Still looking down the scope of his rifle, Sean makes a snap decision after seeing the hordes of people running towards the house and quickly lowers his rifle and wakes Mark.
"Time to go!" Sean says to mark.
Without a moments hesitation Mark jumps to his feet and grabs his bag, throws a quiver filled with arrows over his shoulder and picks up his bow. He follows Sean down the stairs and through to the back of the house. As they pass the front door Mark notices the hordes of people storming up the street and throwing their lifeless bodies over the gate at the bottom of the driveway leading up to the house, Sean kicks the back door open and runs into the garden leading Mark to a gate that leads to the mountains behind the town.



As they disappear into the cold mist of the Welsh Valley mountains the crazed people ravaged their way through the house, smashing anything in their path. A lone woman stands in the doorway Sean just kicked open, looking up into the forest covered mountain and watches the two brothers running deep in to the woodland.
Sean and Mark make their way half way up the mountain before they come to a stop and take cover behind a large Boulder. Mark takes out a set of binoculars to look down at the house. Sean looks around the area they are sat hoping none of them have followed them.
"Their all in the house, can't see any coming up here" Mark whispers with exhaustion.
"Double check" Sean says with a sound of no confidence in his brother.
Among the ice cold fog upon the mountains a groan like noise comes from somewhere in the distance. Sean slightly hears and looks frantically in to the ice cold mist but sees nothing in sight, his breath gets deeper and the grip on his rifle gets tighter by his side as he stares into the empty hopeless misty mountain. Then from out of nowhere a crazed woman launches herself out of the mist towards Sean. He raises his rifle to his face to take aim but as he does he feels a gush of wind pass his head. He sees an arrow glide through the air and pierce the skull of the woman charging towards him sending her instantly to the floor.

Sean turns around and looks at Mark with a look of relief. Sean honestly did not think he was fast enough to take the shot.
"You can thank me later" Mark says with a confident smile.
Sean did not seem to be sharing the joke of the situation with Mark.