Champion Read Free Page A

own. They had grown up as brothers and they were inseparable. They even looked alike. It stood to reason that they would travel together to purchase the rug for their shared mother’s birthday gift.
    The journey from their village to Norham only takes a few hours, and they arrived on their single horse pulled cart at around noon. As they pulled up the cart on the outskirts of the small village, they looked down the main street. Both were surprised at how quiet it was. In fact, there was no one to be seen at all. Usually at this time of day there were many people bustling around, going about their business.
    “I’m going to find Martha at the inn, she always has a kiss for me and a roll in the hay,” Crin boasted. He tended to be the more adventurous of the boys.
    “I say we buy the rug first, then take it in turns to kiss Martha,” Isaac suggested, feeling it better to get the rug before they spent any money.
    As they sat there, debating which task should be done first, they had not noticed what was happening at the edge of the woodland. A crowd of people had gathered and were walking towards them. They moved awkwardly, shuffling along slowly, but getting closer and closer.
    “What’s that horrible smell?” Crin said as a foul odor invaded his nostrils. Standing up on the step of the cart, he noticed the crowd that had now grown to a considerable size, and heading their way.
    “Is that the village people, Crin?” Isaac queried “They don’t seem right.”
    “No, they don’t,” he agreed as he sat back down and took up the reins.
    The crowd was now close enough for the boys to hear that they were wailing, mournfully. They walked with small shuffling steps, their heads bowed down with chins on chests as if their eyes were searching out something on the floor. The worse of it was the smell, metallic and nauseating, they seemed to smell of death itself.
    “Crin, turn the cart around, the horses are spooked and so am I,” Isaac ordered.
    Crin always did as Isaac asked, because he knew and accepted that he was the always the more sensible of the two. He spurred on the horse with the reins, and the cart slowly started to turn.
    “Oh Maker, oh Maker look, that’s big John, but he ain’t right. He’s… he’s all pale and his eyes, his eyes are completely black,” Isaac shouted, looking back at the village mob.
    The mob stopped, all at the same time as if they were one. There was a heavy sense of something bad, some pervading evil in the air. The two boys looked behind them and stared as the people all tipped back their heads. They all looked up to the sky, but their chins remained on their chests, their mouths an impossibly wide black pit. Suddenly, they emitted a high pitch screech that froze the boys in sheer terror.
    Unable to move, they watched as the rabid crowd started forward again. The nearest ones were almost upon them with sightless eyes, black as coal, and mouths still gaping, filled with razor sharp teeth. The ones at the front reached out, their hands black and bloodied with large dirty fingernails that looked like they could rip a person to shreds.
    One of the monstrous beings managed to scramble up onto the back of their cart, its hands reaching out to grab one of the boys. Still frozen in terror and unable to move, it seemed all was lost, when suddenly the horse found its legs and bolted in fear. Running as fast as it could, it pulled the cart away from the advancing creatures.
    Once the cart had moved a distance from the mob, the terror eased and the boys regained control of their limbs. Isaac cried out in horror on seeing that one of them was still on the cart, its hands clawing at his legs as he had seated himself backwards to watch. He kicked out with all his might, and the skull of the whatever obscenity it was, caved in like a rotten peach, spraying him with its stinking black blood.
    “Ride, Crin ride! For the Maker’s sake, don’t look back,” he encouraged his friend. “We ain’t