Aslan, King of the Undead.

Cruel Darkness cradled me in her arms as I lay there, crumpled and dying. She left no fear in me, my Reaper, as I drifted slowly into a nebula I was powerless to escape. The black vortex controlled me, engulfed me, suffocated me. She did not pity me, nor did she love me. I was hers though, and She would not be denied my soul this day.

But...somehow...I escaped her grasp. She clawed for me, yes, and oh! did the pain extend beyond my sanity! But She took me not. The bullets that riddled my decaying body did not kill me, and although my heart did not beat as it once did, I could see clearly still, as clearly as when I had been fully alive.

My once powerfully muscled frame, a soldiers frame, now bore the indications of some type of advanced decomposition that I could not fully fathom. Bones that should have crumpled beneath me, that should have turned to dust, held me strongly above the surface of the dirt that I once called my deathbed. They supported an altered me. That altered me did not move as I once did, but instead it, I, shambled haphazardly, but unmistakably, forwards, towards something...

I was me, yet not myself. I was but a shell, composed of hunger and evil, arcane vitality. Meaningless hunger overtook my humanity, leaving my as barren of emotion as an empty keg of its wine. I had been drained of something I took for granted, yet both loathed and loved, at times; it was the final cruelty from the jealous lover of a trillion dead souls. Oh...Did I have a soul? Do I have a soul? All I know is I live, yet am not alive. I walk, yet I cannot understand why. I think, yet have no brain to think for me. And I see, I hunger...no, I crave your soul, and I will not stop until I take it.

I am Aslan, The First Undead.

~

“That is some creepy shit...” Mike said in a whisper. His overalls were embedded with the grime of poverty, and the sweat of courage. He gripped the parchment that had been handed to him from his partner in grime, Steve, and thought about how unreal this felt. He handed back the scroll , and grabbed for the lantern. “Where'd you get this Steve?”

“Sshhh...man, you gotta quiet down bro. The Shufflers can hear for like miles, dude. You wanna get us both killed?” Steve, brother to Mike, and the all-American jerk type, was serious. “And keep that light low.”

Besides being the best big brother a guy could ever wish for, Steve was also one bad-ass undead killer. And sure as shit in a dying man's pants, there were more of them than there were of you.

“Sorry,” Mike mumbled. “Just that – I dunno – thought those things couldn't think, let alone write. Goddam, if that happened...” He left the thought where it was. No need to get more uptight than he was already. In fact, Mike was very uneasy. He felt something, down in this old root cellar. It was kinda like the feeling you get in bed, and your hand lies just off the side, in the dark, alone. You know the monster's in the closet, and not under your bed, but still – your heart quickens just a beat, and your eyes stay wide. You think of the grim witch under the bed, the one that wants to bite your wrist, and so you slowly pull back into the safety zone of the sheets.

Mike's palms were slick with freshly squeezed fear. Heart thumping like a horny rabbit, as his pop used to say, before they got him, that is.

“We should be okay here, for the night,” said Steve, closing the heavy oak door. “But keep still and don't snore, or I'll give you a thumping, just like pop used to say. Now this door – it'll muffle any sound we might make, but if we get caught down here it's all over.”

Mike was not renowned for his tactical expertise, but nonetheless, his gut told him something his mind couldn't. Get the hell out of Dodge brother. Leave the money on the table. Amen.

“Steve...” came Mike's croak of an answer. “It don't feel right. That scroll. Those words. This cellar. That door. It don't feel right. I can feel it – it ain't right down here. You feel it Steve? Do ya? I know ya do.”

He could. He hadn't before, but now he could, in all it's damned glory.

Steve felt his bowels tighten, and his balls creep back into himself. There was just a tiny, almost too faint, whisper of a breath – no, not a breath, but a very quiet wheeze in the shadows of the cellar. The lantern Mike held shone faintly on dank, earthen walls, in all directions, but the cellar's limits were just beyond the range of unconcern, and that, undeniably so, was of the utmost concern right now. They had cleared the area, he was sure of it, but still there came the wheeze.

Mike turned, then held the lantern bravely before him, like a vampire hunter his cross, and crept forwards, into the shadowed part of the root pit. The wheezing grew slightly loader now, and Steve, crouching behind his brother, drew his epee – no time for the bow – and readied himself for the killing lunge.

Shuffling forward, they saw him now. Saw his back. Wheezing. In soldier's gear. Bald and staunch. Unmoving. Unforgiving.

“Mister,” Steve gulped, frozen. “Turn round now...slowly. Just you turn slowly, or you'll get a mouth full of sword.”

He turned. They screamed. How could you not? They saw every face, of every monster, from every nightmare they ever had. Aslan, King of the Undead, sneered at them and howled. Their nightmare had just begun.