The fence ran through the trees. Margot climbed over it, awkward with her cast, and heard the distant bells ring. She was nearly at the end of the growth. A quiet terror was rising. She couldn’t have missed Marsh between the spindly trunks.

Unless the dead got to him first.

She pushed through the final layer of branches. The gradual, grassy slope spread out ahead of her, an undulating ocean of shadows and light, the grassy knolls shimmering like waves.

In the distance, drowning in mist, a dark shape lumbered down the path. Smaller than a human. A long, fanlike tail waving in its wake.

“Marsh…” She coiled the leash around her wrist and broke into a run again. To her left, she thought she saw a shape through the fog. It was bent almost double, its arms hanging close to the ground, long hair creating a screen around the face that twisted to follow her movement.

She blinked as cold air stung her eyes. Her feet were growing unsteady. She was so tired. When she glanced at her phone, it displayed a time: four thirty. Dawn was still a while away.

“Marsh!”

She knew she shouldn’t raise her voice, but she was desperate. The dog’s head twitched when she called him, but he didn’t slow as he entered a new bank of trees.

“Please,” she hissed.

The ground dropped into a shallow ditch, the kind that likely only carried water when there was rain. The grass grew taller at its base, making it seem less deep than it actually was. Margot scrambled down the slope, her center of gravity lowered and arms stretched out for balance. As she neared the base, her socks slipped on damp grass. She landed with a grimace, the phone sliding out of her hand, liquid soaking into her jean legs and the edges of her jacket.

She scrambled to catch her phone before she lost it in the grass. Her fingers touched something damp, and she recoiled.

Don’t panic. It’s just groundwater.

She forced her hand into the soggy, spongy grass, afraid the water would get into her phone and shut it down entirely. Her hand closed around metal, and she breathed a sigh as she lifted the phone out.

Both its screen and her hand were smeared in red.

Bile rose in the back of her throat. Margot scrambled back, trying to pull away, but the arm with the cast plunged deeper into the spongy ground, and beads of viscous red liquid welled up from the pressure, bubbling over her fingers.

Blood. It’s blood. The ground’s bleeding.

She bit her tongue to keep herself from gagging. The ditch wasn’t deep, but its soil was soft, and Margot crawled on hands and knees to get herself over the edge. She crouched on the other side, panting and shivering, as she stared at her red-drenched hands.