“No!” She lurched forward. There was nowhere to grab the form that wouldn’t shred her skin. Margot moved on blind instinct as she extended her left arm, using the cast like a battering ram to slam into the creature’s legs.

It tilted violently. A paring knife, protruding from a flap of torn skin, came close to scoring the back of Margot’s neck as she ducked.

Marsh released the leg as it twisted away from him. His jaws opened for a fresh bite. Margot hurled herself toward him and grabbed him by the collar. A bark rang free from him as she hauled them both back.

The effigy lurched toward them, the eyes behind the skull round as disks. One of its feet landed on the end of Marsh’s blue leash. Margot gripped the cord, pulling, but it was pinned in place. She reached for the back of Marsh’s collar instead and unclipped the leash.

Then she was clambering backward, dragging Marsh with her. She hit the open threshold to the porch, and Marsh, recognizing freedom, took over. Margot clung to his collar, scrambling her feet against the floor to give them extra speed as Marsh dragged her to the steps.

A cacophony of ringing metal cut through the dead one’s bellow as it staggered after them. It wasn’t fast, though; the pinching, pulling wires restricted its movements, and Margot was able to get her feet under herself before it had reached the door.

“Go,” she called to Marsh, but he needed no encouragement. Together they flew onto the field surrounding the house. The scene was drowned in mist. Gray forms blurred in the distance as they converged toward the house. Margot, bent double, kept one hand on Marsh’s collar.

Dawn can’t be far. Please. It can’t be.

She tried to track the forms about them, but their ferocious pace made it hard to see anything. Marsh, dragging her in his wake, chose a gap between the gray figures. Margot had a second-long glimpse of twisted faces, hollow eyes, and black-threaded mouths, and then they were past, racing down the hill.

To where? The employee accommodations? Off the land entirely? I can survive a headache for a couple of hours if it means the dead ones aren’t able to follow.

She thought they were, though. Witchety had been so particular about not taking a car, to protect against bringing unwelcome things home with her. The dead were tied to the land, but they weren’t restricted to it.

Still…she just had to survive a little more. The sky was the heavy, intense kind of dark that told her dawn couldn’t be far away.

More of the dead figures were emerging, though. Every time she glanced to her sides, she saw new ones. Wearing the scraps they’d died in, their bodies sallow and withered by death, their gaits growing long and eager as they caught sight of her.