The Sheridan Institute Files

Chapter 6: Roger

His name was Roger.

Or it had been when he’d still been alive. When he’d still had vocal chords to utter a name with—or a functioning heart and lungs for that matter.

But now he was dead. Or…undead  really.

Roger shambled down the muddy farm road. All was silent—his ears didn’t work, after all—and what little he saw of the farmlands and forest stretching around him, of the mountains rising up beyond, was fogged and colorless.

As for touch—well, that was gone too.

Roger had no idea how long he’d been dead. In fact, all he could tell for certain was that what remained of his corpse was worm-eaten and bone-exposed. His suit, which might’ve once been green, was reduced to putrid shreds on legs and arms that didn’t quite work.

The limbs all moved, but Roger felt certain they’d glided more easily when there’d been blood and muscles and life coursing through them.

Roger also had no idea why he was walking again. One moment, he’d been a peaceful, only partially sentient spirit coasting along toward the final afterlife. 

Then, the next moment, he’d been fully sentient. Awake. And his body…Well, it had already punched and clawed its way from a coffin in the tiny, dogwood filled cemetery—almost as if it had prepared itself for Roger’s spirit to come slithering back in.

Actually, it had most certainly been prepared. Roger’s body had been waiting for his return, and he knew this because, just before awakening in the earthly realm, a voice had spoken to him. Commanded him.

The Sheridan Institute, it had whispered. Search its grounds. Find a way in. If no entrance exists, then make one.

So that was what Roger did now—fully aware of it, yet unable to resist.

He dragged jerkily onward until he saw a large brick fence in the distance—gray, gray, all of it gray. There was a gray gate too with gray people clumped together.

Roger heaved himself to a nearby oak, where spanish moss hung down and shaded him from the knowing eyes of the living.

Several of the people hunched over a prostrate form, and somehow Roger knew that form was a corpse like himself—but whose spirit had been banished back into death.

So Roger would avoid these people and do as his master had ordered—no matter how much his worm-infested stomach longed to feast. No matter how fast his long-rotted jaw gritted and chomped, desperate for flesh. Desperate for life.

The command burning inside of him was stronger. So Roger clung to the shadows while moss and leaves swayed around him, and he watched as the hazy figures abandoned their open gate one-by-one. As three people vanished within the brick walls. As two more shut the gate before setting off down the wheel-churned farm road, away from Roger and his oak tree.

Once no one was near anymore—once the hunger that shook forever in Roger’s chest told him that edible life had drifted away, then he forced his stiff legs forward. There was a forest ahead, just across the road, and it appeared to circle the Institute’s property.

A perfect hiding place for Dead wishing to remain unseen while they found a way in…Or while they made one.