Ch3: The Madness

[Supercape]

Twisted flora whipped at Baxter as he charged into the jungle. The eyes were probably little more than a dozen yards away, and the light was dim. Baxter crashed onwards.

Up close, the man was standing, slightly stooped, unmoving. His eyes fixed, glazed, unmoving. His flesh was mottled and patchy, and laid over a body that was barely more than a skeleton. Too say the man was emaciated would be an understatement. By rights, the man should have been dead.

Dead.

The head of the man turned, slowly, to face Baxter. It was little more than a skull. Up close Baxter could recognise him...

Shatterspear, one of the Crocodile people scouts.

[Tabs]

Burton came up behind Baxter.

"Good God!" he exclaimed when he saw the emaciated state Shatterspear was in. "Watch this one, Baxter; careful, man!" He drew his pistol.

[Priest]

Baxter slides to a halt, sweat suddenly flooding his vision, "Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?"

[Supercape]

There was not a drop of sweat on the skeletal frame of Shatterspear. He was naked, spent. His eyes fixed and open, his head slowly turning to meet the two explorers but no word from his lips. Even in the darkness one could see a gaping wound.

A gaping wound through his chest, ribs crushed, cracked and dried blood, and no signs of life within!

[Mr. Handy]

Percy hangs back, not wishing to get any closer. "Shall I fetch Dr. Wessex again?" he calls, though deep in his heart he knows that it is too late for that.

[Tabs]

Burton gasped, shocked by Shatterspear's gaping wound. "I don't think he needs a doctor," he shouted to Carstairs.

"What do we do, Mr. Baxter, somehow tie up the fellow--nets and ropes?" he added, "Can't let it escape, what?"

[Priest]

Baxter eyes the remains of the scout with a mixture of horror and disbelief, "Tie it up? And just who do you suggest get close enough to tie it up? Nets might be better but given the amount of foliage there is little chance of netting the blighter"
He glances around the jungles shadowed edge trying his best to avoid the strange stare of the scout, "Anyway, where is the other one, the female scout, Blackeye or whatever her name is? And somebody shut that flaming boy up, his drivel is beginning to annoy me".
Baxter turns and sends a vehement stare back towards Scar.

[Mr. Handy]

Percy claps a hand on Scar's shoulder, turning him away from the grisly scene. "Come on, Scar," he says. "Let's see if the madwoman knows anything about this...atrocity."

[Supercape]

Scar hardly moved, frozen and frightened.

"Zombie...." he whispered, barely audible.

The madwoman only laughed at the universe, in some kind of degenerate rapture, her body convulsing with pleasure. "Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!" she yelled, mimicking Scar in some trance like echolalia.

She garbled again in her corrupted language. Scar gulped.

"She said they sacrificed Shatterspear. Killed him. Then made him their slave. A zombie. Who lead the woman back here!"

[Mr. Handy]

"So that's how the blighters found us!" says Percy. "Is there any way to put a zombie to rest? It's the least we can do for Shatterspear."

[Tabs]

"Take its head off?" wondered Burton.

[Priest]

Baxter nods agreement to Burton's words and glances around lloking for Singh, "Perhaps your man would do the honours, Burton old chap?"
Standing severl yards from the hideous parody of a human being was, to Baxters mind, close enough, Even this close he could almost smell the aroma of death and decay.

[Tabs]

"Singh!" yelled Burton, "Decapitate the thing, if you please."

[Supercape]

Spoiler:

Singh faces a sanity loss [dice]0[/dice] and loses 1 sanity

"With pleasure" bowed Singh, drawing his heavy sabre. The Indian whipped his blade through the air, his face full of disgust and his thick arm full of rage.

The head fell of the body uncomplaining. There was no blood, just cold dead flesh.

After rolling a few more feet, the head came to a stop.

Its eyes still slowly turned towards the Indian, and its mouth opened and shut, croaking something inaudible...!

Spoiler:

And the ongoing horror of a undead zombie head means rerolling that 1/1D6 Sanity loss (although your net sanity loss will not exceed 6!
[dice]1[/dice] For Singh, who loses another Sanity point

[Mr. Handy]

Thankfully, Percy can't see much detail from where he stands, but it's disturbing enough. "I say, that didn't work out so well," he says. "Perhaps the body needs to be burned."

[Tabs]

"Good God alive!" said a surprised Burton. "Yes, Mr. Carstairs, I'll burn the damn head." He grabs Baxter's flask, and pours the gin over the head, then strikes a Swan Vesta match and sets it on fire.

[Priest]

With a scream of horror Baxter is suddenly jolted from his stupour by Burton's action, "Not my gin!!!" His eyes roll in terror as he watches the gin burst into flames, then several small tears roll down his face. Somehow the assembled group does not think he is mourning the poor Shatterspear.

[Mr. Handy]

"If it helps, Baxter," says Percy, "think of it as giving a last drink to a dying friend."

[Priest]

Tears coursing freely down his cheeks, Baxter turns and begins heading for his tent and the pistol within. "Bastards! Fancy making a man waste good Gin. I'll fetch my gun and then it..." he jerks a thumb to where the old crone mews and giggles like a mad thing, "...can lead us back to where she came from and they can bloody well pay for the loss of good gin".
With a final yell of "Bastards!!" he disapears back within his tent.

[Supercape]

The head and body burned well enough. The flesh was dry and lit up. A crisp smell filled the air.

The "old crone" was still high on Laudinum, less violent, sleepy. She still giggled and laughed and writhed. Scar was able to ask her questions, but to little or no avail. She blabbered about the Toad King, his death, his birth, and an orgy festival for an hour or so and intimidation and pain were of no use in extracting information. Her mind, it seemed, was quite gone.

Frustration would be ended as dawn broke. Night-Eye, the Crocodile People warrior, stumbled back into the camp, naked as the day she was born, without thread or spear or tooth. She was battered and bruised, and collapsed at the explorers feet, clutching a gaping wound in her arm.

"I...I...found them..." she said, almost passing out in front of them.