Order The Fields from Apex Publications

Chapter One

Billy Fletcher was running for his life.

Something, though he could not see exactly what, was chasing him through the small plot of land in the back of the family's several acres of property, which his father had made into somewhat of a cemetery to bury the slaves who had died of old age, disease, or by a severe beating for disobeying orders. His father was one mean son-of-gun and was known as such to all of the other slave owners as far as three counties over. Hell, he was even the leader of a local group of plantation owners who would get together to auction off, trade or just to abuse slaves for the sheer fun of it at their semi- monthly gatherings. Billy figured, though he still could not see what was chasing him, that it wasn't his father. Oh no. For one thing, the person was a lot smaller than his father (one of the things that Billy was glad about inheriting from his old man was his size) and was running somewhat hunched over and with a limp on its right side. His father had had legs as strong as an ox, before the cancer had whittled him down to nothing but skin and bones, so Billy knew that when he did dare to glance over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching dark figure, that there was no chance in hell it was his father.

He hoped.

Billy sprinted past the last of the small, crude wooden crosses that his father had stuck in the ground after burying one of the dead slaves, and ran into the tobacco field that separated the small cemetery and the house. And if it just wasn't his luck — Billy had never been quite as agile as his old man had been — he went sprawling forward when his foot caught a large rock that he must have missed during the previous day's work in the field. Naked, Billy's stomach hit the rough ground first, followed by his elbows, face and then his hands. As he skidded across the rocky soil, he could feel the skin being flayed off his body, and he screamed out in pain. Something grabbed onto his right ankle, so he quickly rolled onto his back, temporarily breaking the person's grip. Billy tried at the same time to crab-walk backward away from the hunched-over figure standing above him and to scream, but nothing would come out of his mouth. He wasn't sure if it was the sudden stench in the air, which reminded Billy of rotten chicken eggs that his father had made him clean out of the coop as a young boy, but the back of his throat and the hairs on the inside of his nostrils burned like someone was holding a it kerosene lamp right in front of his face. He coughed a few times to try and clear the mucus that was starting to build in his sinuses, but it didn't do the trick. The smell only got worse with each step the dark figure took closer and closer to him.

Finally, after trying to back away on the soles of his feet and the shredded palms of his hands, Billy collapsed onto his back. His father had always tried to instill in his only begotten son the importance of being a man and nothing else, of never showing emotion, especially around the slaves who were put on this land to work the fields and nothing else. Billy couldn't help it. Tears streamed out of his swollen eyes and snot bubbles burst out the end of his nose.

The black figure leapt on top of him.

Billy tried wiggling his body back and forth, his bare back scraping against the other various sized rocks that his previous day of hoeing had apparently missed, trying to shake off the smelly person that was now trying to smother him.

But then it got worse. A lot worse.

The person on top of him suddenly raised its head. The entire right side of the head was caved in. If that wasn't bad enough, one of its eyeballs was hanging by a thick red vein from its socket and was swaying this way and that with each movement. The facial skin looked loose and wrinkly, like at any moment it would lose its battle to stay connected to the skull underneath and melt right off onto Billy's own face.

Then, of course, there was the smell. Oh, the smell. As Billy continued to try and shove the decaying man off of him, he could swear that he had never smelled anything worse in his entire young life. Even though he had noticed the smell before the ugly thing had leapt on top of him, it was even worse now. So bad, in fact, that Billy was afraid that if he didn't get the source of it off of him, and soon, the smell would never go away, no matter how long he scrubbed his body down at the creek.

Trying to scream again, but still nothing coming out, Billy watched as the thing's head suddenly shot downward, its loose eyeball slapping against the bridge of his nose, a second before teeth penetrated the skin on the side of his neck and the jaws snapped shut. The creature jerked its head from side to side, trying to rip Billy's throat out. Tears flooded out of Billy's eyes as he continued to try and push the smelly bulk off of him. But, it was no use. His attacker was entirely too strong, even though Billy could have sworn he recognized the slave as being Samuel, one of his and his mother, Gertrude's, personal favorites, who had worked his father's tobacco fields for seven years, until Billy's father had given him a severe beating. Samuel, one hell of a nice guy, had died, and Billy had watched his father bury him in the small plot of land in one corner of the plantation. Billy had stuck the small, wooden cross in the ground above where Samuel's head would have been. It was little, but it had meant the world for Billy to be able to do one small thing in his friend's honor.

And, now that his former friend was biting the side of his neck, all the times he spent with him through the years sneaking him extra bread and water after his father had fallen asleep at night, or even just talking with him about life in general, came rushing back to him.

My God, Sammy...how could you be doing this to me, Billy screamed inside his head.

But it didn't matter how much Billy thought about the past, the good or bad times, or if he screamed at the top of his mind, or pushed with all his might, he couldn't get Samuel, the former gentle slave turned into some sort of blood-thirsty monster, off of him.

The slave bit down even harder than before, gave one final shake back and forth with his head, and then pulled back from Billy's neck.  A spray of blood splashed against the right side of Billy's face and up onto the face and chest of the former slave.

Billy tried to scream out from the intense pain in his neck, from the warm liquid spraying everywhere and the sight of his former friend with a big chunk of his own flesh in between his black, rotted teeth, but only blood came bubbling out of his mouth.

The world started spinning, and Billy couldn't, didn't know how to hold on. White spots danced in front of his eyes. Pain radiated from his neck to his legs — then everything went numb. His hands, which had been pushing against the former slave, dropped to his sides. The only thing he could feel was his own warm blood pumping from the gaping wound on the side of his neck — and his life along with it.

Just before everything went black, a light burst from the sky above. The light was bright, more so than anything Billy had ever seen in his entire life, but was inviting at the same time. He thought he could see the face of his loving mother way up there. She had been the only person who had ever truly loved him. A few slaves on the plantation may have liked him, but they either had died (one way or another) or had been freed when Abolition and the federal government had given his father no choice but to farm the land alone, with only Billy's help. Sure, his father had given him a roof over his head and fed and clothed him, but he had always been a mean son-of-a-gun and Billy had always feared him, not like the slaves had, but in his own way just the same. Billy supposed his father, deep down somewhere, had loved him before he had died of cancer, but the words had never come out of his mouth. Billy's mother, on the other hand, told him each and every night when tucking him into bed, that he was the apple of her eye and that she loved him with all her being. Billy supposed that was the reason he was seeing his mother's face and not his father's.

Just as suddenly as the sky had gone bright with light, it turned pitch black again, not even a single star twinkling with its hidden secrets.

Billy's eyes snapped open.

He was hot, sticky and wet all over. As his heart pounded, he was relieved to find that he wasn't lying in the tobacco field outside with some blood-thirsty monster, his former friend Samuel, trying to eat him.

No.

It was dark, but it wasn't the sky looming over him. No.

He was drenched, but not in his own blood. No.

Billy blinked the tears out of his eyes and realized that he was in his dark bedroom, drenched in sweat from head to toe.

He let out a deep, shaky breath and tried to get rid of the horrible dream that had ravaged his sleep.

But the calm, dark night wouldn't last for long. Oh no.

Soon there was a bright flash of light outside his bedroom window.

Billy screamed and jumped from his bed.

His heart pounding, he ran to the front door of the house and pulled it, but just before he was able to get the door all the way open and step out onto the old wooden porch, the sky went dark, again.

Billy sunk to his knees on the front porch of the plantation house and wept uncontrollably into his hands.