The corpse was there. Mangled. Rotted.
Suddenly, he was the corpse, yet he stood apart from it. He was near it, and he watched it. Daniel lifted his arm and the corpse mimicked his movement. He raised his other arm and the corpse did the same. There was a connection between them like string. Daniel tugged on the string and the corpse rose up like a puppet. The string became barbed wire. The wire dripped with blood as Daniel pulled. He moved his legs and the corpse began to walk, its arms swinging loosely at its side, careless like a broken toy.
Daniel pulled the barbed-wire strings and the monster approached him. It stared into him and he was staring at himself. It tilted its head and moved its jaw. It was speaking. He couldn’t understand the words. It wanted something. It needed…something. What? What was it? What did it want?
“What do you want?” Daniel heard himself saying. The voice was distant. An echo. It came from his mouth, yet it emerged from the maw of the corpse.
And then there was a reply. A whisper. A faraway answer to his own question.
To feed.

--From "Feeding Lazarus" by Rafe Grayson. Now Available from Jaded Books Publishing

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