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The ground to my right swells, and I turn just as a hand punches through. Gray fingers claw at the air, skin stretched tight over swollen knuckles, nails black and split from whatever the fuck they’ve been scratching at beneath the earth. The hand twists, searching blindly for something to grab before burying its fingers into the dirt and pulling.

Another hand breaks through ten feet away.

Then another.

All around us, the hillside starts to split.

One of the cracks opens directly ahead of me, dirt spilling inward as something forces its way up from beneath the ground. I see the top of a head first, patches of hair still clinging to gray skin. Then a forehead with clouded eyes rolling beneath half-rotted lids. Its mouth breaks through last. Packed full of dirt, worms, and filth drop as it chomps like it’s trying to find traction in its jaw.

It chews once, twice, mud spilling between broken teeth before its mouth stretches open and it drags in a horrible rattling breath. Then those cloudy eyes find me.

And it smiles.

Jesus-fucking-Christ.

The thing rips itself out of the ground, skin tearing along one shoulder where roots have grown straight through the flesh. They come with it, dragging from its body in long, wet strands while it crawls onto its knees.

It isn’t alone.

Bodies are pulling themselves free everywhere now.

Some still look almost human beneath the rot. Others have been underground so long there isn’t enough left to hide the bones pushing through them. One comes up wearing rusted chains around both wrists, the links disappearing into the torn flesh of its forearms. Another drags itself forward with only one leg, leaving a thick black smear through the dirt while its fingers dig into the ground, dragging what’s left of its body behind it.

More crawl over the top of it.

They don’t make a sound beyond those awful stolen breaths.

No screaming.

No growling.

No orders from somewhere inside the cavern.

They just keep coming.

Until the wet breathing cuts off and every scrape of dead fingers through dirt stops with it. The hillside goes so fucking quiet I hear the low burn of hellfire along my own ribs.

Twenty, maybe thirty bodies have frozen dead on the spot. One still has half its torso buried beneath the dirt, fingers hooked into the ground mid-pull. Another crouches on all fours with black sludge hanging in a thick string from its mouth. A third stands crooked between two trees, head hanging sideways against a neck that gave up holding it a long time ago.

None of them move.

For one fucked-up second, the whole hillside goes still.

Then every head snaps toward us at once.

The sound rips across the hillside in one sickening crack of bone as thirty necks twist at angles that make my own hurt, cloudy eyes locking onto the Kings in perfect-fucking-unison.

And every mouth opens into the exact same smile.

My hellhound actually takes a step back.

Fuck. That.

“Nope!” Ruckus mutters somewhere behind me. “Don’t fucking like that.”

“Pretty sure they don’t care,” Scar replies.

“Well, somebody should tell them.”