Nature's Servant Read Online Free

reaching out for the largest ornament. His hand settled around the gratifyingly solid object. It was too heavy to lift with his broken rib, so he settled instead for brushing off the dust.
    His heart started thumping with excitement as the unmistakable gleam of gold was revealed. “Olaf, come here!” he called urgently, moving on to the next ornament, and then the next, brushing off enough dust from each to reveal more of the precious metal. Spinning round he faced Olaf with a victorious grin. “I told you there’d be treasure!” he said triumphantly. “We just need to take one of these each and we’re set for life,” he said, indicated the golden objects on top of the mantelpiece. “Olaf!” he snapped in frustration when the fat man didn’t even look at him. Olaf was staring past Rekkit at something, his mouth moving soundlessly. “Olaf!” Rekkit said angrily, but then he noticed a wet patch blossoming in the crotch of Olaf’s leggings and spreading down his leg.
    Seized by sudden dread, Rekkit slowly turned around to face the mouldering couch Olaf was staring at. It wasn ’t the couch itself that held his partner’s attention, but was what was on it. A body lay sprawled across the couch, not decayed like the others but still fresh. It lay on its back, its limbs splayed as if it had been dropped there by a giant hand. Without really knowing why, Rekkit shuffled slowly towards it. What was such a fresh corpse doing here? How long ago had it died? His heart practically jumping out of his chest, Rekkit got a better view of its face as he drew near. He was only slightly relieved when he saw that whoever this had been had died some days or maybe even weeks ago. Its face was already in the early stages of decay, so whatever had killed it was probably not here anymore, or at least not in this room. It was definitely time for him and Olaf to fill their bags and get out of here! He was about to turn away when he thought he saw a movement in the corpses hand. Did its finger twitch?
    “ Don’t be stupid Rekkit!” he admonished himself angrily. “It’s just a corpse.” He stepped nearer for a better look. Just one step, and then another, until he was standing right over the sprawling body. There was no sign of movement. “See!” he said loudly. “Just another body,” and then its eyes opened. Rekkit shrieked in abject terror as the corpse glared at him with eyes half taken by rot and yet filled with malice and a dreadful hunger. It lurched upright from the waist, moaning raggedly as it reached for Rekkit, but the thief had already jumped back out of range. All thoughts of gold forgotten, Rekkit ran towards the exit, tortured by the spikes of agony from his broken rib.
    “ RUN!!!” he yelled as he passed Olaf, smacking him on the arm, but the fat man didn’t move. When he reached the doorway Rekkit turned back to see if Olaf was moving, but his partner was just standing there, frozen to the spot as the animated corpse staggered towards him, its grasping arms reaching for him.
    “ OLAF!! RUN!!!” Rekkit shouted once more, but Olaf still didn’t move. Rekkit watched in horrified fascination as the corpse reached his partner, its twitching fingers closing on his shoulder. Rekkit had once seen a man struck by lightning, and Olaf reacted to the corpse’s touch in exactly the same way. He reared on his toes, his enormous body tensing all over.
    Rekkit tried to force himself to move but he couldn ’t look away. Then, to his surprise, the corpse simply fell to the floor, the life that had animated it fleeing in a heartbeat. Rekkit tried to calm his frantic breathing, succeeding after a long minute to push away the sharpest edge of the panic that had seized him. The corpse hadn’t harmed Olaf, and it seemed to be out of action now, so maybe they still had time to fill a bag and salvage the gold.
    “ Why didn’t you move, you idiot?” Rekkit asked with forced joviality as he walked back over to Olaf. The fat