Anton had been dead for twenty days now. His body was left in a shallow ditch in the woods. His killers didn’t even bother burying his corpse.

The superstitious folk of Mircea are familiar with tales of restless dead. Ceremonies and customs were put in place over the last century to reduce the likelihood of supernatural incidents. For the most part, nowadays, they worked.

Unfortunately, in cases like Anton’s, where the body has been left exposed to the unnatural elements of the land… any number of circumstances could lead him to rise again.

It only took two days for the smell of his rotting flesh to attract the Mircean blow fly. They didn’t feed on his corpse; instead they laid eggs in his ears, nose, mouth and multiple stabbing wounds. After one day these eggs hatched into larva. After a week, they were at their full size (about 20mm). After about twenty days, the larva goes through its last development cycle. It bonds with the corpse.

On day twenty-one, Anton will rise from the ditch and walk again.