Redemption of the Dead by Luke Delaney

Chapter One
October 1993
    She pulled her coat tight against the chill of the approaching winter, but still she felt a shiver run the length of her body, some terrible feeling refusing to leave her. She comforted herself with the fact that the sun was high overhead and that she’d seen several other people walking in the same park in Hither Green, south-east London, but still the feeling remained of some nearby malevolent force – watching. Waiting. She leaned inside the buggy and adjusted her young child’s clothing, smiling and softly chatting as she did so, but constantly flicking her eyes from left to right. An increasing sense of panic made her hurry as she grabbed the buggy handles and began to walk towards the exit of the park, the wooded area on her left suddenly dark and threatening.
    She stuck to the path, walking so fast she was almost jogging, until the sight of another mother with her two children playing on the grass no more than a hundred metres away began to calm her fears and she slowed her pace. A small smile spread across her face as she reprimanded herself for her foolishness. She took a few deep breaths to chase away the remainder of her panic and headed towards one of the park’s exits.
    First all she heard was the rustling sound of branches being pushed out of the way and the breaking of twigs under foot. He moved so fast she didn’t have time to react – not even to scream as he burst from the woods and stood in front of her, his chest rising and falling as fast as her own, his eyes as full of fear and panic as her own. She felt her lungs involuntarily filling with air as she prepared to scream, but he saw her body’s intention and leaped forward, the huge combat knife pressing hard enough to her throat to draw blood.
    His voice was full of terror and excitement. ‘If you make a sound I’ll cut your throat – I swear I’ll cut your throat and then I’ll cut your baby’s. Understand?’ She managed to nod as the madman slid around to her back and gripped her by the hair while keeping the knife at her throat, pushing her forwards now, away from her child and into the waiting trees.
    * * *
    A thin layer of dark red blood sprayed across his face as he drove his fist into the deepening cut above the man’s right brow. As the man staggered backwards he nimbly pursued him across the across the slightly springy floor, waiting for a chance to further punish the cut, but the man was using both fists and forearms to protect his face, making it almost impossible to hit him. He swallowed his rising anger and tried to stay in control, knowing that if he allowed the fury inside of him loose he would struggle to rein it back in. He had to control it – use the tools he’d been given to harness the aggression, but control the fury. He bent slightly at the knees and began to pound the man’s ribs and the kidneys that tried to hide behind them, powering his right fist into the man’s side, then his left, swiveling at the hips as he constantly shifted his body weight to maximize the impact of each punch. Finally the man could bear the pain no more and was forced to drop his arms to his sides for protection, leaving his face and the cut exposed. Instantly he sensed the man’s mistake, his body slightly straightening and rising as he channeled every ounce of power into his left fist that hooked and flashed through the air, tearing into the cut above the man’s brow. Heavy droplets of maroon blood danced into the sky before splashing on a group of drunken, baying men standing nearby, making them curse and cheer together. A savage right fist parted the man’s elbows and hands as it travelled towards his exposed chin, crashing into the jawbone and rocking his head backwards and at last he collapsed to the floor, blood from his ruptured brow seeping to the surface and pooling under the side of his head. A man in black trousers and a bloodstained white shirt, adorned with an oversized bowtie stepped in front