The night is damp and misty. The pale light of the moon is only diffusely noticeable between the dark branches and leaves that make up Sherwood Forest. Moisture clings to the twigs and leaves that cover the forest floor. An owl looks around with wide eyes, trees stop creaking and even the wind dares not move. Evil is afoot.

Or rather, it’s dragging forward on one foot and half an ankle, for it has lost its left foot long ago to decomposition.

Not that it matters. Yellow, rotting teeth part, and a foul stench swarms forward from an open mouth. One eye turns and looks at the other hunched figures staggering forward through the woods. Old leather armor and chains hang from bony shoulders. There is only one thing on their mind.

---

Not too far away lies the town of Nottingham. The full moon shines fully there, and friar Tuck sits comfortably on a wooden bench outside the church, a tankert of mead in his grip. The chill of the night is starting to get sharper but he is lost in his own mind. He reminds himself of the joy of his work.

Slowly, the events of the day pass his thoughts. He sighs when he thinks of the service he held in the morning, and how uplifted the people of Nottingham were after his words of hope. King Richard has returned to England, and all is going to be fine.

He takes the tankert to his lips to drink to better times to come, but finds that it is empty. He stands up, arches his back to loosen his joints, and heads inside.

Moments later, while holding up a small keg to refill his need for mead, there is a strong knock on the church’s door.

Before the friar can get up to answer the door, it swings open to reveal a tall young man with a smiling face and dapper poise. Clad head to toe in red, from his silk shirt, his linen cape and to his hose, stood Will Scarlett. His hand rested easily upon the hilt of his sword while the other doffed his hat in respect of the elder cleric.

“Tuck! My good man! “ he said with a laugh, “I thought I heard the sound of a mead keg being tapped in this vicinity. Be a friend and pour a mug for me as well, for I am in sore need of your wisdom and advice.” Will entered and closed the door behind him, pausing to lean his ash bow against the wall in its customary spot, “A man, whose word I accept as dearly as I would both you or Robin, told me he saw my father upon the roadways. This would be welcome news were not my father been dead née three years now. When I hear a tale such as that, I need a stiff drink and a man with his ear to the good lord. What say you Tuck?”

“Will!” Friar Tuck exclaims in relief. He retrieves the keg from under the table, where he had been putting it out of sight after the unexpected knock.

“You gave me a good scare there, my dear fellow.”

He conjures forth a second mug and places it next to his tankert. With an experienced fluidity he moves the keg over both containers and fills them to the brim. He grins as he hands Will his honey wine.

“The walking dead? Sounds like a part of the book of Isaiah. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

He looks at Will, and starts to laugh heartily. It is clear that he assumes the young man was jesting.

“If indeed such times are upon us I suggest we drink up and pour ourselves another one.”

He raises his tankert in a salute to the heavens and chuckles “…dew of herbs indeed.” Then drains his mead in a long swig. With a wide grin he turns to Will and falls utterly still. The young man wasn’t grinning back.

“You’re serious? Where did you say this happened?”

Edit: Changed style errors.

“I am very serious my good man. As to the where’s and the what's – I was told to the south of Nottinghamshire, on the Farthing road through the moors.” Will drained his tankard in a single gulp. “I fear that with the good news of Richard’s return that the rapture would be upon us? Wouldn't that be a kicker!”

Will stood up and paced a bit, “I was wondering if we shouldn’t gather up some of the Merry Men and go forth to check this claim. Perhaps we could pry Robin away from the arms of his Lady Fair long enough to disprove any waking deadness that has come upon the land.”

Tuck comes a few steps closer to will and opens his mouth to say something. Then he just pats Wills shoulder a few times while shaking his head. He turns back to the table, and pours himself another cupful of mead. He then flicks his hand to beckon the young archer to come for a refill as well.

“I don’t think it’s very appropriate for us to be barging into a newlywed’s bed.” He says, and with a wink adds: “Even if they’ve been newlywed for quite some time now. You know how Robin is.”

He drains half his tankert and nods approvingly.

“But we can gather some of the Merry Men and find out if there are more sightings. I hope that it was just the imagination of a frightened mind that spawned the vision of your father.”
He grabs a cloak and makes for the door.

The night air chills his breath as they leave the warmth of the church and the comfort of the mead. The town is quiet, and only a few windows still sprout light. A few crickets chirp in the night, and in the distance the occasional firefly sparks over the field. A dark cloud has slipped before the moon, and it takes a while before Friar Tuck’s eyes have adjusted to the change in light.

Moments later, he pauses. In the distance moves a shadowed form. It is a man, and squinting his eyes Tuck recognizes the baker’s aid, Jonathan. But Jonathan is a young lad, and usually doesn’t walk with a limp, like he does now. And one arm dangles awkwardly beside his torso, as if he doesn’t really know what to do with it.

"I say," Will shouts loudly to the young man shuffling down the street, "Have you been in an accident? Perhaps you should sit yourself down and call for help. Walking on a bad ankle can be worse for it."

The figure doesn't reply but continues to shuffle towards The two Merry Men. "Apparently he has been struck deaf as well. Let us help the poor bugger."

However, before Will and Tuck can render assistance, Jonathan's mother comes bustling out of the darkness.

"Where've you been till this late hour?" she chides her son. "Gallavanting with the chandler's daughter, no doubt."

Then she notices her son's apparent injuries. Fearing he's been run over by a cart, she rushes to his aid.

"My baby," the matron manages, holding her son close to her bosom.

Jonathan's dulled eyes light up at the proximity of human flesh, and with surprising alacrity the young man bites into his mother's neck, pulling off a chunk of meat.

With arterial blood spraying around her, the distressed woman clamps a hand to the wound and slumps to the ground.

As Jonathan shuffles off, gorging himself on his own mother, Will and Tuck run to the scene of carnage. They're too late, though. The woman has bled out and lies motionless.

Then, animated by forces beyond the Merry Men's comprehension, the corpse stirs.....

Tuck gasps at the sight of Jonathan burying his teeth in his mother’s flesh. Up to that point he had hoped that Will’s suspicion of the walking dead was just a silly fantasy of a young mind hoping to see his father again. Apparently, such was not the case. He turns his eyes to the heavens for an instant and solemnly vows: “I’ll never have another meat pie from that bakery.”

While Jonathan stumbles away, the friar moves towards the woman, ready to apply what little knowledge he has of healing. But as he bends over the bled out neck, she rises and tries to grab him. With more elegance than you would expect from a man as … well… let’s call it ‘stout’ for his sake… as Tuck, he jumps out of reach of the woman’s evil clutches. Dead eyes stare at him, and she bares her teeth at him.

“Rose! It’s me!” he calls out, clutching his staff in front of him as if it would form some kind of protection.

Jonathan’s mother turns on one hand and pushes herself up in an awkward, animalistic manner, never taking her eyes of him. Then she starts approaching, despite the deep gash in her neck, that decreasingly leaks blood. Tuck tries to calm her with words, but they go unheard. When she keeps coming with outstretched hands, he only sees one option.

“Dear God, forgive me.” He sighs, and gives her a hard whack with his staff. The animated corpse falls back, and for a moment it seems like that was the end of Rose. Then she stirs again.

“Will! How can we put her to rest!?” he cries out. And as he turns to the young archer, he notes another hulking shadow approaching. It is the crooked form of Annette Fanner, one who frequents Tuck’s services, and she stumbles over to the pair.

"What sorcery is this? Tuck?" Will cries out as he draws his sword from its sheath. For in all of England, no man could beat Robin as a bowman, Tuck as a quarterstaff wielder and Will Scarlett as a swordsman.

The Merry man leaps forward and stikes a mighty blow to the shoulder of the corpse woman attacking his friend. His balde splits bone and fleash with ease but the creature only is taken aback - and then moves on to attack again. The young man with a limp moves to flank him from behind.

"I will be no man's dinner, be he dead or alive!" cries Will and he swings a backhand blow at the monster that cuts clear through his neak and separates head from body. The dead man falls, staying down and remaining still as a good body should.

"Tuck! The head! they can not survive death without it!" Armed with this knowledge, Will fends off the newly arrive woman attacker with blade in hand and an eye for throat.

“What sorcery?" Tuck gasps. "This be no sorcery, master Will. This is straight out of Revelations. You should visit my services more often.”

As the young man slices at what had been the mother of the baker’s aid just a minute ago, he whispers the words that until now had only contained some vague metaphor. They seemed all too real now:

“That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.“

When Will turns to face the newcomer, Tuck was panicking. Together with the young lad he bashes at Annette Fanner with all his strength. She gurgles loudly when he strikes her throat, and falls backwards.

“Michael Tuck! What do you think you’re doing!” She exclaims sternly, moments before Will could strike a deadly blow to her head. She trembles as she tries to sit up.
“Is that how you treat all you’re devotees?”

It takes the friar a good moment to realize that Mrs Fanner has been a cripple since as long as he could remember, and she often stumbles a walk after dark. He fumbles for an excuse, but doesn’t have time to find one. Behind the fallen Mrs Fanner, a bent figure approaches. It is Gregory Fanner, Annette’s husband.

He’s been dead for over 10 year.

"So sorry about that Good Lady Fanner, " Will says cordially, "You might want to pinch the cheeks and ginger yourself up. Hard to tell the dead from the living when the decease take to walking."

Will moves quickly to cover the space between Mrs. Fanner and the walking dead man. "Excuse me sir? Are you dead?" he shouts out of courtesy.

"Aarrgghhhh."

"Good enough." Will shrugs and with a mighty blow seeks to decapitate the zombie before him. The swing is not as mighty as he'd hoped though and it takes a second and a third strike beofore the head rolls from the body.

"Oh my lord! No!" screams the Widow behind him, crying in Tuck's arms.

Will looks up for the doubly deceased, "Sorry. He is dead now, or was when I ... Sorry. Should have ... well I'm just ... sorry. So so sorry." the young swordsman whips his sword on the body, "Tuck! Any words in the good book about getting the dead back to dead?"

Tuck ponders over Will’s last question.

“We should head back to my studies. I think I have an old tome there that might help. The Bishop of Hereford is looking to have it banned, thinking it is not a true religious scripture. The answer might be in there.”

They hasten back to the small church. As they pass through town, more wandering dead are seen, some of them half eaten away by time. It appears many of the graveyard inhabitants have woken with an extreme appetite.

Will and Tuck reach the church safely, but not without attracting the attention of at least a few undead. As the young man bars the door, Tuck runs into his study, where he starts rummaging through his books like a man possessed. After a few minutes he holds up a very old, thin book bound in crumbling leather. Faded golden letters reveal the title to be “The Gospel of George, a ten step guide to surviving the Apocalypse”.

“It’s never been proven to be genuine, but it tells of the visions by a man named George Arom Ero. Apparently he was visited by an Angel who left him with revealing insight after George gave him too much brandy.”

He starts flipping through the pages, when a solid pounding on the door begins. The low wailings of the undead sound through the church, chilling the monk’s blood. But at last he finds what he is looking for.

“Here! George speaks of a special weapon that will ensure survival in times of the walking dead. … and ye shall wield the Saw of Chains, and ye shall hack with it through bones, and ye should pull first the cord, and let holy wrath descend upon ye blood craving spooks.”