Free Once Upon a Twist by Michelle Smart, Aimee Duffy

creature.”
    And they were off, galloping over fields and meadows, the moon lighting their path, the crisp air cutting through them.
    Scratchy clung to her, his head resting in the arch of her cold neck. Next to her she could see Itchy adopt the same position, his face practically buried in his horse’s thick black hair.
    Soon the distant lights of Chauvigne, the town she called home, twinkled into focus. Cantering ever nearer, Ella refused to think of anything but the manor house she had lived in for her entire life. If she thought only of that, she would surely find safe passage to it, even if it was located at the far end of the town.
    As soon as they entered Chauvigne though, it was obvious something was amiss.
    The horses whinnied and made to slow down. “We have to keep going,” Ella yelled through the wind. Her words gave them the impetus to drive ever faster. As they galloped over the cobbled roads, images began to appear through the blur of her vision.
    Dear God but the undead were there. Lights blazed in every house. Twitching bodies were strewn across the pavement.
    How long had they been there? It was hard to imagine that this much destruction could have been caused in such a short time-frame.
    She blocked her ears to the screams echoing through the whistling wind, praying their speed would prevent the wandering undead from fixing their attention on them.
    It was a futile prayer.
    One creature began to chase them. Like some sick game of dominos, its movement attracted the attention of others who, one by one, took up the chase until around a dozen were behind them.
    “Faster!” she screamed. There was no chance of her extending the blade and using it, not unless she wanted to fall off.
    But the creatures were gaining on them. Even as they left the main thoroughfare of the town and entered the suburbs, at the edge of which resided her home, they kept up the pursuit. Now they were running close enough that she could hear their pounding footsteps. What the creatures had lost in brainpower they had more than made up for with strength and speed.
    In the distance behind them she made out the sound of clattering hooves. Before she could make sense of it though, the Chauvigne town clock began to chime the hour.
    Both horses reared at the first clang. With a scream, Ella was thrown to the ground, landing in an undignified heap on top of Scratchy.
    “Run!” she cried, scrambling to her feet. If she had suffered any injuries she could not feel them.
    But Scratchy remained flat on his back, still. A trickle of blood seeped out of his ear.
    To her horror, Itchy and the two horses were in no state to run either, all of them shrinking before her eyes. And the undead were barely two hundred yards away.
    “Run!” she shrieked again, her voice hoarse, forcing her legs to move. It barely registered in her conscious that her feet now squelched in her old battered slippers.
    She could never outrun them. Intellectually she knew that. But she was damned if she were going down without a fight.
    Reaching into her bodice for her blade, she realized to her horror that it had gone. She was back in her ragged dress. This dress did not have a bodice. If the blade had survived midnight it was lying somewhere on the road.
    The grunts from the undeads’ exertions were becoming louder but she did not dare turn back to look. All she could focus on was her house, the dim outline of which she could see in the distance.
    Yells penetrated through the adrenaline, the distant hooves closing in but Ella could not afford to waste a single second wondering what it could be. Scratchy was lying prostrate on the cold ground, shrunk back into his natural form. Without pausing for thought, she closed a hand around him and scooped him up.
    “Run,” she begged of Itchy and the two frogs, her legs propelling forwards.
    Those revolting grunts were nearing and she felt the whisper of rancid breath on her neck. Then came the sound of a thud and before she