Stitches

A five-man team of American soldiers are on their way to evacuate a small squad of British troops from the mountains of Afghanistan. Their helicopter suffers an engine failure and crash-lands in the mountains, far from home and well out of radio contact with their home base. Two of the crew members die in the crash, and of the three survivors, one has suffered a potentially life-threatening wound to the leg.

They soon encounter an enemy that has it in for both them and the Taliban: the Stitched, undead creatures that tear any human they reach limb from limb, guided by mysterious men in black robes. With little ammunition, no food, no water, and a wounded companion, the soldiers must figure out a way to get out of Afghanistan before the Stitched or the Taliban find and kill them.

Stitched is both a horror comic book from Avatar Press and a seventeen-minute short horror film. In both cases, it's written by Garth Ennis; in the former, it has art by Mike Wolfer.

Tropes encountered in this work include:

 * Action Girl: Lieutenant Cooper.
 * Body Horror: Issue #3 deals with how the Stitched are made. It is profoundly unpleasant.
 * Gorn: A specialty of Mike Wolfer's and of Avatar Press's. The book's interiors are mild by comparison to the covers, however.
 * Hidden Depths: Corporal "Twiggy," the nineteen-year-old American soldier, is more or less a total load for the first two issues. In the third, however, she reveals she's been following the stories of human trafficking out of Afghanistan with an eye towards doing something about it, to the point where she knows the name of the head trafficker.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: The Stitched fill most of the criteria of a standard Romero-style zombie, but can wield simple weapons and display an alarming proclivity towards dismemberment, disembowelment, and creative methods of impalement. Their handlers control them by using a tin can on a length of chain with pebbles inside, and the Stitched lash out in the direction of the cans' rattling sound.