Revenant

A revenant is a visible ghost or animated corpse

that is believed to have revived from death to
haunt the living. The word revenant is derived
from the Old French word, revenant, the
"returning" (see also the related French verb
revenir, meaning "to come back").
Many stories were documented by English
historians in the Middle Ages. William of
Newburgh wrote during the 1190s, "It would
not be easy to believe that the corpses of the
dead should sally (I know not by what agency)
from their graves, and should wander about to
the terror or destruction of the living, and again
return to the tomb, which of its own accord
spontaneously opened to receive them, did not
frequent examples, occurring in our own times,
suffice to establish this fact, to the truth of
which there is abundant testimony."

1
Having recently arisen from the grave, the
revenant is usually a corpse in an advanced
state of decay, but still somewhat recognizable
to those it knew in life. The creature has sunken
eyes, which glow a fiery red in the darkness. It
has rotten teeth and jagged fingernails. Large
portions of flesh may be missing, exposing the
creature’s bones and innards.
The skin tends to hang from the flesh in ragged
strips, while maggots and worms infest the
exposed flesh, as well as the eye sockets and
other bodily orifices. The revenant reeks of
corruption and rotting flesh, and the creature
can be detected from several yards away just by
its smell alone.
The revenant is usually wearing its burial shroud
or whatever clothes it was wearing when the
individual was interred, now in tatters from
clawing its way out of the grave.