Dead Reckoning

He was alive and then he was dead, gone from the world he knew, gone from everything.

He had wondered about it before he died wondering what it would be like, wondering if there would be anything after.

Near death experiences fascinated him and he read whatever he could about them. But now he was dead and he was at last going to find out what it was really like.

He knew he was aware, that he was some sort of thinking entity and he was pleased. He just didn’t want to be alone, cut off or worse.

Time passed although he didn’t have a sense of time, it was different here in this place he found himself in. It was almost like being in a vacuum.

But then it changed as he found himself in a tunnel or something like one. It seemed to go on forever too, an unending tube-like thing spiraling out in front of him with shadows and light.

The light was promising he liked it for he could see something moving in front of it, something down at the other end, something like figures.

But they weren’t really moving in the way he was used to seeing people move nor were they figures or indeed people. No, it had to be something else. They had to be something like spirits.

When you’re dead there is no more substance.

This was a thought of his, something he had composed before he died. Like a treatise on death.

There’s either something or there isn’t but if there is something then it's only spirit.

One of them called out. Then more did. There were shouts and whispers too. The shouts were from far away but the whispers were getting closer.

He tried to listen except he couldn’t understand them. It was like they were speaking in tongues.

The thing was he wanted to hear what they were saying. He tried to see their faces or indeed if they had faces, but all he saw were shadows, great flickering shadows lining the tunnel.

“They are whispering shadows, no more than that. Then I must be like a shadow too.”

They were coming closer, that was obvious. He wasn’t certain if he liked it either, it seemed threatening to him.

They began to encircle him then. Their whispers becoming louder—so loud they were less like whispers and more like hissing.

Could he be in hell? Would he find himself surrounded by demons next?

“Help me!”

A wish, heartfelt it would have been if he still retained a heart but sincere anyway because you see he was very fearful now.

This was ominous. He couldn’t tell where he was or what awaited him.

Then it all changed as the shadows moved off and the figures began moving toward him.

These were not shadows but beings, beings like himself. Perhaps these were the guardians he had read about, beings who escorted the dead to the great light and to family that had already passed on.

“I’m here! Please help me show me the way.”

He kept calling to them and they did indeed keep coming but then he stopped for he could see what they were. They were in their human form, young women. Hundreds of young women, angry—screaming at him. Shouting to him. Reaching out for him with claw like hands, their eyes fixed—their mouths open screaming his name.

And there beyond them were those that had died for they could not get over the murder of their daugher or friend or sister.

They were coming closer and there was nothing he could do at all.

It was then that he finally heard his name:

"Bundy! Bundy we have you now!"

 ~*~              

Ted Bundy 1946-1989

Executed

Before his execution he confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978; the true total remains unknown, and could be much higher.

 

~*~

  Under 700 words

© copyright 2011 Carole Gill

Corpus Cristi

Joseph of Arimathea had come to bury him in his own fine tomb for they would have buried him as a criminal, not something Joseph nor any of the man's friends would have wished.


Joseph was not alone. His friend Nicodemus, an elder of the Pharisees, had come to anoint the body of this great man, these two secret disciples would prepare their friend for burial for they did honor him.


Not everyone saw him that way. He was but a thorn in Rome’s side, a trouble maker—another of the endless so-called Messiahs. Didn’t more appear every day it seemed?

Many of his own people didn’t like him, for his words were deemed blasphemous. Yet he spoke anyway, moving many a heart and opening many an ear!

Yet what of him now? This silent, mutilated corpse. This poor dead man still tacked up cruelly upon a rough-hewn cross.

“He’s a corpse and nothing more. He’ll be forgotten, you’ll see!”

One of many proclamations from the crowd.

Yet, there are the sounds of weeping too, for his mother is there.

The crowd was mixed. And the two men had to pass through it; not an easy task for this was the site of Jesus of Nazareth’s Crucifixion.

They did manage to get to the front, yet neither Nicodemus nor Joseph wished to raise their eyes to see what they know would be there; the sad remains of their beloved friend. “I cannot lift my eyes to look!”

A harsh Roman voice answered: “Have you never seen a dead man before?"

Joseph nodded. “I have, and I am sure you have!”

The Roman looked furious but Joseph went on: “We have come for the body. Please, Governor Pilate has given his permission for us to remove him...”

The Romans began conferring.

“Look Joseph,” Nicodemus pointed toward the foot of the cross. But Joseph did not wish to look at all of the blood that had pooled there. Yet he did look.

They both looked and as they did they could see the faces of the damned. Not those present but beings from another time and place--agonized beings that looked as though they were screaming.

Joseph was so caught up in what he was seeing he did not hear the Romans order him to move out of the way.

His friend Nicodemus finally had to push him. “They are laying the cross down.”

And so they did, roughly and without care they laid it upon the ground in order that the nails might be removed and the corpse taken away.

Clearly the Romans were annoyed and kept muttering under their breath, for the men could not bring themselves to tear the nails from the dead man’s hands.

“We mustn’t tarry! We must do this, for him!"


And so they did for the burial must be completed before the Sabbath and it was already late.

At last they had him and carried him forth to Joseph’s own tomb which was not far.

It would already have the spices and linen in there. Myrrh and aloes to rub upon his poor body, to try and purify the taint his vicious executioners had imposed upon him.

Their eyes looked upon the hideous stab in his side up toward his poor lips that were still ringed with the vinegar and wine they had given him.

Joseph said it was to ease the pain but Nicodemus was angry. For he could remember when those lips moved and spoke of Godly things like heaven and truth and light.

He spoke the truth of all things, he thought.

'But you only went at night Nicodemus. You hypocrite!'

Nicodemus gasped so loudly Joseph looked at him. “Did you hear anything?"  Nicodemus asked. For he thought it was the voice of almighty God he had heard.

“No, come now—we haven’t much time.”

It was just these two attending this ritual burial. These two and no more for the others, were being watched and could not come.

“They could have come if they wished it.”

Joseph nodded. “He would not blame them, he would understand so if he would, shouldn’t you?”

Nicodemus sighed. “You are right, we are all weak, it is as you say. He knew of truth the truth that men are cowards and will often fail despite not wishing to.

“We must begin.”

And so they did. The two men worked together spreading the spice mixture between the encircling layers of a long linen cloth purchased by Joseph. They wrapped the fabric around and around the body until it was completely sealed with the inside the fabric cocoon. 

After they were satisfied they had properly prepared Jesus' body for burial, Joseph rolled a large stone over the cave's opening. They stood there for a moment, sad for they had buried their friend. "We both believed in him, you and I. Of course neither of us can say what shall be the outcome of it all. At the very least he was a great man. Probably the greatest that has ever lived! I am glad he lies here in my tomb."

"Yes," Nicodemus replied. "He deserves to be in a tomb such as this."

They had done a great service for their friend and so on this particular Sabbath night they would make their way to Joseph's dwelling where they would try and come to themselves for the day had been trying beyond compare.

Had they not been as confused and tired as they were they might have recalled the ancient Hebrew prophecy about the Messiah:

'But he was not buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man's grave.'

Isaiah 53:8b-9

© Copyright 2011 Carole Gill

Where The Murdered Reside

She had hopes and dreams. Dreamt all of her childhood away, sitting in the movie theater with her mama watching Jean Harlow.

Someday I’ll be a big star.

So she moves out to L. A. but her dad doesn’t like her, she can’t please him or maybe she isn’t trying.

She starts to drift.

Jobs and men and dance clubs, hotel rooms and bedrooms sometimes even in cars. She was sliding downhill and fast.

She had loved a few guys but they were gone--lost one way or another.

The slide gathers momentum and often she has no place to sleep.

She remembers the Biltmore Hotel and her suitcase in the train station….was she going home?

A voice soothing her, urging her to come along so she goes.

“Need a place to sleep tonight?”

It’s a shock because this is it. This is the guy with the killing hands.

Oh the pain. Pain like she never knew---! And then the quiet painless peace that only death can bring.

Suddenly there’s a shout from somewhere, no not there at her murder but, here in the place she is now.

“Hey kid, you ain’t so special. There’s lots of us see?!”

Elizabeth Short known to all the world as the Black Dahlia turns to see all the other spirits of the dead—the young the old, all converging upon her, wanting to tell her their own stories.

One is holding her stomach she looks pregnant. “Sure, they killed you but they murdered me and my baby...and my friends."

The friends are there too and they’re all weeping for their unlived lives, for that which was taken so cruelly away from them.

Sharon Tate and the La Biancas too, gotta feel for them and Dahlia does.

Yet in a strange way she is comforted.

Shared pain and all. Misery loves company, the murdered comfort one another because no one else can.

The Hillside Stranglers’ victims, all young--cling to Elizabeth, collective final experience. There’s a lot to that.

“I know,” she says. “I remember.”

And that guy Glatman. sometimes he said he was looking for models and other times he was lonely. Bigger net, see?  He murdered wannabe models and girls looking for love. Whatever they sought they found death instead.

Tied up and photographed. Lonely terrible deaths lying in the desert on what should have been a date or a chance.

More memories of death to share.

This is unending for there are more, thousands upon thousands more---fallen flappers and gangsters, beautiful girls, kissed up to the wrong guy, only takes one wrong guy you know.

Young gangsters cut down in a thousand gutters,  still slick with carnations in their  lapel along with bullet holes.

Some try to laugh but others cry because they don’t care anymore. When you’re dead you don’t get shamed. They’re beyond shame and hurt and pain too.

Gang members of more recent times, what the hell do their colors mean any more?

Nada.

The Bloods and the Crips and more besides, united in death at least, so much so they offer comfort to one another.

“Shit though, ain’t it awful, no second chance, man.”

Nope not ever. Once you’re here you’re here.

Prospectors and Indians, hell even primates … rubbing their fatal wounds as though they still had pain.

All those that were murdered in this place yesterday or zillions of years ago are here now all present and accounted for--ghosts each and every one of them.

Old habits die hard, the flesh goes only the spirit remains.

Dahlia and the others, sometimes they forget, invariably they do. It’s tough being dead, and if that’s the case being murdered is the hardest thing to cope with of all.

There are the memories of their living lives and if that isn’t bad enough, the recollection of their deaths is pure poison because it’s like dying all over again.

One of the other spirits tries to comfort them.

“We are not just lost; we are murdered and lost—gone from the world we knew, fated to be among the murdered souls—existing in our own domain, existing forever here because we can’t be anywhere else.

The best you can do is to forget, memory’s a killer and vagueness is the best hope you’ve got, the best hope any of us have.”

They listen until the next time, until they go through all that sad stuff all over again.

The curse of death, the fate of the murdered, the sad existence in their own dead world--it's where the murdered reside.

692 words

© 2011 Carole Gill Copyright

Death: A Dialogue

London 1348

Death was all around--in the filth and contagion, beside the diseased ravaged ships in the harbor, moving up from the docks with the scurrying rats--unnoticed as passengers but so vital to this tale.

Death paused, standing among the dead and dying animals, the decomposing human corpses, many of which lay bloated in the street, food for countless starving death-marked dogs.

Death as always watched and waited.

He watched madmen screaming gibberish at the top of their lungs as they dashed down the streets for they had lost their minds having seen loved ones die.

Powerlessness is often a precursor to madness.

He watched too relatives trying to carry their dead loved ones away to one of the open burial pits outside the city because no one else was left to do it.

There were more dying daily it seemed. The carts hadn’t come around lately shouting for folk to bring out their dead, the carriers of the dead were themselves dead.

Death saw and they saw him. That is those about to die saw him.

Like a parody of the Gladiator’s cry: “we who are about to die salute you!” so they did; only it was no parody.

Nothing could have been more grim than this.

Very often they tried to bargain with him.

“Please, let me live. I don’t want to die. My wife will have no husband, my child no father. What is to become of them?”

Sadly and with no facetiousness at all Death would answer, “they will not suffer long…for I shall come for them very soon…’

So much misery, he didn’t wish to see it. He didn’t enjoy any aspect of being Death, he never had.

And so in this particular place at this particular time he happened to come upon Satan for Satan was never far from suffering.

Satan greeted him.

But Death held himself at a distance. Satan laughed mockingly.

“You can’t afford that sort of attitude. The angels don’t like you, they don’t even wish for you to call yourself the Angel of Death!"

Death nodded sadly. “It is true what you say. I am a pariah wherever I go whatever I do I can never change what I am.”

“Fate is the ruler of us all!” Satan replied sadly. “I never thought I’d fall from grace, never! So certain was I in my belief.”

Death shrugged. “We become what we become. I for myself have no memory of anything but this. I can recall only sadness and pleading from those I am to carry off. And then the final resignation as each accepts his fate. That is surely the most difficult moment for them.”

“Well,” Satan said. “You might as well get used to what you do for it will not change. In fact it will get worse, for things do. Nothing remains as it is. There will be death on such a scale you cannot imagine.”

Satan nodded and did give Death a glimpse into the future. “Behold the times to come!”

Death had never had a vision before and gasped. for he saw countless wars and genocide, all manner of persecutions and trials and punishments, millions dead or dying of wounds and disease too, all sorts of disease that would blanket the world from time to time. He saw too great fires dscending from the sky that wrecked havoc and devastation upon the world.

There would be desolation on an untold scale.

“Rivers of blood,” Death said nodding for there was no reason to dispute the vision.

Death could if nothing else recognize truth when he saw it.

“The world shall drown in an ocean of blood and there will be darkness and death for all men.”

Satan shrugged. “It is the way of things.”

Death nodded sadly, “I hope I shall have some helpers then," he said.  “For I cannot possibly be expected to visit all those untold millions who shall die—even I cannot be every place at once.”

Satan agreed. “It is something to think about. Do not fear I’m certain I can think of a solution, I usually do.”

© Copyright 2011 Carole Gill

700 words

Death appears in The Blackstone Vampires Series: Unholy Testament - The Beginnings and Unholy Tesament - Full Circle

Unholy Testament the Beginnings:

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Unholy Testament Full Circle 

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The Ravenous Undead!

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

They rise from their crypts, these disgraced warriors who did not reach Valhalla but were consigned to ignoble burial.

You can see them as they stand atop their burial mounds, sword in hand, for they are still corporeal, though they reek of decomposing flesh and dusty bone.

Their stench, is all pervasive, the rotting corruption of themselves—it alerts all to their passage and the terror this night will bring.

“They have risen!”

An old man tries to warn the others of his village. But these undead spring quickly toward him like the monstrous predatory creatures they are, sleek and strong—shape-shifting demonic beings whose sole purpose is to rise from their own rot and destroy the living.

 The old man cries out once but no more for they are chewing through his throat, ripping his poor flesh to shreds.

Great thick torrents of blood pour forth, appearing black in the eerie glow of a jaundiced moon.

 Others begin to come forth too each rising armed with killing weapons, weapons alas not used in battle.

 For you see these undead beasts were not warriors, but ran from battle in fright.And for their shame they were disowned and damned, their punishment was to be run through with blunt swords.

 Yet though their executioners have long since died, these creatures have returned for revenge for they are mindless killing creatures and nothing more.

 The village yonder is their target. For this was home to their punishers, those people who deemed them cowards.

 They move enmass, a frightening sight to behold.

 A courting couple see them and try to flee, but are soon overpowered. 

Each is pulled away, to be devoured, while still living.

 Their agonized cries fill the night sky—and as their blood pours from their torn flesh, it is also consumed for it is the elixir the Draugr needs.

 And then suddenly, in between the scream of a howling wind and the cry of an owl the boy and girl are fully consumed.

Bones crunch and flesh is ripped apart. Then when they are dead, their mutilated remains are discarded for these undead feed only upon living flesh.

These ravenous dead at last reach the town. Parents cry out as they  try to protect their young but none is a match for these demonic creatures.

 Babies are torn asunder and devoured, children drained and their parents too. All are feasted upon. A great and frightening cry of joy goes up when a pregnant woman is ripped apart, for there is the prize of a tiny fetus within. 

The husband, father to the unborn child, watches powerlessly as his family’s murderers finish consuming his loved ones.

He cries out their names until his own head is torn from his body and the cascading blood is drunk.

Each house is so attacked and its inhabitants butchered and eaten.

But there is one who has fled not in cowardice but has rushed to stop these undead monsters.

 A young warrior, strong and fiercely built does finally gather some of his friends to fight these cursed beings.

They have gathered iron swords from the monsters’ own crypts for that is the way.

They are seen by the demons and are soon trapped high atop the cliffs that overlook the sea. But it is alright they are ready for battle.

They yell a defiant war cry, as they spring forward, tackling the Draugr and slicing their heads from their bodies.

When all are so attacked the young warriors make a great pyre and burn the damned to ashes. At first light they will consign the ashes to the sea for that is the way it must be done.

The village is no more, but the Draugrs have been destroyed.

 Ah but sadly there was one who watched and waited--one who will soon carry forth the hellish curse, for he will gather up as many fiendish comrades as he can from far afield, to avenge his brethern's destruction.

Go forth if you dare! See if he can be stopped and please try to warn your kin!

And if some night you see them making for your village be resigned to the terrible death that comes from those they call the evil Draugr, the ravenous undead!


784 words



© Copyright 2011Carole Gill



The Draugr are the shape-shifting undead Vikings of  Norse mythology who feed upon living flesh.

In life they dishonored themselves and were declared unfit to enter Valhalla and were thus buried and forgotten.

They can only be destroyed by decapitation and burning and having their ashs scattered.