by Joe Stanley

As I approached the barn, I could hear them speaking, arguing among themselves.
“You’re the strongest, you should do it.”
“But what if I miss the heart?”
“We’re going to cut the head off, between the two, I’m sure he can’t come back.”
“And if you’re wrong? You think a headless monster stalking the country side will be less horrid?”
“It’s getting late, we have to get this done. We’ll just have to take the chance. Doing anything has to be better than doing nothing, right?”
“I wish old Doc was here.”
“If these were the kind of requests you made of him, I can understand why he would leave.” I interrupted, “And though I think this is hideous and vile, I can also understand why the villagers see its necessity. Give the stake and mallet to me.”
“Thank God,” uttered the Reverend, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from speaking my mind.
“Thank you,” said the Mayor, “for your change of heart.”

I removed my bone saw from my bag and placed it by the casket.

“I will do this, gentlemen, until I can discover the cause and cure for whatever is really going on, but I insist that you leave me alone while I do it. When I am through, I will come out.”

With the air of sullen children, they filed out. I placed the stake and stood for a moment, feeling the weight of the mallet as it hung by my side. Then, as if I had done this a thousand times I lifted it high and brought it down.

In one of my medical classes, the dissection of cadavers formed the bulk of our lectures. We stood close enough to observe while the professor demonstrated techniques of surgery and explained the physiology of what conditions might be found. In one such lecture, he drew our attention to the thick cataracts that had give the cadaver milky eyes. At the same time he had placed his fist in the body’s solar plexus without us realizing it. With a subtle but firm push he forced the air and gasses in the lungs up and out. To have been leaning and focused on the face of the corpse when the mouth popped open and the stinking breathy moan came out, nearly frightened me beyond my wits.

It was this that I expected and the mallet came home first once then twice. As I lifted it for a third strike, William Montgomery began to scream and he opened his eyes. His wails were not the product of decomposition, they were full of anguish and pain. And the eyes looked around before they came to rest on mine. They were silver, like mirrored glass.

In terror, in abject mind-bending horror, I brought the mallet down amid the screams and nearly lost my mind as the dead man began to sob.

William Montgomery, or the thing that had been William Montgomery, stared up at me.
“What in God’s name are you?” I whisper.
It laughed as red bubbles popped between its lips and it gurgled with glee as it informed me, “There is no God.”
“Then what the hell are you?”
It laughed again and continued, “There is no Hell but for the one you already occupy.”
I could say nothing.
“I am a restless one. He stole my life and so I cannot die.”
“Who?!” I begged, “Who did this to you?”
“He who travels with no body. He who steals life. The evil one whose dreams bring death and worse. He sees you through my eyes, and makes me thirsty for your blood. Please…”
It spat a red fountain.
“Please release me,” it begged in return, “Please grant me the peace of destruction. Finish it. Finish it!”

Another scream filled the night, this my own as I hammered the stake deep into its heart. And then I dropped the mallet and seized the saw, paying no mind to the fluid that splattered on me. When I was through, I turned from the body and was sick.

TBC

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