They say it’s been too long, that if it were going to happen it would have.  But they’re wrong.  Over the past one hundred thirty-four years my head has drawn nearer my hands, inching up from between my feet where they laid it to rest.

Now it’s in my grasp and I place it back upon my shoulders and rise from my rotted grave as something worse than the warlock they buried.   The dead don’t come back as one of the living; they come back as one of the undead.

Tales were told of my dark existence, my spells and potions.  The good people I helped with my tinctures were the same who became my accusers.  They joined the others in town, hell bent on my persecution, and came after me.

I gave them a good chase, but couldn’t hold them off.  Captured and dragged to the church cemetery, they hung me and cut off my head on the very land I donated to their precious church – my last effort to conceal my true nature.

I shamble forward, head wobbling on shoulders it’s been separated from for over a century.  Tonight they’ll pay.  All of them will rise with me out of their crypts and lay siege in my name at the door of their own kin.

“I’ll start with you, Mary Washburn,” I say as I spit on her grave.  “You, holier than thou Mary Washburn, who lay with me in payment for cursing your neighbors.  Who lay with me to defy your husband’s brute fists.  Rise now and join with me.”

The ground swells and cracks.  A gray, decimated hand reaches up through the crevice.  A gold wedding band catches the moonlight.  “Master Ransom, I’m at your service,” she says.

“On to Good Man Rodgers.”  I kick his headstone with the crumbling sole of my black boot.  “Wake now heretic and make bloody the fool parishioners who remained blind to your evil ways.  Wake and show them the talismans you commissioned me to create.  Wake and let them see your Hell burnt flesh.”

Flames lick the sky, shot like cannon blast out of the ground and spit forth the charred remains of Reverend Rodgers.  “Ransom Newton,” he rasps.

“Come with me, be my Reverend of Revenge.”

I raise twelve more cowards, liars and whores to walk the night, to stain it red.  We litter the street; our rancid odor precedes our footsteps.  The wind pushes us on, urging us to the first doorstep.

Over one hundred years soaking up the energy from maggots, grubs and decayed vermin has given us each the strength of ten.   The door is knocked off its hinges and falls with a dull thunk to the floor.

Sharp screams shred the night before being strangled silent.

Mary Washburn drags the body of her great-great-great-great granddaughter down the street, across the yellow-dashed asphalt.

“Next stop’s yours, good reverend,” I tell him.  An anxious look flashes in his eyes.  The devil’s always been his master.

From an upstairs window, a reading lamp spills light out onto the yard at the parsonage.  The crash of glass echoes through the silent night as the intruder enters the front room window.  “Devil be gone!  Devil be gone!” replaces the din of shattered glass, and then a choked gurgling gives back to the silence of the night.

The parson’s body joins the parade of the dead, marched by the undead down the street.  “Vengeance parade!” I call.  “Everyone wake for the vengeance parade!”  My minions collect more bodies for our motley parade as fear stricken spectators hover behind window curtains.  Wails of the damned fill the air and then die.  Moments later they join my procession.

In full swing now, my band of shambling, animated corpses turns the corner into the town square.  I snap the femur off of Mary Washburn’s great-great-great-great granddaughter’s corpse and use it as a drum major’s mace directing my corps back to the cemetery.

“A bonfire!  Light me a body bonfire!” I cry, marching between the crumbled remains of ancient gravestones.  A pile of my victims is lit.  Their stench permeates the air.  Screeching sirens serve as our party music joined by the flashing lights of the town’s saviors arriving.

I laugh as shots ring out in their feeble attempt to bring us down.  “Don’t panic fellows,” I shout to the lawmen, “Tonight’s show is coming to an end.”

Mary eyes me warily as I close in on her and press one last kiss to her fetid lips before feeding her to the inferno.  “You’ve served well my dear.”  Then I turn to Reverend Revenge.  “Go back to the pits of Hell reverend and endure their wrath.”  I need not nudge the reverend into the flames, he jumps eagerly into their midst.

As the last of my stooges is committed to ashes, I turn to my onlookers.  “The entertainment for this evening has come to an end.  But don’t worry dear neighbors, I’ll be back again tomorrow night to exact more vengeance upon this town.”  I flourished my femur mace across my body and gave them a deep bow before sinking back into my cool, earthen grave.

—
©2009 Jamie Blair

Author’s Notes: Ransom Newton lived in New Philadelphia, OH in the 1800’s and was accused of being a warlock.  Because of this, his head was buried at his feet and it’s said that it inches closer to his hands every day.  When he’s able to reach it, legend has it that he’ll come back and seek revenge on the town.  Ransom Newton was also my great-great-great-great grandfather and the mystery of this story remains in our family today as a topic for many fun discussions.

Mrs. Steinblat walked around her garden.  The heat wave of forty-five degree weather in February had melted most of the snow.  It wouldn’t be long before the crocus popped their shoots out of the ground.  She scuffed her foot along the leg of her dead husband lying on the ground, icicles, fallen from the roof, jabbed into the ground all around him.  In his chest gaped a fresh gash.

Mrs. Steinblat dug her phone from her pocket.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“It’s my husband,” she cried, “he’s been killed!”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“I think it was an icicle.”  Her steady hand jerked one of the jagged pieces of ice from the ground.  “They’re lying all around him and he has a big hole in his chest.”

“The police are on the way.”

“I hear them now.”  Mrs. Steinblat ran into the front yard.  “Yes, here they come.  I can see them.”

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“Okay.”

She shut her phone and tucked it back into her pocket.  The police cruiser pulled in the driveway and parked.  She went over as two officers got out and an ambulance pulled up behind them.

“Where’s your husband ma’am?” one of the officers asked.

“Around back.”  She sniffed and made a choking sound like a sob.  She covered her face as they approached the frozen man on the ground.

“When did you find him?”

“Just a few moments ago when I called 911.”

“Had he been out here doing something?”

“I don’t know.  We are…  I mean, we were separated.  I haven’t talked to him for about a week.”

The officers glanced at each other.  “We’ll just need you to come down to the station where we can talk about how you found him.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, exasperated.  “I came out here to walk around the house since it was such a nice day and there he was, dead.”

“Alright, we’ll just need to clear the scene, you know,  incase there was any foul play involved.  We don’t want to corrupt any evidence.”

“Foul play?” she gasped.  “Who would want to hurt him?  He’s the best mortician in the county.  People love him.”

“It’s just procedure ma’am.”

She stood against the house as they walked around and took some notes.  They documented the direction the icicle would have dropped from the roof and how his shirt was wet as if ice had melted on his chest.  They noted the footprints in the snow and mud, only Mr. and Mrs. Steinblat’s.  Finally they taped off the area until the detective could arrive.

“If you don’t mind,” Mrs. Steinblat said, “I would like to go back inside.”

They excused her and she went in the house.  She threw her mittens into the dryer and ran a hot bath, warming her frozen fingers.  When she got out and dressed, she called the, now, best mortician in the county.

“Mr. Steinblat’s dead,” she said.  “I’ll come by this evening to settle the arrangements.”  After a pause, she continued, “The cause of death is an icicle to the heart.”  After another pause, “No, no regrets, his cold heart was dead long before today.”

The police and emergency crew finally left.  Mrs. Steinblat put on her black suit, stiletto heels, flawless makeup, and dabbed on the expensive perfume that Mr. Steinblat had given her on her last birthday.  She twisted her golden hair up off of her neck and grabbed a silk scarf.

She let herself in the back door of the mortuary.  The stale smell in the lifeless room enveloped her.  She heard the mortician working in the basement and descended the stairs.

He stood, silhouetted by the moonlight streaming in through the narrow block windows.  He turned as she approached, needle and thread in hand, standing behind the casket.  His slick black hair shone like oil, his dark eyes like bullets encircled by olive toned shadows.

He held back a smile, but she caught a gleam of light flash off of a sharp fang.  A thrill of excitement ran through her.  “It’s done,” she said.

“You honored your word Mrs. Steinblat.”  A full smile crossed his pale face, making her week.

“You’ll honor yours, I presume,” she said, her voice breathless.  She dropped her scarf and shed her suit jacket revealing only her nude torso.

He looked down at the corpse.  “Goodbye Mr. Steinblat.  An icicle makes the perfect murder weapon, doesn’t it?  It disposes of itself.”  He let out a deep laugh and slammed the casket shut.

Mrs. Steinblat wrapped herself around him and pulled him down on top of the casket.  “Pay up,” she said.

He dug his teeth into her neck and she moaned in ecstasy.

—
© 2009 Jamie Blair

Aspiring YA Fantasy writer and telemarketing strategist.  (Telemarketing - You have to be in hell to write about its horrors.)  www.jamieblair.blogspot.com