Of Scallywags and Sorcery

A Madness and A Mystery

***

Just a few more steps and I'll pass out of the village gates, leaving this wasteland scattered with bones and drenched in blood behind for good.

As if detecting my intention, a ghastly form swoops down at me. I scream, falling backwards. Not in my most twisted nightmares could I have imagined this hollow face with abysses for eye sockets and teeth like needles. I thought the spaces beneath the stilted houses hid me, but the ghosts smell what they can't see.

I drag myself backwards, but it's a losing battle. I'm only human, with a human's strength, while the ghost slithers through the air with supernatural speed.

I fall against something. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a pale, swollen, rotting foot. It must be attached to the body I have backed into.

A scream and a stream of vomit fight to get out of my throat. I press my lips closed, and only a whimper escapes me. It has been days of trying to escape the village, days of being ambushed by evil, hungry spirits. I have forgotten what it was like to be among the living, but the corpses scattered across the village have their uses.

I scramble over the dead body behind me. Screeching gleefully, the ghost falls upon it, devouring what remains of its flesh with eager slurps. I'm invisible again. I may be live prey, but I put up a fight. Corpses don't do that.

I crawl away and take shelter in the shadowy bowels of another house. These wooden homes all look the same, five feet above the ground with rickety stairways leading up to the front door and dark, triangular roofs that curl wherever they come to a point. That's why I keep getting lost.

Krasue was a poor girl whose poverty led her to sin for her family's survival. That is why she was cursed. Crush her headless body, and you can break the curse and free the village from the ghosts' malevolence.

That was the advice the old witch had given me in my dream. I hadn't believed her at first. I thought I could design a better plan, that a village of spirits over a thousand years ago couldn't match my 21st-century wits, that a vision couldn't have the solution to my problems... but now I must face the facts.

My plans have all failed. I'm no match for the dark magic embedded in the seams of this village, for the ghosts' depthless hunger and supernatural instincts.

The witch was right. When these spirits gathered in the village centre at nightfall, it was Krasue who commanded them to fan out and wreak havoc. If I could eliminate her, the other ghosts would be no threat.

But where could I find the body? It wouldn't be somewhere obvious. Krasue wouldn't put herself at risk like that.

The house of the salamander, whispers a voice in my head.

I don't know whether it's the witch reaching out to me, a fragment from a dream or a voice that has taken up residence in my head after all these days I've been alone with my thoughts and terror.

Whichever it is, I trust it. Besides, it's my only hope.

I slip out into the open. I glance around to see that my surroundings are clear of any unwanted company.

I won't recognise the house of the salamander from below. I have to see the home from the front, which makes me ghost bait.

I gulp. I must get to Krasue's headless corpse before the ghosts get to me. That is all.

I run up the street, taking care to tread softly. At the end of the road, I stop, hardly daring to believe my eyes aren't deceiving me when the moonlight glimmers off a stone reptile above the door of the house before me.

The house of the salamander.

If I wasn't sure I was in the right place, the ghosts gathering around me would've confirmed it. Some drooled, some hooted, some howled into the night, but the only one that really scared me was the one in the middle of the group, hovering above the others.

Her face would've been beautiful in life, with its arched eyebrows and delicate chin. Now she is merely gruesome. From the base of her head protrudes her throat. From that, her heart hangs, and her intestines dangle from that, dripping blood on the ground.

I sprint up the stairs to the house of the salamander. Before I realise what's happening, I fall face-first onto the stairs. I wipe my watering eyes. They clear as the slimy, slithery section of Krasue's entrails that looped around my ankle retreat. She is upon me, close enough for me to smell the rotten, reeking breath escaping her perfect lips.

I grab a handful of dirt from the potted plant beside me and toss it into her eyes. She screeches, falling back and giving me space to clear the distance to the house's entrance.

I slam the door behind me. That buys me only a second to register the rectangular casket containing the body that matches the head that is currently hunting me.

Bingo. But now, how to destroy it?

Growling, Krasue heads the door open and flies at me. Fear directs my blind punch to the centre of her forehead. While she wails with agony, I dig the leather pouch containing my flint and fire steel out of my pocket.

Krasue snarls when she catches sight of my hands poised over the only thing keeping her alive. She rushes at me, but my hands are quicker. The spark they create catches onto the headless body's flesh, burning it like paper. Krasue shrieks, but before I can feel her fury, she falls to the ground, a limp pile of organs.

The night goes silent. I peek cautiously outside. The moon illuminates clear streets, and for the first time, I stroll through the village without fear.