Spooky Stories: Halloween Vault 2020 -2021

The Village of the Dead (Secret Treasures) 🏆

Profile: SecretTreasures

Prompt Name: Night of the Dead

Prompt: Every year on the Night of the Dead, a vengeful spirit descends upon the village where they died, taking one person back to their realm. This year, they take you. What new realm awaits? (500 words)

My word count: 493

The Village of the Dead

We laughed at the viejos when they whispered about the vanished. 

Of course, people disappeared from our village. Neighbours, children, even the priest one year.  They left for the city, we said. No mystery, no evil spirits. But the old ones shook their heads, clacked their rosaries and begged us not to go out once darkness fell on the Day of the Dead. 

We didn't listen. Of course, not. We were young and out for fun. We wrapped tiny pink sugar skulls and sweet bread in the shape of corpses into old dishcloths, and snuck to where the road bends into the black mouth of the jungle to celebrate the day in our own fashion. 

Legends meant nothing to us.

They mean something to me now. 

I was within sight of my friends when a strange fog rolled out from the darkness, and boney fingers clamped around the nape my neck. "Not to the light, but to the dark you're going," said a voice like the screeching of bats into my ear. 

My vision blurred, the pin-pricks of lamp light from the party swimming as if underwater. I screamed and kicked at the thing holding me, but was jerked away from the road, the thick foliage and trunks of the jungle trees nothing more than patches of denser matter raking through my body like a comb through water. 

And then, we were out the other side and in the clearing.  

A tall pyramid glistened in the light of a full moon.  

"A new one!" howled a skeleton wearing a feathered Aztec headdress and a long robe. It danced up next to me, slashing a golden knife in front of my face. The hand on my neck pushed me forward and I stumbled on through a hoard of shuttering, grinning skeletons in golden jewellery. Ghosts drifted across the clearing like clouds. The eyes of jaguars glowed green in the shadows.  

At the base of the pyramid stood the tallest of the skeletons, swathed in a midnight blue robe. "Welcome to the Village of the Dead," she said. 

My heart stopped. I knew her. 

"You're Santa Muerte, Our Lady of Holy Death," I stammered.

The giant skeleton seemed to smile. "Come and join the celebration with your ancestors. Everyone here is of the same blood." 

She gestured to the darkly stained altar at the top of the pyramid. 

That was years ago. Many new partiers have arrived since, stumbling out of the jungle, terrified and confused. 

We have only feasted on sugar skulls and corpse bread in all this time. We have thinned to mere skin and bone. 

And when I am only bones, Santa Muerte will send me back to choose a new villager for her eternal Night of the Dead celebration.  

I'm looking forward to it.

The viejos were right. Don't go out after dark on this night.

Or I just might choose you.