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THE DISEMBODIED

  By

  John Grover

  The Disembodied Copyright © 2011 John Grover

  All rights reserved

  Cover art design by John Grover

  This digital story is a work of fiction.

  All characters, events and descriptions in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead are the product of the author’s imagination and are purely coincidental.

  Visit the Author’s website at www.shadowtales.com

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  In the trees. In the mist.

  An apprentice mortician moves his family to the small town of Sotherton to provide them with a better life. Little did he know the dark secret the town and its people harbored.

  The town sat on the edge of a mist-shrouded forest with a deadly secret. Something lives in the trees, in the mist and it’s jealous. Jealous of all those who have flesh.

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  Disembodied is a free preview story from the author’s upcoming collection Creatures and Crypts due out in late 2011. Creatures of the living and the dead gather in a volume of over 70,000 words to stalk their prey…humans. 20 stories set the scene for a cast ranging from the Grim Reaper, shambling zombies and restless spirits, to unimaginable monsters that only inhabit the shapeless darkness and the author’s imagination. Join them as they wreak havoc on their unsuspecting victims and celebrate with a victory dance in the pale moonlight.

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  The Disembodied

  By John Grover

  The town sat on the edge of Murk woods, woods believed to be cursed. That was only the half of it.

  Shrouded in darkness and shadow, the woods stood ominously, vast and all encompassing, like a wall barring anything from escaping the small town of Sotherton. A perpetual mist hung in the pines and evergreens that towered there, thick, white and stirring like a fog of ghosts.

  It was not ghosts the town had to fear.

  "You forgot to sew her mouth up," the old mortician said, his fright coated with anger. “My God in heaven!”

  The young apprentice blinked, his face draining of all color. He had forgotten, forgotten the most important thing he’d been taught about being a mortician in Sotherton.

  “I told you, over and over.” The old mortician leapt from the table, a stack of papers fluttering to the floor. “We’ve got to get downstairs, now!”

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  Miles outside, in the darkened woods the mist did stir, glowing with a bizarre radiance as a single stream of it zipped from the rest and vanished into the night air.

  Reappearing in front of the funeral home, the stream of mist slipped through a crevice in the foundation, gaining entry to the house of the dead.

  ***

  The two men raced down the stairs, making their way to the basement, the embalming room doors waited at the end of what seemed to be a never-ending hall.

  “I’m sorry Gerald,” the young apprentice said. “I forgot. This is only the second one I’ve done. I just forgot.”

  “You can’t ever forget Mathew, ever,” Gerald said as they drew upon the door. “Can’t have it happen again...”

  “What? I don’t understand. Why do we sew up the mouths of the…”

  Mathew’s words fell dead as they rushed into the room, realizing they had been too late. All sanity nearly poured out of Mathew as he gazed on the most abominable sight of his entire life.

  The dead woman’s body hovered above the examining table, staring down at them with deep sunk, ebony eyes. The white sheet that once covered the corpse was now draped over it, scantily covering its naked body. All its hair had fallen out, destroyed by the invading parasitic entity. The flesh was covered with sores and appeared pliable, almost translucent. All of its stitches had been torn out. The arms and legs were gaunt, the rib cage bulged in its chest and gnarled hands sprouted fingernails that were double their original size.

  A haunting sigh escaped the thing as its mouth gaped, a black void filling it.

  “What the fuck is that!” Mathew screamed, stumbling back against the wall, his knees buckling.

  “Quick, help me,” Gerald said as he eased his way to his worktable. “We’ve got to take its head off.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?” Mathew could barely contain his hysteria. “What the hell is going on—”

  “Goddammit Mathew, pull yourself together. We can’t let it escape.”

  The thing took a swing at Gerald, its reach incredible as it smashed embalming fluid across the floor. Gerald leapt on the table, knocking his equipment to the floor and immediately scrambling after the runaway tools.

  The thing howled again, setting its black eyes on Mathew this time.

  Arms and legs twitching, Mat threw himself out of the thing’s gaze and followed after Gerald, dropping to his hands and knees and crawling the rest of the way. “Not real...not real...not real...”

  “Get something sharp,” Gerald ordered. “We gotta take its head off.”

  The defiled corpse floated towards the doorway, moaning as if in sorrow.

  Gerald spotted it and with a bone saw in hand jumped to his feet and cut the thing’s escape off. With a sharp slash, he drove the bone saw towards the creature. It raised its arms in defense, deflecting Gerald’s blow. Instead he struck the its naked leg, hacking into it.

  A yellow-red puss spurted across him and to the floor as a hateful wail filled the room. In rage it swung hard, catching Gerald across the face with its razor like nails. Gerald hit the floor, the bone saw skidding out of his hands as his cheek oozed with blood. A yelp escaped him as he stammered for his weapon and looked for Mat.

  The corpse howled again, its wounded leg dropping from the rest of its body in a

  gush of yellow fluid.

  “Christ Mathew, where are you?” Gerald dragged himself to his knees, spotting

  his weapon on the other side of the hovering corpse.

  Mat let out a screech and came bolting straight for the creature, a rib cutter in his hands. His fear caused him to hesitate as his eyes met those of the creature’s. In that moment the corpse took the opportunity to seize him by the throat. Its strength was immense although the skin on its hands felt like tissue paper wrapped delicately around Mat’s throat.

  The rib cutter fell to the floor with a clatter as Mat’s eyes widened and his lips turned blue.

  “No!” Gerald yelled as he dashed for it again.

  Mat was launched across the room with one toss, crashing into the examining table and smashing it in two. The pain shot through his back and the room spun madly as he watched the old mortician face the thing again.

  Gerald was no match, much too weak now. With another quick swing it slammed Gerald to the floor before letting out another howling wail. The windows in the room exploded as the glass showered to the floor.

  The monstrosity turned and glided out of the room, vanishing down the hall. A loud cracking and tearing echoed in the distance before silence drowned the room again.

  Mat shook his head and managed to climb to his feet, wiping the bits of wood and glass from his clothes. His breathing was just beginning to return to normal. He looked up to see Gerald sitting on the floor against the wall by the door, blood running down his face in rivers.

  “That is why we sew up the mouths of the dead,” Gerald said.

  “What--is--going on?” Mat kneeled down to the old mortician and offered his hand. “Are you alright?”

  “I’ll be fine but God help us all. It’s started all over again. And we’ve been so careful.”

  “What exactly was that?”

  “We don’t really know what they are
. We just know that they come from the Murk.”

  “Murk woods? Are you talking about Murk woods?” Mat felt an icy chill seize him. “The woods that I can see out my back windows?”

  “That would be them. They just showed up there about fifty years ago. They exist as some form of mist, without bodies. I was about your age when the epidemic nearly destroyed the town. Ya see, they have no bodies of their own and they are jealous of ours so they invade the body of the dead, they enter through the mouths.

  It seems they can only enter a vacant body so they had waited for someone to die. Once the one was with a body it tried to give them all bodies by killing the rest of the town. Guess we weren’t dying quick enough for’em. Impatient bastards.” Gerald chuckled a bit then coughed.

  Mat sat silent with astonishment, unable to compute all that Gerald was telling him.

  “We discovered that if you severed the head, the core of their ability to control the body, they are evicted so to speak and they head straight back to Murk, waiting patiently for another screw up, like this.”

  “How could I know...I just...this can’t be real.” Mat pulled his hand away and covered his face. “It just can’t—”

  “It is, very real and now it’s escaped.” Gerald pulled himself to his feet, grabbing a towel and putting it against his leaking face. “It will increase its number. It will begin to kill people in the town to give its buddies bodies...God damn it. I’ve got to tell the mayor.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Mat said, turning away from Gerald and staring at the destruction in the room. The evidence was too real to ignore. “I saw your frigging ad in the paper and moved my entire family here. I just wanted to be a town mortician, It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. This isn’t supposed to happen, you were supposed to retire and I was supposed to take your place. Life is supposed to be normal.”

  “But death isn’t Mathew, not always.”

  Mat’s voice cracked, unable to get the words out. Gerald stared at him strangely. Mat knew what he was thinking. How long would he be able to hold it together.

  “We’ve got to get moving,” Gerald said. “The town needs to be warned. They handled it once, they can handle it again. God, this is going to be a bitch.” Gerald shuffled down the hall, Mat remained rooted to his spot, simply staring.