Springtime. Fresh air carries the aroma of recently shoveled dirt, moistened by the rain, throughout the graveyard. Shovels, left behind in a hurry when the downpour started, lie on the ground next to the grave of the newest inhabitant.

Normality? Yes, but a sinister presence surveys the scene, not the least bit happy. Chunks of wet soil cling to his hair-covered naked body. His nails are long and unkempt, and yet, what difference does it make? They are more effective for him to use when digging than any shovel fashioned by the hands of man. He lives beneath the surface, under the graves, in small cave like areas formed from his own efforts, surrounded by the clothing removed from the local residents.

They won’t say anything. Ha, ha! Dead people can’t snitch on him.

The taste of rotting flesh rolls around on his tongue, reminding him of his hunger, his insatiable desire to feed. Heavy rain comes down, slapping a tune on the gravestones more effectively than any drum-stick. He delights in the awareness of the cleansing on his hair and skin.

Momentary pleasure: he is still angry… angry that God remaindered him and his kind to suffer the indignities of their existence. Undead, yes. Immortal, yes. However, these things come at the high price of  humiliation. Forced to feed on the dead like a common vulture is not to his liking.

Yet, this is the way it’s always been. How can it change now? He is not stronger than God; he is merely a creature formed by His hand: to do His bidding.

The new carcass beckons to him, speaking to him, insisting that he feed. His hunger forces him to go and dig up the coffin. He tears the lid open and gazes at the body of a young woman struck down in her prime. She can not possibly be any more than in her early twenties. Her clothing and hair style tell him this. He may not live amongst the rabble known as humans , but he has devoured enough of them to understand the latest fads and fashions. On a more primal level, his highly enhanced sense of smell enables him to decipher the age of a person by unfolding different layers of skin and reading them much like a botanist counts the rings of a tree.

This one smells peculiar to him: no odor of decay or embalming fluids. Recent death. A mortician trying to save a little money. Who knows? As long as she was remaindered to the soil in a timely manner, all will be well.

But… no; this is more, much more. Fool that he is, his hunger plays games with his mind. His desire to feed overcomes his usual stealth. Vigilance thrown to the wind!

She is alive! In some sort of comatose state, but the girl is very much alive.

What now? He can’t devour her. It is not allowed. Does he close the casket and re-bury her?

Yes! That is what he must do. If she wakes and sees him, she will spread word of his presence. This place has been his home for many years, he has no intention of giving it up. Everyone believes her to be dead. Who would know? This time she will die for sure.

He will come back to devour her when she is genuinely dead. Hopefully, her struggles when she comes out of her coma won’t spoil the taste of her sweet, succulent flesh. No, that would be a pity. The fresh deaths are always the tastiest. And the young ones? They are the best!

Before he can places the casket lid back in place, her eyes open. Upon seeing him, a look of horror stares him in the face. A gurgling sound works up from deep within her. In mere seconds she will holler out and alert whoever may be close by to her predicament.

“No! You can’t!” shouts the Ghoul. “No one must know I’m here!”

His mouth leaps to her neck and blackened yellow teeth rip into her throat, removing her vocal cords. Air from the outside rushes in through the gaping hole and tries to exhale from within her body, but she will not be making a sound now.

Her blood on his tongue excites him and he laps up as much as he can, squeezing her neck to force more out. The coppery taste is like nectar to him. The demon wants all he can get and savors the thought of her flesh rolling around his tongue, sliding down his throat, churning in his stomach to quell his hunger.

This can’t be! God will destroy him! Control! He needs to stop now. But if he does, she’ll surely alert others. They’ll come here, searching for him.

He is unable to put the taste of her out of his mind. A live feast! In his arms at this very moment, still trembling, her heart beating a staccato of pain. Another bite, not so deep as to kill her: no that would not be good. She would be like all the others if she was to die too fast. Patience. He has to have patience.

Bite after delicious bite, mingling with the delicious red nectar, heightens his senses. The heavy rain is unable to wash the young lady’s blood from his long, matted hair. A sense of madness invades the Ghoul, and he starts chuckling as he eats, enjoying the look on his meal’s face. Such terror for one so sweet and undeserving of her fate.

He rips off her clothing in order to better gorge upon his feast, and a swelling develops within his long body hair as he gazes down at what she has to offer him. It has been so long. Too long, and it was with one of his kind. However, she left, leaving him alone. Another desire he should not give in to, but what more could happen to him? He can only be killed once.

Still munching on her upper body, he slams himself deep inside her and feels her shake in pain. No finesse on the part of the Ghoul. Pleasures denied him for so many years must now be sated. On and on he goes until he violently unleashes many years of pent up semen deep within her.

Totally out of control after having reached his climax, he takes bigger and bigger bites from his victim. Her efforts to resist him lessen with each delicious morsel he partakes of as she draws nearer to death. Having been buried once and survived, she will not be so fortunate the second time.

Shuddering uncontrollably, her movements cease as the end comes. Before long, the Ghoul devours every bit of her flesh and starts feasting on her organs, intestines whipping around in a frenzy, slapping the huge raindrops to the side.

Only bones remain now.

He turns, expecting God, an Angel, something to smite him down. Only God is able to take his life, but others can cause harm to him. Nothing; no one is there. How can this be? He has gone against the rules. Perhaps God is just playing with him, teasing him before delivering the blow that will end his life. That would certainly not reflect well on the merciful Almighty One, would it?

Nothing happens as he slips the lid back on the coffin and reburies it. He makes sure everything looks the way it did before he ravaged the girl. Usually, he digs his way upwards from the ground below and tears out the bottom of a coffin to feast. Nothing to cover up that way. Who would know what happened unless the coffin was dug up and moved. Even then they would think it to be the work of some animal. An animal, yes, they would consider him to be an animal if they saw him. Human cretins. They know nothing. He is their superior!

The rain comes down harder, this time washing him clean, shoving the blood and gore into the soil. He sits on a tombstone pondering what just happened. Would he have been able to eat fresh meat before now? Did he waste all these years subsisting on the most foul of mankind? He sensed God’s presence here before but not now. And the Fallen Angel, the Creator’s mortal enemy? The Ghoul does not feel his presence either.

Conflict and anger register in his mind. A battle is being waged. Is this the Armageddon he’s heard tales of? Has the battle begun? Is that why no one has come? But the war is not being fought here. Whatever is going on has moved on to another place.

He watches the rain until it ends and is entranced by the fog crawling midway up on his body once the deluge is over. A gentle breeze flicks the hairs on his body around, turning them into sensors picking up vibes of all that is happening in the area.

“Yes,” he says to himself, “the rules are changed. My destiny is not what it was.”

Off in the distance people are shuffling along, approaching his home. He smiles and stretches his talons.

“Come, you fools: the graveyard waits.”

~ Blaze McRob

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