Revenge of the Dead

Once there was a grave yard around Saint Stephen’s church; and there were some bone houses to keep the bones of the exhumed dead.

In the biggest of those bone houses burned an oil lamp day and night.

Once upon a time the sacristan of Saint Stephen’s visited a friend. They spent joyful hours together, they chatted and drank wine and so they forgot about the time.

So it came that it was already dark when the sacristan thought about to go home. His friend decided to go with him, because, well, the sacristan actually had drunk too much.

On their way they had to walk across the grave yard; and unfortunately a sudden gust blew out the candle of their lamp.

”Let’s go into the bone house to light up the candle again,” the sacristan suggested in his jolly mood.

”No, no, don’t do this. You know it’s a sin. You will disturb the dead,” his friend answered.

”Huh, what a coward you are!” the sacristan laughed, “Go home; go to bed where cowards belong to at such a time!”

The friend shrugged his shoulders and left in a huff.

The sacristan still laughing went into the bone house. It was deadly silent there. He lit his lamp, but careless as he was in his drunken state he extinguished the oil lamp of the bone house.

“You don’t need a light anyway,” he laughed, “you’re already dead!” and he started to move to the door.

Suddenly he heard a rumbling behind his back; and in the moment he turned around a big bone hit him on the chest. At the same time another bone smashed his lamp into pieces. Then a true shower of bones beat down on the sacristan.

The spook lasted till the clock stroke one. With his last power the man could leave the bone house, but as soon as he was outside he collapsed.

More dead than alive he was found in the next morning; and the same people also saw that the bones were scattered on the floor of the charnel house.

The sacristan couldn’t recover from that incident anymore; he got high fever and a few days later he deceased.

Copyright © 2011 Ingrid Prohaska

Special thanks to JRD Skinner and the Flash Pulp Crew for putting the legend on their FlashCast 018 - Happy Trails !
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