Halsom

Walking down this part of Raven Street is almost like walking through one massive graveyard. Churchyards line either side of the dirt road, filled with tombs. Our little town holds so many dead, and so few left living.

Halsom used to be a thriving town, carriages and horseman passing down these dusty streets constantly. But ever since that day, all those years ago, it’s been naught but a ghost of our past.

Seven years have passed since the church bells first rang out over Raven Street. I was but sixteen years of age, but I shall never forget that day so long as I live. I remember all that happened that night, as clearly as daylight, even after all these long years, even after so much time has passed.

The year was 1327, and the Samhain celebration was to be the best we had put on in long years. October 31, Samhain to us, was an unholy day to the rest of the town. You see, many of the clans in Halsom, though thought to be Christian, were not. In that town, the last of the Druidic people lived. Though Rome killed many, and Christianity killed still more, a small sect still lived on, and we thrived in Halsom. Many of the true Christian families suspected our clans of being Druidic, but they said not a word, for they knew we would not bring them harm. These Christians had accepted our lifestyles, and lived with it in harmony, as was our goal from the start.

But the bells rang out that day. The new Parson at one of the churches could not be found anywhere. We had never known how he suspected us; even our diviners could not call forth that knowledge. But when he begun ringing, the other church began as well. All down Raven Street the bells rang, from noon-tide that morn and ever on into the night.

I sought out Rogue, and we stole into the new Parson’s church. The bells boomed in the little building, everything seemed to vibrate from the sheer enormity of the sounds, but we could not do anything.

Rogue was of the Halifax clan, and he was our most powerful diviner. He had told me how he had seen something dark, something evil in the Parson, and how he knew that had something to do with Marion, the missing girl from a neighboring town. There were other girls who were missing as well, but Marion was a loss to our people, as she was a priestess. The other girls, though it saddened us, were of little consequence.

The bells boomed around us as we found the stairs leading to the basement of the church. A dark, rotting wood smell enclosed us as we descended into the dark room, without even a light stone to guide us. As we went further down, the smell continued to be that of rot, but it turned to a far different kind. The smell of rotted flesh.

I first noticed it when we were but a few steps from the floor. It was but a faint meaty smell that underlies a mustier odor, but it was there. We didn’t have any idea of the time, but we knew it was far past sun down. I conjured up a light stone, unable to bear the darkness any more and saw bodies, rotted, all in various states of decay. Rogue turned away, and asked a question that frightened me.

“Do you hear…anything? Anything at all, Tobin?” he asked me.

It was then that I realized the ringing had stopped, and that sudden silence frightened me more than anything else. I knew that escape was our only survival, and Rogue new it as well.

I turned and looked at him and was about to tell him to run, run to stone circle, when a sudden noise came from behind. I didn’t turn around, but knew from the look in Rogue’s eyes that something terrible was happening tonight in Halsom.

As soon as he found his voice, he screamed at me “Run! Run now!” and I did, grabbing his hand and pulling him up the stairs with me. The priest was no where to be seen in the room, he was upstairs, I suppose. I never did find out.

As we ran out past the church yard, I saw what made Rogue look so terrified. Dirt, pushing up, then falling away from the clawing fingers of Halsom’s dead. We ran back to my home, and weaved protective spells around us, in the doors, the windows, the very boards and bricks of this house where filled with protective spells, old and new, all woven and strong. We were safe. But not all of the others were.

Some, the Druidic kind mostly, lived in protected homes, and simply weaved new spells to hold the older ones. Some unknowing Christian folk slept safely in their old, protected homes. But some could not be saved.

Those who had nothing to protect them were invaded by our dead, and taken out on to the streets, murdered. I watched this from the window on the upper story of my home for what seemed like hours, unable to tear my gaze away, until Rogue spoke.
I had forgotten he was there, he had curled into a ball after helping me weave the spells on my home, and stayed silent for the whole time.

He swallowed and said, “Did….Did you see…it was on one of the corpse’s necks…It was right there, shining in the stone’s light…Did you see it?”

I shook my head, because I hadn’t turned around to look at the corpses, so close at hand behind me. “What was it?” I asked.

“Marion’s sickle. Right around her neck, where she had always kept it. Her sickle, with the Goddess’s symbol upon it. He killed her. And he started this, this ringing.”

I don’t know how long the dead walked that night, but I knew it wouldn’t end there. The corpses went back to their graves after that night, and the priest was found dead the next morning, along with all the others who had perished that night.

After Rogue and I had spoken of Marion being with the others, we had chosen to close the shutters.

“Tobin,” he had said. “Tobin, please, close the shutters. I don’t want to see them down there. I don’t want them to see me.”

So I obliged, and we went to sleep, clutching each other, dreaming each other’s dreams. The nightmares didn’t subside for a long time, and since then, Rogue and I have stayed together, and stayed in Halsom. We knew we could not leave, could not let this new evil spread. So we stayed. Year after year it came, the number of dead growing more and more.

But we cannot control it, and while the bells ring, Rogue and I still have time left to run. We pray that the bells do not stop, for silence means death in Halsom tonight.