It was a cold night for autumn in London in the year of 1846, unusually cold at that. A tall, looming figure’s shadow could be seen casted upon the cobblestone street by the gas lamps that he crept past. This man was not bothered by the cold weather for instead of feeling miserable, it gave him a light hearted feeling, “The cold shall make it all the easier to carry out this task,” he thought to himself. He was a grave- robber, and a good one at that, he had never been caught doing his dirty deed and thought he never would, how wrong he was to think that. He quietly slinked to the gate that led to the graveyard, thankfully for him the gate had already swung open from the sheer force of the winds that blew from the west. As he slipped through the dark searching for his prize, he spotted a cat that seemed to be watching him from atop a headstone; the cat was thin and only had a few patches of hair that hid the corpse. He found it odd but kept on moving along; searching that is, until he heard a voice that seemed to come from the cat to his left.
“Stop mortal, do not continue that which you have set out to do, least it cost you your life,” the cat seemed to boom. Now this of course shocked the man first of all that the cat was a corpse and secondly that it had spoken. “Nonsense, you are but the wind that seems to speak and it is the shadows that wish to play tricks upon my eyes,” said the man with a laugh as he stared at the cat. Suddenly, the cat disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, and the man shrugged and continued on his way, completely disregarding the cat’s warning. At last after a while of searching he found the grave that he was looking for, suddenly an owl appeared and stared at him in the same peculiar fashion that the cat had.
“I warn thee again mortal, turn back or face the wrath of those you have roused and their judgment that will fall swifter and harder than that of the livings,” shouted the owl. “I must be going mad,” he said,” twice so far I have seen talking animals that come and go like a leaf in the breeze.” The owl too vanished as suddenly as it had arrived. By this time of course the man was shaken but still not enough to turn back for he was being paid handsomely for the job. For the corpse he had been asked to raise had been loaded down with gold and other goods that he was promised a cut of. As his shovel turned the first clump of dirt, he quickly stumbled backwards for he had seen the ground begin to move and a carrion hand come out. He coward in fear as the hand began to unbury the body that it was attached to, it clawed at the dirt like a mad man that had been buried alive, desperate to escape his dirt prison. Then a mummified body began to rise out of the grave seeming to grow taller by the second as the man tried to make himself smaller and smaller to hide himself from the decomposed terror.
“How dare you to not heed my warnings and disturb my grave,” the terror boomed like a clap of thunder, “You will stand trial at my court where there we will decide your fate foolish mortal!” The man was ghost white and though he wished to scream out in terror and run from the nightmare, his jaw had become locked and his knees had buckled. The nightmarish figure leaned down and scooped up the cowering man as a boy would an insect intent on crushing it. It then started it’s trek towards the tombstone grave that had assembled as it drew near, the nightmare dropped the man by a grave from which arose a corpse that firmly grabbed him so he could not escape. The man managed to turn his head and look at his captor and though seeing empty sockets he also saw an eye that glowed an eerie red that froze his blood. Slowly he then turned his head away and saw a body of carrion corpses and skeletons assembly before him and the nightmare.
“My brethren of the under- world, I have called you here before my court to put to trial this man who tried to rob my of my last riches buried with me.” “What do you all think that we should do with this mortal whom also foolishly charged ahead after my warnings,” he shouted, “Should we bring him to an early grave and bury him alive?”
“Or something more fiendish than that, such as dragging him down into our world and make it be so that he will live forever among the horrors and demons we have come to be familiar with,” he said with a cold, menacing laugh. The nightmare looked over at his victim and say that his eyes were rolling into the back of his head like a terrified horse and he once again laughed that cold, menacing laugh that made the man finally gain control of his tongue.
“Please my lord do not punish me I am nothing but a slave to the men who wanted your riches, had I known that you were cursed I would have disagreed to this act,” the man begged weepingly.
“Even if that is true, we have seen you disturb many a cursed soul’s grave, still, you do have a point that those who asked the deed need to be punished as well,” he said with silent wrath.
“Let the prisoner go,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Thank you my lord, a thousand times over,” he said as he groveled at the cadaver’s feet.
“Your punishmenat still has yet to come, tomorrow at the stroke of midnight you and your employers will face the wrath of the undead. Run where you please but at midnight tomorrow you all with face my wrath.” With a final cackle like the scraping of nails against a blackboard, the nightmare and his hoard of undead disappeared back into their graves. The man was horrified at the cadaver’s words and still remained rooted to the spot that he had been dragged to what seemed like ages ago. Then the man got movement back into his legs and began to run in shear terror through the night whipping past the tombstones that bore the names of the dead that had haunted him that night. He ran straight for his house giving not a care for whatever or whom ever he ran into that terrific night.
Never once did he think to warn his employer’s of their doomed fate that would approach them at the same time it would him, or so the cadaver had said. Never the less he gave not a heed to the cadaver’s warning that they would get him were ever he went tomorrow at midnight. He knew that he had to try to flee from the horrific nightmares that would soon be on his trail and continue to follow him through out the day in the form of partially decomposed crows. They flew near him always watching him and following him a black cloud of foreboding. He paid not a heed to the black birds that represented not only his death, but all death and was considered an omen of death itself. He flew past people and carriages and did not care whether or not someone complained about his rude behavior. All he cared about was getting away from that terrible graveyard and avoiding other graveyards like the plague.
He took tenancy at an old run down house where a poor widow would rent out her spare rooms to weary travelers. He locked himself in that room did not bother to rest his head down for the night for fear kept sleep from him, making him begin to go mad. For hours he sat there in the corner of his shabby room, slowly rocking back and forth, waiting to see what would happen at the stroke of midnight. Anytime that the clock would chime the time, he would jump and quake, and quiver with fear, for he knew deep in his heart that he would die that day.
When the clock finally began it’s series of chimes signaling that it was midnight, he felt a cold and clammy feeling begin to seep through his skin into his bones, and then to his heart, causing it to beat faster. Just as the clock struck it’s finally chime of midnight, he then saw the dead that seemed to walk right through solid objects and come slowly creeping towards him.
They were like the demons that mothers told their children about to make them behave. With their empty sockets and half rotten flesh, their teeth exposed seeming to smile a wicked and maniacal grin. The man tried to back away from the nightmares and ghouls that came slowly stalking towards him, but he was already in the corner and was soon clawing at the plaster walls, frantically trying to get away.
Then the monsters made a path, and down that path came the large and wicked looking cadaver that had tormented him the night before. He sat rooted to the spot and went paler than a sheet, and colder than ice.
“I warned you that we would still come for you, no matter were you went we would have followed,” said the cadaver with a wicked grin. “Now, you will face the wrath of those that you have disturbed and those that you would have disturbed from their peaceful slumber,” he said with a snarl. As soon as the snarl had left the cadaver's lips he and the rest of the undead leapt at the man, all with snarling and angry looks upon their carrion faces. The man barely had time to let out a blood curling scream that rang through out the town and caused many of the men to jump from their beds and grab their revolvers. While children began to cry and mothers screamed in fear for themselves, and their children.
Many of the men that had awoken ran to where they thought the source of the cry had been. The widow ran to the door and threw it open, and instantly directed the men upstairs to where, she informed them, a traveler was staying. When they threw the door open they expected to find a man cowering in the corner, or at least a man. When they entered the room and looked over in the corner and saw something so horrifying that the widow fainted in terror. In the place of the man, there was a shriveled old man with his frail hands covering his face as in defense and a look of shear terror in his glistening eyes. None of the men could tell what had happened to the man and when the widow had awoken they asked her if this was the man that had taken tenancy she replied that he had been a man in his late twenties, not an old dying man like the one they had seen.
It soon became a rumor that God had smitten him for some odd reason like wizardry or magic, or that he had disturbed that which was dead and they had wrought their vengeance upon him. No one has ever thought of stealing a corpse ever again and grave robbers slowly dwindled out of existence. Though the rumors and folklore made about the young man in a widow’s house has lived on.
Meggie_Folchart Community Member 
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