Kelly Creagh - Nevermore

He grinned and pointed at something behind her with a detail-swirled finger of his existing hand.

“Be a doll,” he said. “Show your worth and hand old Scrimshaw that empty limb over there.”

Isobel glanced over her shoulder, where against the side of the open tomb lay a hollow arm, complete from shoulder to wrist, though missing its hand.

Her head whipped back to him and she stared in disbelief, all other questions forgotten. She watched as, with his remaining hand, he rooted through the pile of dust beside him and pulled free a large shard. He held it against his gaping body, like someone trying to determine where a puzzle piece might best fit. With horror, Isobel realized what he was doing. He was piecing himself back together. Was that possible? She took a step back, her footstep crunching.

He looked up. “No?” he said.

She took another step back from him.

“There’s gratitude,” he muttered, the shadows overtaking his form once again as she receded. “Ah,” he said, and began to sing softly to himself in a lilting tune.

“Can it have been the woodlandish ghoulsThe pitiful, the merciful ghoulsTo bar up your way and to ban it From the secret that lies in these woldsFrom the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—?”

Isobel turned and ran for the iron door. Behind her, he laughed, the lyrics of his dreadful song rising in volume.

“Well you know, now, this dim lake of AuberThis misty mid region of Weir!”

She grasped the side of the iron and tugged inward. With a screech for each pull, the door gave inch by inch until it yielded a space big enough to slide through. She eased out, a panel of lace ripping free from the skirt of her dress.

“Well you know, now this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!”

Isobel pushed the door shut behind her, blocking out his voice with one last shriek of iron and rust.

Outside, gray ash coated the ground of a silent cemetery. Flecks of white sifted from the purple sky, falling through the arid atmosphere to gather like snow atop the countless crooked tombstones that pockmarked the grounds in crowded patches. They leaned into and away from one another like scattered, broken teeth. Stone angels and grim, robed figures wept and grieved at the sides of aboveground tombs, while in between it all stood several of the same thin black trees as from the woodlands. Beyond the cemetery, the jagged edge of a cliff split the sky from the ground, stretching in a serrated rift spread as far as she could see.

Behind her, attached to the crypt, loomed the cathedral-like castle, the abbey from Poe’s story within which raged the masquerade. Its spires pointed toward the ashen sky, jagged and wicked, like the spine of a slumbering dragon.

The view was all stillness and quiet, like some creepy charcoal etching brought to life.

Until the sound of loud knocking shattered the sanctuary quiet.

Isobel kept close to the side of the crypt, pressing one hand to the cold marble wall as she moved away from the stained-glass door. Soon the Nocs drifted into view. She counted six of them altogether as they exited from the iron doors of another vault.

They bore aloft on their shoulders what she recognized at once as a long wooden coffin. Her heart jarred at the sight of it, fear tightening her chest.

A shout arose from within, followed by the clatter of more knocking.

On top of the coffin, like a king, perched a great black bird. In between dry croaks, it pecked at the lid, as though in answer to the knocks coming from within.

Pinfeathers. He made seven.

Another anguished cry for help came from inside the oblong box, and now she was certain. It was Brad inside that coffin. But how had they brought him here?

Isobel remembered how, on the playing field, Brad’s eyes had turned black. Just like Varen’s, they’d lost the vibrancy of color within the beat of an instant. But when Brad’s eyes had changed, his body had remained on the field, unconscious. How, then, had he been transported here?

Isobel slipped away from the crypt. She followed them, venturing through the tangle of trees, ducking behind monuments and tombstones. She stopped at the side of a tall winged seraph weeping into her stone hands, and watched them from a distance.

Like bizarre pallbearers, they carried the coffin along toward a misty clearing encircled by more black trees.

Nearby, a mound of dirt awaited, pricked by the spade ends of several shovels. Their handles, like needles in a pincushion, stood erect from the pile, ready to be put to task.

In front of the mound, as a marker, loomed a tall, shrouded statue. A long hooded robe concealed the form’s entire head and swathed its arms, which were held open over the gaping maw of the black grave.

Isobel squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. But she didn’t wake up. The scene remained.

The screaming remained. It was all the same, only now the Nocs lowered the coffin from their shoulders.

“Let me out!” Brad shouted.

The Nocs laughed and together heaved the coffin into the hole. Pinfeathers squawked and fluttered up from the lid while the box landed with a crackling thud. A rush of ash burst forth from the grave.

Brad howled.

Isobel drew in a sharp breath, her heart pounding so hard that it started a ringing in her ears. She gripped the base of the stone angel that hid her as if, somehow, it could give her strength.

This was insane. They were going to bury him alive, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Why had she followed them out here? What did she think she could do to stop them? What could she do to stop any of this? It was just her. And the Nocs.

They would shred her to bits.

“Please! Let me out!” Brad screeched.

Isobel forced herself to look again. She watched Pinfeathers morph out of his bird form. He took shape standing at the foot of the grave, staring down. Like buzzards, the other Nocs gathered in, positioning themselves around the opening.

“Please!” Brad shrieked, banging again, scratching.

Unable to bear it any longer, Isobel burst forth from her hiding place. She had no plan. She had no idea what she could possibly do to save Brad. Up until the moment that she reached the grave, she had nothing but the pure rush of adrenaline. Then, without thinking, she snatched up one of the shovels from the mound. Brandishing it like a club, she swung the shovel blade-first into the back of one of the unsuspecting Nocs.

The shovel hit its mark—and kept going. The blade swiped cleanly through him, caving his body with a crash. The creature shrieked before toppling into the grave, where he burst apart against the coffin lid.

Isobel stared at the place where the Noc had shattered, shocked at her own actions.

A collective howl arose from the other Nocs. In turn, each of them loosened into their purple-smoke selves, re-forming into the shapes of maddened birds.

Isobel swung the shovel freely amid the frenzy of feathers and wild flapping. The murder of crows screeched and cawed. She batted at them blindly. Panicked, they scattered. Isobel twirled, raising the shovel again. Something jarred it in her grasp.

White hands clasped the shovel’s handle on either side of hers. Pinfeathers towered over her, his bloodred shark’s teeth gritted in rage, his porcelain face a mask of fury.

“You!” he bellowed. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

That was it. Detaching one hand from the shovel, Isobel reared a fist back and let it loose.

Pinfeathers arched away from the attack, releasing the shovel. Thrown backward, Isobel felt herself tip into the open grave. She hit the lid of the coffin inside with a bone-jarring slam.

Over the lip of the grave, Pinfeathers’s wiry frame appeared.

“Why did you come back?” he seethed.