(Year 2015)

( i )

The clocktower struck its bell twelve times and echoed through the small town of Mont-Gaspard, announcing that it is midnight. The autumn fog shrouded the small parish at the very end of the town. The last few leaves had given up and had fallen on the cemetery ground, making a red carpet to welcome the dead, to come back once more and walk amongst the living. The headstones of forgotten generations are not cared for like they used to be. No more visits, nor any bouquet of flowers. Some stones are cracked, their names weathered by time and the elements, barely visible.

“Nope. Not Pierre Bouchard. My grandfather is named Pierre Bouchard.” The sound of two footsteps crunching the leaves on the ground pierced through the mist, followed by muffled laughter and giggles. “Look at this name! Philomène! Babe, if we have a son, let’s call him Philomène!”, said a young woman, dressed like a nurse, giggling under a drunken haze. She pointed her finger towards a century-old headstone while grabbing the arm of a young man clad in wizard robes. The young man was holding a paper bag containing a half-emptied bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “Sounds too lame. How about Gandalf?” Said the man with a drunken lethargy. The young couple kept venturing deeper and deeper into the cemetery while reading the headstones and mocking archaic names. “This looks perfect, babe!” exclaimed the woman pointing at a slab of stone that covers a once-marked grave; its occupant’s name eroded by the elements, like time errored the memories of the bones lying underneath. 

“I don’t know about this.” The man seemed hesitant. “It’s a bit too much.” “That’s the whole point of screwing on Halloweed, in a fucking graveyard.” Said the woman while taking the man’s cape and laying it on the slab. “Come to me.” She gave her lustful command, lying on the slab, legs parted away. Seeing his incentive under the pale moonlight, the man didn’t waste a second. Within moments the old burial ground echoed with their pants and moans. Within moments, the man found himself lying on the cold slab as his sweetheart straddled him. The autumn wind moaned in harmony. They closed their eyes in ecstasy, unaware of the fact that all this time, they were being watched. The subtle noise made by the object approaching them got muffled by the rhythmic crunching of the leaves around them. 

The man groaned in bliss. The woman, still mounting her man, fell on top of him as he kept holding her. Only moments later he felt the sensation of warm liquid pouring on his face. “Babe?”, the man opened his eyes, his alertness took over his drunken stupor. Under a pale, waning moonlight, he saw the headless body of his lover. Fresh, warm, blood was spilling from where her neck used to be. Before he could scream, or let out a small whimper, his voice joined the silent chorus of the cemetery. 

The headstones resonated again at the crack of dawn with the guttural scream of the elderly priest when he discovered two headless bodies locked in together, blood splattered all around them. The only witnesses of their demise were the dead, who will forever remain silent.