MicroHorror

In the distance, jagged mountains stood dark and grim against the dismal skies like eerie monoliths built by some extinct race of giants. A biting wind drove the falling snow against a countryside already stripped bare by endless winter months.

Deep into the earth burrowed the cold, and far and wide it spread, freezing trees at their roots and seeds in their coats until it came to an ancient burial ground and seeped into the bones of the dead that rested there, and caused them to shiver. So long had it been since Mother Earth felt the twinge of life She mistook the shivering of the dead for birth pangs and heaved them forth from Her womb.

The dead were hungry for flesh, and in search of flesh they wandered the wastes. They came to a village, but it was abandoned; and they found the occasional hovel, but these were unoccupied; and once they happened upon a man they thought to be sleeping only to discover much to their disappointment that he was buried under the ice and could not be eaten. So they wandered till they came to the edge of a wood.

Blackbirds in their thousands were perched on the skeletal branches of the trees, wearied from carrying frozen souls to the Otherworld. Eyeing the dead as they approached, one of the birds said to the others, “I know many of these men, for I gave them passage to The-World-Beyond-The-World: there is Medrawd the Quiet and Áedh the Big Mouth, and Hengist the Strong and Caderyn Chiselaxe and Tamun the Stump.”

“And Haerviu the Not Normal,” said another, “and Drust the Demented.”

“And Máedóc Boar-Shanks and Seisyll the Surly–how can it be that the dead walk?”

“Be ye not concerned,” cackled old Badb the crow, “for this be the way of flesh. So flesh dies, so shall flesh rise. Flesh feedeth the soil and flesh sprouteth from the soil. What goeth into the earth always returneth. But the earth hath not tasted flesh in some time and starveth as we starve–yet our Earth Mother in all Her mercy hath regurgitated the flesh before us to feed us, Her servants. It may not be the best meal we’ll ever have, but come, let us not deny ourselves the gift given by our goddess.”

And Old Badb led the way, leaping into the air and spreading her black wings; and the blackbirds in their thousands followed, a column of shadows first swelling against the murky white and gray skies then descending upon the dead, scraping flesh from bone, plucking eyes from sockets and tongues from mouths, gnawing on earlobes and pecking holes in skulls, and ripping and scratching and clawing, and feasting, feasting, feasting. And in moments the dead were in ribbons, tattered and fraying, held together by only threads of sinew and strands of tissue; and in moments more even the scraps were eaten and the bones were stripped clean and the dead fell into piles, dead once more.

Snow drifted across the flesh of the Earth Mother.