Mistress Inviere

I remember my grade 11 English teacher once said that death was the greatest mystery of life. We don’t know what exists on the other side of the curtain of life but we have spent eternities trying to figure it out. For me it was never much of a mystery. Life is simply a series of impulses created by our brain and when it shuts down, game over, check please. There was nothing beyond life; it is simply here today and gone tomorrow. At least that is what I thought till I saw her. The woman who threw my whole life view in the trash. The black veiled woman.

After I graduated high school I was told by my parents that my free ride was over and I had to get a job. They didn’t care what I did so long as it paid real money. I searched the wanted ads and found a job landscaping at a cemetery. It paid pretty decent money for an entry level position plus I got to enjoy a job outdoors. I dropped off my resume and was hired on the spot. My boss was super grateful that somebody applied. Apparently they had several people quit within the first week. My boss thought that most people didn’t enjoy the hot conditions and hard labor. I now suspect that there was another reason for the sudden departures.

The first couple of days were a mixed bag of feelings. By the end of the first day I felt like a million bucks and like it was the best job ever. By the end of the second I wanted nothing more than to quit and go home to a hot bath. However I saw how grateful everyone was to have my help so I stuck it out. On the third day was when I saw her for the first time.

I was planting some flowers in the garden when several rows down I saw a woman standing in front of a grave. She wore a black funeral dress complete with a dark veil. She stood in front of the tombstone softly crying to herself. I thought the dress was a bit much but we all grieve differently, besides it was likely an anniversary of a lost parent or perhaps her husband. After several minutes of sobbing she silently walked away.

Curiosity was always a strong sin of mine and I decided to look over at the gravestone the woman was at. I was taken aback for a moment because the tombstone was for a man who had died over 200 years prior. While it could have been an ancestor I highly doubted that would warrant the sobs and full funeral dress. The behavior may have been odd but overall not concerning so I simply shrugged and dropped it all from my mind.

That was until I saw her again 3 days later. She wore the exact same funeral dress but this time a couple of things were different. For one she was at a new grave this time and the second was that she was not alone. A tall older man stood next to her. He wore a dark black suit that was incredibly worn out and rather dirty. You would think he would take better care of his suit if he was going to pay his respects to the dead.

The woman bent down and began running her hands over the dirt. She slowly picked up a small clump of the soil and it was hard to tell with her dark veil in the way but it looked like she brought it to her mouth and ate it. I felt like losing my lunch but I convinced myself that she was merely smelling it the way people smell fresh cut grass.

The pair then got up and started making their way out of the graveyard. The woman moved with a strange level of grace almost as if she was floating. The old man on the other hand was the opposite. He moved in quick jerky movements as if every part of his body hurt and he couldn’t figure out a way to properly move. There was something unsettling about the way he limped across the pathway and something oddly familiar.

The man took a bad step and to me it sounded like bones snapping. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping a little bit. At the sound of my breath the old man snapped around and began scanning the graveyard. I was currently bent over a plot of roses so I was quite sure he couldn’t see me. Still the old man looked back and forth and I got a good look at his eyes. They were pure white with no pupils, the man was blind but if that was the case then why was he looking so intently. The woman placed her hand gently on his back and the old man stopped his search. They two exited the cemetery and I took several minutes trying to catch my breath. I dared not look at the gravestone that they had visited but now I wish I had. Perhaps I could have figured out certain details sooner and not have subjected myself to the horrors I witnessed.

A few days later tragedy struck our community. A 10 year old boy was playing in a barn where his father was working. He took a slip while climbing the grain silo and fell into a hay-bailer. His torso was torn apart and just like that it was game over for him. The funeral was attended by many including myself. It was there that the woman and man appeared again.

They stood on a hill away from the actual funeral simply staring at the crowd. This time one more had joined their small unit. A young girl of about 12 stood between them. She wore an ugly brown dress that looked several decades out of season. Her hair was a dark brown bordering on black and her face was a deathly pale. She had a sunken look about her as if she had been ill for a very long time. It was hard to tell from a distance but I could swear she had the same milky white eyes as what I could only assume was her grandfather. The three never joined the rest of the crowd and they never, not even to blink, took their eyes off the closed casket.

After the service my boss informed me that it was our job to fill in the grave. It was an unexpected duty but paid an extra 4 bucks an hour so I didn’t mind. We worked all through the day until the sun had sunken behind the hills and the moon had risen. Finally when the job had finished my boss asked if I wanted a ride home. I said it was a nice night so I would just walk.

Normally the idea of being in a cemetery at night wouldn’t bother me at all. As I said I didn’t believe in any of that paranormal stuff but something about this night set me off the wrong way. Despite the fact that the full moon was overhead it didn’t provide much Illumination. Also in spite of the summer heat I felt a cold chill running through me. A gentle gentle breeze sent the tree branches waving about like long clawed arms. I began to feel that forgotten childlike fear creep into me. That fear that turned shadows into monsters and wind into ghostly wails. I had to get out of here so I could return to my logical self.

I was at the gate when I heard the sound of footsteps somewhere deeper in the cemetery. The child in me wanted to run home and dive under the blankets but both the adult and employee in me made me stay. I turned around and followed the sound. No one should be in the cemetery at night and the last thing I needed was some pranksters knocking over some gravestones. The other footsteps grew louder and now I could hear some faint whispering. I knew whoever was here was right over the small hill. I got low on the ground and crawled hoping to sneak up on them. When I put my head over the ridge my blood froze.

Standing there over the hill was the mysterious veiled woman with the other members of her company. They stood and watched as the woman knelt before the grave. It took me a moment to realize that the grave they stood before was the little boy’s who we had just laid to rest. I was about to tell them off but I stopped myself. Perhaps they were just mourners who wanted to pay their respects earlier but it was too crowded. That was the excuse I convinced myself of because I didn’t want to admit that I was simply afraid of them. Unfortunately my logical reasoning was flawed and my fear was justified, very justified!

The strange woman began stroking the dirt while speaking in some strange foreign language that I couldn’t put my finger on. She raised her hands to the sky as if in prayer and then lifted her veil for the first time. She was too far away to get a great look at and once again my curiosity got the better of me. I grabbed my phone’s camera and zoomed in on the woman’s face. What I saw made me almost drop my phone in terror.

This woman was not human, at least not any more. Her skin was a dull grey and covered in sharp ridges. Her flesh was missing in several places but underneath was not flesh but jet black soil. The dirt seemed to pulse as if something moved within it. Her eyes were a luminescent yellow with red rims. She picked up a glob of soil from the grave and this time there is no denying it, she consumed it before my eyes. After swallowing the soil she began to gag and then began spewing out impossibly long jet black worms. The worms dug their way into the grave and disappeared from view.

For a moment there was silence and I prayed that whatever had happened was over. Then slowly the dirt over the grave started to stir and from its depths a pair of hands burst forth. The little torn boy began crawling from his grave. His skin was milky white and with eyes to match. His shredded torso emerged and I was horrified to watch hundreds of those long worms wiggling within the gaps. They lengthened and multiplied until the gaps were filled and new flesh formed over them. The boy fully rose from his grave and walked over to his new “mother” who embraced him in a big hug.

I could not begin to comprehend what I was witnessing. Every bit of logic and rationale that I ran my life by was crumbling all around me. I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a small whimper, and the woman heard me. The mother slowly looked up directly into my camera. I could feel those cold yellow eyes drilling into my soul. Before I could even react the camera showed me nothing but a cold white face. I bolted backwards to see the “daughter” had crawled towards me in an instant. She began crawling forwards making jerky centipede-like movements. The father and son followed as they wordlessly shambled towards me.

The mother came behind them and threw both of her hands up. All at once the others stopped moving. That was when it clicked, what those jerky movements reminded me of. These corpses were marionettes and those worms were her strings. She was a puppeteer of the dead. She walked towards me and I could no more move than I could scream. I was frozen with fear.

She stood before me and we were almost nose to nose. I could now see some of those horrific worms crawling in the dirt on her face. Every vein on her face and arms were visible. Every vein was pulsing with the parasites. She reached out and stroked her finger down my face. Her touch was cold as ice and I winced against it. I could see a worm in her face reach out towards me and all I could think was “Don’t let it touch me. Kill me, torture me but never let one of those things ever touch me.”

As if on mental command she withdrew her finger. She stared at me for a moment and then gave a macabre smile that will haunt my nightmares forever. She raised her finger to her lips and said “Shhhhh.” All at once the other members of her family did the same. I closed my eyes and nodded. I didn’t dare open my eyes but I could hear the fiends walk past me. I could hear their decaying flesh squish and their bones snap as they walked. When the horrible sounds stopped I at last opened my eyes and found myself alone.

The next morning I called my boss and told him I quit. I’m just another lazy youth in his mind but I don’t care. Let him think whatever he wants. I will never tell anyone the truth of what happened. I knew that if I opened my mouth to do so, one of those worms would wiggle down my throat and I would be gone. Everytime I see a graveyard I can’t help but wonder how many bodies remain buried. I no longer know what awaits us beyond the veil of life but I do know one thing. When I die do NOT put me into the ground. Burn my body to dust. That’s the only way I will truly rest in peace.

Credit: Tenac