Here is my ghostly story for the WEP/IWSG writing together October challenge. I hope you enjoy the read. The stories this month will all contain some scary elements. I hope I achieve this in mine. Whatever, I had a hoot revisiting Paris in my mind while writing it.
Night in
the Montmartre Cemetery
Ciassia had seen
a ghost. A ghost wearing black. Lurching behind her, rasping, grunting,
reaching out his filthy hand, trying to snatch her as she hurried along the
streets of Pigalle, Paris’s red light district.
Putting distance
between them, gasping for breath, she slipped into an alley behind Moulin Rouge, as quiet as a crypt. The air was dark and thick, like a black cape
had floated from the night sky and covered the earth. A beacon of light from
the Eiffel Tower swept in arcs across the gloom – a sea of fog swirling like a
fleeting ghost. Each time the flash passed overhead, the blanched fog and mist
took on a shivering pallor, giving life to the unliving.
As crazy as it
seemed, she was running from a ghost.
Creeping along
the alley, touching the walls, she tried to ignore the shivers shooting up her
spine.
What else might
be lurking in the gloom? She pulled her red shawl tight around her shoulders. Fear
gave her feet wings as she hurried through the darkness to the next corner
where street lights shot a hole into the misty light.
She huddled under
the streetlight, listening to the night sounds, but could hear nothing over the
rasp of her jagged breathing and the blood rush pounding in her ears.
She sensed a movement behind her.
She must leave the comfort of the light.
She sensed a movement behind her.
She must leave the comfort of the light.
Reluctantly, she stepped
into the darkness again. She ran, fast, faster, through the
fog. One foot in front of the other, fighting the urge to run back to the
crowds exiting the nightclubs of Pigalle. She fought the urge to run to her
hotel and safety. To where she’d left her cell phone and purse on the night stand.
In front of her
loomed an ancient stone wall wrapped in weeping moss. Montmartre cemetery. How
did she end up here?
She’d seen the
stone garden from a distance. In the daylight. A forest of small crypts
adorned with stained glass and magnificent sculptures. The resting place of
many famous bones including her idol, Simone de Beauvoir. Would hers be added
to the pile? Would she sleep for eternity beside Simone?
No. Please God.
No. No. No.
She huddled
amongst the stone ghosts rising from the ground like resurrected souls, the darkness only broken by the beacon flashes from the tower bathing the dead faces in ghostly
light, sharpening their features, sending shadows shuddering around her feet.
How could she see
her pursuer in the crowded forest of stone?
Running steps. Clamping
a hand over her mouth, stifling a scream, she veered off the main path. Knelt
behind a large crypt with a high brick wall behind. ‘Jean Paul Sartre and Simone
de Beauvoir’ read the headstone. Long dead. They could not reach beyond the
grave to save her.
She heard a
screech. A cat. A black cat. Leaping over the crypts. She forced herself to
keep still. The cat sounds faded, but she stayed crouched, her heart hammering
so loud she was afraid the man in black would hear it.
Such a creepy, creepy place.
She couldn’t spend the night with dead people. She had to get back to her hotel at
the top of the hill. She had to get back to safety.
Gathering what was
left of her courage, she stood, her eyes beacons trying to cut through the
darkness.
Is he here?
Then out of
nowhere she saw … not a him ... a her.
A white dress
ghoulishly radiant.
‘Are you an angel?’
she whispered. Stupid question. This vision could be nothing else. She was one
of the stone angels come to life.
The angel stood in
front of her, arms outstretched, beckoning her. Then she pointed a finger the
way Ciassia had come.
Is she warning me?
Telling me to turn around?
Fat tears ran
down Ciassia’s face. ‘Please help me,’ she said through trembling lips. ‘A man chased
me through the street in Pigalle and has followed me here.’
The Eiffel Tower
beacon flashed again. It passed. The angel was gone.
Another figure
emerged from the fog, arms outstretched. No angel. The man in black. As black
as Poe’s raven.
She screamed, turned
and ran. Down the hill. Toward the exit.
Stumbling over a
crooked gravestone that jutted from the earth, she hit the ground on her knees.
The pain was excruciating, but she jumped up again.
Poe’s raven was so
close she could smell his fetid smell, like a pit of snakes. Mouldy. Rotten.
Her boots reached
out in front of her. Into nothing.
She was falling.
Falling. Falling.
The ground had
opened up and swallowed her whole.
She bounced off dirt
walls and hit hard stone ground, the breath knocked out of her.
The hole was pitch
black.
She screamed,
clawing the dirt walls, her fingernails tearing, her fingertips bleeding.
A grave.
She was in a
grave.
She screamed and
screamed. Clawed and clawed.
Then. Footsteps.
Overhead.
Crunch. Crunch.
Crunch.
Out of the sky, dirt
poured down upon her.
Filled her mouth.
Filled her eyes
Filled her hair.
Filled her.
‘Who’s there?’ she
croaked, spitting dirt, trying to keep the terror from her voice.
The beacon flashed
overhead revealing a tall, dark figure, arms outstretched, his cape giving the
appearance of raven’s wings.
‘Help me. For the
love of God. Where is your humanity?’
He grunted and
tossed more dirt.
‘I lost my
humanity many centuries ago, little girl.’ His voice was raspy and hollow, like
he hadn’t used it for centuries.
Large clods. Then
stones. Battering her.
‘Soon you will
join me.’
He was a fleeting
ghost.
He was burying her
alive.
She screamed and
screamed. Then a huge rock hit her temple, knocking her to the ground.
‘Soon your life
will begin,’ the hollow voice rasped, growing faint as her consciousness fled.
She heard his laugh. An eerie sound. Like a
raven calling.
WORDS - 985
FULL CRITIQUE ACCEPTABLE.
To read more entries please click on names in my sidebar with DL (Direct Link) beside their name or go to the WEP site.
You have until October 19th to post if you have some scary fiction or non-fiction to add to the list. It's easy to SUBMIT your name to the list.
FULL CRITIQUE ACCEPTABLE.
To read more entries please click on names in my sidebar with DL (Direct Link) beside their name or go to the WEP site.
You have until October 19th to post if you have some scary fiction or non-fiction to add to the list. It's easy to SUBMIT your name to the list.
