Sunday, March 8, 2015

Death, A Witness to The Black Death, 1348




London 1348

"Death was all around--in the filth and contagion, beside the diseased ravaged ships in the harbor, moving up from the docks with the scurrying rats--unnoticed as passengers but so vital to this tale.

Death paused, standing among the dead and dying animals, the decomposing human corpses, many of which lay bloated in the street, food for countless starving death-marked dogs.

Death as always watched and waited.

He watched madmen screaming gibberish at the top of their lungs as they dashed down the streets, for they had lost their minds having seen loved ones die.

Powerlessness is often a precursor to madness.

He watched too relatives trying to carry their dead loved ones away to one of the open burial pits outside the city because no one else was left to do it.

There were more dying daily it seemed. The carts hadn’t come around lately shouting for folk to bring out their dead, the carriers of the dead were themselves dead.

Death saw and they saw him. That is those about to die saw him.

Like a parody of the Gladiator’s cry: “we who are about to die salute you!” so they did; only it was no parody.

Nothing could have been more grim than this.

Very often they tried to bargain with him.

“Please, let me live. I don’t want to die. My wife will have no husband, my child no father. What is to become of them?”

Sadly and with no facetiousness at all Death would answer, “they will not suffer long…for I shall come for them very soon…’


So much misery, he didn’t wish to see it. He didn’t enjoy any aspect of being Death, he never had..."


(end of excerpt) 


In this horror collection you'll find stories of vampires, zombies, murderous midgets, demon clowns, evil dolls, haunted cemeteries, a real shop of horrors, taxidermy gone haywire, serial killers and more! 
Your worst fears and nightmares dished up for you with extra helpings of blood-curdling terror!

Review: 

"There is no doubt that she soars above the endless parade of independent horror authors to shine as a true star in the darkness. With the brilliant anthology House of Horrors she proves why she is a perennial favorite. To put it simply, this is a great assembly of tales anyone would be proud to have in their collection"

~Joshua Skye
DARK MEDIA

No comments:

Post a Comment