NUPTIAL GHOST(Charles E.J. Moulton) NUPTIAL GHOST

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton


Marcus fell asleep with his unshaved, unwashed head plopped down upon his bookkeeping desk. The snore reverberated inside the mid-size hall, where he kept his plume. The bizarre ghoul alone, that lurked in the corner, heard it. On top of this, a snake-like drop of spit rolled down from his mouth and touched the archive book, smearing the ink. The newly written words: “555 ox, 378 pigs – 1236 royal crowns” mixed with saliva.
Marcus dreamed about his earlier job, cutting heads for a living. He smiled.
The wedding party was on its second month and Marcus was responsible for writing down the costs of everything eaten and cooked. He, however, was bored and his superior officers constantly had to remind him of his duties. The eminent Archduke Gyllenstierna had insisted that he finish his bookkeeping before going to sleep. After all, the king himself was going to inspect the books tomorrow.
“When his majesty takes time off from his wedding feast to inspect the books then these books have to be ready for inspection”, the Archduke exclaimed and threw the bookkeeper a dirty look. “Even in his majesty’s frail condition, rotten teeth and bad legs and all, the king’s wishes are our command. His strength is our strength. It is hard for him to rule the kingdom, Marcus. We need to help him. Not to mention how hard it is for the king’s thirty nine years younger wife Katarina Stenbock, who is growing all too serious for her young years.”
Marcus had not finished his bookkeeping. All of the royals and aristocrats were now snug in their beds and that fact inspired him to sleep, as well. The fire in the fireplace had been extinguished and now only Madam Luna was spreading her light upon the interiors of the bookkeeping hall.
Some of the royals were still half in the middle of lovemaking, some of them had fallen asleep in their food and were snoring in the east wing feast room. The royal court musician Ulf Steenosa slept on his hard benchbed filled with straw, half of his right buttock scratched by an untuned lute. Marcus, however, was completely alone in the west wing. And so, he didn’t notice what came creeping up behind him at exactly four minutes past two. Its two heads intertwined upon a strange blob of goo, it slowly crept up upon the former executioner with the aim of devouring him as payment for his cruelty.
The full moon was out. Wasn’t it strange that always full moons appear when ghouls do their bidding? Marcus snore attracted it. There were ghouls in castles, mind you, that never slept at night. There were white ladies, mind you, who floated among the debree of spiritual waste in a castle such as this at night. There were old widows beldjfhg to old kings and beheaded wives haunting the castle with screams.
There was a thief, though, who had been bloodpoisoned after having his nose cut off by the punisher. He had been caught burying his face in married female places that should remain untouched. That man’s ghost also roamed the royal palace during this cold winter of 1552. As the blue-blooded gentry spent their 30th feasting day at the Swedish Kalmar Castle, Marcus lay on his books with his hand clutching one German pint of mead resting in a brown ceramic cup with a bronze lid. The ghoul of the thief that appeared behind him was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. It was the grotesque, perverted spirit of a former fellon. The wierd monster-like and noseless head was sharing its ball-like carcas with another female head. It was the former noseless thief from the dungeon sharing a hate-loving afterlife with a baroness.
The murderer named Bioern Eskil-Ohlsson had commited adultery with the baroness in the outskirts of the castle grounds. He had been caught stealing the rich woman’s jewels after killing her with an axe. Tragically, the baroness had been in love with him and promptly after her death had vowed to join him once he was executed.
Promptly, in life, the thief was taken to the edge of the moat. His hands had been cut off, he had been speared and beaten. Then, he had been dumped into a mass grave and forgotten. The executioner had ajourned exactly to this room in the castle, where he had registered the death of the villain in very few words:
“Convicted murderer from Öland, guilty of aristocratic adultery, caught stealing Baroness von Knorr’s jewels after killing her with an axe. The culprit’s hands were cut off by the moat. He was speared and executed, his body thrown in the mass grave in Kalmar South.”
Marcus had been punished, too. The thief had never been destined for execution and so the Archduke Gyllenstierna took away Marcus duties and assigned him to the bookkeeping desk. It had become clear, all to soon, how awful Marcus’ life had turned out to be. Bookkeeping just wasn’t his thing. Execution, yes.
The thing slithered up behind Marcus was belching its way up along the floor, leaving a trace of fat behind it. Obviously, this Godforsaken creature was a mutant of two recently deceased people. The Baroness von Knorr and Brioern Eskil-Ohlson were now in their afterlife by choice doomed to haunt the castle as one strange creature. It had two heads, four eyes, four legs and four arms, four nostrils and two stomachs.
Slowly pulling his cup toward him in his sleep, Marcus was deemed to wake up too late. The creature was now half way toward the desk. It held up its arms and stopped crawling, startled by the oncoming event. It opened the eyes that glowed in the moonlight. It cackled, wanting to see how Marcus spilled his mead. The ceramic cup fell and the contents spilled over the books. Marcus snorted, woke up, blinked. Realizing that his drink had ruined his last evening’s work, he panicked. He stood up, looking for anything to dry off the mead with.
As he stood up, crisscrossing the room, Marcus fell and hit his nose. He had stumbled upon something. A ball? He couldn’t see what that was. He reached out his hand and touched his own foot. It bled. Then the moon shone its light upon the ball. It seemed to move. What was that? Arms, legs, eyes, mouths? It moved. Sweet Christ, the thing moved. There were two heads there. The thief that he killed? And who was that? The Baroness von Knorr? The heads smiled. The heads spoke in unison, as Marcus touched them with his bloody hand.
“We will devour you and you will join us on our ball of sin”, the heads warbled in grotesque chorus. “Then you will see that your own lust for the pain of others will make them join you. Let us eat you, Sir. Your punishment shall be our happy sin.”
Marcus screamed, crawling back toward the corner from whence the ghoul had come. Soon enough, the ghoul opened its mouths and ate the poor bookkeeper in a slow munching grind. And the full moon shone its light upon a dead corner. This dead corner now hosted the home of a bigger demon.
Archduke Gyllenstierna came into Marcus’ hall that next morning and found nothing but a book smeared and ruined by mead and spit. Marcus was nowhere to be seen.
In spite of efforts to find him, the bookkeeping executioner was gone forever and King Gustav Vasa commisioned the Archduke to take care of the bookkeeping. Reluctantly, he agreed and sat down that evening after the day’s feasting had ended.
It was a lot of work. That night, the aristocrat worked until he fell asleep with his head upon the desk. As the moon shone its light on the Archduke’s head, a three headed blob crawled out from his home in the corner.
It licked its three mouths.
Never before had it eaten an aristocrat.

---