• In the deepening darkness of an eternal night, nothing moved. The air, still and lifeless as the grave, hung in sheets of mellow fog. The world seemed dead on its axis. Not even the moon could strike life into the dim, damp terrain, dissipating through the mist into nothing.

    Through the inky blackness, then, came the crunch of heavy boots on gravel, the slide of a long-cold corpse being dragged over the rocky ground, and the labored breathes of a murderer out of sight. Through the murk came a figure barely defined in the lifeless light of the heavens, stooped and dragging a heavy conscience. Bedraggled and mad, he gripped the collar of the woman he loved. Her skin was pulled taunt over her pallid features. Her clothes were torn. She was missing a shoe. An owl, stirred by a thought, hooted. The man gritted his teeth and continued on.

    The world turned, ages passed, and the man inched forward towards the empty grave where his beloved would lay, forever held captive by his feelings. His arm hurt; blood, originating from the shoulder where she had shot him, ran along its length, dripping sweet and sickly down his fingertips. Crimson life dribbled to the ground with each jarring step, splattering the shale, smeared under the death at his heels.

    He came at last to the hollow church on its hallowed ground, silent against the night. A rat, or some other varmint, scurried through the spikes of over-grown grass that grew around the church like a lady’s lace collar. The grave stones to the back sat on slants, as if being uprooted by some force form beneath. The moon lit up the scene in grey and white, a mockery to color of the daytime world.

    The man took his beloved to the open grave that lay to the edge of the grave yard, maw upturned toward the sky. He took her to the edge, laying her parallel to the hole. He said some deranged semblance of a prayer, shed a tear for her, and, with one foot, tipped her inside. He reached for the shovel that sat nearby.

    His head was off his shoulders and halfway to the ground before he noticed that it was missing. The blade that had so easily gone through flesh and bone sent beads of blood scattering against a stone marker nearby. The body of the man slumped as death occurred to it, bending at the knees. It fell into the grave atop the woman who had never loved him. A pink tongue ran over crimson blood that tarnished scarlet lips, still more spreading like a fan over an ashen face. Silver eyes surveyed the work of their master with detached awareness.

    One darkly-gloved hand snaked into the pocket of fine dress pants and pulled out a chrome accented tape recorder that glittered in the moonlight. Thumb indented the record button and the device came to life.

    “In my autobiography,” came the husky voice, “I would like to call this chapter ‘the man in the mist’. Take note: It was a dark and…” eyes flickered about the surrounding world, “foggy night some mid-October. The devilish…” they cast into the grave,” Mr. Oliver so-and-so has killed the charming Mrs. Banks. For some god awful reason he has taken her to the church at the end of Murkly Lane to dump her body into the open and waiting grave of the recently deceased old biddy Ms. Burk, who was, I hear, half-eaten by her cats before an estranged neighbor found her. He has been dispatched in the proper manner and both await the small, astonished funeral procession that is scheduled to come tomorrow morning. Should be a good show for all.”

    The gloved thumb pressed the button to stop the recording and the man with the sword that was stained with the blood of another murderer toed the head of said man into the grave before turning to leave with a clean conscience.