The Crypt Volume One

The Farmer's Wife: part two

Viola was screaming uncontrollably as the corpse planted skeletal foot after skeletal foot along the rattan rug. Fat maggots fell off it in search of tastier dishes. In her panic, Viola dropped the brass knob three times before securing it in the workings of the door.

The smell had become so overbearing, she could have puked beef casserole up the wall. Only the sound of the corpse moving - bones clicking and clacking, and drooping, stringy flesh slapping around as it was shaken with each wretched step - made her feel worse.

The farmer's wife tore back the door and flopped into the hallway, but not before slimy, ice cold fingers clasped her wrist. "Get off me!" Instead of running, she cowered into a big green ball beneath the window.

The corpse hunkered down on squatted legs. Maggots dropped off her and fell beneath Viola's breasts as she continued cowering. The corpse was so rancid that every insect in the farmhouse was making its way over to her.

Spiders raced along the floor and climbed up the corpse's legs and beneath her dress skirt. Moths flew out from behind curtains and other dark spaces to nest in the stringy flesh and matted hair. Even two centipedes appeared, winding and snaking their way up the corpse's feet.

The undead girl breathed, all raspy and high, into Viola's ear, "Help me."

"Leave me alone, devil!" she wailed, frantically flicking away maggots that were burrowing between her breasts.

"Help me now or I will never leave you alone," warned the corpse.

"Alright," Viola gagged. "Back away from me and I will." So the corpse quit hanging all over her, and instead stood in the doorway. At last Viola was able to make eye contact, and what a gruesome sight she found.

The undead girl had rotting flesh covered in green and black mould patches. Her skin was wriggling and shivering all over with maggots, crawling spiders and nesting moths. The girl had clearly been beaten when she was alive - some bruises land so hard, their marks follow into the afterlife.

There was also a rope mark around her neck.

"What happened to you?" Asked Viola, who was growing more pitiful and less scared of the corpse with every passing second.

"I was murdered. By my boyfriend." She hung her head of scraggly hair. "He took me to his room one night after dinner. I thought he wanted to write another song, like we had done the night before, but he turned on me. Killed me for no reason," she rasped. "He cut open the mattress, threw my body inside, and sewed it back up."

"Good grief," Viola leaned against the wall, unable to believe that she was a) talking to a corpse, and b) what the corpse was saying. "My Percy bought that bed at auction yesterday. This was the first night for me to sleep in it. When were you murdered?"

"A week ago. No-one suspects I'm dead - my boyfriend told my family I ran out on him to go to London to 'make the big time'," she snarled bitterly.

"What a rat!"

The undead girl nodded in agreement. A moth burrowed into her eye socket, and a centipede scurried across her skull and down into her ear canal. "That's why you must help me. Murder is in his blood - he'll do it to another girl. You must help bring him to justice before he kills again."

"And how can I do that? No police officer on this good green earth would ever believe I've been speaking with a dead person."

"Show them my body. And play them this," she handed over a mobile phone, which was covered in snot-like gunge and squirming maggots, from her dress pocket. "When we went back to his room I thought we were going to write another song, so I pressed record on my phone to capture whatever we came up with."

"And instead of a song you recorded the whole bloody murder," sharp Viola understood.

"Tell them his name is Mickey Turnstile. His number is in my phone, along with his address."

"Right," she breathed, steadying herself for the task ahead. "Then there's nothing else left for me to do but call the police. And what will you do?"

"I will go back to my temporary grave," the corpse pointed sadly to the mattress.

"But how will I say I found you in there?"

"The smell. Tell them the smell became too much. That you thought there might have been a dead animal inside so you opened it up and found me instead."

Viola considered her. Yes she was vulgar to look at, but it was not her fault. She had been murdered, and somehow she had found a way to come back and seek justice. Viola had to help. "I'm sorry for what happened to you."

"Thank you," she said and made her bone clacking stumble back to the mattress. Once there, she laid down exactly how Mickey had stuffed her in.

Viola, shaken and angry, called the police.

***** break *****

Six months later...

18 year old Mickey Turnstile was a dream to look at. On the outside he had heavenly hazel eyes, full lips, and floppy brown hair. That's how he lured girls in. On the inside, though, a river of pure evil ran right through him. The kind of unrepentant evil that would have seen him a serial killer before his next birthday.

Viola held her breath as she sat in court with Percy while Mickey stood, awaiting his sentence for the murder of Annie Grantham - the girl he had killed and stuffed into a mattress. The mattress that, by some strange fate, ended up at the Duckworth's farm.

"That old devil," Viola's teeth stared out as she curled her bare lips back in a snarl at Mickey. But he just stood in the dock looking as carefree as a sunny Sunday afternoon. He was even humming a tune.

"Hush yourself," said Percy. "Sentencing is a-coming."

And come it did. The Old Bailey judge, with his natty wig, booming voice, and sagging jowls, took up his gavel. "For the cold blooded murder of Annie Grantham I hereby sentence you, Mickey Turnstile, to life imprisonment. May you die in jail for what you have done."

"He should be hanged!" Viola blasted to Percy.

"Life is life now," he patted her knee.

Mickey turned to them and smiled. A full blown, pleased as punch smile.

"You wicked boy!" Viola stood. "You will burn in hell for all eternity!" Her ranting set the court off, until others were on their feet shouting curses at the murderer as he was marched away humming his haunting tune.

Later that day, Viola stood at the butler sink washing up a big bowl of sloppy custard. An unnatural wind blew through her, making her shudder and look to the garden.

As clear as day, there stood Annie Grantham. Wearing a blue dress free of maggots and gunk, she had an acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder and a blonde plait laid over the other.

Viola wasn't scared of much. Not least the ghost of a girl she had come to be afraid of, then pity, then fight to get justice for. "Well, if ain't you looking all new and shiny," she opened the door and crossed the garden.

"I can't stay long," Annie spoke in a voice that used to be a beautiful soprano in song. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done. Not only did you bring Mickey to justice, but you stopped him from killing again."

"Yes, I heard about that," Viola bristled. "They found a young girl alive in the boot of his car when he was arrested. That boy has the devil in him for sure."

"It doesn't matter now," Annie assured her. "He will die in prison thanks to you."

"And you. I don't know how you came back the way you did, but I'm glad of it. Even if you did give me one hell of a fright doing so." Viola cut her eyes but there was love in them. "And where will you go now, songbird?"

Annie gazed up, past the tree, past the clouds, at something Viola couldn't see. "Guess I made the big time," she smiled. "I'll be seeing you."

"Aye, be seeing you." Viola watched her walk into the tall cornfield and eventually fade from sight.