This is a story that I wrote for the BCTS Halloween 2009 TG Terror contest. I didn't finish it in time, but I still wanted to put it up for people to read.

WARNING: This story was written in the gothic style: Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, etc. The language is unwieldy and antiquated on purpose -- if this turns you off on reading it, please still give it a chance, though I should also remind you that the chosen subject matter fits right along with the style, so be prepared.

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The Corpse of Shelley Poe

By Melanie Ezell
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It was with great trepidation that I ascended the worn stone steps and approached the ancient iron knocker at the entrance to Gainsbury Manor. My heart warned me of a terrible evil about the place, but so great was my desperation that I chose to ignore my feelings of ill omen. With some effort I managed to lift the ring of the knocker from its resting place and brought it down for three hard raps, which echoed about me in a most discomfiting way.

That I had managed to pry myself from my home to come here was a sign of my dire straits. The storm howling around me had buffered my taxi to and fro on my trip, and the weather looked to be worsening. It was by lucky chance that my driver had known where Gainsbury Manor lay, and I had left him to his work as I steeled my nerves for the meeting to come. Even now I knew I could turn back and flee to the safety of the cab, waiting for me at the gates a mere two hundred paces back, but again my desperation drove me to stay.

I was startled by a thunderous groan as the great oak door before me began to slowly shift inwards, on hinges in seemingly worse repair than the knocker. As the door swung in, a shaft of warm light began to seep around the edge, and a rush of heat escaped to greet me and warm my tired flesh.

In the entranceway before me stood a small woman with wrinkled, leathery skin and carrying an oil lamp. While her face held a smile, there was no happiness or jollity in it.

"Come in, Mr. Craft. We have been expecting you." Her voice cracked as she spoke, reminding me of the sound of a bush rustling in the dark, or the snap of old bones. Again, my heart told me to turn and run; and again, I denied it, pushing forwards in the hope of once and for all ending the torment I found myself in.

"Mr. Byron is in preparation for your session, but he should be down in a moment. If you would have a seat." She gestured with her free hand to a high-backed chair near the door, where I quietly settled to await my appointment.

With her lamp she lit the tapers of an ornate candelabra before leaving me alone in the entrance room of the dilapidated manor house. To keep from losing my nerve, I took it upon myself to grasp as best I could the contents of my surroundings.

Like many of the homes in the surrounding neighborhood, Gainsbury Manor dated back over a hundred years, and was in a sorry state of repair. Our small community had seen hard times after the recession, and thus many of the more affluent families had moved to better parts, leaving our once thriving town with only those who would not or could not afford to leave. The ceiling above was showing signs of sagging, with water dripping through in more than one spot, causing areas of the tattered carpet to appear as a darker crimson than that surrounding them, while the walls were bowed, the plaster crumbling and in many places giving way completely to wood braces and bits of mildewed insulation. What had once been a beautiful home was now a derelict, with little hope of recovery.

It was but a few moments before the woman returned. "Mr. Byron is ready for you now, sir." She stepped aside and gestured for me to make my way into the chamber behind her. Feeling it was for the best that I finish my business as quickly as possible, I stood and straightened my jacket.

The chamber beyond her smelled of musty earth and rot, and as I stood at the entrance I could taste tin, like old blood, sitting on my tongue. With another gesture she beckoned me on, along the candle-lit corridor and to the last door. As I approached that door, the smell of earth and rot increased, until I felt the great desire to retch at the foulness of the stench, but I pressed on, and rapped my knuckles on the hard surface of the door's face.

"Come in," a voice echoed from within, raspy and frail. With the last of my nerve I pushed that terrible door open, and stepped through.

I found myself in a large open room, filled with tables and counters topped with masses of tubing and wires the uses of which I could not hazard to guess. Through an arrangement of beakers and valves along one surface ran a bubbling liquid, being heated by a series of small burners beneath particular beakers. Against another of the room's brick walls was a large metal device with many cogs and levers in evidence, as well as a pair of large wire coils that sparked and sputtered, casting harsh shadows about the otherwise dimly lit room. But the most disturbing, most horrifying object in that room was what awaited me when I turned my eyes to the center.

There, upon a long iron table, lay the body of a young woman. In life, she had been beautiful, but her death had not been kind to her, and I found myself again fighting the urge to retch as I gazed at the rotted and festering corpse that was all that remained of the woman I had once loved. Yet even in this state, I found my heart aching to see her move, to reach out with her long, cold and grime-coated hands and caress me, to kiss me with her hard bloodless lips. She was My Shelley, and soon we would be together again.

"I am glad to see you," spoke the frail voice that had bade me enter, and with a start I watched as a hunched and decrepit figure emerged from behind the slab where my Shelley rested. His rheumy eyes turned to me, and I felt a cold shiver pass through myself as he focus somewhere beyond me. His gnarled hands shook as he adjusted an odd contraption strapped to the table, and I heard the clank of unseen gears as a set of wire coils not unlike those atop the metal device against the wall rose from the floor at either side of the corpse before me.

Again he spoke. "'Twas a high price indeed that I was forced to pay for this corpse. Never before have I performed this procedure on one so long gone -- I can make no guarantees to the outcome of what I shall attempt this evening." He turned to me again, baring his rotten teeth at me in what I hoped was intended to be a grin. "It should be right, though, if the worms ain't got to her yet."

He held out his hand to me, and I cringed away, much disturbed by the idea of the goblin before me touching me, but when he pointed towards the second table in the room, next to my Shelley, and reached for me again, I obeyed his unspoken command, and allowed him to begin his preparations.

Wires were wrapped around my fingers, and a leather cap with more wires attached to it was fitted to my head. Wide leather straps with heavy buckles were used to fasten my unresisting limbs to the table. I almost cried out when he took the long steel needle and jabbed it into my neck, draining my lifeblood into another series of tubes he had conjured, but I held firm, my gaze remaining on my Shelley and her presence giving me strength.

A year of searching had brought me here, and I was determined that my efforts would not be in vain. My Shelley would be returned to me; I would triumph over the foul disease that had taken first her mind, then her life, and we would be as one, forever.

Would she return to me whole? Would I be blessed to see her auburn hair lustrous again, her silken alabaster skin unmarred by the decay that had set in during my journeys to find a cure? Or would she remain the fetid corpse before me, blackened, bloated and foul? Would her mind be there, or would I be left with nothing but an empty husk? I would risk anything to have her back.

My thoughts were broken as a violent spasm shook me, threatening to rip the needle from my neck and jerking my limbs against the constriction of my bonds. The pain. the pain was excruciating, but oh! I would suffer it a thousand times to see my Shelley alive again. The pain began to dissipate, and I hoped that the worst was over, but I was soon racked by another spasm, and another.

On into the night, I was rocked by the searing pain, until I began to grow numb to it. Slowly, the pain faded, until at last, though I knew the spasms were still coming, I could no longer feel any ill effect from them. My eyes were closed, and I could feel that they were matted shut somehow, but I could not find it within me to care. My Shelley would be back. We would be together. It would all be worth the pain and torment, if just to see her for a moment.

It was long hours later that I felt the last spasm subside, and dared to open my eyes. I found my vision cloudy and distorted, as though viewing my surroundings through a pane of oiled glass, and I had great difficulty in trying to move. At last, I managed to turn my head, and spied the dim outline of a figure before me.

Sounds came to my attention, but they seemed garbled and incoherent. I had to concentrate to hear his words, which proved far more difficult that I had imagined.

"It seems to be a complete success. She seems to have begun to awaken, though as yet I am unsure if she's all there in her head, mind you. Sir?" As I watched, the form twisted and turned -- with more attunement to my eyes, I could tell that now he was facing towards me, rather than the table upon which My Shelley rested.

"Miss, are you there?"

Now I felt a great need to rise and peer around him. If he were to wake Shelley, I desired to be there to watch and experience every moment of her waking. I tried to speak, feeling my throat impossibly dry and parched, and managed to make naught but a moan of complaint.

"Excellent. She's responding sir; there's hope that she might be in there."

I tried to speak again, to ask him to unlash me so I might rise and watch, but again all I could manage was a rasping moan.

"There, Miss. Let me get you up."

As the straps about me loosened, I moved to lift myself up, only to find my efforts ineffectual. No pain arose from my failed attempts, however; and so, I continued to try, until at last I sat up, feeling off balance and out of sorts.

"It might take a bit to get used to things again. You're quite different than when you died."

Died? Had I died during the transferrence of my lifeblood to my Shelley? But no, I felt perfectly alive, if numb and out of sorts. I tried to ask him what had happened, but still managed no more than a moan.

"Let me fetch some water. Maybe we can get you talking again." The blurry figure I had been facing turned away and moved off to my right, leaving me staring at the slab where my Shelley must lay.

I am afraid that I cannot recall much after that. When I regained sanity, all that remained of the old man Byron, his lab, and the old woman were bloody stains before me on the earthen floor of the lab. I was still filled with a terrible rage, and a terrible loss. I wanted to scream, but how can you scream when your throat is as dry as the grave? I wanted to weep, yet the body I found myself in had not the tears to do it. I wanted to gaze one last time upon my body, lifeless and cold, but even that was hindered by my deteriorated eyes.

How long might I live now? I know not. All I know is that the life of a corpse is a lonely and hard one. Why should I pity the living? Those who are gifted with breath and warmth, such blessings are wasted upon you? I take it when I can, but what I gain from there lifeblood is little more than a pale imitation of what I once had.

I was Thomas Craft. Now, I am nothing more than a ghoul, the shade of a broken man, haunting the corpse of my dear Shelley Poe.