The Undead Priest:Part 2
It took some time for the burial party to reach the graveyard,
and the trip back over the uneven road was just as slow. Night
was coming down and long shadows were beginning to fall before
they came within sight of their own homes. As they came over the
last hill, the mourners saw a man approaching them, walking very
quickly. They looked at each other.
'Every man in the district has been at the funeral' said one
'Who could that man be and why is he coming from that direction?'
The leaders signalled for the procession to stop and they stood by
the roadside and waited as the walker drew level with them. As he
neared they all saw very clearly the fact of the man that they had just
buried!
He passed them on the other side of the road and still standing along
swiftly at an almost inhuman speed his head slightly turned away
from them. Even so, they were able to make sure of his identity and
they all saw the paleness of his skin, the hard and glittering wide-
open eyes and the lips drawn back across his shrivelled gums as
though caught in the rictus of death. And he was not wearing the
winding sheet in which he had been buried but rather the decent
black frock-coat of a regular priest. He passed them by and
disappeared around a bend in the road which led towards the graveyard.
When he had passed the people in the procession began to talk
fearfully among themselves, casting long glances along the road
that he had taken. There was much discussion as they whether they
should go to the mother's house, which lay about a mile distant
and tell her what they had seen. It was finally agreed that they
should visit the grieving woman and check that she was well and
settled for the night but that nothing should be said about the
apparition. So agreed that they went to the cottage approaching the
door and kncking loudly. There was no answer. Climbing up onto
an upturned basin one of the mourners peered through the kitchen
windown to see the old woman lying on the floor apparently in a dead
faint. Using their shoulders some of the neighbours broke down the
door and gently lifter her, reviving her with a little whiskey which
they had about them. Hesitantly she told then what had happened.
About half-an-hour earlier there had been a knock on her door.
She could not imagine who it might be since all her neighbours
were at the funeral and she was rather afraid to answer it. The
knock came again this time more loudly and insistently. Getting up
on a kitchen stool the woman peered out of the small high window.
To her horror she saw her dead son standing there in broad
daylight much as she had remembered him when he was alive.
Although he was not looking directly at her, she was still able to see
the ghastly pallor of his skin and the awful wolfishness of his whole
bearing. He seemed to be half-crouching as though preparing to
spring upon her when she answered the foor. Fear sweapt over her
and she felt the stool give way beneath her feet as her legs buckled
and she fainted. There she had lain until her neighbours had found
her.
The undead priest was never seen in the neighbourhood again but
people in that remote parish still pass his grave in the lonely
mountain cemetery with a quick and fearful step.
...I enjoyed this...keep writing!....T/C 
