Ashen Devotion

Silt wisps layer the charred bones of another unfortunate soul caught within the unholy fire from long ago, frozen in time and fear. Huddled within the arms of their lost lover, doomed to their fate on the pew under the eyes of the lord. The scavenger chuckled to himself: for him, they were just another payday.

Parting the couple’s arms, he got to business, clothes, jewellery and accessories. If they had them, they won’t need them. Pulling apart the scorched jacket of the larger skeleton, little turned up. Keys for some forgotten transport, papers blurred by time and some pre-calamity money. The scavenger frowned but maintained his search. Nothing in the trousers, nothing in his shoes…

“Yo, found anything yet?” Came a voice from the other side of the chapel.

“Nothing but old paper” The scavenger rebutted, now turning his attention to the smaller of the skeletons.

“Well hurry up, the Watchman may be here any minute!”

The scavenger ignored the voice, focusing instead on his task, before he saw it. Wrapped around the neck of the skeleton, hidden by silt and the dim light in the chapel, was a small heart-shaped locket, covered by the blouse of the corpse. Finally.

Carefully the scavenger lifted the necklace off the bones of it’s previous owner, taking care not to damage it any further. Blowing away the residue built up over time, the scavenger inspected the necklace closely. Silver, with a ruby gem in its centre, and an inscription on the back: ‘Mine for all eternity’.

Regardless of what it said, the value of this find would be massive, so much so that the scavenger wondered why no one in their right mind thought to check these bodies in all the years since they died.

Crack

Whipping around at the sudden explosion of noise that began to reverberate around the room, the scavenger pulled away from the body, causing it to collapse to the floor with outstretched hands, and ran to cover behind another pew towards the direction of the noise. It came from the door where the voice came from.

“Who’s there?!”

Silence.

“You still out there, New Blood?” The scavenger called, drawing his shiv in his left and revolver in his right. After a moment of silence which fell back upon the chapel, the scavenger started to shuffle his way towards the door. Peering through the crack he could see the feet of a body, and a pool of blood. Moving a little more, he started to see the body in full, and began to recoil in horror.

It was New Blood, or most of him, anyway. The place where his head would be was nothing more than a bloody mess and Gray-Matter across the stone floor and walls. The scavenger fell back, keeping his weapon at the ready, moving away from the door.

“Come out you son of a-“

Smash – Crack

A bullet the size of a pen smashed through the chapel window, turning the room briefly from one of many colours, to just one of sunlight, then finally painted red with the blood of it’s target. The scavenger had no time to react as he faced the same fate as his partner, collapsing where he stood. It was over before it began.

After the dust settled and the room once again fell into silence, a figure dressed in all black, covered entirely from the elements, discreetly slipped into the room. On it’s back was a rifle the size of it’s body, and a single blood stained scarf covering it’s face. The figure slipped over to the scavenger’s body, looking keenly at it’s prey. It then noticed a small silver glint dangling from it’s left hand alongside the shiv it held. A locket.

The figure prised the heart-shaped locket from the scavengers grip and read the inscription, then looked over at the skeleton in the aisle on the ground. Without a sound, the figure silently drifted to the skeleton, looking at it’s outstretched arms, then the larger skeleton still in the pew. It lifted the skeleton up and put it back where it started: in the arms of it’s other, back under the eyes of the lord, then placed the necklace back around the corpse’s neck.

After the figure put right the bodies, it then offered a silent prayer to the doomed lovers, before, gliding back out the door it entered, with no regard to its kills. With that, the chapel once more fell back into its silence; property of the lost couple for all eternity identified by a small heart-shaped locket and the bodies of those who attempted to disturb that peace.