Heart Shaped Locket

The Heart-shaped Locket

The graying, muddled bones were lying

Within a tattered, old flannel shirt

Torso and arms only

The head and lower body missing.

Only one arm had a hand and wrist protruding

The other... missing.

As I had came upon them, a large solitary shadow

Vulture, or was it a huge crow, quickly rose

Flying away with some remnant worthy of keeping...

A snack, or something for a nest somewhere.

Who it, he, or she was.. in the heat of this day

I found my self not all that interested

As it disappeared into the remaining day.

Still… all this, this far from the highway…

At least 10 miles, or more.

I had been trekking for almost a week

The right time of year, and few abroad.

The only other sign of civilization

Had been the strange, burned out camp a few miles away.

I had passed that early this morning

With no life there evident, just ashes.

Ashes, and a hanging, naked, decomposed body strung up

With a torn piece of paper stapled to it’s bony breastbone.

The black earth below, evidently the depository

Of a lot of blood and other fluids

Some time back, fresh, flowing

Then dripping, now dry.

And any words scrawled on the paper…

Long lost to weather and time.

God only knows that story…

For it takes time for bodies to decompose

So what ever happened

Happened... quite a while ago.

Now this…

Here, I dug a shallow hole

To hold these remains

Showing at least a little respect

For what probably once was... vibrant life and living.

Moving the shirted torso and arm pieces to the hole dug

A locket fell out of the shirt pocket, attached to a long, tarnished silver chain.

The locket was small, gold, and heart shaped.

I placed these in my pocket and finished the burial.

Moving on, away a few miles

Out of reach of further curiosity, and smell…

For there had been a strange, stringent smell

I made camp for the night.

Sitting later by firelight

I pulled the locket out to better look at it.

Nothing really noticeable about it

Plain, crusted, with dried… did not want to think about that.

It did have a tiny clasp and seemed able to be opened

With a little knife-guided effort.

With the blade of my knife inserted, I forced it to open.

Snapping suddenly, it was found empty

Save for a little something...

That tumbled out, and fell to the earth.

At the same time, I heard a dark sounding seem to gather

And then fade away up into the sky.

Not a call, as much as a… a quiet, tired, sigh.

I reached down and picked up the ‘some-thing’

Feeling a kind of cool moisture to it.

Bringing it up to better view it by the firelight

Amazed, I watched it quickly disintegrate... ‘into my holding fingers?’

Quickly, I shook my hand

Grabbed my canteen, and washed them, and my hand clean.

It didn’t hurt, but in the fire light

There did appear a darker spot on the two fingers.

Some kind of light acid?

In any event, I threw the locket on the fire

With a good riddance on my lips.

As I bedded down, I remember the strangest feeling

As if my dreams were not going to be the usual this night.

Not after this strange, long, day.

Three days later, I woke up, not even aware of where I was.

Except for the shirt I was wearing

Naked, with none of my supplies around me.

Feeling confused, and raising my hands to my face

I let out a loud ‘What the…?’

And saw my hands were covered in blood and slime

From what?

Looking quickly around, I saw I was still in familiar wilderness

But exactly where?

And where did the blood come from?

My other clothes, my gear…

I got up and started walking confused…

I seemed to feel OK, legs worked fine

Where to go?

As suddenly, a large black bird-like creature flew down

And landed on my shoulder.

Why wasn’t I surprised?

It gave out a large squawk in my ear...

And the sky suddenly turned burnt-orange

And I heard a strange shrill laugh… rising, then falling to a subtle chuckling.

The laugh forming into words… seductively.. softly

Calling my name.

Telling me... ‘Come’.

To come?

Where?

And the night enfolded our hiker.

Much later, the fire then only dark embers

All one would have heard in the dark surround

To know he was still laying there, somewhere

Was the half of a loud, shrill, terrified scream

Cut suddenly off, into a hard... silence.

And in the morning

Mists that shade so many secrets...

In clearing, showed what they had hidden so well.

A headless torso, missing its legs

Nothing else to find around.

While then, from a still-darkened shade

Gliding out from the trees edge...

Slowly approached the Shadow...

Extending out a gray, bony hand

To place a broken heart-locket

In the now dead-man's pocket

On a silver chain

A little more dull than before.

Raising its visage to the skies

A wild face emerged, releasing a loud shriek

Sounding out its most terrible pain.

Loss? defeat?

Or challenge…

For far off was heard a replying song

The Monster... full, and free again.

While the cawing some-thing flew off

Looking for fresh meat.

And the Shadow turned, and looked hard

Into my mind and grinned.

‘Next?’