Over the mossened stones came weeping calls;
from out that rotting church of crumbling walls
the baby’s voice, with loudest shrieking wails—
O how this sickened heart within me fails—
broke through the silence of the dismal air.
O blessed Lord, how did the child fare?
We smashed the lock upon the rusted gate,
we burst into the place that ends all fate,
we dashed like deer over the ill kept graves,
calling upon the only God who saves.
The splintered doors of the abandoned church
exploded as we ran through them in search
of my sweet son whose voice we still could hear
calling to us in unreserved fear.
The dust filled pews and cobwebbed crucifix,
the empty alter and the fallen bricks,
we all could see, but none descried the boy
nor saw the captor we longed to destroy.
The faithful dogs circled the floor and whined.
We also looked, but as though we were blind
we heard him call and yet we saw him not—
but then we found a clue of what we sought:
A ring was there, it nailed into the floor.
We pulled on it and opened the trap door.
His voice came louder now from out that hole
which led into the shadows of sheol.
There, broken stairs went down into a crypt.
Upon these moldy steps my foot soon slipt.
My fall destroyed the ladder under me.
I was alone and unable to see
what lay ahead in that chthonic plane,
nor rise back up unto living terrain.
So I was trapped amid the grinning skulls.
My friends above, I would not heed their calls,
to wait for them when still my child shouts.
I’d face the darkness, and face all my doubts.
Poem: Ghoul’s Crypt
Tale Told 