BY DR. AGONSON

Part I: Discovery

A shadow raced across the lonely lawn,
cast in the rising of an early dawn,
the sight of which was like to me an Hell,
for I knew what dread things such sights foretell.
The house awoke unto the shrillest screams
which ended all the home’s so happy dreams.
The nursemaid wept beside the cradle robbed;
beside that empty crib, she lay and sobbed.
I left the scene, and tiptoeing my way,
went up the stairs to seek out Mister Grey
whose face last night was covered with a sheet,
whose heart had stopped, who’d faced final defeat.
Before his door a trembling cur I stood.
In fear I rapped my knuckles on the wood.
—And what? Did I expect an answer then
to come from out the shadows of that den?—
The creaking hinges filled my ears with dread.
The door opened, and I beheld the bed.
The latch, the lock, were broken ere I came,
the corpse was gone; I knew now who to blame.
I raced downstairs—the steps like ice were cold—
The arm of Junior Grey I took a hold:

“You’re father’s corpse is gone, and so’s your son—”

“My God,” he said. “What have these burglars done?”

“No intruder has broken in tonight.
Of inmate breaking out I caught a sight.
Your father’s form, there loathsome, half decayed,
it ran across your backyard’s open glade.”

His face no color held, his hair grew pale,
his manly legs were by my words made frail.
Stooping, he fell senseless into my chest.
With cruelest love, I offered him no rest.
I slapped his cheek, and shouted in his ear:

“You have no time to now succumb to fear.
Become the man; you have no other choice!”

He nodded with a grimace at my voice.
With tear stained cheeks he called for gun and horse.
Thus we prepared to track this ghoul’s dread course.

Part II: The Curse

What dread and foul a thing it is to die,
to gasp, to choke, let loose a final sigh,
to lay there helpless as they leave the room
—by kin abandoned to eternal gloom—
to know no pulsing warmth of beating heart,
to know that in this life no further part
is writ for you. O bitter fate of man:
befalls the great and mean this evil plan,
that all should rise only to fall to dust.
So why should not for life this dead man lust?

I saw the shadow flicker on the wall,
I heard a voice, the reaper’s fatal call,
but I would not arise nor follow him.
I clung to corpse, and heard his laughter grim,
“Then stay, O wicked thing, and be a curse;
now learn the life you keep is something worse.”
My belly growled with hollow emptiness;
I moaned upon my bed in restlessness.
I felt a hunger born inside me then,
to feast upon the flesh of living men.

Part III: The Hunt

The weary morning, like a beaten slave
who has no other hope besides the grave,
begrudgingly passed on from dawn to day,
bearing the summer’s foul, baroque display:
’twas here a patch of daisies blithely grinned
and sent their sweet aroma on the wind,
’twas there a worthless creek gurgled with pride,
a loathsome sound no one could long abide,
and did the sun not make the horrid dew
arise like mist and wash the earth anew?
Conspiracy of nature to ignore
the tragedy that rent us to our core.
How sick all beauty seemed, how ill, how mean;
how hard to see blue skies and fields of green—
and why should not the world be made to mourn
and why not all of nature lie forlorn,
when yesternight a demon stole from me
the baby I had bounced upon my knee.

The flames of hell ablaze within my breast,
the shrieks of madness bound inside my chest,
this bitter strength consuming my whole soul
lent me the force to here fulfill this role
of vengeful knight ready to slay the fiend
which robbed me of a child not yet weaned.
The pounding hooves, like drums calling for war,
the baying hounds, how like a lion’s roar,
and all the world was red within my sight,
no green nor blue but only crimson light,
so then I flew, half mad, not knowing time—
until I’d searched the end of this foul crime.
We came asudden on closed iron gate,
and looked upon all man’s so dreaded fate:
A field of stones, the markers of the dead,
and this was where the ghoul’s dread trail had led.

Part IV: The Call

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 calling, 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 darkness, and face all of my doubts.

Part V: Rescue

Below, the dad, his son, and his boy’s son,
all three among the dead—one with a gun—
and all was dark, and filled with baby’s cries,
and rage, and fear, and blindness of the eyes;
and up above, the friends, searching for rope,
scurried and dashed about, hoping for hope.
The dogs, they barked—they barked and would not cease—
chaos building to some awful release—
and then a bang, a flash—did he still shout?—
the boy still cried!—What was this all about?

A voice, the son, the father of the boy,
rising from earth, it triumphing in joy:

“That ghoulish thing, it lies within its grave.
Now find some means to lift us from this cave.”

They looked below, he stood within dim light,
and there in elbow crook—O blessed sight!—
the infant boy, the baby in his arm,
its little lungs still shouting in alarm.

From out cruel night they’d strived unto new day,
and blessing God, they fell on knees to pray.

Part VI: Epilogue

What dread and foul a thing it is to die,
forever in the bitter dust to lie,
what sad and lonely place to be interred,
in silence lost, to speak no further word,
for all the world to go upon its way,
in darkness lost, while they know light of day,
to feel the nosy worms here wiggle in,
to know your soul forever lost in sin.