Brian Egan

There was a phantom 
It walked through the forest at night 
It took the form of a rotted carcass 
Insides hollow, rotted down to bone 

at nightfall it walks 
It’s movement rigid, like a puppet 
strung along by a puppeteer with arthritic hands 
Step by step, its flesh barely there anymore 

yet somehow still moving, still walking It makes its way to the nearby village 
Stopping at the windowsill of a merchant’s house Staring through the window 
Without any eyes 
Staring at the merchant 

His family sleep inside, 
none of them aware 
None except for the merchant, 
who sees it standing right there 

He’s been expecting it 
this is one of many times 
That the walking corpse has haunted him 
Lurking on his property, 

waiting to find him 
Once it does 
once it sees the merchant 
It’s blackened jaw unhinges
enough to engorge a person’s head 
Although its vocal chords are long gone It lets out an inhuman howl, 

One made from the combined screams 
Of a thousand men, 
each of them in unspeakable anguish 
Yearning for their torture to be heard 

As the howling corpse screeches 
Screeches out into the night, 
Licks of flame begin to grow 
growing on its exposed tendons and foul-smelling brown flesh 

Growing and growing, 
consuming the corpse 
until it’s completely ablaze 
Still screaming as it burns away, reduced to nothing 
Embers flying 

Floated by the wind 
like a swarm of fireflies 
Adrift in the air 
Then it's nothing, 
The last of the screams fade 
as if the strange spirit never existed no one in the village is none the wiser 

then the merchant 
he buried that corpse 
Deep in the forest 
And burned it in it’s grave 
He knows he is damned 
Woefully, horribly damned