Dum. Dum. Dum. The low beat of the drum sounded in the night, echoing through the streets of the old town. Dum. Dum. Dum. The hooded figures walked through the dust covered road, gliding forth, all like ghostly figures, but all clearly real. Dum. Dum. Dum. The procession was led by a single lamp, hanging, swinging from a rod raised up for all to see. Dum. Dum. Dum. The single base drum pounded its note, setting the rhythm for the Processioners’ footsteps, supposing they were walking at all. A light came on in a house, then another, and then another. The small mountain town was waking, each house lighting a lamp in the window to see the ghostly figures.
The children would arise, at the sounding of the drum, and, waking up the parents, would light a candle and look out into the darkness, seeing a single firefly in the distance. One night a year, on the night of All Hallows’ Eve, the Procession would commence, striking fear and intrigue into the townspeople’s hearts. The ghostly figures glided down the village’s beaten path, past the rows of houses, past the children’s wide eyes filled with terror. The Processioners would always look straight ahead, never turning, never looking away, supposing they had something to look with.
For the Processioners seemed to have no face, and, upon closer examination, no figure at all. For all were covered with a cloak, flowing from where the scalp should be, to a yard or so from where the soles of the feet should be. Within the hood of the cloak, there was no face, no features to be reckoned at all, save a pitch blackness that could engulf all the light in the world. For even if they had walked at noon, there would be no more features accounted for in the apparition-like creatures then in the cover of night. For they were the opposite of light; they were considered, by the townspeople, the darkest entity ever regarded with the eye.
For this reason, and this reason alone, it persuaded all doubt to be removed from any skeptics, that these creatures, which appeared once a year, were not of human origin, but of some other species, connected, in some way, to the underworld. But how then, the reader might wonder, can these creatures be seen, if they are, in fact, darker than the night sky. The answer to this intrigue is this: they surround all in shadows, the darkest, most horrible shadows anyone can conceive. That is how they are seen; they are not seen, no, what used to be seen is no longer visible to the human eye until they pass. Then, only when the creature has moved, can you see what was behind it. The closest any of the townspeople came to seeing a feature on one of the Processioners was the slightest flutter on the tail of the cloak. But, save for that instance, not a soul had truly seen any of the creatures.
To say the adults in the small town, of exactly one hundred and fifty three, were frightened would undermine the thought of fear. For as the creatures floated over the main road of the town, no one, save the younger children, were wrought with fear. For fear cannot give enough explanation for the feeling of the souls of the townspeople. It was of intrigue, met with the vibrating feeling that one feels in their soul after hearing a strange noise in the night. It was crippling horror, met with the utmost feeling of curiosity, so as to not paralyze the victim with fear, but enough to not dare engage or interrupt the Processioners with a sudden burst of courage. For this was a common wager among the older boys in the village; a bet to see whom would cross the threshold of the main portal of their townhouse, to perceive one of the Processioners through nothing but the chilled air of the night. Not one boy had ever done so, for the closest point that any boy reached was placing the door ajar just enough to feel the midnight breeze.
Dum. Dum. Dum. The Processioners continued through the street, looking forward, not making a halt for any reason. The creatures continued past the houses, each one at this time having a light faintly glowing through the window. When they came to the end of the street, they lined up in rows and turned around, facing the way which whence they had come, as happened every year, and sung out their ghastly song. It was a song of low hums and voices, but with every other sound imaginable within. The sounds that proceed from the creature’s dark hoods cannot be described, for one has to take in the sound with their own ears to understand it. The closest anyone has come to describing it said it sounded like angels singing a heavenly song, but also with demons chanting a summoning; the sound of a child’s beautiful voice, and the hackling of a witch, swooping down on her broomstick. It was a sound that froze the townspeople where they were, not daring to make any noise, lest the figures hear them, and find ill favor with them for interrupting their Procession.
For the above has happened in years past. For if the ghostly creatures hear the faintest creak of the stair, the entity that caused the sound to emit is taken away, by some force of witchcraft, and is enslaved to join in the Procession. A story of long ago has said that the beginning number of the Processioners was only three, but over the centuries have grown to over, what the townspeople have estimated, forty creatures, returning every All Hollows’ Eve to steal away more souls.
If an infant cries, it is taken away, snatched right from the mother’s arms, or from under the soft blanket that encompassed it. But a childlike figure was never seen with the Processioners, for they were all the same from what the townspeople could gather. How can this be, the reader might wonder? The explanation is this: there was a graveyard, outside the village, of no human creation, with unmarked stones, standing up, similar to a gravestone that one might setup for a loved one that has passed. Within this graveyard, there was placed roughly thirty-eight stones, all unmarked, all standing up. Although none of the townspeople had ever stepped foot in that wretched graveyard, all had known by inclination that whoever was taken on All Hollows’ Eve now rested there. For it was not the body that was taken for the Procession, no, for the creatures had no figure; it was the soul of the entity that had made the sound at the time of the Ghastly Song.
From what can be reckoned in local lore-books, the day of All Hollows’ Eve had always been a time of lament for the small village; it was a day where the people would gather in the streets at noon, and lay flowers and plants on the street, either to appease the apparitions, or just as a token of remembrance for the ones that they lost in the previous Processions. The townspeople would put on sackcloth and burlap, and mourn for the friends that had been carried away. And as for the graveyard, the people would take white linens and hang them from the branches of the taller trees as to conceal the wretched place from sight. Over the years, the act of hanging the sheets had become a ritual, a procession of their own; for they would single-file from their houses, each carrying a white sheet, and would proceed to the graveyard. It also, as fate or some other force would have it, was the direct opposite way from where the Processioners would end up; making the hanging of the sheets a stark contrast to what would become that night. For the people would garb themselves in white, with the white sheets in their arms, walking slowly, to the graveyard.
Dum. Dum. Dum. The Processioners finished their horrifically magnificent song, and stood in silence for what seemed, to the townspeople, like an eternity. Dum. Dum. Dum. As the drum sounded its final three notes, the light of the creature in the front would go out, and all would be black, save the lights inside the houses. But those too would soon be extinguished, one by one, as the figures past, moving more swiftly and terrifyingly then before, back to where they had come. For their destination was the graveyard, the wretched, horrible graveyard.
