He turned intuitively.

Another one lumbered out from behind a dwelling to The Piper’s left. He stopped and watched the figure, tracing its path. At this distance it looked tragic, like the town drunkard who remains under the influence long after the taverns have closed. Bottle clutched to his chest, faint mutterings of a song escaping from his lips - or perhaps the laments of a once-happy man.

But as The Piper covered the ground between them, certain truths came to light. Instead of a bottle, the man was holding something that was pink and red and glistening in the early morning sunshine. The remains of his last meal. And in place of a song or words of regret, the sound of burbling wind was emanating from his mouth; half-formed belches released with each step the fellow took.

The Piper stopped now, a few feet from this new suspect. It looked up at him, no longer an individual in any true sense of the word; one eye glazed over and thick with cataracts, the other hanging down to rest on its cheek, suspended on strips of meaty string - the blood in its empty socket long-since dried up. It took another bite of the forearm clenched in grey, gangrenous hands, one finger bent so far back that it had to be broken (the nails crusted and black as if it had been digging for coal).

It chewed the meat in an unconscious way. This was merely a habit, something it felt it must do. There was no reason for it to eat anything at all; its digestive system was no longer in any fit state to process food and it was hardly likely to keel over and die from lack of sustenance. You could only die once. That was accepted, a fact of life. One of the rules of creation.

One of them.

As it worked the muscle and bone around inside its mouth, grinding the portion down until it felt able to swallow, it stumbled forwards. The rags it wore flapped behind in the mild breeze, but here and there pieces of its skin were exposed and The Piper looked upon the foul grubs and insects that had made their nests in its rotting body. Bits of earth still fell from its breeches when it "walked", gathering around its bare feet, waiting to be trampled back into the land once more.

The Piper often wondered what went through their minds, if, indeed, such uncanny vagrants even had minds. Were their souls somewhere else, on another level exploring magnificent territories beyond his ken, detached from these ungainly vessels they once inhabited in life? Or was there still some small fragment of humanity lurking inside each one, trapped in there and screaming for deliverance? Trying to prevent themselves from committing such unholy acts because if they didn’t, they would never reach the great hereafter and sit with The Lord and his angels and…

The Piper shook his head. He knew full well what this repellent wretch was thinking about. It looked at The Piper - as best it could, given the circumstances - and saw another succulent dinner ready prepared. It did not, by any stretch of the imagination, see a person standing there. Just food, and plenty of it; enough to last a good few hours, starting with that nice juicy brain inside his skull. This was always the first to go for some reason. He’d noticed this. He’d noticed many things in his time.

But The Piper had no intentions of being devoured. Not today.

He showed not a flicker of fear as he reached for the instrument tucked into his belt, a long wooden tube with holes down the middle and a flattened out mouthpiece. The work of a true craftsman. His own work, in fact. The dead thing had now dropped its snack and was "speeding" towards the main course. Those shaking hands stretched out, flashes of bone poking through at the knuckles, worms hanging down off the wrists like living, squirming bracelets.

There was now only a gap of inches separating them and a putrid aroma filled this modest cavity. It was just about to grab The Piper’s arm - and a second later force him to his knees - when the first note was played. The carcass stood paralysed as the gentle sound carried past its ears, or what was left of them. A second note followed, then a third and a fourth, until a melodic tune took shape. A combination of vibration and breath jetted out of the pipe’s end like a sort of magic current. Someone had even told him once that they’d seen shapes and symbols flowing from the whistle - musical notes of differing size and colour. The Piper didn’t actually believe this himself (in all honesty he put the man’s visions down to either terror or one sip too many of some intoxicating brew or another), but such stories could do nothing other than bolster his soaring reputation.

The Piper’s long, bejewelled fingers gambolled over the holes as he blew. Slowly, the thing that had once been a living being, backed away. Its arms fell to its side, bewildered by its own actions. And…aye, a slight smile appeared on its face. Its cracked lips parted, pulled back over browny-black teeth. This was more like it.

Without further ado, The Piper turned his back on his captive audience and started walking again. It would follow him, they always did. Even now, above the noise of his pipe, he heard the shuffling behind: the empty croaking. It wasn’t something that could be fought or questioned. When he played, they obeyed.

All his life he’d known he had a purpose, a destiny. That he was somehow different. But for most of his childhood he’d been wilful and directionless, finally cast out by his adoptive family because they couldn’t cope (his true origins still remained a mystery; abandoned in a basket in the Village Square). Training as a ‘prentice carpenter had seemed like the answer for him, a discipline and direction he lacked at that time.

Old Jed had been his mentor when no one else would take him in. He’d taught him how to respect and manage the wood, to fashion it into any object he wished, from tables to chairs and even playthings for the young. He’d enjoyed his studies, but still longed for something more. Something special to happen. An objective, and maybe even riches beyond his wildest imaginings…

He used to watch the noblemen, traders and travelling merchants who would oft-times pass through the settlement, wishing he could be just like them. To explore the provinces, and further afield than that, must truly be an amazing thing, he thought. They told stories of distant lands where a man was sure to make his fortune, and a different maiden would warm his bed each night. Jed had laughed and called him a dreamer. In a sense he was just that. He would never live the fantasy life he’d mapped out for himself, never in a million years. Or so he had thought. That was before…

This was now.

The Piper led his new recruit through the streets of the town. At windows he saw the frightened inhabitants pointing, talking of him.

‘There goes The Piper,’ they would say. ‘Listen to his music.’

Children idolised him. They dreamed their own dreams of one day becoming just like the man in the splendid tunic and single-feathered hat. But he was also providing an essential service for the adults as well, without which they would not dare set foot outside in the light - never mind the darkness hours - for fear of running into one of the ground-dwellers.

(This was the name they had acquired over the years. It made them sound more…human than they were. Not something that couldn’t be understood or reasoned with. The Piper had never approved of the label himself, likening them to some exotic new subterranean race which, jealous of the life above, had suddenly decided to come up and say hello. Why couldn’t people just face the truth? These were - or had been - brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, friends…folk they had buried but couldn’t stay that way.)

The Piper remembered how his own community had been the first time, how they had reacted to this unheard of occurrence. The disbelief and ignorance.

One story in particular had remained with him, that of a young girl he’d known and admired (from a distance, alas). However, on this Sunday aft her family and betrothed had been consigning her to the grave, mere seconds away from placing her in the freshly dug orifice. And all the mourners were especially alarmed to hear the woman knocking inside her casket, needing to be set free.

Now, in spite of the fact that all the people there present were conversant with how she had met her end - attacked and beaten on the way home from market - they convinced themselves that by some divine miracle she was still alive. Her beau ran to the wooden box (a box, incidentally, The Piper had helped to make; sobbing as he worked), urging those about to prise open its lid. The banging came louder and more frenzied. She wanted to be with her loved ones again, and he, being a devoted, caring swain, wished the same. All those lonely days since she went away, all the tears he’d shed, enough to fill a small lake, were forgotten. It had simply been a nightmare which had now relinquished its hold.

But the true nightmare was yet to come.

As the cover was wrenched off, the man had fallen gratefully into his beloved’s extended - if disjointed - arms, hugging her tightly, kissing her cheeks, her lips, her forehead; every available patch of skin.

Bystanders looked on, puzzled, as the girl went to do the same. Had she simply been rendered unconscious by the ordeal? they asked one another. Had the local healer been hasty when he declared the lass to be dead? Quite obviously she was not deceased, the way she was embracing her love like that. Oh mercy, another few minutes and she would have been six feet under. A dead ‘un alive…

How apt that last description had proved, for the dead ‘un alive was opening her mouth, staring vapidly up at the sky and faces above. But instead of kissing her paramour, her teeth had gnawed their way through the side of his face.

His scream had been muffled, so those who escaped had said; blocked off by the girl’s shoulder. The first inclination they had that something was wrong was when he started to kick his feet against the side of the coffin. Then one observer noticed all that blood inside. A horrible display to be sure.

And there were more to come, as barely recognisable hands broke through the sacred soil of the churchyard. Remnants of locals once fondly remembered were climbing out of their "final" resting places and attacking the guests at this rather premature funeral. Soon the place was filled with the unsteady hordes; some almost skeletal, they’d been horizontal for so long; all hungry for those who still enjoyed the benefits of breathing.

Most fled from the ground-dwellers as fast as their legs could carry them. But some did not make it. The elderly, the infirm, those frozen with fright, all overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

The strong young men of the village, those who had not yet been drafted into service but bragged about their fighting prowess to all who would listen (aye, and laughed at The Piper because of his scarecrow-like frame), came out to oppose the withered masses before they progressed too far into the settlement - where people hid in their houses and prayed for salvation. The bang of gunpowder and swish of swords could be heard all round, but in the end it did no good.

An arm here, a leg there. The outcome was never in any doubt. How could they possibly kill that which had already expired? The very utmost all these warriors could manage was to slow them down before they too joined the ground-dwellers in death, some as rations, others as converts to their tacit cause.

And this is how it went on. In village after village, town after town, they sprang up, one following the next. With no explanation, no reason. The more superstitious said it was a curse on the land, witchcraft and sorcery afoot. The rational thinkers banded together and stated that it was some strange malady, one which placed its victims in a deathly state then reanimated them after a certain amount of time had passed (but why then was the time period different in each case? critics argued. Some ground-dwellers had been interred many, many years ago, while others, like the woman at the funeral, had barely started to turn cold). No one could offer any real solutions; no one understood what was happening. But perhaps no one was meant to…

There was a shrill cry from up ahead and The Piper ceased his playing. The ground-dweller halted also. When he saw who was calling out for help, he began running across the town centre, leaving the corpse where it was. It wouldn’t attempt to move now; it would simply wait there patiently for his return - the stony grin breaking upon its face.

The Piper could see what the trouble was. Someone had disregarded his express instructions and dared to step out. A lad of no more than fifteen was being dragged across the dirt by his hair. The ground-dweller was female this time, a woman who had probably been sturdy in life, but was now like a deflated pig’s bladder: the pleats of flesh dripping from her, dry cuts all over her face and arms where she’d swum her way through wood and packed turf in her hurry to reach daylight. It never ceased to amaze him how they could do that; how strong they could be if they set their sights on something. Why, before now he’d even seen them turn over carts and punch through solid rock to get to their victims.

The boy was yelping as the ground raked his backside. The dead woman was hauling him off to a place only she could see, a place where young, tender striplings were for dining on only.

The Piper positioned himself in front of her, avoiding her free arm as she swung it at him. Great clumps of hair had fallen out, he observed, and that same glassy expression possessed her, the one they all wore. Until, that is, he started to play again, concentrating intently on what he was doing. Then it was quite a different tale.

She let go of the boy and cackled peaceably to herself, almost as though she’d been expecting this to happen.

As he led her off to join her own kind, he heard the bleating youngster shout out after his mother. A mother who had died a good year or so ago by the look of her. And The Piper understood now why he’d broken cover, if only to see his late ma again one final time (The Piper had never known his own mother, abandoned as he’d been, but he could appreciate what drove the youth). Except this was no longer the loving parent he’d known, as he found out to his cost. The Piper felt a trace of emotion and anguish for the deluded boy. Told that his mother was gone, only to witness her walking as large as life - as death? - down the street. Then the empathy disappeared. The Piper picked up the other ground-dweller and they were on their way again. Stumbling behind him, they resembled touched lunatics. But never did he look back once; for if he had he might have seen the boy again, the boy who was so familiar. A mirror image of himself at that age. Before…

Before his name had been known far and wide? Just a carpenter’s ‘prentice with a big mouth and even bigger aspirations. That would all change soon enough, though. As soon as he discovered his secret, his latent ability. Something no one else in the world could lay claim to.

Aye, he had been a face in the crowd who hid when the ground-dwellers stormed their village that first time, fresh from the funeral. Covering his eyes as the mayhem outside his workshop gathered strength. The dead like a festering wave sweeping into the alleys, trying to break into houses. Old Jed had seen the things take those young ‘uns, had seen how easily they’d swallowed them up (in some cases quite literally). But still he insisted on going out to face them, armed only with his few craftsman’s tools. He ignored the teenage Piper’s pleas, his half-mumbled explanations.

‘I won’t just sit here and watch ‘em take the village, son.’

Those were his last words, unless you count the pitiful screams as he vanished beneath a swell of decaying forms, his bones picked clean in a matter of minutes.

If only there was something I could do, The Piper had thought. But he couldn’t control them. This was beyond the wisdom of his years. It was only when they burst into the workshop itself, splintering doors and smashing up tables, that he discovered there was something he could do. There was plenty he could do (if only he’d realised it sooner…). Instinctively, as the first of them drew near, its chin hanging off on a piece of gristle, the cheekbones dirty-white where they split skin as crumbly as dried parchment, he became aware that he could control them, could master this new power rushing through his veins. He just needed to channel it somehow…

But he was also scared, overcome by the forces unleashed upon his home. So terrified that he scrabbled around on a nearby bench for a weapon in case he should falter. And his fingers, those long, artistic fingers, had closed around the pipe: a child’s trinket he had been making all that week. As yet it remained untreated, the wood still naked and cream (hardly resembling the shiny brown object he now carried about with him everywhere). But something told him to play.

And to his surprise the devils curtailed their advancement into the workshop. More than that, they all fell back - about eight in total, including the girl from the funeral - smirking and bobbing their heads to his tune. A tune he played confidently, though he’d never picked up a whistle in his entire life before now (only to plane and chisel at one).

The ground-dwellers parted and allowed him safe passage outside, where he discovered his music had the same soothing effect. Of course, he knew that it wasn’t the flute or the music alone that was doing this, but rather his own persuasive knack. The pipe merely allowed him to direct the energy from within. He couldn’t explain it. It was just so. However, the villagers didn’t know this. They believed it was The Piper’s harmonious notes that kept the savages at bay. And as he strode out to the edge of the village, the ground-dwellers fighting to keep up, he became a legend (his old family being the very first to offer praise). How did he do it? No one knew - including The Piper himself! No one cared. He had saved them all and was amply rewarded for doing so.

Thus began his travels. The fulfilment of his dreams. Dressed in an outfit more suitable for his purposes, the pointed hat with a feather stuck in it a finishing touch (the people expected no less of their heroes), he visited "infected" towns and hamlets, ridding them of the ground-dwellers in exchange for a few nights’ board and lodging. That and a modest payment. Well, modest compared to losing their lives, he argued. And most folk agreed. They were happy enough to oblige. Nobody could offer the same service as him, at least nobody he had ever come across, leaving the field wide open for him to set out his stall.

He’d earned prodigious sums of money during his time abroad this land, had met so many people - some good, some bad - and his myth had grown in proportion to his remarkable feats. One day, he’d decided, when the scourge was over, he would retire and live like a king. But for now there was still work to be done.

The Piper led his two prizes through the streets. He resisted the urge to dance to his own rhythm, although he had been known to do so on occasion in other locales - where the inhabitants cheered him on from the windows. There was no such outward encouragement from these people.

He made another sweep of the town to pick up any stragglers he may have missed on the first few rounds. The Piper found two more to add to his collection, then took them to the boundary where he had deposited his earlier hostages. He looked out over the assembly of around forty ground-dwellers, each one decomposing at a different rate. They gaped back at him, wondering what he would do with them.

The Piper had an idea they already knew. They had been on their little excursion, enjoyed the freedom while it lasted, but would be glad to return to the only homes they recognised now. He played his tune louder, steering them back. It must have been an eccentric sight, the carrion procession marching on like that. Though no less astonishing than the sight of them coming over the hill in the first place. The Piper arriving some time later to save the day once more. Payment had then been swiftly negotiated with the town’s spokesman, a sly-looking man by the name of Halberry. Could he be trusted? The Piper hoped so.

Now the graveyard wasn’t far away, and it didn’t take long for the corpses to find their respective plots. The Piper directed the operation, urging them to settle back into holes that they’d made themselves. One by one they pulled the sod back over, like a sleeper pulling blankets up over his head. Bedding down; the sleepers asleep once more.

The Piper took the whistle from his mouth, another job finished. As he walked back down the town’s path, he meditated silently. Would these folk pay as they had promised? Sometimes, when they saw the ground-dwellers were gone, people foolishly believed they didn’t need his services anymore. Why should they compensate The Piper now that the crisis was over? He prayed they wouldn’t take that attitude; they seemed like fairly nice people (an image of the boy flashed through his mind). He would hate to see what happened in the last town happen here again. Today.

But if for some reason they did decide to renege on the deal, he would just have to persuade them. It seemed to be what he was best at, persuasion. Of the living and the dead.

No, if they refused to pay The Piper it would not bode well for the population of this town. He might be forced to undo all his crucial work, a waste of everyone’s time and effort. However, The Piper would have no choice but to make another example of them, calling the dead to rise just as he’d seduced them back to their mounds.

After all, had he not raised them up in the first place? Raised them all up in his time. In village after village, town after town...

And if this were true, if he really was The Piper, what on God’s green Earth was there to stop him from doing so again?

©2002 Paul Kane

Visit the author's web site: http://www.shadow-writer.co.uk