10.

10.

I cowered against the stairway, shaking. The hand clutching my lighter with a white-knuckled grip jittered, throwing its faint orange light over their withered faces. Lips peeled back from white, jutting teeth. Blind eye sockets stared, stopped up by crusty dead matter. Wispy cobweb hair—what remained—clung to skulls sheathed in tight, leathery flesh. Mouths gaped wide in silent screams.

I can’t tell you how many there were, exactly—three or four—nor can I say how they were positioned, because I couldn’t hold my hand still. It kept jerking up and down, the light flitting across their faces, filling up their blind eyes. Maybe two of them were embracing, one’s head buried in the other’s neck. Lovers? Husband and wife?

I’ve told myself maybe those weren’t real corpses at all. Could be they were old, cast-off Halloween decorations. Very genuine Halloween decorations. Made of foam, or something, and dressed in old rags. I’ve told myself this, and on some days, I actually be