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It’s the end of October. The dying sun shines brightly. It never shines long enough, but that’s what makes these radiant golden days so gratifying. They are the last.
“Do you hear that, Stiff? Do you enjoy these golden days at the end of October? Why aren’t you saying anything?… You're always quiet. Then again, maybe it's because you're dead and you couldn't care less about what days can be like. While I might have outlived you, though not by much, it still makes me joyous about the last sunny days.
“I wonder… Why am I carrying you? You hang around on my back. You say nothing. Your face is blue, your eyes are like two pieces of hail… and totally useless. As good as a chocolate teapot. And I cannot just drop you! Ghouls are meant to carry stiffs on their backs. And so I do. Getting hungry again.
“The mushroom picker lasted for a good while. He was large, fat, and old, completely high on drugs, but at least he was a better option than stinking hobos.
“But we’ve already run out of the mushroom picker. We need to find some fresh meat.
“You know that book I found in his backpack? It spooked me. You get that, Stiff? That book I found in the backpack spooked me.
“I looked through it, and I thought…You know, I never had time to do anything good in my life. I was always busy with other stuff. So how about we try it now? What do you think? And maybe one day there will be a reckoning. So why not one go? That's it… Let's just skip the next one.
“Even though we are starving, we will not eat him. And we even can take him through the marshes, it’s a piece of cake for me anyway. We are not assholes, are we? And we’ll catch up with the next one!
“Oh, look. There’s someone moving. Some kid walking around. Looks stupid and lost. Let’s see if we can help…”
***
Denis was regretting ever getting involved. It was creepy here, even somewhat depressing, even though the sun was still shining, reflecting off the golden leaves. They say that there are evil spirits somewhere here in the marshes. A couple of weeks ago, a mushroom picker went missing in the area. The entire village searched, but he was never found. On top of it all, even though Denis lived nearby, this wasn’t a road he was familiar with. A godforsaken place no villager would ever dare come to.
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But Lena… those mischievous green eyes…
“Denis, I dare you to go through the Marsh alone on Saturday. Or are you too chicken?” Quite a challenging thing to say, especially in front of other boys. Of course, he was afraid. What idiot would come here willingly, especially after what happened to the mushroom picker? Well, Denis was that idiot. He had been dreaming about Lena for two years, and he was delighted to get her attention in any way.
But then this thing happened. Of course he said, gritting his teeth, that he would go and that he did not give a damn about any evil spirits or the mushroom picker... But now Denis was dreaming of one thing only: to get to the glade as quickly as possible – where everyone was waiting for him. As for Lena, to hell with her.
Denis sensed he had gotten lost, so when he saw a hunched silhouette flash by on the dry land, he was overjoyed – it meant he might not be the only idiot wandering around and there were other normal people here.
The silhouette emerged from behind a brown bush, bent over from the weight of a backpack, as it slowly hobbled towards Denis. But when the figure came closer, Denis’s hair began to stand on end. The old man was extremely pale, his eyes burned with insanity, and his mouth smiled a madman’s grin. More importantly, the “backpack” on his back turned out to be a dead, bluish dwarf whose flat head hung limply. The “passenger” was a shrunken copy of the ghoul itself.
The zombie came to a halt a few steps away from a stunned Denis.
“Follow me,” the figure muttered quietly before it turned around and stumbled off somewhere. Denis shuffled behind him obediently, unable to take his eyes off the dwarf’s tiny gray head as it swung in step while hanging on the figure’s back. Denis discovered he was unable to run. It was as if the ghoul had hypnotized him. The young boy continued to follow the zombie, his gaze locked on the terrible sight for some strange reason, trying to keep up.
Just then, Denis remembered his father’s large knife, which was dangling on his belt, his thoughts frozen with horror as they flew feverishly in his mind.
When the ghoul stopped, Denis already had the knife in his hand. The zombie turned around, wanting to say something, but the boy slashed out with the large blade without hesitation, slicing through yellowish papery skin from the bottom up.
***
“You know, Stiff, here’s what I think. Everything in the world is the way it is supposed to be,” the ghoul muttered, fiddling with Denis’ warm guts and smearing his sticky blood on the deep cut on its neck. “If the Creator himself made you for killing these ungrateful bastards, unable to appreciate such a sincere and pure act of yours, then just go ahead and kill them all.”
The cut scabbed over in no time and soon there were only bloody fingerprints left.
“It’s no use to stuff your head with all that scholastic nonsense,” continued the ghoul, probing the smooth surface of its skin that had boasted a gaping wound just a minute before. “...Preaching that everyone has to do a good deed in life… to make the world much better…Well, it might be that people do need these good deeds, but it’s all nothing to us really. And if it is so, then I will not abandon you either, don’t worry. There must be a reason you hang out with me. Who knows? The Creator must have planned it this way, and he does know better,” he concluded.
The ghoul pushed the gnawed corpse into a ravine. The body rolled down, rustling through the dry leaves that clung to it.
“We’ve got to leave. The boy is from here so they’ll look for him extensively. This is not some washed-up old man that smells of ammonia who no one cares about, you get it? Eh, you know nothing, you bone-headed dummkopf. Why on earth am I still carrying you, huh?”