The year was 1666 in Paris, France. The sky was a mixture of grey and white and flurries fell slowly and softly. The streets of Paris were quiet, yet busy. A woman was poring water out of a bucket from her house; the baker was walking with his tray of baguettes; the butcher was cutting a piece of meat at his shop, and carriages pulled by quarter horses were filling the streets. The streets of Paris were filled with houses, shops, market places, and tall buildings made of stone, but none taller or more gargantuan than that of Notre Dame cathedral, a church that many have claimed to be the most holy and peaceful of all churches. But, little did the people of Paris suspect that it was infested-with a monster!

Ruberit, the twenty-year-old son of the archdeacon, was riding on his brown shire horse with its hooves clipping and clopping as he made his way through town. The horse began to grunt. Ruberit turned his head and first saw an old woman sitting against the wall playing an accordion. Then, Ruberit heard a loud chomp sound coming from the butcher, cutting the piece of meat with an axe. Suddenly, the archdeacon’s son heard a loud tolling of bells from the bell tower, and the citizens of Paris began to disperse. 

As he was riding closer to the cathedral, Ruberit gasped in horror and stopped his horse when he saw an old grey bearded gypsy man lying on the ground on his face near the steps with blood poring out of his side and his shoulder. The old man had a series of scratch marks and bite marks all over his body; his clothes were wretched and dirty as they also had scratch marks all over. The young man jumped off his horse and slowly yet softly walked towards the old man while holding the horse’s bridle. Ruberit stared at the man’s body curiously, wondering what type of man or beast would commit such a monstrosity of a murder. The young man slowly reached out his hand and suddenly, the old man grabbed it. Ruberit was startled and the horse stood up on its hind legs and whinnied. The old man also grabbed the beads around the boy’s neck and pulled him over to his face, coughing loudly and hysterically.

 “He’s a comin’,” the old man said with a deep tone in his voice. “Can’t you hear him? Those massive giant wings flipping and flapping like the devil himself?” The old man continued coughing blood out of his mouth.

“Oh,” Ruberit replied, “You must have hit yourself pretty hard on the head, didn’t yah?”

“He’d be comin’ for us all, monsieur. One day, he’ll take over the church; the next day, he’ll take over Paris.” He stood up on his two legs, which were shaking, “But he’ll have to go through old Francois through my cold dead fingers before I…” Francois dropped to the ground again, still coughing loudly and hysterically as more blood was spitting out of his mouth.

“Here, let me help you up.” Ruberit grabbed his arm, wrapped it around the backside of his neck, put his other arm around Francois’ bleeding waist and carried him up the stairs of Notre Dame. The grey storm clouds began to darken the sky, as there were loud rumbles of thunder.

“Merci, Monsieur, Merci.”

“Dad is not going to like this.”                           

Inside the cathedral, the stained glass windows of the saints and angels were on both the left and right side. The hallway of the church was wide and deep with its gigantic architecture of pillars, transepts on both sides, and the vaults on the ceiling were unusually long. Candles lit up the chandeliers, and in the front part of the hallway, the north transept rose with a large pipe organ below it. The archdeacon’s cousin, Jacque, was playing the pipe organ loudly yet slowly and its sound was mysterious, dark, and troubling. Frederic, the archdeacon, was sitting near the altar; reading a bible while his daughter, Lafidelle, was sweeping the floor. 

“Oh, Lafidelle,” Frederic said, looking past his bible, “don’t forget to sweep the other side; that’s where all the rats are eating the crumbs from.”

Lafidelle sighed, “Whatever.”

“You’re just like your brother. Speaking of which, where is that boy?”

“Don’t know; don’t care.”

“Oh come now, Lafidelle, you know you don’t mean that.” Ruberit opened the door wide, still carrying Francois into the hallway of the church. A lightning bolt struck behind him as he walked. “Ruberit, what ever happened to Francois?”

“Father, he’s hurt,” Ruberit replied as he gently put Francois on the floor, “he’s hurt badly.”

Francois breathed heavily and desperately as even more blood kept flooding away from his wounds. “Me beads, monsieur,” Francois added as he stretched out his hand and Ruberit quickly gave him the beads that fell out of his pocket. “Destroy him at all cost.”

“Destroy whom?” Ruberit asked.

Francois grabbed his beads once more and pulled Ruberit over to his face. “The gargoyle,” the old man whispered into his ear with a final breath, “beware-the gargoyle!” The loud rumbles of thunder were heard, and Francois closed his eyes and died. The two nuns rushed into hallway and carried his body to the graveyard.    

“Father,” Lafidelle exclaimed, approaching to Frederic, “Wasn’t Francois on the balcony of the cathedral?”

“Of course he was,” Frederic added, “the last time I’ve checked, but ‘this’ doesn’t even make any sense. No animal or man would have killed an honest man like Francois, who is such a good friend of mine.”

“Unless,” Ruberit replied with hesitation, “There might even be a real monster in here.”

“A monster?” asked Frederic, “In the house of God? Hah, such nonsense. Now where did you get an idea like that, son?”       

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I don’t know, it’s just an assumption.”

“And it would explain the many scratch marks that are all over his body,” Lafidelle added.

“No, it can’t be,” Frederic, answered with disbelief, “There are no such thing as monsters living in this church, and as matter of fact I can prove it. Come, let me show you two to the balcony.” As soon as Frederic and his children walked away from the hallway, Jacque stood up from his seat and stopped playing the organ. “Ah ah, ah, not you Jacque. Keep playing that organ.” Jacque began to sigh and play the organ once more. Frederic walked to the door. “I can assure you two that there is absolutely no evidence of this monster you speak of, starting…” Frederic reaches out his hand to the door, Ruberit and Lafidelle began to hold in their breath nervously, and the archdeacon opens the door widely and slowly, “now.”

At the front of the staircase, an old nun named Francine was pointing her finger nervously as she held her final breath and fell onto the floor with a grey colored claw on her back as the blood kept leaking out of it. Ruberit and his family gasped in horror and then saw a whole group of nuns lying down the on the staircase, bleeding to death as their blood kept flooding down the steps. The scratch marks were all over their robes. “Oh…my…god,” said Lafidelle, staring at the nuns’ corpses.

“This can’t be true, all these scratch marks, and bleeding, this couldn’t be possible. Unless its…its…”

“Real,” Ruberit answered, dramatically.

“No,” Lafidelle replied in disbelief.

“The monster is real!”

“But Ruberit, we don’t even know type of monster this is, or what it can do.”

“Do you both know what this means?” Frederic asked with a worried tone in his voice.

“It means,” Ruberit, answered, “that none of us are safe in the cathedral,”    

“How could an immortal being so godly and prosperous create a horribly vicious man slaughtering beast, terrorizing the very innocent, faithful souls of this church?!!”    

“Father, calm down,” Lafidelle added, “take it easy, and remember your blood pressure.” 

“To hell with my blood pressure, child! Can’t you see that I’m starting to panic here?” 

Ruberit looked down at Francine’s back and picked up the claw from her bleeding spine. The claw was 8 inches long and was sharper than a knife. “Why do I feel like I know this before?” Ruberit ponders as he grabs the book of monsters from his robe and flips the pages to see what monster that claw belonged to. When he reached to the fifteenth page, Ruberit was startled when he saw that the grey claw he found was the claw of a living gargoyle. “It can’t be. It’s the living Notre Dame Gargoyle!”

“What?” Frederic and Lafidelle asked.

“It says here that this claw matches the gargoyle and it will slaughter anyone at any given moment. A-And it also says that the monster takes a rest in the bell tower of this church but its more active at night. I think I should go up there and kill it by surprise.”

“Son,” Frederic said assertively, “there is absolutely no way that you are ever going to…”

“But Francois told me immediately before he died that this monster will kill everyone in this church and then everyone in this whole town! There’s got to be a way that I can kill it.”

Frederic sighs, “Come with me.” The archdeacon brings his son to a secret armory in the dark basement. “This is everything you need to kill this monstrosity.” Frederic lends his son a crossbow, a sword, and some arrows as the young man straps himself with the weapons attached to the strap. “But be careful, we don’t know anything else about this monster nor do we know what it’s capable of.”

“I will do my best father.”

“I know you will.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lafidelle said approaching Ruberit.

“No Lafidelle,” Ruberit replied “I need you with my father, watch over him for me.”

“Good luck, big brother.”

Ruberit hugged his father and sister and rushed out the basement. He marched straight towards the staircase until he stopped and stared at the nun’s corpses. Ruberit took a big gulp, grabbed a torch from the wall, and stepped over the nun’s dead bodies as he tiptoed his way up the stairs. He walked straight to the belltower on the balcony, and when he entered it, a flock of pigeons flew to the surface. The bells of the tower were large, wide, and heavy as they hung above the ceilings and beams. He took another gulp and slowly yet softly walked up the ladder steps of the tower and each step made a high pitched squeaking sound. As he was still carrying his torch, he carefully spotted a series of scratch marks and bite marks that were scraped and bitten on the floorboards and beams of the tower as they were on the bells as well. Then the bright light of the day soon turned into the darkest of night as Ruberit still walked inside the tower, worried yet cautiously unaware that his darkest, most horrifyingly life threatening fate may yet be sealed.    

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Ruberit said, nervously, still carrying the torch on his hand as he turned his head left and right. Suddenly, a few drops of blood fell on his shoulder, the archdeacon’s son looked up to find a rotting human corpse falling on him as the blood spills out of its body. Ruberit screams as he pushes the dead body away from him and he pulls out his crossbow towards the corpse. Afterwards, he sees all the other corpses lying on the floorboards and high beams of the tower. Ruberit felt disturbed yet petrified as he also saw that most of their faces were broken of and half eaten. And the blood was spreading from the bodies, to the floorboards, and from the beams of the tower.

Ruberit first heard a big, deep, growling noise and the sound of it was so vicious and threatening that it was like the sound of a giant ferocious tiger, hunting and waiting for the kill. The young man turned around with the crossbow in his hand and saw nothing but a black void. Then he heard a large flapping sound behind him and turned to the ceiling. Ruberit shot the ceiling with his crossbow, but after three seconds, the arrow fell to the floorboard where Ruberit was standing. A silhouette scratches the floorboard and the young man turns his head again. 

His nerves began to unravel, his body quivers in fear, and his emotions became unsettling, bewildering yet alert as to what is about to happen next. Suddenly, a large bell tolls simultaneously as a few more bells kept ringing. The volume of the bells became louder and louder overwhelmingly as he put two hands on his ears. 

When the bells stopped ringing, the silhouette knocked Ruberit over with its tail and he fell on the floorboard. And at the same time, a swarm of bats flew into his face and the silhouette lands right of the young man on its left knee. The monster quickly opened its glowing yellow eyes with a vertical line shaped pupil on it. It stood up on its two legs and walked closer to Ruberit who was still holding his torch and lying on the floorboard. The monster had a short snout of a dragon, two horns on both sides of its head, muscular arms and hind legs, and a whip-like tail. The claws of this monster were 8 inches long and are just as sharp as its razor teeth. And lastly, the creature was 12 feet tall and its wingspan was 17 feet wide. This monster was revealed as the living Notre Dame gargoyle.

“Maybe its friendly.” Ruberit said, nervously. The gargoyle roared at Ruberit with its razor sharp fangs and canines showing and with its wings opening. The sound of its roar was big, loud, furious, and ferociously threatening like the sound of a rampaging tyrannosaurus or a mixture of a lion and a tiger. Ruberit began to scream loudly and ran away from the gargoyle down the steps. The gargoyle chased him down the steps with its wings flapping and landed in front of Ruberit again. The creature knocked him over with its claws as the archdeacon’s son fell onto the floorboard. The torch fell out of his hand and sets the bottom part of the tower on fire. 

Ruberit touched his cheek and the blood was pouring out of his scratch mark. Then Ruberit got up on his two feet and said slowly yet angrily, “big mistake.” The gargoyle charges at Ruberit as he ran up the ladder of the tower, firing arrows at the creature until it sliced the arrows in half with its claws. When the beast swooped down towards Ruberit, he knocks it over with his sword. As the fire began to spread, Ruberit uses his sword to fight off the gargoyle while the monster not only uses its claws but also its teeth, tail, and sometimes its wings. The young man swung his sword as the gargoyle kept swiping its claws and chomping its jaws. Ruberit grabbed a rope and swung all around the belltower while the gargoyle was flying behind him. Then, Ruberit kicked the gargoyle in the stomach as it fell on the floorboard. 

Ruberit lands on the floor and the gargoyle scraped his chest with its claws and flew around him. Angrily, the archdeacon’s son fired arrows from his crossbow and the creature swoops down towards him as they still kept fighting. The gargoyle chocked him with its claws attached to his neck and the blood was spilling out of it. Ruberit picks up a dagger and stabs the gargoyle’s arm. He runs away from it, but the monster jumps on him as they both fell down the ladder-like steps. The gargoyle roared at him again and bit his neck. As Ruberit kept screaming, he grabbed the dagger and stabbed the gargoyle’s chest. The creature roars at the sky and falls on Ruberit. The burning beams fell on the gargoyle’s body and burned its whole skin. The entire belltower burst into flames and Ruberit limps out of the belltower, wounded and half burnt, until he drops himself on the floor, unconscious. 

The fire of the tower withered away as the rain and snow were falling from the sky. The next day the townspeople began to gossip; there were rumors of the unspeakable horror of the burning tower, as many were assumingly unaware of the rise and resurrection of The Notre Dame Gargoyle.