Down There

The dead know only one thing

- "Private Joker", Full Metal Jacket

"That is selcouth", the guide told him.

"What?"

"Selcouth, that thing should not be here. It was tot here yesterday, and no one has been down here", he pointed at a staff next to the dessicated body on the slab. It was pointed, and the point was red with blood.

"What is selcouth, is it some mystical word or something?"

"It just means strange, unusual, or uncommon. My grandad used it a lot, and I just picked it up from him. Whenever I use it, people ask what it means. We have lost so many great words, youth seldom respect the past"

He was researching witchcraft in the sixteenth century, and this crypt contained the bones of a notorious witchfinder who decreed that any woman who had a skill should be burned at the stake, but only after he had had his way with them and tortured them.

He found the tomb of the witchfinder, but there were no bones. The lid was half off, and the coffin was empty.

"Watch the hole", a voice said. He thought it was the guide, but the guide was nowhere to be seen. His torch went out.

He thought he could find a way out, but he was feeling a bit light-headed. He went to his pocket to see if he had matches, and his shirt was wet...with blood...his blood.

He had been stabbed.

The blood on the pointed staff was his.

Was the guide the witchfinder? But he would be four hundred years old.

He was now scared, and suddenly he was falling. In the dark, he had fallen into the hole, and it was getting hotter as he fell.

He thought he saw a demon, claws spread, waiting to take him.

When he hit the bottom, the demon took him and said

"Ah, another meal from the witchfinder. We will allow him another ten years in his dark crypt."