All her life she had been in that little house down by the hill top. A little house where no one dared go. All the little kids wish to befriend her but she was marked as they come. 'She be the death's child, chillen','� said an old woman.

'What happened to her grandmama?'� asked one of the children of the village that by need of harvest lived a mile away.

'Never can tell what happened but a child and her mama live there. But the child's innocence keeps them off the evil spirits or the dead.'� Said the grandmama.

The 'dead ones'� smiled as the child played but their eyes gazed in anger as she fled to play. They would show no sign of deadness within her presence, but when her sights were off, they would become twisted and their bones would show and their insides would come out. The foul stench was always present, and they would eat raw meat or dead corpses from the villagers.

But you see, the mother, Laura Stales was pure. She was stormed by suitors, but never touched. Laura made sure of that. The 'dead ones'� just sniveled in smiles. 'Let him in, let the new suitor in.'�

'What mischief have we now?'� asked the 'dead ones'� one day, as Laura Stales, was playfully seeking love in the wrong way. Her suitor took all her clothes, consumed her to ecstacy.

In deep pleasure, the 'dead ones'� looked.

But as Laura Stales and her last suitor consumed. The woman aged for she was a century of lack of youth.


The suitor ran in terror, for she was as dead as they come. 'The Dead ones'�sneered at him, but he prayed as he passed the den where they stood munching out the intestines of the new deceased.

'Oh God, help us all. Help us all,'� until he could not handle the fear and stench. He died a day later. He became dinner for a month. The 'dead ones'� had a ball of a time, gently sniveling, and quenching their thirst with his youthful blood.

Laura Stales and her daughter Nilly Stales must of been in some trance or their souls where too beautiful for them to not see the condemnation they were in.

'Mama'� said Nilly, 'can I go outside and play?'� as she had usually had done so for over a century.

'Child, not today. Today you will stay home,'� said Laura Stales, the most beautiful woman in the village, she had been till now.
'Are you upset because of that new girl mother?'� asked Nilly.

'Let the young girl play outside,'� said the 'dead ones.'�

'Nilly go to your room, I says.'� Insisted Laura. Laura then went to her bedroom. She began to comb her hair and she could see she had aged.

'I'm beautiful, not her.'� She said to the mirror.

'You are ten times less beautiful now,'� answered the mirror.

'You lie!'� as she began to see her face as old as a corpse. Laura Stales screamed.

'Let the child play,'� said the 'dead ones.'�

'You shut up you old....'� she cried. Nilly frightened, and began to smell the distinct odors. The walls resembled catacombs and she could see her mother scared.

'Mother what is happening?'� Nilly yelled as the 'dead ones'� approached them.

The townspeople could only hear the scream of a thousand for the 'dead ones'� you see like to take their time for their best dishes and kill them in their madness every century.

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