What Lies Beneath The Unmarked Grave?

What Lies Beneath The Unmarked Grave?


Billowing clouds
dark and gray
forming cathedral pillars in the sky
but a dark sinister cathedral
built to receive dark gods and dark sacrifices


The lightning flashed
and the thunder roared
but not a drop of rain poured
for Rennes-le-Chateau like many spots on this planet would suffer drought and intense heat
this summer of 2015.



And Simon Delaney nephew of famed British archaeologist Sir Cedric Delany
trying to become a notable archaeologist in his own right
was about to open an unmarked grave in the cemetery of Saint Mary Magdalene Church
He had finally got all the necessary paperwork from 3 different levels of French government and bureaucracy- municipal, regional and national to open the grave
as well as the permission of the parish and the diocese,


So now in this place haunted by the ghost of Berenger Sauniere and the greedy Gollums of tourist guides
living off the avails of Dan Brown and conspiracy theorists
he Simon Delaney was about to open an unmarked grave-
a grave he believed would be as significant as Howard Carter's find of Tutankhamun.


But when he opened the grave-
nothing was there-
it was as empty as the inside of a 21st Century Western world church on a Sunday morning.


The old caretaker of the cemetery who looked as if he walked straight off the set of an old Boris Karloff movie
approached carrying a bottle of wine that he sipped from
the caretaker laughed and said the unmarked grave had been opened 3 years ago this summer by a grave robber
who did not bother with the niceties of municipal, regional and national permits
nor with parish and diocesan permission
Rather he had just entered with a shovel on a moonlit night
and started digging
When the previous graveyard caretaker had objected, the grave robber just shot the man (thus leaving a job opening for he the heavy wine drinker to fill) while singing the song from South Pacific that began, "Some enchanted evening..."
When he had finished singing the song and kicking the caretaker's body away, the grave robber began singing a paraphrased version of another song from South Pacific- his own version going like this, "I've got to get this gum right off of my shoe...

Later in the town tavern after digging up the grave, the grave robbing stranger having loaded the body on to a dirigible called The HickingBurp bought drinks for everyone in the house
The stranger said his name was Renfield and he had stolen the body for a friend Dr. Cadbury Rocher
to extract the DNA and make a new creation


And so Simon Delaney left the cemetery a grave stricken man
his dreams turning to dust
"Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return".

Someone had stolen the body of the Baphomet
The body of the creature he believed buried there
The creature whose body was found in Jerusalem almost a millennium ago by the Knights Templar
and buried there by Knights Templar who wished to avoid Jacques de Molay's celebrity roast
at the hands of King Philip IV of France
and Pope Clement V.

For what nefarious purpose had this Dr. Cadbury Rocher used the DNA of the Baphomet's body?
Delaney asked himself as he walked by a windswept copy of an old Rolling Stone magazine
whose front cover bore the image of celebrity serial killer Pan Goatee.

An unmarked grave
and no body inside for him to find.

Delaney found himself asking a question once posed by a character in a Flannery  O' Connor novel who was sitting in a movie theatre eating popcorn and watching an extremely bad movie,
"What degenerate produced this abortion?".


-A narrative free verse poem
 and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday July 22nd
2015.


Sent from my iPhone