The Pirate’s Revenge

Photo by Arian Fernandez: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-dressed-as-a-pirate-16228392/

Ireland, 1720

Dead Man Walking

Just at the time when the moon goddess Rhiannon was slinking back to the land of the faeries after her nocturnal revels, and Lugh was hitching his wagon on the eastern Irish plains to begin his daily journey through the sky, the dead reposed as usual at the Ballyhollow cemetery. The silence was broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves or the distant hoot of an owl. The air was saturated with the scent of damp earth and decaying vegetation, and slightly humid, as though a veil of tears hung about the place.

From the shadows of the graveyard’s far corner, a solitary crypt stood apart from the rest. Its once-grand stone facade was crumbling, with ivy creeping up its sides and dark moss clinging to the weathered surface. The door, a massive slab of wood reinforced with iron bands, bore the scars of time and neglect. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the door began to creak open. The sound was a drawn-out wail, like the mournful cry of a lost soul, echoing through the stillness.

A figure emerged from the crypt, staggering into the misty graveyard. It was a zombie pirate, his presence both grotesque and tragic. His skin, a sickly, mottled gray-green, clung loosely to his bony…