62 - Ninth Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - The Dead Woman's Tongue

Miu rose once again. She stepped carefully among the stones, once more going for the furthest candle, the one nearest the darkness, and brought it back.

"There are many traditions that Japanese people have brought to this place. Shinto, Buddhism, Daoism, from Japan, China, Korea, sometimes further afield. Such stories have power over people's hearts and minds. I call this tale

THE DEAD WOMAN'S TONGUE

In the darkness of the cellar room, the door locked, Yuki lay astride the woman's corpse, her mouth pressed upon hers. The living woman was smaller than the dead one, and her skin prickled at the touch of those cold breasts against her own, the taste of those unmoving lips against hers.

Yuki worked for the Japanese funeral home in Dagon's Hollow. An assistant who washed and prepared the bodies for viewing or cremation. She was plain to look at, neither punk nor prep, too pudgy to be thin but too thin to be a big, beautiful woman. Her long hair was the brown of mouse fur, and she wore braces as an adult because her parents had not been able to afford them as a child.

As she lay upon the corpse, Yuki's mind went over and over through the formulae she had learned. The spell, the mantra, the strange sequence of syllables that would direct her thoughts and mind and spirit toward a single goal: to make the dead body beneath her move once again. As the hours passed, and the formulae rang over and over through her mind, all else fell away.

Yuki's interest, her hobby, her sole passion was in the more esoteric forms of Buddhism. Her grandmother had told her about the religion when she was growing up, and her interest had increased as an adult. There are so many forms of Buddhism in different parts of the world, and they interact oddly with so many different religions and cultures. As a teenager she had seen the horror movies that came out of Japan and Southeast Asia, the ominous Buddhist chanting and the strange Taoist sorcerers. Yet what caught and held her attention was a story from Tibet, of the rolang.

As the night grew old, all sense of the chill of the room faded away. All sensation of time. Yuki stared down into the face of the woman she kissed. She willed those heavy lids to open, that smooth brow to crease. Over and over the spell ran through her, and more and more of herself did she pour into that singular act of will.

The rolang was a corpse that walked. The ngagspa, or sorcerer, would lie upon it in the dark, chanting the mantra in their mind. It was very important that they did not let their thoughts stray. If they were successful, the corpse would rise, and try to flee or fight. This too, could not be permitted, for a walking corpse can accomplish much evil.

The heat from Yuki's body seemed leeched from her. She felt her consciousness stray. The body beneath her, a woman who had died suddenly of a **** overdose, still in the prime of her life, grew warm beneath her. Despite the chill of the room, cold sweat beaded Yuki's body. It traveled down her skin in rivulets to drip onto the naked corpse below.

Slowly, as if waking from a dream, the eyelid open. Something stared out from those dead eyes. Something cold and alien to life as Yuki knew it. The body lurched with terrible strength, nearly throwing Yuki off. She clung to the naked form, her mouth still pressed against hers. Uncoordinated, newborn in darkness, the creature lunged about, slamming into walls and furniture, the naked, pale figure of Yuki clinging to her body as a lover might have clung to her in life.

It was the tongue Yuki was after. The corpse's tongue, bitten off in such a rite, was said to be a potent talisman. Why she wanted it, I do not know. Perhaps in her loneliness, she simply wished to have it, even if only to possess it. Such desire is a sin, but one that Yuki was prepared to accept.

Unable to pull her off, the corpse sought other means. Her cold hands went down the length of Yuki's body. Not with the amateur fumblings of inexperienced young men, but the soft, determined caress of a woman of some experience. The dark eyes found and held Yuki's as the fingers found her buttocks. Rubbed and squeezed. Drew back some of that warmth to the young woman's genitals. The fingers walked lower, cold as spider-legs, to pry apart the labia.

Everyone else was gone from the building. The corpse was due to cremation. The conditions would never be more perfect. Yuki knew she had only tonight to try her ritual, and her body shook with excitement as she locked the door from within and disrobed, already mentally repeating the mantra in her mind.

Something cold and wet slid out of the corpse's vagina. Something that touched the open and unprotected cunny of the world-be sorcerer. Yuki's eyes widened as she realized that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong, but she dared not release the corpse from her grasp. She could taste the breath of the grave in her own mouth, and those dark eyes held her as that cold something pushed deeper inside of her body. It was a more terrible trial than Yuki had imagined, but she held on, her faith and determination fierce even as she felt that cold, unseen thing **** her cunny walls apart as it moved up her birth canal, like a hideous reversal of life.

Until it reached her cervix.

Some women know the pain of a sudden, jarring impact against their cervix. How it instinctively makes them wish to curl forward, the pain a living thing. Mothers who have given birth know the opposite sensation, the weird stretching as it dilates, as something heavy pushes the ring of muscle apart from within. That night, Yuki experienced both. Tears streamed down her face as the corpse held her, not fighting now, that thing that had crept out of it slowly pressing on the mouth of Yuki's womb—and forcing its way in.

Yuki's eyes saw a strange triumph in those dead eyes, as the cold mass settled itself in the young woman's pelvis. Hot blood dripped from between Yuki's legs onto the floor, her body felt cored open. Then, finally, the dead woman's lips parted. A dry mass pressed itself into Yuki's. Further and further, like the first man that had ever kissed her, a hateful intrusion that had put Yuki off dating for years.

When their teeth clicked together, Yuki bit. She had to chew, grinding her teeth to sever the bloodless stump—and when at last her teeth met, and the rite was complete, the corpse collapsed, with Yuki on top of it.

The body was cremated, the ashes given to the family, interred here in this cemetery. All except the tongue.

"What happened to Yuki?" Asenath asked.

"Did it all really happen?" Miu asked, almost as if to ignore the question. "Was it all in Yuki's head? Did the corpse walk, and did something enter her body? Afterwards, when she told em the story, she felt it was so surreal, that perhaps it had all been a dream. That she had imagined doing those things. There was nothing left of the incident, except for this."

From within a fold of her kimono, Miu drew forth a dark triangle of dried flesh. A hole had been pierced through it, so that it could hang from a cord, as it did now. Like an obscene lodestone, it seemed to hang at an odd angle, attracted by some invisible ****.

"As for Yuki—there was another consequence of that night. Perhaps I will tell of it later."

So saying, Miu returned the object to her robe, and pinched out the candle flame. The darkness drew in.