The Undead Priest

'Every man in the district has been at the funeral', said one. 'Who could that man be and why is he coming from that direction?'

The leaders signalled for the procession to stop and they stood by the roadside and waited as the walker drew level with them. As he neared, they all saw very clearly the face of the man that they had just buried!

He passed them on the other side of the road, still striding along swiftly at an almost inhuman speed, his head slightly turned away from them. Even so, they were able to make sure of his identity and they all saw the paleness of his skin, the hard and glittering wide-open eyes and the lips drawn back across his shrivelled gums as though caught in the rictus of death. And he was not wearing the winding sheet in which he had been buried but rather the decent, black frock-coat of a regular priest. He passed them by and disappeared around a bend in the road which led towards the graveyard.

When he had passed, the people in the procession began to talk fearfully among themselves, casting long glances along the road that he had taken. There was much discussion as to whether they should go to the mother's house, which lay about a mile distant, and tell her what they had seen. It was finally agreed that they should visit the grieving woman and check that she was well and settled for the night, but that nothing should be said about the apparition. So agreed, they went to the cottage, approaching the door and knocking loudly. There was no answer. Climbing up onto an upturned basin, one of the mourners peered through the kitchen window to see the old woman Iying on the floor apparently in a dead faint. Using their shoulders, some of the neighbours broke down the door and gently lifted her, reviving her with a little whiskey which they had about them. Hesitantly, she told them what had happened.

About half-an-hour earlier there had been a knock on her door. She could not imagine who it might be since all her neighbours were at the funeral and she was rather afraid to answer it. The knock came again, this time more loudly and insistently. Getting up on a kitchen stool, the woman peered out of the small, high window. To her horror, she saw her dead son standing there in broad daylight, much as she had remembered him when he was alive.

Although he was not looking directly at her, she was still able to see the ghastly pallor of his skin and the awful wolfishness of his whole bearing. He seemed to be half-crouching as though preparing to spring upon her when she answered the door. Fear swept over her and she felt the stool give way beneath her feet as her legs buckled and she fainted. There she had lain until her neighbours had found her.

The undead priest was never seen in the neighbourhood again but people in that remote parish still pass his grave in the lonely mountain cemetery with a quick and fearful step."

From Beasts, Banshees and Brides from the Sea by Bob Curran