20. Chilled
Amy decides to inspect the crypt and see if anything helpful might be contained inside. Gargoyles hang off the corners of the crypt and a frieze decorates the outside, depicting various skeletal figures. Amy swallows once, then reaches out to open the door. After a bit of prying the door swings open. Inside are a number of shelves, each one bearing a skeletal corpse. The back wall holds only one skeleton, with small statues to either side. Amy decides this must have been the patriarch of the family. She approaches to see if he was entombed with anything that might be of use to her. A golden rosary is clasped to the skeleton’s rib cage. Amy reaches out to take it. As her fingers approaches the rosary, the skeleton’s right hand suddenly darts out and grabs her wrist.
Amy feels a stabbing cold where the skeleton touches her, a cold that quickly radiates outward, up her arm, through her chest, down to her legs, her toes, her other arm, and finally to her head. The skeleton turns to look at Amy, and as it does she sees it gradually filling out. Ghastly white flesh grows onto its fingers, its hand, its arm, its torso. As a pair of ethereal eyes begin to fill its sockets. Amy can feel her own vision begin to dim. She looks down and finds that her skin now hangs from her arm as though no flesh lay beneath it. Her t-shirt droops from her like it was draped from a hanger, her pants and underwear have fallen to the ground, where they pool around her ankles. With a whoosh her hair falls in a mass. It has turned gray and dry, and starts to disintegrate as it lies on the floor. All Amy can feel is cold. She tries to scream, but only a dusty puff of rancid air escapes her withered lungs. Unable to hold its own weight, Amy’s body collapses in upon itself and crumples to the ground, decomposing into dust. The ghoul looks down at the remains of the interloper, nods to itself as though satisfied with its work, then returns to its rest.
Amy is obviously in no condition to continue either this adventure or her life.