Ambrose Peyton stumbled into the soldier’s camp. He fell limp to the ground and his old friend, Lieutenant Henry Hollingsworth pulled him close. Consciousness was leaving him and Peyton felt amazement that he was not already dead. He knew Henry had called for the surgeon but could not remember hearing him speak. Stiffness settled into his limbs and his mouth burned as if a smoldering coal sat on his tongue. In his left hand he could feel the cold metal of his revolver. The gun had been his father’s—a family relic passed from father to son. Peyton was unable to express it, but he wanted Henry to have the gun. He opened his mouth, but the words would not form.

“Chymer hon…” The words slipped from between his lips on a breath. “'n chrau 'ch boblogi.”

An ancient chill replaced the fire of pain in Peyton’s body. He fought hard to keep his one eye fixed on Henry’s face, but it was impossible to fight the darkness. Peyton could smell fear, strong and acrid, emanating from the soldiers who stood observing the scene and knew exactly how many surrounded him because of this. The odor of camphor, minty and pungent, and ashy tobacco merged with the copper fragrance of dread. It was an overpowering smell to him. Soothing. Peyton drew a last, quiet breath and passed from the days of light and life into the primal darkness of night.

It seemed an eternity had passed, but from this death he awoke. An extreme nausea induced by a sharp pang in his stomach, roused Peyton’s cognizance to an all enveloping gloom. He seemed to float in the primordial darkness like a spirit without a body. But a sudden, violent pain shot outward from his gut, traversed his entire body and forced him back into the physical world. The agony traced through every vein, burning through his blood like liquid fire. Peyton tried to scream, but had no voice. The tortures were intolerable.

Like a character in a nightmare from which you cannot wake, Peyton drifted helplessly. He was aware, but not in control. He could see light but not a focused shape. He could hear muffled sounds, but not words. He could think, but not act. But he could smell. Even through the physical Hell his body and mind were experiencing Peyton could smell the delicious odors of the men around him and for an instant he was allowed peace from the torments in his body. A brief memory of fresh baked bread filling his childhood home with the most inviting of aromas replaced the punishments. In that moment he knew that if he could have more, more of that human smell or perhaps taste it, he would be relieved of this malediction.

With an unforseen suddenness, the flash of the bright summer day stabbed Peyton’s eyes. He opened his mouth to scream and a long miserable wail escaped his useless lungs. He reached out with grey hands, took hold of the body next to him and drove his teeth into the sweaty flesh. As the warm, salty gore splashed into his throat, Peyton transformed; the churning nausea in his stomach calmed, the dark mysterious shapes within the bright light became the rigid faces of frightened men, the muted sounds turned into screams of terror, the numbness in his brain diminished and he could once again think clearly.

It was in that brief moment of clarity that Ambrose Peyton realized he was cursed. Enslaved to a hunger that burned his body and soul like the fires of Hell, his only release to quench the flames was with the flesh of men. He remembered the words above the locked black iron gate.

“Let none pursue…” Peyton spoke aloud in a voice that was no longer his own, in a language that was older than the Heavens, “…where Death now dwells.”