The Decapitator - part 7

The Decapitator Part 7 –

The process of transmogrification from human to Grave Dog is a slow and excruciating ordeal with many opportunities for folly; a carefully crafted form of torture with the aim of erasing personality through pain.  To purge the sentient human, uproot the soul from the frame through extreme pain, and then replace it with a bounty of pure necro-slime, is a process that can take months even for a witch or warlock with close ties to the spiritual realm.  Preparation for the grim ritual can take even longer.  Necro-slime is mined from the deepest dead pits; mold choked chambers where offspring of the old ones pack the ancient dead, lost rulers of the reclaimed world.  A burial mound of at least fifty cadavers is left to ferment with bundles of spider moss and albino bat droppings for years, even decades, slowly rotting, the flesh eventually coagulates into a green slime on the cold dungeon floor.  The chamber must be made of strong stone or granite or lime, none of the noxious gases from the exposed decay can be allowed to slip away into the Earth.  If the necro-slime is exposed to fresh air before it has properly fermented it will lose its deadly potency.  Many witches and vampires of the new world have spent years using zombies and other indentured slaves carving out these chambers in the deep Earth with their bare hands, scabbed palms, and bent back fingernails; many were left to rot in the same spot they died toiling under the witch’s watchful gaze, their bodies dropping dead from complete exhaustion in these dark subterranean chambers.  If the witches let their slaves eat at all their feast would likely be a hardy plate of rat guts and insect stew, or even a cannibalized fellow worker, most witches are happy to let their slaves starve to death and replace them with fresh meat.   

The victim to be transformed into a Grave Dog is placed in a metal contraption that should invoke images of the medieval iron maiden; after the chalk board of the mind’s eye is erased by horror they are strapped inside and encased within the artfully crafted metal casket.  These devices are said to resemble gargoyles and demons whose names have been lost in time along with the tongue of their language.  After the mortal mind withers and dies as it retreats from the horror of this realm and is replaced by the chaos mind induced by necro-slime.  This imbues the master with total authority over the Grave Dog vessel.  The slime is carefully poured through inseam holes in the mouth, nose, and eyes; great caution is taken to ensure none of the precious burial chamber sludge is lost in the process.  The slime is also said to cause total seething madness if ingested or if left on exposed skin for a short duration, the only remedy for it is suicide or death.  All of the slime is used during the ceremony to ensure successful transformation.  Incantations are intoned in a semicircle around it to impress its master’s name deep into the flailing psyche of the victim.  The screams of the victim are slowly replaced with more bestial tones, it is said that leaving the victim exposed to pure moonlight will also strengthen the blood bond of the necro-slime.

The future Grave Dog is left in a heavy steel cage for several days as the process winds down; its un-needed internal organs bubble into mush.  A Grave Dog has no need for lungs or a stomach; it will no longer draw air or attain sustenance from food for it is an instrument of death; it only needs blood.  The flesh grows pale, almost translucent, the muscles bind and form knots under the skin.  The Grave Dog’s head is covered and concealed by an ancient ceremonial helmet or magic bound leather straps to bind it from biting at its handlers in its rabidity; a muzzle to stiffen its strength until unleashed.  While a proper Grave Dog will never attack its true master its ferocious nature will lead it to attack anything and everything that moves around it.  The mere hint of life can cause a Grave Dog to roar with quaking anger; it is only content with absolute still silence, perhaps a reflection of their nature as undead, for the dead seek the comfort of the quiet eternity of the grave to reflect on life.  In this way the Grave Dog is like the ancient ones, the old ones, the space eaters who raged at the intrusion of light into their dark realm after the explosion of the Big Bang, and vowed vengeance on all life for its noisy trespass.