The angel of death stood proudly over its sullen battleground. The uneven rows were a testament to its success and glory. Yes, the Master would be pleased. Tonight, the soldiers of light would fall into eternal darkness.

A stone shroud, wearied by the ages, covered the angel, who looked with disdain at the humans mingling in the shadowy curtains of the dead. The humans had given it a face and a shrouded body. It must be thankful, for although it was the Eternal Silence it would soon be silent no longer. A mere three thousand more soldiers of death were needed to rise from the shadows. It had waited many centuries; it could linger a few more.

It knew its mission on earth; the Master would never let it forget. Sixty thousand converts, soldiers of death, must be gathered, for the Master to reign over the light. Converts from all over the city were already doing his bidding: three thousand more must die.

Dusk fell over the realm of the angel. A whirlwind of the dead rose from beneath the ground, and any human left in the cemetery was fair game for their wrath. The angel rejoiced in these deaths. It was, after all, the sole reason of its faltering existence: to kill.

Gathered before the angel were its armies, its precious soldiers. It had sacrificed for these spirits everything the Master had given it. Losing them would mean centuries more of this existence, surrounded by ungrateful humans just out of reach of its powerful fingers, death’s own powerful fingers. An existence of fulfillment, of torture, of death. Of itself. 

It looked out with haunting, expressionless eyes. Only those upon which death had acted could notice the hatred burning among the cold, smooth, stone. These dead could see it. They understood what it meant. Tonight was the night of the massacre- the destinies of three thousand worthless lives would be fulfilled. The dead were thirsty for company.

The streets of the city were wisely emptied of all humans. All the better for the dead. Their cloaked figures slithered, more than mere shadows. That night, the eve of October thirty-first, the sky became a pure black mob of swarming spirits, a mob of death. Silent screams spread through the city, and a river of mauve blood erupted in the midst of the newly killed. In the cemetery, the angel of death cackled cruelly, happily, to the Master as the presence of souls grew. New recruits appeared before it, gliding off to kill. An air of death spread over the city, an ebony cloud of horror and doom.

Children writhed in their beds as life was sucked out of them, thrashing until their last ragged breaths and their feeble souls rose from their bodies and materialized into horrid spirits.

Bloodless murder whispered through the trees and the buildings of the city. It echoed through the alleys filled with ghosts eager for revenge. Death was hidden behind every corner, every lamp post, every street sign. There was nowhere the tormenting armies could not go. Their power was great, their Master was great, and their vile deeds loomed above the unsuspecting city. The moon, paled with the horror of what it witnessed, waxed and waned, its eyes closed in an evocative gaze.

The angel did not have to wait long.  Before the twentieth moan of the moon all the vast reaches of death were gathered before it again. As the Master had wished, sixty thousand soldiers floated in ranks before his servant, the angel. Deep, booming thunder, the voice of the Master, sounded throughout the city.

Finally, after five long centuries, the armies of eternal darkness were ready. The angel had fulfilled its duty.

As the angel watched, the armies of darkness, the puppets of the Master, rose into the sky, ebony clouds that blocked the feeble light of the horrified and helpless moon. They descended into the city under its watchful eyes. As the first lights of dawn approached, the Eternal Silence broke away from its marble base and ascended into the air, casting one long, last look at Chicago and the Graceland Cemetery.