Beautifully Dead - Chapter 31
An Immortal Affections serialized novel
Thomas Everett’s Personal Journal
Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia
March 10, 1862
I write this now with trembling hand, scarce hours after.
Our regiment’s winter quarters shall soon be abandoned as we prepare to march. With this knowledge weighing upon me, I resolved to visit the hospitals one final time before we depart—to offer what spiritual comfort my failing ministry might yet provide to those departing this mortal coil. I confess I have felt increasingly isolated from my own regiment these past weeks, the men regarding me with uncertainty since my wound marring my visage has progressed. It is only among the dying that I find any purpose remaining, any sense that my broken ministry might yet serve the Lord’s design.
The morning visit to St. Elizabeths proceeded as such visits to the hospitals have come to pass—too many suffering souls, too few hands to ease their passage. Yet as our small party traveled the road back toward camp, we encountered a scene that has shaken the very foundations of my understanding.
They emerged from the tree line like apparitions given flesh—five soldiers in tattered Union blue, their movements unnatural and jerking. At first I thought them to be merely wounded men, wandering confused from some nearby field hospital. But as they drew closer, I beheld something that defied all natural law. Their eyes held no spark of human consciousness, their mouths worked ceaselessly as though chewing upon some invisible sustenance, and the sounds that issued from their throats belonged to no creature fashioned in God’s image.
“Chaplain, behind us!” Sergeant Morrison commanded, he and Private Collins forming a barrier between myself and these approaching horrors. What followed shall haunt me beyond my final breath.
The afflicted fell upon us with unholy fury. No musket fire deterred them, no wounds slowed their advance. I watched in mounting terror as Sergeant Morrison’s rifle ball struck one creature square in the chest—a wound that should have felled any man instantly—yet it continued forward as though the Lord’s mercy of death had been denied it.
“They don’t die!” Collins screamed. “Lord Almighty, they don’t die!”
The struggle became chaos itself. My brave escorts fought with desperate courage, discovering through terrible trial that only complete destruction of the skull would halt these possessed forms. One by one, my protectors fell—not killed outright, but seized upon and bitten with savage intensity. Morrison went down beneath two of the creatures, his final cry a prayer for his mother.
Then I stood alone, facing the final afflicted soldier, weaponless and paralyzed by the magnitude of what I witnessed.
I confess here my utter failure of faith in that moment. A true man of God would have stood firm, would have called upon the Lord’s power with unwavering certainty. Instead, I scrambled like a frightened child for the sword fallen from Morrison’s grip, my hands trembling so violently I could scarce maintain my hold upon it.
The possessed soldier lunged toward me with unnatural speed. I held the blade before me and closed my eyes—not in prayer, but in pure animal terror. God forgive me, I turned my face away from death like a coward. Committing my soul to my Maker while my trembling hands yet held the sword before me.
I felt the weapon gain terrible weight as the creature impaled itself upon the blade, driving it deep through its own chest. Still it came forward, forcing itself down the length of steel toward me, its teeth snapping mere inches from my face. The stench of corruption overwhelmed my senses—not the clean smell of fresh death, but something ancient and putrid beyond description.
Through my horror, reason yet perceived what my failed exorcism attempts should have revealed: it is not the heart that sustains them. Whatever animates these cursed forms dwells elsewhere.
I forced the thing backward with my boots, withdrawing the blade from its chest. As it staggered toward me again, I swung with all the strength my terror provided, severing its head from its shoulders. Only then—only when that final connection was broken—did the body collapse.
I lay upon the blood-soaked ground, my chest heaving, surrounded by the torn bodies of brave men who died protecting a chaplain too weak in faith to save them. The tears came then—great wracking sobs that shook my entire frame. I wept for Morrison and Collins, for the creature I had destroyed, for my own cowardice, for this whole damned war that has unleashed such horrors upon God’s creation.
Yet amidst my grief and shame, a revelation seized me with startling clarity: I want to live.
Despite all my previous meditations on welcoming death, on joining my father in Glory, on finding rest from this vale of tears—when death’s reality confronted me, every fiber of my being cried out for life. Not for abstract continued existence, but for her. To see Eleanor’s face once more. To feel her hand in mine. To speak words of love that war has kept trapped within my heart.
In that moment of absolute terror and violent struggle, the truth became undeniable: I must survive this war. Whatever horrors yet await, whatever demons—literal or spiritual—bar my path, I must endure. For unfinished business remains in this world, and chief among that business is the woman whose love sustains me.
May God grant me the strength and courage I so clearly lack. May He forgive my weakness and my doubt. And may He preserve me through whatever darkness yet approaches, that I might live to hold my beloved once more.
After what I witnessed, the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds has collapsed entirely. I no longer know what manner of chaplain I have become, or what service I might yet render to souls—living or damned—who cross my path.
God help us all.
© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.