The sepulchral chiming at the hour of the ox warned those not already asleep to shutter their windows. Gin Hue Chi burned with curiosity at the approaching chime. He had heard the bell once a month his whole life, but had never been able to draw enough courage to look. His parents and aunts and uncles had told him horror stories of ghosts and vampires that were enough to quell his curiosity. Gin Hue Chi had been a curious child. It had often gotten him in trouble. Nothing, it seemed, could quench his curiosity. Now, at twenty-three, Gin Hue Chi had disregarded the stories as a method of keeping naughty children in line. As he opened the shutters a crack, he felt the fine hairs on his neck stiffen.

In the dark a sickly mist glowed with reflected moonlight. A Taoist priest rang a hand bell, his saffron robes floating about him magically. The mist seemed to avoid the Taoist as he moved. The long mustache hanging below the corners of his mouth imitated the bushy eyebrows that hung below the corners of his eyes. His steps were so skillful that the tall embroidered hat rising from his skull rode smoothly. In his right hand swung the bell, and in his left was a stack of spells written on rectangular, saffron rice paper. Behind the Taoist (and this is what sent metallic fingers up Gin Hue Chi's spine) jumped a dozen corpses.

Dressed in musty burial robes, each with a spell stuck to its forehead, the corpses jumped in unison with the motion of the Taoist's bell. The corpses' arms would swing forward and up with the motion of the bell, gaining momentum for the jump, as the dead cannot walk. The bodies had started to decompose, for it takes a month for the spirits of the dead to return from the underworld to their bodies. They must then be led home for proper burial. The spell on each corpse's forehead served to allow the Taoist to animate a corpse and to prevent an angry spirit from turning it into a vampire.

As frightened as Gin Hue Chi was, as much as he wished, now, that he had never looked, he could not turn away. His eyes locked on the necrotic scene before him, Gin Hue Chi swiped at a tickle on his neck and stared at the swatch of white silk he found in his hand. A single concentrated gust of wind forced the shutters open, blew the swatch from his hand, and directed by some unseen force, made straight for the last corpse in line.

With a sudden upswing, the gust blew the spell off the corpse's forehead. Gin Hue Chi gaped as the corpse's eyes flew open and it jerked its head around to look at him, the malice in that look making him cringe. Swinging its arms around, teeth grown sharp and black nails extended, the corpse made a prodigious leap toward Gin Hue Chi. Gin's bladder loosened but he did not feel the warm, fluid rush. Muscles flexed and tendons rigid, he could not move. The best he could manage was a low croak. Those long pointed nails and sharpened teeth grew to fill Gin Hue Chi's vision and, inches from his throat, looked huge.

His eyes stretched wide as a saffron-wrapped leg blurred out to strike the corpse and send it sprawling. The Taoist leapt after the corpse and, before it could regain its footing, slapped a spell on its forehead. The corpse dropped, loose-limbed, to the ground, once again inanimate. The Taoist replaced it at the end of the line and returned to Gin Hue Chi.

"That ill wind was no accident, my foolish, young friend," intoned the Taoist. "By opening your shutters you have attracted an evil spirit. Fill your pockets and shoes with raw sticky rice and burn one thousand joss sticks. Kowtow ten times to your ancestors. You are a handsome young man. Beware of lascivious ghosts." Gin Hue Chi could only gawk in wonder.

"Listen to me, boy," said the Taoist, slapping Gin Hue Chi on the head. "Do as I tell you, and keep your wits about you."

Speechless, Gin Hue Chi shook his head in acknowledgment. The Taoist, ringing his bell, again led his charges on their final journey. The chiming of the Taoist's bell receded in the distance before Gin Hue Chi found himself able to move. Heading for the rice bin, he stopped when he heard his name whispered.

"Gin Huee Chiiii." He returned to the window and looked out for the source of the whisper. He drew in a short, sharp breath and held it, for sitting on a low tree limb was a most singular woman. With a sigh Gin Hue Chi noted her classic features. She was very beautiful, with a shapely nose and large almond eyes. Her lips were full and pursed and her skin war flawlessly pale. Her face was heart-shaped, the forehead trimmed with the short bangs of a young, unmarried woman. Her long body, draped in snow-white silk, was coltish and her glossy jet black hair reflected silver in the moonlight.

She whispered his name again and Gin Hue Chi, unresisting as if it were a siren call, moved outside, entranced. She slowly floated, silken robes and scarves streaming, down to Gin Hue Chi. Alighting before him she laid hands and head on his chest, coyly, and murmured his name. she gently moved him back inside and, dazed, he put up no resistance as the woman settled him gently on his sleeping mat. Disrobing first herself then Gin Hue Chi, she made love to him, her eyes growing bright. There seemed to be subtle, secretive movement just below the surface of the skin on her face. Gin Hue Chi, enraptured, didn't hear her shrewish laugh as it echoed and reechoed, carrying far out into the night.

Later she ran a finger lightly over Gin Hue Chi's slightly sunken chest. His grayish skin wrinkled and bunched easily before the tracing finger and a secret smile played at the corners of her mouth. Bells sounded in the distance and with a gasp the woman sat up, fear distorting the lovely face. Gin Hue Chi awoke slowly, and seeing the woman, smiled‹his eyes now underscored by dark smudges, the flesh of his face hanging loosely, and gums receding from his smile.

She bent and hurriedly whispered in his ear, as the bells approached. The Taoist appeared in the doorway and the woman, dragging Gin Hue Chi with her, stood quickly, and skillfully moved him around in front of her. The Taoist ignored the telling glare the woman gave him over Gin Hue Chi's shoulder and spoke directly to Gin Hue Chi.

"I warned you, my young friend, and look at you now. This evil one has absorbed your vital energy, and you yet protect her."

"She has told me of your abuse, old Uncle. I will not allow it anymore," declared Gin Hue Chi.

"She has your tongue, young fool, as well as your life. She must return to the Hell that spawned her. Man and ghost make no happy couple," lectured the Taoist, drawing the peachwood sword strung across his shoulder. "Boy, she'll do you to death."

The woman, fear twisting her features, eyes on the peachwood sword, moved back, drawing Gin Hue Chi with her.

"Hold priest," he said. She is innocent and I love her. Shall I now allow you further abuse?"

The Taoist reached into a pocket and withdrew a pair of Gingko leaves.

"Boy," he said, "press these leaves to your eyes and see what it is you profess love for," and he extended the hand with the leaves.

Gin Hue Chi looked at the beautiful woman and hesitated. The woman blew gently into his face and Gin Hue Chi fell, asleep, upon the floor. The Taoist, pressing the Gingko leaves to his own eyes, felt a slight shock as they imbued him with their power. When he moved the leaves from his eyes, the Taoist saw the woman as she really was. Her features were obscured by volcanic pustules, each oozing foul ichor. Scarred and twisted as her face was, the Taoist knew it was a face reduced by pure evil.

Arms extended, the woman sent twin bolts of white silk slamming towards him. Leaping high, he avoided the attack and the silk bolts rammed through the walls of the house. As he descended, he kicked out his right leg, striking the woman in the center of her chest. With a shriek she was thrown back into the opposite wall. Immediately she lashed out with a tongue grown to monstrous proportions. Ensnaring the Taoist and crashing him through the roof, she shook him violently. Gaining his wits, he slashed at the gross appendage with the peachwood sword. The resultant flash of brilliance and accompanying scream of outrage left him free, momentarily blinded and tumbling off the roof. Gaining his feet and his sight, he watched the woman crash through the roof. Silken bolts snaked out wrapping themselves around several tree limbs, firming her stance fifteen feet above the roof.

The Taoist leapt into a tree as a bolt pitted the ground where he had stood. He leapt again and a bolt shattered the tree he had left. Alighting on the ground, he stood poised, peachwood sword extended. He kept his eyes on the ground at his feet. From a voluminous pocket he pulled a smallish dried and stoppered gourd. The woman prepared to loose another bolt. The Taoist, still poised, uncorked the gourd and bit his finger. Catching his blood in the gourd he then pushed a paper spell into his mouth and quickly chewed it to a pulp. Spitting the pulp into the gourd he was ready. As the woman's arms rose, he dropped his sword arm and thrust out the gourd. The woman laughed, but as he started chanting the laughing stopped. The chanting proved strong and the woman, shrieking, was drawn closer, slowly becoming insubstantial. Finally drawn into the gourd, the Taoist replaced the stopper and sealed the gourd crisscross with paper spells.

Turning to a nearby cedar, he dug a pit in the loam on the west side of the tree exactly one meter deep. He lined the pit with spells and lay in the gourd. Covering it over, he tamped down the earth until it was compact. Returning to the house, he stood Gin Hue Chi up and forced a crumb of pungent fungus into his mouth. Gin Hue Chi awoke and, furrowing his brow, wondered aloud at what had happened to his house. The Taoist, in a fury, began striking Gin Hue Chi about the shoulders with the peachwood sword.

"You dare," he cried. "You dare to oppose me to protect such evil. You dare accuse me of unsavory acts. Take care to hear me, boy," and the blows abated. "You have taken me away from my duties and I must return now. I give you a portion of Thousand Day fungus. Eat a crumb each day until your strength returns. When you are recovered, come to White Horse Hill and burn joss sticks for your ancestors at the shrine there. With that, the Taoist disappeared into the forest.

Gin Hue Chi stared after him. He cocked his head as if to listen. Mumbling, he nodded his head and walked to the cedar tree. Gin Hue Chi dropped to his knees and began to rake at the compact earth.

---

Occam's Razor, Issue 14 Contents