Chapter 1

"The clock struck midnight and through my sleeping I heard a tapping at my door.
I looked but nothing lay in the darkness, so I turned inside once more.
In my amazement there stood a raven. His shadow hung above my door."
It's eyes were black as coal, it's feathers glistened like Whitby jet. It stared. It flew directly at me and pecked at my skin drawing blood upon my nightshirt.
It flew up onto the window ledge and stared, it's coal black eyes drilled into my very soul.
"And through the silence, it spoke the one word that I shall hear forever more.
'Nevermore'.
Thus quoth the raven 'nevermore'".
I could not think upon what purpose the raven had, but I learned on how it had made it's entry.
The window latch was broken. I had planned to fix it before the storm had hit last night. Now I had to pay the penalty for my forgetfulness.
I secured the window as best I could. The night sky lit up with lightning. The sinister looking ruins of the abbey were silhouetted against they sky as the storm raged.
I cursed as I climbed back into my bed. The words of the raven were etched upon my brain.
"'Nevermore, nevermore nevermore never.
Nevermore, Nevermore never.
Nevermore, Nevermore, nevermore!"

The morning sun rose, reflecting in the now, still calmness of the North Sea. The small town nestled amongst the cliffs was bathed in the gold and red colours of the early morning.
Yet I had no inclination to stir.
My wife tried to raise me from my bed. She saw the blood stains on my nightshirt. She said I had a deathly pale pallor to me. She was inclined to believe I may be coming down with some pox, but we could Ill afford to pay for any doctor to visit, let alone pay for one of his concoctions, which could cause me future pain and unhappiness in themselves.
She left me rest with a bottle of brandy. I had no inclination to partake of any alcoholic beverage. I was neither hungry, nor thirsty.
I pulled the curtains firmly closed. That window latch could wait another day.
Then I returned to my bed. The raven's words repeating inside my head over and over again. What on earth could it mean?
Had I dreamed of the incident? The blood on my nightshirt proved that I had not.
Was the incident some kind of prophesy? If it did, I could not, for the likes if me interpret any meaning into it.
I drifted off into a disturbed, fitful sleep.

Whitby is a town like no other, nestled in a narrow valley between the cliffs and the sea.
The only means of access is a day's journey across the bleak North Yorkshire moors from Scarborough in the south or from the sea. To the north was more moorland and steep hills to descend to guisborough and saltburn.
The river esk provided our fresh water and there was a good harbour that provided a haven for many fishing vessels as well as the coal ships taking shelter from the ravages of the North Sea on their way from Newcastle to London.
The valley was so narrow, that our little houses were crowded along tiny alleyways and narrow lanes. Houses were forced to grow tall and thin. Some of them were even cut into the rock itself.
The southern banks of the town had steep steps ascending the cliffs up to the ruined abbey. The abbey had featured in the life of the early Christian church. It had lain in ruins since the time of the Viking invasion. St Mary's church had been built nearby. It's churchyard surrounded much of the old abbey.

After a day of rest, as the day began to darken, I started to feel somewhat better. I got up, splashed some water on my face and got dressed.
Downstairs, my wife was keen to give me something to eat. She had some soup on a low simmer over the fire.
I was still not hungry. I poured myself a small ale, but I did not drink it.
I was in the prime of my life, my early twenties. My wife was a similar age.
The town was so small and isolated that everyone knew each other. It had been that way for centuries, Whitby families married into other Whitby families. The only means of escape for a man was out to sea. A woman would somehow have to find a position across the dangerous moors. Very few ventured that far away.

It was getting too dark for my wife to see well enough to sew any more. She decided it was time for her to retire.
She said goodnight and kissed me affectionately on the forehead before ascending the stairs to her room.
As she passed me, I was drawn to her female scent in a way that I never had before. My stomach gurgled when it had been silent all evening. I suddenly felt an attraction to her that I had never felt before. I waited patiently for about half an hour then followed her up the stairs and into her chamber.
She was safely tucked up in her bed, with her nightgown on. She had loosed her hair, fastened it up in rags, so that tomorrow she would have a host of beautiful ringlets about her face.
She blushed at me entering her chamber and seeing her dressed so. I must admit, it was not my usual habit to attend to her at night. I had not slept in the same bed since the night if our wedding. My own mother was worried that I had not produced an heir.
The truth was that although I was married to her, I did not love her. We lived our lives separately as man and wife, but she held no attraction for me...at least she did not until that night. The night after the raven's visit.
I lay down next to her and lifted her nightdress. She had a dark curly mound between her legs, but I did not want to see that. I laid a hand on her soft belly. Without stays to hold everything in place, she was beautifully rounded. I kissed her pale skin. She shivered a little as the cold air caught on her dampened flesh.
Oh flesh! How I loved that word! I picked up some of her belly flesh with my hand, then I began to suck.
I sucked and I sucked hard. She found it pleasant at first, but when I had sucked the blood vessels to the surface, she began to protest. I continued, ignoring her pleas as I sucked harder I found that between my tongue and my teeth, I had acquired a new agility. I sucked, bit and probed until I created a hole. I made the hole bigger, then I found what I had come for. My sucking caused her adipose tissue turn into a thick fluid that I could swallow and ingest.
As it hit my taste buds, it tasted like delicious whipped cream with an iron like tang of back pudding.
When I had sucked away all her fat from her belly, I turned her over and bit into each buttock and each thigh.

When I finally had my fill, she was most definitely dead. I wiped any residue away from my lips and chin with a soft cloth. Now I had to think if how to get rid of her body without reflecting any suspicion upon myself.
Under the cover if darkness, I wrapped her up in a rug and bound it up. I placed the rolled up rug into a hand cart and added bits of straw around abouts.
Then I lugged her, considerably lighter body, now with no excess fat on it, up the steps to the graveyard.
There had been rumours recently about the ressurectionists coming to town. They were otherwise known as grave robbers. They would dig up new graves and rob the deceased or take their bodies to be sold to the anatomy students at the nearest medical school.
Maybe I could pretend one of them had visited our little graveyard.
I found a new grave and dug up the ground. I placed my dead wife within the depression. Then I realised that someone might recognise her from her head.
I cut off her head the best I could and placed it in the barrow.
I replaced the soil over the body, then headed out onto the moors with the head in my cart.
The sky was about to lighten. I needed to get back to the house before anyone knew I was gone.
I waded into the thick heather and placed my wife's head underneath it. I pulled the heather back into place and walked away. No one could see anything was hidden there.
Within a few days, she would be carrion for the birds and animals if the moor. Within a few weeks, there would be nothing left but an unidentifiable skull.
I discarded the cart, breaking it up as best I could and abandoned it amongst the heather too.
I walked unhindered back to the abbey and down the steps, with a full satisfied feeling in my belly, hardly thinking of the horror of what I had done.