The Fool hung upside-down, rocking like a tired pendulum. Nine inch spikes were driven through black leather boots into a rotten wood ceiling, barely supporting the body’s dead weight. The corpse was clad in faded, unclean fatigues. An urban camo skeinvest doubled over on itself, revealing an empty holster sewn inside the back. Long, toned arms hung limply, pointing as if about to complete a swan dive into the thick syrupy liquid beneath. Along the insides of the arms was an external veining, a scarlet latticework that crisscrossed from the fingertips all the way up to the shoulders.
The head was completely missing. Where the neck should have started there was only a circle of raw flesh and muscle. Next to a dangling artery, the spine was twisted in an unnatural angle, the tip jagged and splintered. Beads of blood fell at long, rhythmic intervals from the bone.
At the tips of each slender finger were small, half-formed droplets of the same sanguinal fluid, slowly growing fat from the vein drainage. When enough had collected, it would form a drop which would depart its owner and plummet down until it hit an immense pool of blood beneath. It was impossible to gage the dimensions of the crimson lake underneath, for there were no barriers or confines: it could (indeed, did) stretch to infinity. With the impact of each red drip, a ripple wake extended out in an infinite circle.
Eerily just off time with the sound of each strike was the thump of a dead drum. It was an unhealthy, percussive pulse that, like the light illuminating the scene, issued from a concealed source.
...thump... ...thump... ...thump...