Saint Roch Graveyard

A place that hides more than the dead.

It was early in the morning, and the pirates had hiked up the mountain. Rose hadn't been here before, and Michael had her and Aleksey carry shovels up the route. The wrought iron gate appeared as in a movie. They had climbed the mountain from the south and there the sun had just climbed above the horizon and burned the dew away into a morning fog. But the gate lay in the shadows on the northern side., it was adorned with skull and cross bone casts, as if the maker wanted to scare people away. Well they probably had a point, as below that hung a weathered yellow sign with a biohazard symbol.

"What are we doing here again?" Rose asked to herself.

History

The Saint Roch Graveyard was established in the year of the lord 1347 and the last person was buried there in 1355, the gates were closed to never to be opened again. It was that region's place to bury the victims of the Bubonic Plague, better known as the Black Death. The site was remote, far away from settlements, without any farmlands nearby. And the few who lived near the mountain avoided it from then on.

Archeology

But recent research has found that the people of old couldn't have picked a worse site. The earth up the north side of the mountain is cold, the sun never touches it, the ground is of a wet type of clay that is self sealing and closes off air. When the archeologists in the 1960's started digging, they found corpses barely rotten away, eyes staring up at them. And the smell that came up from the graves turned a few stomachs. They quickly closed the graves again, and got the hell away from the cemetery, only slowing down enough to slap a new warning on the gate, without doing any actual scientific research.

Theoretically nothing should remain from the once feared disease, but no-one wants to dig to find out. Or better, no-one wanted to pay to have someone dig it up, with the economy so bad, there wasn't any money for research to this far off place.

Digging

And money was also the reason the pirates where here, following an old story Michael had heared early in his pirating career. They needed the treasure to pay A.G. Trading for new guns for the Red Sunrise.

"We shouldn't have to dig deep, so we won't reach the graves." Michael didn't sound at all convincing. But they had barely scrapped the grass sods of the survace before they hit something. Some manoeuvering with the shovel cleared away the earth and the top of an chest was visible, steel hinges on one side, a padlock on the other. "Too small for a body." Aleksey said as he hit the lock with his shovel, and flipped up the lid with the edge .

Type

Field

Who is Saint Roch

St. Roch is a Catholic patron saint of the sick, especially those suffering from plague and epidemics. But also of dogs. He is often depicted as a wanderer with a cloack and a hat, accompanied by a dog with a bandaged leg.

This may be based on the pre-christian origin believe that the first burial was to guide the dead towards the afterlife. Not willing to burden that task with the first human that was laid to rest there, they buried a dog first. So if you ever see a lonely, ghostly, dog near a cementary, it may be trying to show you, or someone else, the way.