Sunday Short: Case of the Phantom Bride
- Faiz Faisal
- 12 hours ago
- 2 min read
Transylvania, again… but this time, at the haunted Château du Lune Blanche.
They called it the most cursed wedding venue in Eastern Europe. Guests didn’t throw rice here—they threw salt and holy water.
Still, the rich (and the undead) loved the drama. And drama they got.
For three weeks, there had been… accidents. Grooms found dead on their wedding night. Throats slit. Smiles carved. Eyes missing. Veils left behind. The press dubbed her The Phantom Bride. Guests whispered: She dances before she kills.
Desperate to prevent another death (and more bad Yelp reviews), the Château summoned… Zombie Poirot.
Enter: Hercule Poirot, now 40% decomposed, 100% suspicious.
He arrived with his stitched briefcase, a cane fashioned from a bat’s femur, and that signature mustache—now grey, crusty, and shedding slightly.
“Mon Dieu,” he rasped, “I hope they have brains on the buffet.”
The Victims So Far:
Count Radu – decapitated in the honeymoon suite.
Lord Guttmacher – suffocated with his own veil.
Igor Jr. (the best man) – still alive, but terrified and now celibate.
Tonight was the wedding of Lady Lavinia and Baron Krieghoff. “We’ll be fine,” she giggled. “I wore a protective sigil from Etsy.”
Midnight struck. The couple danced.
Candles flickered. A violin played itself. Guests, monsters and madmen alike, drank swamp wine and laughed.
Then—a shriek.
Lady Lavinia stood alone. Her groom was gone.
But on the floor lay a veil. Fresh blood soaked its lace.
Poirot stepped in, sniffed the fabric. “Ah… lilac perfume. And vengeance.”
The Suspects:
The Seamstress Witch – bitter about unpaid bills.
The Ex-Bridezilla – jilted years ago, now a poltergeist wedding planner.
The Baroness Mother – disapproving, undead, and possibly a cannibal.
The Veilmaker – blind, cursed, and oddly fixated on teeth.
Poirot’s Investigation Begins
He interviewed the walls (they talked back), cross-examined the ghost cat (cleared of all charges), and held a séance with all three of the murdered grooms.
Through ectoplasmic clues and one very talkative mirror, Poirot pieced it together.
“She comes not for revenge… but for ritual,” he muttered. “Each veil… each groom… a step toward full rebirth.”
The Twist
In a midnight confrontation, Poirot uncovered the truth. The Phantom Bride… was Lady Lavinia herself.
Possessed by the spirit of a woman once forced to marry and murdered by her betrothed, Lavinia became the vessel for the vengeful ghost. The wedding was never real—it was bait. She had to marry again and again… to kill, collect, and complete the soul-binding.
“But alas,” Poirot croaked, raising a mirror, “you forgot rule one of undead matrimony: no reflection.”
She screeched, then crumbled to salt and moths.
But Just as Poirot Turned Away…
The seamstress witch picked up a single lace glove from the remains and whispered:
“Next time… we’ll make him the groom.”
Poirot turned.
“Pardon?”
The guests had vanished. Only mirrors remained.
In all of them… Poirot wore a bridal veil.
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