GRAVE INTENTIONS
By Ty Schwamberger
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press digital edition 2021
Copyright © 2012 Ty Schwamberger
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
Ty Schwamberger is an award-winning author and editor in the horror genre. He is the author of a novel, multiple novellas and collections, and editor on several anthologies. In addition, he’s had many short stories published online and in print. Two stories, “Cake Batter” (released in 2010) and “House Call” (initially released in June 2013, then picked up for worldwide distribution in 2020) have been adapted into film. He is currently working with several other filmmakers for additional film options. He is an Active Member of the International Thriller Writers. Learn more at http://tyschwamberger.com
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
Rodney’s dull, rotted teeth pierced the cold leathery skin of Becky Smithshire’s shoulder, yet, she did not scream. She just lay where he had placed her on the pile of dirt beside the grave.
Sinking his teeth deeper into her flesh, he swirled the cold yellow liquid that had spurted out of the wound inside his mouth. It tasted of ethyl alcohol and methanol. He liked the taste so much that, after coming up for air and swallowing, he lowered himself to take another drink.
It tasted just as good as the first.
Thirty minutes later, the body was drained. Rodney stood and brushed the loose soil from his raggedy old jeans. Licking his lips, he bent over, picked up his shovel, and started walking away from the body. On the other side of the chain that blocked the entrance, he found where he had stashed his shopping cart and tossed the shovel on top of a pile of clothes, aluminum cans, and other odds and ends. As his hands grasped the worn metal handle of the cart, random euphoric images raced behind his eyes. He smiled and took a step. Then another.
The squeaking wheels of the cart were all that broke the dead silence of the night.
The next morning, Rodney found himself in an alley. It wasn’t his normal place of residence, but when he was high, being alone was better than sleeping on a cot at the shelter. Of course, he never did like the shelter to begin with. The way it smelled. The visiting Bible-thumpers trying to save his soul. The do-good, feel-good staff. How other homeless people would try to talk about their problems with him. Hell, he had his own problems. He didn’t need to hear about anyone else’s.
With muscles aching, Rodney sat up, looked around, and saw no one. There were no other homeless people, drug pushers, or prostitutes wandering by. At least, none that he could see.
I’m glad I’m alone and all, but wouldn’t complain about a nice sexy thing to rub my neck right about now, Rodney thought. He could understand why his muscles were sore, but digging for his fix had never left his neck all jacked up before.
“That’ll do it.” Rodney slammed a fist against the steel dumpster at his back.
The clang resonated down the empty alleyway.
He pushed himself up off damp cement and rummaged through his cart. He wished he could get another fix to rid his body of the pain, but it was too light so, for now, at least, he would have to settle for something else to put in his rumbling belly.
Reaching down into the shopping cart, Rodney grabbed a tattered cardboard sign with a white string looped through two holes punched in its top and scrawled letters on one side.
Will Work For Food
He snorted then headed off. The food was just so he could get the strength up for what he really wanted.
Needed.
Exiting the alley and into the brightness of the main street, Rodney pulled his cart alongside a glass-fronted building until he found a good spot. Then he grabbed a coffee can from his cart, put the sign around his neck, and sat down.
A few hours later, Rodney poured the handful of donated coins from the bottom of the coffee can and stuffed them into his right pocket. He still ached all over, but rose to his feet, glad that he at least made enough to buy something off the dollar menu from the fast-food restaurant down the street.
Food wasn’t quite his drug of choice, but it was better than nothing, at least until it would be dark enough for him to find another fresh but untended grave so he could drink and get high again. Sure, he could buy some weed soaked in embalming fluid and laced with PCP like he had done before, but he never did trust the dealers on the street, so he wasn’t going to go that route again if he could help it.
Plus, he liked the taste of resting flesh for some reason.
Probably had something to do with his father.
When Rodney was a young boy, his father would take him and his older brother out on the weekends to go hunting in the woods. At first, Rodney had enjoyed the time with his father. They would hunt, camp outside and eat fried bacon and eggs cooked over an open fire. They would get to drink coffee and hunt deer, squirrel, raccoon, or whatever else was around when they raised their rifles. They also enjoyed learning the rules and safety regulations of guns and hunting from their father.
All the happiness of their time outdoors ended one chilly November morning when his father accidentally shot another hunter.
Rodney could still remember how his father had freaked out instead of remaining cool, calm, and collected, as he had instructed his boys, so many times before.
How the three of them ran over to the fallen hunter, his father babbling about how he couldn’t go to jail, had plans, dreams, etc. Instantly, they could tell the guy was dead. The gaping hole in his forehead and the blood pooling around the man’s body gave it away.
One of the rules of hunting their father had always instilled in the boys was “whatever you shoot out here in the wild you eat….” And though it was horrible at the time, deep down Rodney understood that you
shouldn’t let anything go to waste. Even if it was a body…
So, that was exactly what they did.
They filleted, grilled, and ate the man’s legs, arms and even choked down an innard or two.
Waste not, want not…
He shook his head.
Even if his father wasn’t always a good man all of the time, Rodney had to admit he still missed the time they’d spent in the woods together, in the wild, and sometimes he even wished he could return and live there instead in the crazy world of living on the streets.
Then again, if he ever did do that, it would be even harder for him to get his fix.
Maybe I can find some other way to get it, Rodney thought. I’m not sure I can wait till tonight.
The urge was building inside him faster now that he was thinking about it. He wanted—no, he needed it. Bad. His hands were already beginning to shake. The effects of the drug were lasting shorter and shorter every time.
He was going to have to find another way, and soon. Finding unguarded cemeteries was getting harder with every time a caretaker found another drained body.
“Got change?” someone cackled.
Looking up, Rodney spotted a female bum staggering toward him. Her clothes were dirty and her hair was mussed, but she still looked good. Helped that he hadn’t had the pleasure of a female in a long time.
“Get your damn own!” You can never be too firm when dealing with fellow homeless folk, Rodney thought.
“Ah, come on now… Be a man and help a lady out.”
She didn’t look like much of a lady to Rodney, but he would be more than happy to jump her bones.
“I said, no. Now get the hell outta here.”
“Thanks for nothing, man…” The woman turned to leave.
After walking few feet, she turned and walked back up to him.
The stench of her breath oozed into his nostrils.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have anything you could give me, would you?” she asked.
“Like what?” Rodney knew what she meant.
“Ya know…coke, speed, acid…somethin’…anything to get me through the rest of the day, man.”
“I don’t do drugs,” Rodney lied.
“You’re shittin’ me. You don’t do nothin’ at all?”
“Nope,” he reiterated, even though the pull of his drug of choice grew more and more inside him. Enough so that he almost wanted to sink his teeth into her flesh, although he knew it would only bring warm blood and not the bitter fluid he so desired.
“What if I make it worth your time?” The woman pushed her small breasts together with her dirty hands.
An idea came into his head.
He smiled. “So, what’s your name, sweetie?”
“Rebecca. But peeps call me Beca.”
“Tell ya what, Beca… I’m about ready to go get some food, but afterward I might be able to help ya out. Then both of us can get what we want.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that,” Beca replied, now standing with her hands on both hips while moving her head from side to side.
“Drugs, of course.”
“Oh, ok…thought for a sec there you were talking about doing something freaky.”
“Nah, nothing freaky per se…” Rodney laughed, inside.
“Ok, then.”
A slow smile crossed Rodney’s features as the two started walking toward the fast-food restaurant.
Shortly after midnight, Rodney and Beca crept into Parkside Cemetery. He thought he remembered being here before.
“So, what exactly are we looking for?” Beca whispered.
“A fresh one,” Rodney replied in a whisper of his own.
“A fresh what?”
“Grave.” He crouched down beside a headstone to survey the moonlit grounds.
She paused beside him. “Y’know, this is pretty sick, bud.”
“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it.” He chuckled.
They continued walking. Rodney paced forward a few rows, Beca in tow, then spotted a rounded mound covered in fresh sod.
All riiight! He gave a small fist pump and nodded for her to follow.
Focused on his coming high, Rodney didn’t know how long he and Beca dug before the spade elicited a hollow thump. A tremor ran through him as his anticipation grew. He wanted to reach down, lift the lid, pull the body out and go to town on it but, with Beca standing beside him, he knew he had to take things slow. Be cool, calm, and collected. Take your time, this stiff isn’t going anywhere.
He looked over to her. She was a deer in the headlamps.
“You sure about this, Rodney?” she asked.
“Of course I’m sure…” He offered a reassuring smile. “Just like I told you before, you’ll love it…best high you can have…”
Rodney reached down and pulled part of the lid up to reveal the top half of a female, dressed in a white blouse and blue blazer. Her eyes and lips were sewn shut. Her blonde hair flowed onto her shoulders like liquid gold. On the right pocket of the blazer looked to be the crest from a local school. Rodney guessed she was a student from the local college.
Just as he went to lift her body, he spotted several deep gashes, faded red and brown, a mottled a gooey crust scattered across her neck and face. Like the kind of the injuries one would get from a crazed person with long fingernails, or from an animal.
He guessed it was the latter.
“Holy shit,” Beca gasped, as he grabbed the upper arm of the dead woman. “She looks slam tore up.”
“Yeah, this is some messed up shit, no doubt.”
“You sure you want…this one?”
“Sure, why not. At least she’s fresh, y’know.”
“NO, I DON’T KNOW!” Beca hissed.
“Damn woman, keep your voice down!” he shot back at her. “You want the caretaker or the po-po to show up and bust us?”
“Sorry,” Beca mumbled.
He bent down and grabbed the dead girl again. From behind, he heard dirt from the wall of the hole hit the closed half of the casket.
“Hey, where the hell do you think you are going,” Rodney grunted, trying to lift the woman from the casket. “Why don’t you help me?”
“Sorry, but I’m getting outta here. This is sick. Real fucking sick. You really are one major fruitcake, you know that, Rodney.”
“Never said I wasn’t…”
Rodney pulled the body the rest of the way out of the hole and laid it down on a fresh pile of dug-up soil. He gave a look over his shoulder and, in the distance, saw Beca near the exit of the cemetery. Even though her back was facing him, he could have sworn he saw her eyes, glowing and staring back at him.
Blinking the hallucination away, he turned his attention back to the body at his feet.
The hell with her. I got what I wanted anyway, help with the digging… She can go to hell as far as I am concerned…but damn, would have been nice to get a piece after my drink…
Rodney shrugged, then knelt closer to the body. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it looked familiar. Relaxing his jaw, he opened his mouth and took a bite.
Semi-warm liquid flowed down his throat.
It tasted different than what he was used to, but was still wonderful.
He closed his eyes and waited for the euphoric effects of the embalming fluid to take hold.
But, it didn’t.
He took another bite.
Nothing.
He sat back on his heels.
No colors or shapes appeared.
Instead, his hands, followed by his arms, legs, and torso began to grow cold and quiver. Gooseflesh crawled over his skin.
It was like the warm summer weather had instantly changed and he was back to that cold November morning in the woods.
He shook his head. It must have been that having someone with him had thrown him off. He went to take another drink of the still-warm fluid flowing out of the corpse, then froze.
Flowing?
Even though the moon was full, n
ot much light reached past the trees growing here and there in the cemetery. Yet there was enough for Rodney to see that the fluid coming out of the bite wound on the woman’s shoulder wasn’t the pale yellow that it should have been. It was red, dark red, almost crimson in the faint moonlight. And moving…
Repulsed, he turned and spat on the ground.
He read the name on the headstone. No. He could feel bile rising up his throat. He wanted to puke, but swallowed it back down.
It burnt going in reverse.
Rodney forced his aching joints and muscles to push him up. He went to take a step, but something was keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground.
Suddenly, instead of the shivering that he had felt after the first bite, his body began to pulsate and jerk from side to side. His joints grew weaker and weaker. A popping, snapping sound filled the air. Then he was on the ground. His body bucked with a thunderous shudder.
She wasn’t drained, Rodney cried through the pain. They never drained her blood when they injected her with embalming fluid…
I drank her blood…
Oh my God!
Hadn’t his father told him to never eat something that was dead and not drained of its blood? About how old blood turns rancid and can make you real sick.
Or kill me!
Any old blood could make you sick. Her blood, though…
Another seizure racked his body. Even with his vision blurry from sweat and tears, he noticed how his normally pasty-looking skin was growing darker.
He tried to wipe the dirt way, but it wouldn’t come off. He knew he was a goner when he felt his face explode.
Chapter Two
“What was that noise?” Joan asked. “It sounded like someone—”
“Nah, I bet that was the joyful sound of some dude really giving it to his girl and she just couldn’t take it anymore…not that I would know anything about that,” Craig laughed and took another sip of his beer.
Stacy and Joan looked at each other and shrugged.
Grave Intentions Page 1