by Mav Skye
Graveyards
3 Tales to Chill Your Bones, Volume 6
Mav Skye
Contents
Copyright
Free Download
Epigraph
Dapper Cadaver
Crypt Curiosity
Lisa Got Squashed
About the Author
Check Out Mav’s Books
Bibliography
Graveyards: 3 Tales to Chill Your Bones, Volume Six is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Mav Skye
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author at the following email address: [email protected]
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Purgatory waits
Sands slip through ancient hour glass
Shallow graves warm soon
Dapper Cadaver
Thunderclouds whirled circles overhead. They screamed electric blue lightning bolts, torching the graveyard. Rain seethed from the heavens drenching the valley of graves below. A young woman knelt among them.
The horrid ditch gaped its mouth wide at her feet, half-choked with rain water. Joey rocked forward on her knees, reaching into the muddy abyss—deeper, deeper. The grave was unmarked, shallow, and old as sin. Joey was glad she hadn’t been the one to dig it up. No, she thought, I’m just the body snatcher. Lightning pulsed through the clouds as if it had read her thoughts. Thunder applauded.
She stretched her arm as far as it would go, four feet down was a long way, but she needed the money. The party was two hours away and she’d promised to pay her (ex)best friend, Leona, back for the dress. Leona was the current it girl, and the last thing Joey needed was to be on the it girl’s bad side. Things were bad enough as it was.
Joey had found Doc Hollywood’s number on the cafeteria’s miscellaneous poke board. The good doctor had promised her five hundred bucks if she’d snatch this cadaver and bring it back tonight. The storm gave her plenty of cover.
She now lay flat on her stomach and stretched, plunging her hand deep into the deep puddle. She considered heading back to the dorm and scavenging up a shovel. She began lifting her arm from the water when she felt it: fingertips on hers. A long, bony touch. Joey froze—was it real or her imagination? As if in reply, something poked (hard!) into her palm.
Startled, Joey drew up her arm and examined her hand. A small blister formed where the thing had poked her. Thunder boomed overhead. A gale of wind blew Joey’s hair into her eyes. She gathered her dark hair and twisted it at the nape of her neck, then leaned over and gazed into the muddy pool of water.
From the depths of the murk, hollow eyes and a gawking mouth rose, rose, then emerged from the dark.
Lightning crackled and Joey screamed, falling backward.
A skull bobbed on the surface, quivering this way and that with the ripple of wind and water.
Joey cringed. “Shit! Forget this.” She wiped her muddy hands on her sweatshirt, and felt her cell buzz in the front pocket. She pulled it out, covering the top with her hand. A text from Leona. U got my $$ biatch?
Joey glanced at the skull again, and bit her lip in trepidation. It was floating on the surface, ready to be plucked. Joey made up her mind and typed back. Ya. Cunt.
She stowed the cell, then bent over the grave again. The skull nodded on the surface, its face reflecting the storm above. Joey swallowed hard, cursed, rolled up her sopping wet sleeves, and reached for it. Her fingers curled under the jaw and through the mouth. Her other hand cradled the cranium. It vibrated with the energy of the storm beneath her hands. Joey hesitated—only to be poked again beneath the surface of the water. “Ow!”
But when she tried to lift her hand, something snatched it, wrenching her hand and the skull back into the hole.
“Ouch!” She frantically twisted her arm this way and that, but something clung on.
A crack of thunder sizzled the sky in electric blue. She finally managed to yank her hand to just above the surface of the puddle when she caught a glimpse of what clutched her.
A hand, a skeletal hand, its metacarpals and phalanges gripped hers. But that was impossible! Joey’s medical mind took over. Fascination replaced fear for the moment, and she examined the dark depths hostaging her arm. The hollow eyes of the skull gaped just barely below the surface, a fiery shimmer gazed within them. Was it a reflection of the lightning? But how bright, how crimson the eyes glowed! The skeletal hand gripping hers, squeezed. It was gentle, not as in a friendly handshake, but a soft squeeze that two lovers might share. Startled, Joey withdrew her hand and the skeletal bones released her. She fell back with the force, falling into the mud. The skull sank, disappearing once more.
She inspected her palm, which was fine, except the one blister. She slicked back her hair again, biting her lip, glancing around—hesitating near the grave.
Joey had learned in her Pre-Med that a human skeleton weighs only about a third of what its full body would have weighed. She handled many cadavers in her classes, and knew what bones felt like, what they were (and weren’t!) capable of. If it wasn’t the weight of bones pulling her into the water, then what was?
She glanced around again, speaking her suspicion into the storm. “Doc? Doc Hollywood? Is this some kind of joke?”
A cat scowled in the distance.
“Are you here?”
This time, the cat did not reply. Nor did anything else.
Raindrops and fear shivered her spine. Something was off, completely wrong.
The night crackled with charged magic. Joey backed away from the grave on all fours, her hands slipping in the mud. Something bobbed up again in the grave water. She peered in.
The skull surfaced in the water. Once more, fire shimmered in its dark wide eyes and its mouth stretched into a toothy smile. Two boney hands thrust out of the water.
The skeleton placed its gaunt fingers on the grass, and pulled itself up and out of the ditch.
Stunned, Joey scrambled in the mud, her sneakers slipping in the sludge. As the skeleton rose to its full height, Joey’s jaw dropped. Her wet black hair slicked like a pony’s down her back. Breath escaped her.
A cricket chirped nearby, and then another, another, high-pitched and stringy like a haunted violin. Toads croaked in low bass. Moths supplied the tenor. Crows cawed in poetry. The skeleton threw its arms to the skies like a dark king would to his kingdom. And his soldiers obeyed. Leaves whirled. Thunder clapped. Clouds frothed mist. The dead supplied groans and moans: music pouring from every grave.
Lightning crackled through the skull, sending a thrill and a zing through its gaunt bones. It spread its arms wide, conducting the chorus of the dead, then froze as if recalling something it was supposed to do. It cut the air with its boney finger, silencing his symphony.
It angled its face down toward Joey.
She inched backwards from the dark lord. Slowly, slowly, the skeleton tilted his skull to the side and lowered his hands palms up, as if asking Joey something— something terribly, horribly, dreadfully, important. I
t awaited her reply.
Joey gulped hard, staring into its hellish eyes. “I… I don’t want to die?” It was supposed to be a statement, but came out as a question.
The skull shook his head as if disappointed. It swayed its pelvis in an Elvis swing, and offered her its long, long fingers.
“No! No way!” Joey jumped to her feet, stabilized, and leapt away from the skeleton.
Two quiet steps stalked her, and the Skeleton caught Joey up in its arms, and twisted her around toward him. She kicked its shins, waved her arms, beat its boney chest. “Let me go!”
But it didn’t seem to notice.
It wrapped its long arms about her as if comforting, snuggled her face into its gaunt neck. And with a flick of the wrist, the dreadful symphony tantalized the graveyard once more.
Crickets played their demonic strings, and the dance with the devil commenced.
Joey drowned in her own cries. The skeleton, silvery under the lightning flash, unraveled her from its sinewy arms, grasped her waist and waltzed her across the graves. She refused to move her legs, and yet they begin to move. She willed her body frozen, but felt her limbs stir, awaken, and she began to dance, nimble and free as a ballerina puppet. “No!”
They paused and the skeleton lowered his face to Joey’s as if to kiss her. She looked through the empty eyes of his skull, and saw shadows of women torn apart, children wailing in brimstone. Joey’s throat burned with her own scream, it echoed through the graveyard. The skeleton petted her wet hair like a lover.
Her cell rang.
All the torments of hell stopped. Her breath caught with in her. Was this real or a dream? The skeleton retrieved her cell, pushed a button. Leona’s snarky voice said, “I can make your life hell, Biatch!”
The skeleton looked from the phone to Joey, phone to Joey. The voice said, “Do you want that? Tell me, do you?”
The dark lord’s gaping mouth stirred into a grin. And a deep voice thundered from the heavens. “Yes!”
The voice on the other end shrieked, and the skeleton threw the cell into its own open grave. The voice drowned in water.
He shook his skull side to side as if he were very disappointed, then snatched up Joey’s hand. Her fingers moved against her will, they grasped his. He drew her fingers to his deep, dark grin, and air-kissed her fingers. He placed a hand on her hip, and with a boom from the heavens they were off again, dancing among glassy drops from the heavens. Their feet slid across obsidian mirrors, graves shone like stars, the dead crooned like demons. They whirled and twirled, tangoed and discoed in the storm. As they did, Joey’s sweat shirt caught fire, her tights burned into smoke. Crimson rubies, her own life’s blood, wrapped about her skin, clutching her like a dress. Pain mixed with pleasure. Her body and soul rejoiced in the dark beauty of seduction, debauchery they had never taught in med school.
At long last, when her legs gave out from exhaustion, when her mind numbed from horror and excitement, ears buzzed with monstrous, tempestuous music, the skeleton halted and gazed down at her with his wet shimmering skull. They were back at the ditch from where he’d climbed. He moved his face close to hers as if for a kiss.
Fear and tears brimmed in Joey’s eyes. What do you want with me? her eyes asked without her lips moving or making a sound.
Instead of kissing her, its skull ducked to her ear and whispered, soft and leathery. “Doc Hollywood wants you.”
Joey’s mouth formed the question for her thoughts. Me? He wanted you.
The skull shook its head back forth, waiting patiently for her mortal mind to grasp what it had suspected from the first moment their eyes had met in the puddle.
“No, oh, no!”
“Yes! Oh, yes!” it whispered back in its leathery grainy voice, stroking her hair like a lover. It laughed. Oh, how it laughed. As it did, lightning struck its skull.
Joey could suddenly move her arms, body, legs. She pushed at the skeleton and for a slight moment, dazed by the lightning, the skeleton lost his stance, and fell into the ditch.
Joey was out of the skeleton’s arms, and back into the mud. She slipped and slid, scrambled and finally, ran with all the might she had.
But it wasn’t enough. The skeleton stomped behind her. It reached its long sinewy arms out, clasped its fingers about her waist, lifted her from the ground and pressed her to its chest. “It’s time for us to sleep, beauty.”
She screamed and screamed. The dead moaned. Moths beat their wings in high tenor. The crickets strummed their strings louder, louder. Thunder clapped as both woman and skeleton fell backwards into the grave. Together, they sank into the pool of decay until death overcame the other.
Crypt Curiosity
The elderly gent rode on an electric chair against a looming October sky. He steered with a device that looked like a joystick from an old video game. His dark hair was slicked back, face pale and wrinkly, suit freshly pressed. A red rose bud was tucked into his front pocket.
He grinned a toothy smile at me as he whizzed past. I wondered how his chair managed to roll (almost hover) over the dips in the sun baked road, where chunks of pavement were missing. Then I wondered where he was going. It was dusk. The cicadas still sang their song and flocks of black birds were doing there ravenous twittering in the trees.
I had flicked the TV off and was out for an evening walk with my golden lab, Hagsy. When the old man was a block or so away, I began to follow. Not in a stalker like way, but more out of curiosity. There was something strange about the fellow, more than his odd appearance, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I followed him for several blocks, winding in and out through the quiet streets of the small Texas town. The sun sank into the desert, showering brilliant bruises of purple through the fading sky. Hagsy, who was normally spunky and pulled on the leash, behaved herself unusually well.
Houses spotted the streets less and less, and about the time the sun sank behind the horizon and the darkness began to reign, we arrived at the local graveyard. The wrought iron gate was closed and I assumed locked. But, when the old man rolled his electric chair up to the gate, it creaked open. The wind was not blowing; I hadn’t seen his hands move. The gate had opened on its own accord.
A chill crept down my spine despite the evening heat. He rolled over the old cobblestone path through the graves. I walked with Hagsy up to the fence and watched him wind his way around the graveyard. Colorful plastic flowers decorated each grave. It was part of the culture here to adorn the graves this way. Day of the Dead drew near.
He circled a tall mesquite tree, its branches long and untrimmed. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I heard the sound of his chair buzzing along. I hesitated. Should I go in? I had followed him this far out of curiosity; he was going to visit a grave, perhaps a relative or old friend. I should leave him be.
I turned to leave. Hagsy whined at my feet. She wanted to leave, too. But still, there was something so odd about the fellow, and he hadn’t been carrying plastic flowers. Why was he dressed up? Dressed to kill, I thought, then I laughed at myself, inappropriate as it was, and thought dressed to die was more like it. I shooed the thought away, and glanced at the dog prancing nervously at my feet. I had to know what he was up to. “We’re going in, girl.”
Stars dimly glimmered above as we slunk through the opened gate. Hundreds of graves were strewn before us, stirring fear in my stomach. Perhaps I’d watched too many horror movies about the undead reaching from their graves or read too many ghost stories about spirits haunting the living. Off in the distance, I could still hear the buzz of the old gent’s chair. So, I ran down the pathway, hoping to catch up. Hagsy sauntered along beside me, although I had to pull her most of the way.
When I couldn’t hear his chair anymore, I slowed and continued to slink down the path. Several yards from where the path ended, I saw the dark silhouette of his chair and his head sitting atop as if apart of it. He held something long and skinny with a bowed tip at the bottom—a shovel. A high mound of dirt sat besid
e him.
A hole! He’d been digging a hole. Why in the world would a man in his condition be out in the evening digging? I crept behind a mesquite tree and peeked around to watch. He merely sat there as if in thought, holding his shovel off to the side. Hagsy began to whine. I tugged on her leash and she sat. I looked back at him.
He leaned over to the side of his chair and very gently laid the shovel down. As he did this, I saw something shiny and silver flash in his lap, something smaller than a shovel, and much, much sharper. My heartbeat picked up and I stepped away from the tree, clutched a gravestone and stood on tiptoe to see what it was. Right then Hagsy barked and tugged on her leash.
I ducked behind the tree, grabbed Hagsy to me and held her muzzle closed. I knew he was looking our way. What was in his lap? Why was he digging in the graveyard? Had he seen me? The questions kept flitting through my mind. He was harmless right? Obviously, if he could walk he wouldn’t be in an electric chair. He was an old man. He couldn’t hurt anybody. He couldn’t hurt me… could he? I bit my lip. Why was I even thinking this? Ridiculous.
I sneaked a look around the tree and found the old man focused on the hole again. I couldn’t see the shiny thing in his lap.
This whole thing was ridiculous. Why did I even follow him? And why was I hiding behind the tree? The graveyard is public property. I should be able to—
He leaned forward, peering into the pit. Further, further. He tipped forward over his knees, all I could see were the coattails of his suit jacket. I reached out beyond the tree as if to grab his coattails, pull him back. Hagsy let out a single bark.
Thump! His body hit the earth. He completely disappeared inside the pit.
Hagsy barked, and yanked on the leash. My hands went limp as I stood staring at the empty electric chair. Hagsy ran full speed towards the gate, toward home, and left me. I wanted to go with her, forget about the old man. I wanted to forget that any of this had ever happened, but, (Wasn’t there always a but?) it would be wrong to leave an old man helpless in the grave, if that was what the hole was.