#Graveyard Smash | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dirtwatchman · 1 year ago

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PARTIES: @dirtwatchman and @gossipsnake TIME: Early August, directly after this thread. WHERE: Nichol's Funeral Home Cemetery SUMMARY: Anita comes across Caleb in a compromising position. Much to Caleb's surprise, the lamia is more amused with him than anything. The two strike a deal. WARNINGS: Lots of murder talk, brain talk but not necessarily surgical or anything.

Why were people so afraid of cemeteries at night? Was it perhaps simply because they had seen too many scary movies where they were told to be afraid? The greatest threats facing humans did not lie underneath or behind tombstones. No, after themselves, humans greatest threat was those above them on the food chain. And despite what their beloved monster movies told them, those threats were not limited to graveyards.

Tonight, however, there was such a threat luring about in one of the local graveyards. But Anita was not on the prowl for a meal; she had her sights set on a much smaller treasure - the beautiful cornucopia of graveyard bugs. Back home in her greenhouse, Anita had a large array of decaying specimens being fed on by a variety of native beetles and their larvae. While people typically did not allow themselves to decompose naturally with the soil in graveyards it was still quite rich.

Keeping up with the obituaries, which was becoming quite impossible in this town, Anita saw that there would be a funeral the next morning. She knew enough to know that meant a grave had been dug the night before and fresh soil would have been piled up for her to sift through. She planned on doing just that as she walked through the grounds towards the expected open grave. But as she approached, she heard the distinctive till of shovel and dirt. That didn’t seem right, the grave should have been dug hours ago. Making sure to be quiet and not give herself away, she approached the sounds cautiously, unsure what she had come across.

He should have started on burying this body sooner, listened to the voice in his head telling him to hurry, but Caleb had gotten lost in the whole deserving nice words and a proper burial thing. After kicking the body into the grave the zombie had felt so bad about it that he was now redigging the hole to try and do things properly. No throwing someone in the grave like they didn’t matter, no crying from someone who didn’t even know them, just a proper little funeral with music playing from his phone. They were dead though, who cared? Apparently, he did.

“You’re so stupid…” The words mumbled under his breath would have been lost had he been anywhere else but the silence that the dead brought with them revealed every syllable, every self deprecating comment he was saying allowed. It was spurring his movements forward, making his limbs work faster as anger started to build within him. “Why the hell do you care so much? Why can’t you let it go? Just let it freaking go, Caleb.”

And yet he was still redigging the grave for the second time that night, sifting the soil more and more. The thud of the shovel hitting the casket was the first clue that the body was just under this layer and he used the edge of it to sift through until he found one of the person’s arms. Caleb stood to his full height, moving to set the shovel off to the side but froze when he saw a woman standing above him. Oh, curse his damn hearing. Of course he would uncover the extra body just before realizing someone else was there. Why wouldn’t that be a thing?

“Um…it’s not what it looks like.”

As she crept closer to the digging noise, Anita wasn’t entirely sure what she would be interrupting. Was this some strange grave robber, looking for jewels tossed into the casket of some old lady? Or was this perhaps someone trying to cover their tracks. All of the possibilities she was considering tended to skew towards danger. She didn’t necessarily mind that, might make the evening far more interesting than she expected it to be.

“Oh, really? So you aren’t digging up the grave of someone who has clearly already been buried?” His reasoning for doing so remained a mystery, one she was eager to solve. Anita didn’t know how long he had been out there but the few swings of the shovel that she had seen tended to suggest this wasn’t his first rodeo. There was a slightly disheveled look to the man as she peered down at him but she couldn’t tell if that was his usual demeanor or if it was a byproduct of the digging.

“If it’s not what it looks like, then please, educate me as to what it is I’m looking at here.” He was lucky, really, that she was the one who stumbled upon him. Others may have jumped to conclusions, involved the authorities, or simply run away screaming. Anita was at least willing to listen.

“...No?” Technically that wasn’t the truth because it wasn’t their grave, it was Mrs. Darcy’s. The zombie wracked his brain for any possible explanation that could dissuade her into believing that he was just doing his job but the body wasn’t even in a casket so she’d most likely see right through that lie. How did he get out of this? His mind was racing, Caleb staying silent as every possible way this conversation could go ran through it. In the end, he could not think of a way to make her believe any lies that alluded to his innocence so he started to try and prepare for the pleading that was about to come.

“Technically it’s not their grave…It’s Mrs. Darcy’s. I just buried them with her earlier.” His cooler was still sitting on the side of the grave since he had no sense to take it back to his truck after the other person had come along. He’d been so worried about hiding the body that the other evidence of his transgressions was still laying out clear as day. His eyes ran over it before he looked back up at the woman. “Look, you can go to the cops, but I really don’t think you should. It might not be good for anybody. Just…let me explain, I guess.”

Would this be the one of the first people to finally know what he was? There was only one other at the time, someone who had the same undead affliction as him which made it so much easier to tell her. As much as he didn’t want to tell a complete stranger that he was only doing this to keep people safe he had the inkling that they wouldn’t believe him. Not unless they could understand Caleb’s situation. There was no way of knowing if she would but she hadn’t run yet, hadn’t made a fuss, all she wanted was his reasonings for doing what he was doing.

“Um…I’m trying to feed myself.” He wouldn’t look at her, his eyes going to the dirt and the arm sticking out of it. “And others. But when I was, you know, doing that, someone came along and saw…” Caleb nodded towards the cooler that held the brain of Mrs. Darcy before he continued. “One thing led to another and…they didn’t have a very good time.” How crazy did this person think he was? If they had no clue about the supernatural in this town then he was screwed.

The long silence after his half-hearted no was almost entertaining to Anita. Over the years she had learned how to be quick with her lies, staying ahead of any allegations of impropriety by diverting attention elsewhere. This grave digging possible murderer didn’t have any of that savvy. It therefore shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was when he admitted to having buried the corpse in someone else's grave. Her mouth opened slightly as her thick eyebrows raised up in surprise, “Oh…”

Anita’s eyes followed his as they looked around the gravesite. There was so much going on, creating quite a long list of options as to what this man was up to. “Is that a threat?” She snapped instinctively at his comment that calling the cops wouldn’t be good for anyone. It didn’t matter to her that she had no intention of calling anyone, let alone the cops. “Fine. Explain.” Squatting down so that she could get a better look at the man and the dead body, Anita began to wonder if this man was a run-of-the-mill human killer or if there was more going on.

Her question, seemingly, was quickly answered as he began to explain. Trying to feed himself and others. It was interesting, given how obviously sloppy his techniques were. Whatever he was - probably undead, likely a zombie given the obvious brain in the cooler - he seemed to be new at it. If he was feeding others, did that make him the most experienced in food retrieval? That would be sad if it were true.

Feeling the slightest pang of compassion for the non-human, Anita decided not to have a bit of fun with the situation. Instead she opted to at the very least be non combative. Whether or not she elected to be helpful was yet to be determined. “You’re making an awful big mess. Not a good look if you’ve got others relying on you for food.” She dropped down, sitting on the edge of the grave and letting her legs dangle over the edge. “I know everyone thinks that getting rid of a body in another grave is such a genius idea… but there are actually much more effective ways to do it.”

“Definitely not a threat, at least not towards you anyway.” No, he was worried about what might happen if he was locked up for a long period of time, certain that cops didn’t know anything about zombies roaming around here. They were bigger morons than Caleb was. “More of a warning. Consequences of not having the right food suck and I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Even the police.” It was bad enough that he’d murdered two people in his lifetime, the first being someone he tried not to blame himself for. The guy had killed him first, anyway. But this person…this person hadn’t deserved it at all and the guilt that came with it was already eating him alive. Or, well, dead.

“I mean, I thought it was pretty brilliant considering how convenient it is-” As soon as he realized what she’d said, Caleb cut himself off, his head snapping up. “Wait, what?” He hadn’t even noticed how unnormal this conversation was, used to being chastised for any actions he took throughout his life, but after it had really hit him he was stunned. Was this woman really not freaking out after finding him with a dead body that clearly didn’t belong there and an open cooler with a brain? Who the hell was she?

“I’m sorry are you…are you trying to give me tips on how to cover up a body?” Ever since he’d started working for this funeral home he’d encountered such strange things in the cemetery but he’d never had anyone talk about this so nonchalantly before. Why was he surprised though? This town was crawling with people who needed his services, crawling with other people who needed special diets. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wicked’s Rest was the murder capital of the United States in a few years time.

There were many questions that came with this realization. What was she? How many people had she actually killed? Did she enjoy it or did every single murder weigh on her mind like Caleb? His wide eyes bore into her before acceptance started to kick in and he nodded slowly. “Okay, so what are you suggesting then?”

It was almost cute how stunned the kid seemed to be when he seemed to realize that he wasn’t the only killer in the cemetery. Had she not stumbled upon him in such a compromised state she might not have been so forthcoming with the conversation, but this was just too delicious to pass up. “Yeah, I am. Cause you so obviously need them.” Anita looked down at him and the dead body and shrugged softly. “Sure, this isn’t a bad place to get rid of your leftovers. Better than tossing the corpse in the ocean or digging a grave in the forest - but is it the best option? No.”

Gesturing from the shovel he was holding towards the mound of dirt beside where she was sitting, Anita continued, “How often do you have to eat? And how often are you willing to spend your nights digging paupers graves? Surely you must have thought about whether all of that physical work is worth it. I know your kind doesn’t tire out but … anyone could stumble upon you in the hours it takes to do all this.”

As she looked around Anita noticed a carrion beetle crawling in the freshly dug grave. She picked it up in her hand, she smirked a bit at the apt analogy that the earth had handed her. “One thing that humans are so well known for is how much waste they create. No other ecosystem of creatures wastes so much of what is provided to them.” In a slow action so that he could see what she was doing, Anita popped the beetle in her mouth and ate it. “Don’t you think just burying all this meat is … a bit wasteful?”

It was surreal, really. Standing in the middle of a grave where Caleb was hiding a body while a woman he’d never met was trying to tell him how to do a better job seemed like it was straight from a bad B grade movie and yet this was his real life. He wanted to say he’d really fallen far from grace but he’d never really been that high up in the first place. Still, she didn’t have the full picture either. She didn’t know how convenient this actually was for him and she wasn’t aware that this part of the kill was also part of his daily job. For some reason he felt like defending his way of…disposal but he wasn’t sure if that was the best idea until he watched her eat a beetle to really drive the point she was making. Most people would have cringed or made a face but he’d lived on animal brains for a few months before moving on to the humans his body had so craved. Who was he to judge?

“Actually…this is my normal job. I work for the cemetery so I’m always digging graves. Normally I have an excavator handy but I didn’t want my boss to know I’d taken it out tonight.” He was still out in the open with nothing but a shovel that night, and she had walked into the situation by chance, so he saw her point. He looked down at the arm that was sticking out of the dirt again and sighed. “On a good week, I only need one brain. That’s excluding any weeks that I get hurt. But…I try to take care of others too so I’ve been taking more than I need.”

The woman was right. Burying the bodies was a waste. Caleb knew so many zombies that had accepted what they were and loved different parts of the body. Yes, the brains were the best for their hunger, but some had preferences for their meals between those brains. It had always seemed so crude to him but maybe it was time to go full blown with this business instead of half-assing everything. And apparently zombies weren’t the only ones who needed sustenance around here. “Do you…are you wanting the rest of this body after I take the brain? The brain in the cooler is from the person this grave actually belongs to.” Was he making a business deal right now? In the middle of this chaos?

Oh that was quite curious, Anita thought. A zombie working at a cemetery. She wondered which came first, the transformation or the job. Though, given how new he seemed at the zombie thing and how adept he seemed at digging graves… maybe he had just always been drawn to death. “Interesting. Do you not have access to an incinerator then? Or do you only deal with the stiffs people want to bury, not burn at your job?”

“Others? Why can they not fend for themselves?” It wasn’t uncommon, she understood, for certain species to flock together. After all back home in Mexico, Anita’s family lived as a unified lamia nest. They looked after their own and made sure that the family thrived. “Surely one brain doesn’t feed you all.”

The proposal was, practically, a natural progression of the implication Anita had been making but it wasn’t exactly the one she had been setting up. Playing up a fake air of offense, Anita placed her hand to her chest, “Do I look like the kind of woman who eats someone’s sloppy seconds? I don’t do clean up.” She greatly preferred her meals to be very warm, very live, and a bit terrified when she sank her fangs into them. “I was just saying there are other ways. There are some people who might enjoy what you’re leaving to the bugs. Some people who don’t have the time, skill, or patience to hunt for themselves.” She paused, something in her deciding to be generous. “Or maybe the other way around. I don’t always need the heads, anyway.”

Caleb cleared his throat before answering her question, glad that he could say it out loud without the tears welling up in his eyes again. That would have been more embarrassing than being caught in the act of a burial. “This is…my first murder. I’ve always dealt with the bodies that come into the morgue when the person is already long gone over killing someone who still has time.” The idea was a good one, one that he would keep in the back of his mind if he didn’t have any way of disposing of any future bodies, but he didn’t really want this happening again. “And I don’t plan to do anymore murdering either. This was an accident that shouldn’t have happened.”

Leaning back against the other side of the grave, the zombie decided to settle in. It seemed like this was going to be a long conversation. She wanted to understand his methods, where he was coming from, and if he were being honest, it felt good to talk about it with somebody. He wasn’t bottling it up anymore, and with the floodgates of truth already opened he was willing to give so much more despite something telling him that he should still be cautious. “It’s more of a business deal than anything. I saw the opportunity to make extra funds on the side and I went for it. But I do also like to believe that I’m helping the community as a whole while doing this. If zombies don’t get fed…well, could you imagine the chaos?”

He actually smirked with her next question. It was a little worrisome that the panic he’d held all night was starting to melt away enough for Caleb to become amused and yet there he was, ready to laugh at the thoughts going through his mind. “I get more than one brain a week…you know where we live right? As sad as it is to say, bodies flood to the funeral home on a daily basis almost.”

Why is it that he felt bad for offending someone who he knew ate human flesh? Yes, he did the same, but he hated himself for it so why didn’t he hate anyone else who did it as well? Especially when they preferred them live? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know you preferred them live.” Caleb hung his head, almost as if wounded, and started to stare at the lifeless arm as punishment to his own psyche. He was almost amazed at how quickly he’d come to want this person’s approval. The proposal had him looking up in surprise again, the idea making the zombie feel torn. Did he want to encourage actually murdering people? Was he really in a position to turn down the brains of those who were going to still end up dead anyway? “...What do you want in return?”

“Your first murder? How quaint.” It was such an adorable thought that Anita smirked a bit. She didn’t even think she could recall her first murder. Her attention turned back to the situation at hand when the zombie expressed a desire to not commit further murders - a concept that was so foreign it practically didn’t even make sense to her. “So you accidently killed this man for his brain?” Moreso due to self-preservation than anything else, she was beginning to feel slightly suspicious of them. She did not understand his motivations and therefore could not trust her instincts.

Her suspicions eased a bit when he called his fellow brain eaters his community - at least he wasn’t one of those people who likened themselves to humanity more than their own species. “How did you meet your community? Is the one who turned you part of that group?” To Anita, that was not an invasive question because she couldn’t think of why anyone would not want to talk about the miracle of ridding oneself of their humanity. “As much as I agree that we all need to eat…I’ve never turned my nose up at a bit of chaos either.”

His smile as they continued talking gave her a bit more hope. People who couldn’t see some kind of joy in eating weren’t people Anita generally interacted with. “So these other zombies, they pay you to deliver them brains?” When he hung his head, Anita couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed because of her pretend offense or if it was because he felt some type of way about the idea of her consuming such fresh meals. “Have you ever tried a nice fresh brain?”

It was evident that he was business-minded when he asked what Anita would want in return for delivery of some fresh juicy substantia grisea. The question seemed to come in spite of his internal concerns rather than out of a genuine curiosity. “I don’t know. I don’t mean to offend, but I doubt there is much you have that I would want.” Maybe simply having a Zombie who worked at the funeral home owe her a favor would be a good enough reward. “We can call it a favor, perhaps. An I-O-U.”

“No…I was digging up Mrs. Darcy for her brain when the person came along and saw me…just like you did. I didn’t actually mean to kill them, I just wanted to stop them but their head hit another marker when I pushed them.” It sounded so pathetic when Caleb said it out loud. What kind of zombie was he? Not a good one, that’s for sure. “Then I buried him to hide the body but forgot I could use his brain and then started to dig him up again.” And that just made it so much worse. He was a loser even in the afterlife, wasn’t he?

That was the question, wasn’t it? The one who made it possible to be what he was, the person who attacked him when he was doing maintenance in the morgue…the one he hadn’t been able to find since. Caleb hadn’t gotten a good look at his face since he was so close to death so he’d never been able to recognize if he was serving them brains or not. “I was getting so many brains I wasn’t able to eat them all before they got gross in the freezer so I figured I could help out others. Anytime I met a zombie I would offer to sell them some. Then they started recommending friends and it just snowballed from there. I don’t know who made me what I am, I never got a good look that night. We’re quick when we’re hungry.”

The flood of information was really flowing. He had never realized how hard it was not to talk about this with someone before now. Everything was spilling out before he could even think about it and it felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders got lighter and lighter with each word. Knowing that she was in for chaos didn’t even deter him. “Exactly. It’s like Uber for the dead. I want to make life easier for myself if I’m going to do this. I’m the one taking most of the risk.”

That was the first question to really get under his skin though whether that was because he was offended or because his body was having some sort of reaction to the memory was yet to be seen. He’d had fresh brains once. “So, remember when I said this was my first murder? Technically not true but I don’t count the first one because he murdered me first. Zombies can go years with the infection without turning but once they die they become one. I was killed by a graverobber with my own shovel. So when I woke up in my zombie state and killed him for his brain I didn’t feel bad afterwards.” That was a lie and Caleb knew it. He’d felt awful afterwards but years of telling himself otherwise had done the trick. “So, yea, I’ve had them fresh once.”

That was fair. He wasn’t rich, couldn’t offer her the brains that she obviously didn’t need, and he had no supernatural abilities until he was in a frenzied state so what could he really offer? An owed favor wasn’t what he’d expected and he couldn’t say it didn’t make him nervous. Caleb didn’t know what she was and she’d already admitted to fresh kills being her preference so she didn’t have any qualms about hurting people. He might come to regret it later but he found himself answering with three words. “It’s a deal.”

Oh he was a curious little zombie, that was for sure. Anita found it so interesting how willing he was to just keep talking, keep telling her things that other beings would keep locked away tight. Sure, she had established some good faith between them - but he clearly wasn’t concerned enough about those who might be in the know that would want to hurt him. All she had done was speak words to him and seemed to earn a fair amount of trust. Through the course of the conversation, she had been able to learn far more about him than she personally would have given away to a stranger in a graveyard. Notably, she didn’t give away nearly as much to him.

“Sorry you were murdered. But, hey! Look at you now.” Some in the non-human community felt a kinship with all who lacked humanity, but Anita was usually a bit more exclusive with where she placed her alliances. This gravedigging zombie was interesting, however, and while she certainly did not trust him she was intrigued. “It’s a brutal world out here. Sounds like it’s definitely time to rethink how often you’re out here digging and un-digging graves given all the murders that keep happening when you do,” she smirked as her eyes widened a bit, playing up the pretend drama of the situation. “Just thankful you didn’t try to murder me. For your sake.”

Jumping up from where she was sitting and dusting the dirt off of her backside Anita looked back down into the partially dug up grave, “Well alright. You got a name, mijo?” She asked as she pulled out a business card from her wallet, which had been tucked away in her jacket pocket. She had no intention of going out of her way to procure food for him but Anita was curious about just how mutually beneficial this relationship might be able to become. Tossing the card, which only had a phone number printed on it, Anita smirked down at him. “Give me a call when you’re feeling peckish.”

#Threads #Thread: Anita #Graveyard Smash #tw: murder

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