a very grave love story

< < > >

 Parts 1,2,3, 4, & 5. Need I say more? Let’s finish this.

PART 6

 I gripped the steering wheel tightly, my knuckles almost going white. The tiny engine in the Toyota Paso roared as I gunned the engine.

 Then I let go of the brake and the car bolted forward.

 Danni leaned back out the window and began to pick off the corpses one by one.

 Through the windshield I watched as they exploded. Not one of them flinched or ran off. These guys would make some great mindless soldiers, oh wait, they already were.

 At the last second, I yanked Danielle back into the car and we barreled through the barrier of remaining corpses like they were toothpicks.

 And then we were out.

 I slammed onto the brakes and the car skidded to a halt, screeching across the asphalt. Danni chambered another round. I kept the engine running. We waited for almost a full thirty seconds, but it looked like Wolfe was right after all. Danielle got out of the car and I followed.

 Apparently, without anyone to chase the corpses just wandered around aimlessly, occasionally giving one of those famous groans of the dead.

 Danielle unchambered the round and turned to me with a sweet smile. “See,” she said, giving me a little kiss on the cheek, “I told you we’d have fun.”

 ”Oh yeah,” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck, I just knew it was going to be stiff tomorrow. “We just had a barrel of laughs. Maybe next time we can visit Transylvania and say hi to Dracula. I hear he throws killer karaoke parties.”

 Danni laughed and picked something from my hair. I didn’t want to think about what it was. She winked at me. “No, next time we’ll go visit the haunted tombs of Egypt.”

 I groaned and shook my head.

 Danni and I walked arm in arm, the rising sun behind us. Already the memories of our nighttime adventure through the cemetery were fading. With any luck, I would be able to get over the whole incident with minimal psychological therapy.

 And then, I happened to notice something glittering in the back pocket of Danni’s jeans.

 I stopped.

 Danni turned to me. “What’s the matter?” she asked. We were only a foot or so away from the car.

 Rather than saying anything for some reason I thought that if I tried to talk it would come out in some kind unintelligible, insane, I silently reached into her back pocket.

 ”Ooh, getting a little feisty there, Mikey.”

 I felt my heart skip a beat, and it wasn’t because I was horny.

 I pulled my hand out of her pocket and saw that I was holding a large ruby that looked suspiciously like the one Wolfe had been waving around in the cemetery.

 ”Danielle Widgon,” I said slowly, not taking my eyes off the ruby. I held it up and the ruby glittered brilliantly against the golden rays of the rising sun. “Please, oh, please tell me I’m not looking at what I think I’m looking at.” 

“What do you think you’re looking at?”

 ”I think,” I said, turning the ruby around in my hands, “I’m looking at the ruby that Wolfe had during his rants about gods, sacrificing us and other things that currently escape me at the moment. That’s what I think it is, and sincerely hope it isn’t.”

 Danni didn’t respond.

 I looked past the ruby at my brown haired girlfriend. My moment of sunny goodness was fading fast.

 She shrugged. “It was pretty, and since you managed to lose the weapons, I thought this would make a good souvenir.”

 ”A souvenir?” I lowered my head into my hands. I wanted to cry so badly.

 ”What? It’s just a ruby.”

 And then, as if on cue, there was a grumbling noise behind us. Danni and I shared an uneasy look and slowly turned around.

 A tall grey monstrosity rose up out of the ground behind us. Its skin seemed to be alive with millions of tiny little maggot-like things that scurried every which way. It’s arms were long and wiry, but capped off with really sharp-looking talons. Its head was a weird triangle design that had erratic bones extending out from it in various directions. The grey monster, who, for some reason, reminded me of a young Marilyn Manson, stood at least eight feet tall.

 And it stood on the wrong side of the cemetery. Namely, our side.

 It roared, shattering the Paso’s windows, and anything else that might have been marked fragile. Its mouth was a chasm of darkness surrounded by some very sharp looking dentures.

 It pointed a sharp talon at the ruby. “Give me the nebulous!”

 We spoke in unison.

 “Oh, sh-!”

TO BE CONTINUED IN RUBIES ARE MY GIRLFRIEND’S BEST FRIEND COMING AUGUST!

I know, I know, you just wet yourself again, didn’t you? It’s cool. It’s happens to me, too. It’ll be our little secret.

a very grave love story

< < > >

Parts 1,2,3 & 4. Make sure you’ve read those first, otherwise you’ll just be confused.

PART 5

My life was dangling by a thread, or a rope as it were, and I did not possess enough physical strength to pull myself up one handed. I was, as my girlfriend pointed out, Captain Sissy-Boy.

I hope they wouldn’t put that on my tombstone.

The rope slipped through my hand and I dropped towards the collection of hungry corpses. The red mist from the vial was gathering around them and working them up into quite the mad frenzy.

I needed both hands, which I was going to have to drop the sword. I hesitated only because I knew Danielle would kill me for losing the sword. But it was either that or get killed by reanimated corpses. I decided I could live with death by a loved one.

I dropped the sword and quickly pulled myself up to freedom, the red mist licking at my heels. If only my gym teacher could see me now.

Danni reached down and helped me through the tight hole, which turned out to be a grave that belonged to someone named Richard Iomes.

She looked at my empty hands, puzzled. “What happened to the sword?”

I looked around, avoiding her gaze. I hoped I didn’t look too guilty. “A corpse snatched it from me.”

“Mike! That’s two weapons you’ve lost!”

“Excuse me!” I said. “Can we please focus on the positive here? We got away from the creepy, ugly, dead guys.”

Danni frowned. “Not for long through.” She pointed to pale hands that were struggling out of dirt graves all around us.

“Damn,” I muttered. “I was kind of hoping that by killing Wolfe they wouldn’t be so…determined.”

“Well, Wolfe did say that they had to sacrifice a young couple in order to be free of the cemetery, right?” Danielle asked.

I nodded.

“So, then, if we can get out of the cemetery, we’ll be okay.”

I nodded. “That’s a reasonable conclusion.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, there’s a lot of graves between us and the edge of the cemetery,” I said. “?”

Danielle brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Don’t be such a pessimist,” she got to her feet. “Come on, I’ve got a shotgun in my car that’ll make things little easier.”

I did another double take. “What in the world are you doing with a shotgun?”

“I’m holding onto it for a friend,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Oh,” I said with a raised eyebrow. “Is this friend no longer on parole?”

I heard a now familiar groaning sound and looked over my shoulder. There were about a dozen corpses shuffling their way over to us.

“Break time’s over, sweetie,” Danielle said, pulling me to my feet. “Time to run like hell, since you lost all our weapons.”

With the full moon high in the sky, the cemetery looked as creepy as ever. Everywhere I looked, I saw dead people crawling out of their graves.

Behind us the groans rose to off-pitch roars as the corpses actually started exploding out of what was supposed to be their final resting places.

I looked around anxiously, trying not to pay attention to the exploding graves around us. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to nag or anything, but where’s the car?”

Just ahead of us a grave exploded, splattering dirt all over us.

“On the other side of the graveyard. Come on, this way,” Danielle yanked me off the worn path and we were running across the rich green grass, surrounded by exploding graves.

“Just for the record,” I shouted, immediately regretting it. Dirt flew into my open mouth, “I’m not having fun yet!”

Danielle let go of my arm long enough to slap me.

Through the flying dirt I was able to make out the bright red of Danielle’s car up ahead.

Then a bony hand caught my foot and I fell face down into the grass. I looked over my shoulder and saw—according to the grave marking—Angelina Incubas, still half in her grave, clawing at me like a half-crazy, hormone raged teenager at a Jonas Brothers concert. And her grip on my ankle was pretty firm.

Oh, damn. I was going to die. I saw the Cliff Notes version of my life flash before my

Where the heck was Danni?

Another corpse appeared and started clawing at my face.

I tried to scream, but gave up when bits of rotting flesh fell into my mouth.

A third corpse appeared and tried tearing open my chest with its bare hands.

I briefly wondered if this was how orgies were done in a graveyard.

Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of my salvation. I wasn’t going to die after all.

The corpse at my face exploded a brief second after I heard the boom of the shotgun.

Then the corpse at my chest.

And finally, Ms. Angelina Incubas, who really wasn’t all that bad looking, now that I think about it. She was kind of a paler version of Angelina Jolie, only without the puffy lips and the hair on her head.

I rolled to my knees, brushing the dead body parts off of me. Danielle stood a foot away, holding her shotgun, which was of the pump action variety, and gave me a coy smile.

“What the hell took you so long?” I asked, with just a touch of irritation. Just a touch, mind you.

“Dramatic effect,” she replied. “Besides, the way you were writhing, it kind of looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

Shooting her a glare, I replied with, “I won’t even dignify that with a response.”

She giggled and said, “Duck.”

“Wha-?” I began, but dropped back to the ground I when saw her chamber another round.

I heard the boom of the shotgun followed by a short, briefly agonizing scream of an exploding corpse.

Danielle gave me a hand back to my feet. “Come on, we’re almost there.” She tossed me her car keys. “You drive, I play.” She chambered another round.

“RRRight,” I said and bolted for the car. When this was all over, we were probably going to have to have a long talk about our relationship. Mainly on how it appeared that I was sane and she wasn’t.

Behind me I heard a cacophony of shots and exploding corpses. It was oddly soothing, in a Charles Manson and Metallica live sort of way.

“Uh, Danni, face forward please,” I said, as a corpse leapt over her red Toyota Paso.

I heard Danielle chamber another round and then saw the corpse’s chest explode, sending the rest of his body parts flying.

I leapt over the hood of the car and quickly yanked open the driver’s side door. After stumbling with the key twice, I managed to get the car started and slammed it into reverse. I looked over at the passenger seat, but Danielle wasn’t there.

Through the windshield I saw her still shooting the corpses.

I stuck my head out of the car and screamed, “Danielle Betty Widgon, get your skinny little butt in the damn car!!”

Danielle got off a few more shots and then it become evident that she was out of ammo.

She got into the car and I hit the gas pedal. The tires squealed and the car sped backwards down the path.

Danielle popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a box of shotgun shells. She began to reload.

Two corpses appeared in my rearview mirrors, looking like they were going to stop us barehanded.

The car bounced a little as I ran over their decomposing asses.

Danni rolled open her window and leaned out. She chambered a round and blew off the heads of two corpses that had been chasing us in the front.

She settled back in and gave me a smile. “Almost there.”

“Not quite,” I said, pointing over my shoulder.

Danielle gave me another puzzled look and leaned back out the window, looking behind us. What she saw was what I had spotted seconds ago in my rearview mirrors.

Dozens of corpses had lined up, blocking the entrance to the cemetery and blocking our exit.

She leaned back into the car. “What do we do?”

“Put the big hurt on them.” I switched my foot from the gas pedal to the brake and the car skidded, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees. Our headlights now illuminated the barrier of corpse.

With one foot still on the brake, I gunned the car. I looked over at Danielle and asked, “Ready?”

Danni chambered another round and gave me a dangerous-looking smile. “Bring it on.”

TO BE CONCLUDED…. IN PART 6

a very grave love story

< < > >

Parts 1, 2 & 3. Trust me, read those first and then come back.

PART 4

Bones and dead skin flew everywhere, floating past me in an odd sensation of slow motion. When did this become my life?

Most of the older corpses, the ones that had been dead for a while and were mostly bone, crumbled easily. It was the fresher ones that were the problem. My battle-axe kept getting stuck in their skin. One of them still had some blood in him and when I brought my axe down across his chest, the blood squirted onto my clothes.

“Oh, gross,” I muttered.

The mass of corpses swarmed around us, like killer locusts from the Bible, or something. I swung the battle-axe wildly. I so hated graveyards..

From behind me I heard Danni scream. At first I thought she might have been hurt. Then I realized it wasn’t a scream of pain, but one of pleasure. She was enjoying herself. Of course she was.

I shook my head as I swiped my axe through a grungy-looking corpse that was, for some weird reason, wearing glasses. I really had to do something about my taste in woman.

We progressed faster than I thought we would’ve. The corpses were incredibly easy to take down. The only real problem was that there were so freaking many of them.

I brought my axe down hard on an arm that belonged to a leggy blond who must have been very attractive before she had died from what appeared to be a traumatic injury to her face. It looked like someone had dropped a anvil on her.

We reached the altar.

I gave Danielle a hand up, cutting down corpses with the axe in my other hand. I think I was starting to get the hang of this.

Wolfe tried to smile again. Up close he looked incredibly disgusting. I was pretty sure saw a maggot crawl through his nose. But when he tried to smile, for some reason he just looked really funny. I didn’t laugh, though. No reason to antagonize him further, you know.

“This is what I like to see: Eager young people, ready to lend a helping hand,” he pulled out one of those weird knives, the kind where the blade was all twisty. “Who wants to go first?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

I whipped the axe around and then let it fly.

The axe sliced through Wolfe’s neck and landed on the wall across the room. Wolfe’s head, however, fell to the bottom of the altar and shattered into a thousand pieces.

“That might have not been the best use of your weapon,” Danielle said, looking from Wolfe’s body to the sea corpses that surrounded us. Strangely, none tried to come onto the altar.

“I know,” I said, “but he was really starting to get on my nerves.”

The corpses shuffled restless around the altar, groaning their favorite tune. I’m sure if these guys put their minds to it, they could’ve probably broke into the music biz big time.

“Well,” Danielle asked, switching her sword from hand to hand, looking eager to hit something, “now what do we do?”

“I’m thinking,” I glanced up at the hole above us. It was too far up to reach without some kind of assistance.

“Well think faster. I don’t like the way these guys are looking at me.”

“How are they looking at you?” I asked.

“Like I’m a piece of meat,” she replied. “But, you know, not the eating kind, the sexing kind.”

I did a double take. “Ok, that was really disturbing.”

The ropes that were strung together across the ceiling appeared to be tied off along the walls. If we could get one of those . . .

“Michael!”

I looked down. One of the corpses was trying to pull himself up onto the altar. Danielle brought her sword down, splitting the corpse’s skull wide open. Some kind of green stuff oozed out of the open skull and the corpse fell away.

I carefully snatched up the twisted knife from Wolfe’s still upright, headless body. I hoped it was as sharp as it looked. Then, as an after thought, tipped the body back off the altar. It was just too disturbing to see it standing there.

Holding the knife by its tip, I flung it towards one of the ropes.

The knife flew sharply through air and sliced the rope before lodging itself in the wall. The rope began to slowly swing towards us.

“Here, give me your sword.”

“Hey,” Danielle said, keeping the sword out of my reach, “I gave you a weapon, you’re the one that lost it.”

“Danni, now is not the time!” I reached forward and snatched the bronze-handled sword from her small hands. I staggered for a moment. It didn’t look very heavy when she was holding it.

A brave corpse jumped onto the altar, waving its decomposing arms threateningly. I slammed the flat end of the sword into its head, shattering it. The rest of the corpse fell back.

“When the rope is within reach,” I quickly explained to Danielle, “grab it and climb up to that hole. Think you can do that?”

The rope was closer now, but the corpses were growing braver.

Danielle nodded.

Another corpse jumped onto the altar.

“Then go!” I shouted, as the rope came into reach. Danielle jumped up and grabbed the rope.

I swept the sword in a wide arc, slicing the corpse into two parts. Another jumped in its place.

I glanced up at Danielle, she was moving pretty quickly. She had almost reached the halfway mark.

I swiftly cut the new corpse in half only to have it replaced by two more dead guys. Jeez, these guys were persistent.

One of the corpses managed to get its decomposing hands around my neck and tried to choke me. I twisted sharply, cutting the sword across the other corpse and there was an uncomfortable tearing sound.

I turned to face the corpse that had been choking me and discovered his hands were still around my neck, but his hands were connected to his body anymore. The corpse was an elderly man who appeared to have died from a chest wound. He stared dumbly at the ripped stumps just below his forearms.

“Sorry about all this,” I said, ripping the dead hands from my neck. “It was my girlfriend’s idea to come here in the first place.”

I slammed the handle of the sword into the dead man’s face and he fell back into the sea of death. I looked around and saw that more of the corpses were ambling their way onto the altar. I glanced up and saw Danni was safely above ground.

“Time to go, Mike,” I muttered. But first . . .

I snatched up the vial containing the red liquid. What’s the worse that could happen? I tossed it and the vial smashed against the far wall. A red mist began to spread quickly around the room. The corpses began to scream in agony.

I turned to grab the rope, but discovered it had drifted away. I was going to have to make a leap for it. I looked over my shoulder, the red mist was getting closer and from the sound of it was going to hurt me a big one if I didn’t move soon.

I took a running jump, and just managed to grab the dangling rope with my left hand. My grip, however, wasn’t as firm as I thought it was and I began to slip towards the collection of corpses down below

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . IN PART 5

a very grave love story

< < > >

You might want to read Parts 1 & 2 before reading this. They can be found here and here.

PART 3

When facing an oncoming tidal wave of the undead I don’t think there’s anyone out there who wouldn’t forgive uttering an expletive or two.

Danni and I uttered a stream of them, she using a few I had never even heard of before, and starting running to the opposite side of the chapel.

We darted through a sidedoor that lead to a cramped corridor. Behind us the corpses stumbled around mindlessly, but managed to move in a collective mass after us.

As we raced down the hallway, I said to Danielle, “Next time we do something like this, we double date.”

Danielle did a double-take. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well,” I explained, between gasps for air. It was a long corridor, however, it seemed to be on a decline, “The idea is that we’d have some people for the dead guys to, you know, go through, before they got to us.”

Danni thought about this for a minute, keeping pace alongside me easily—I think I might have been slowing her down. She nodded. “Actually, that makes sense.”

The hallway took a sharp turn and Danielle and I found ourselves in a large underground room, complete with giant cobwebs.

“Oh look,” I said as I came to a stop, “this cemetery is equipped with its very own crypt. Isn’t that sweet?” I muttered. I tipped forward, bracing my hands on my knees. I was going through some serious oxygen deprivation.

“Oh yeah, this is what I’m talking about,” I heard Danielle saying, her voice practically dripping with drool.

I looked up from between my legs and saw her standing a few feet away, in front of a rocky-looking wall. She turned around, holding a bronze-handled broad sword. Her eyes were glazed over as she admired the sword.

I straightened up. “Ok, Danni, I know you’re having a moment, but we do have a mass collection of dead guys coming after us.”

“Sorry,” she said and turned back to the wall. She pulled off a large battle-axe and tossed it to me.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed, grabbing the axe by the wooden handle. “Careful with these things,” I held it with both hands. Jeez, it was heavy.

And then the first of the corpses came bursting into the crypt. Instinctively I swung the axe around. Rotting bones crumbled immediately beneath the sharp blade and the corpse they had belonged to collapsed to the floor.

I stared at the corpse. Then I stared at the axe. Then back at the corpse. Finally I said, “Wow.”

More corpses started streaming into the crypt. Danielle jumped on them, wielding her sword rather impressively. I almost would’ve sworn I heard the blade whistle as she whipped it around.

However, it soon became apparent that no matter how good Danielle was with a sword, for every corpse she took down, there were a dozen more to take its place.

I grabbed Danni’s arm after she yanked her blade out of a fresh corpse. “Come along, darling, we don’t want to over stay our welcome.”

We were soon sprinting through the old crypt, the Corpse Corps never too far behind. We ran into giant cobwebs at every turn. The wooden floorboards beneath our feet rattled violently. And behind us, I heard the never ceasing stamping and groaning of a whole lotta dead guys.

It was a depressing situation.

We passed through a large opening, and found two large wooden doors on either side. We swung them closed and dropped a thick wooden block into the appropriate slots. Almost immediately after that, we heard the Corpse Corps crash into the doors from the other side.

The wooden doors shook violently, but did not break.

“Well,” I said between gasps of breath, “that takes care of that.”

Danni tapped me on the shoulder. “Ah, Mikey, you might want to turn around.”

I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to turn around, but I did anyway. My sense of overwhelming dread was not unwarranted. We had, as they said, gone from the frying pan, to the freaking bonfire.

Danni and I were now in a giant circular room that was lit by multiple giant torches that hung from the walls. There was a shaft of moonlight that shown down through a single hole in the ceiling, it was focused on one figure who stood on a raised altar of sorts: James Wolfe.

Wolfe was now dressed in some funky brown colored, ceremonial-looking robes and looking no less dead than he had a short while ago. Although it struck me that he looked remarkably good for a guy who lived to be a hundred and died twenty-three years ago. He was in the center of the largest collection of animated corpses I had ever seen and I had just seen a pretty big collection only seconds ago.

They were everywhere. Fresh corpses and not so fresh ones. And there were a lot of them. They were kneeling. They were standing. They were clinging to the ceiling. They were crouching. They were standing on each other. They were everywhere.

“Damn,” I said, “that is a lot of dead people.”

“Yep,” Danni replied, “sure is.”

We took a step back and ran into the wooden doors, which, incidentally, were still shaking. In other words, we were trapped.

“This is so not good,” Danielle said, gripping her sword tightly.

“What do we do?”

“I am fresh out of ideas. Unless you just want to go around bashing heads, which you know I’m totally for, I’ve got nothing.”

I swallowed nervously, switching the axe from hand to hand. “Maybe we could go around moaning ‘Imhotep,’ in a monotone voice. Sort of blend in with the crowd?”

“I don’t think that’s going to work, Mikey.”

Wolfe pulled out a fresh cigarette and stuck into his lipless mouth. “I wouldn’t worry about how you’re going to get out of this one, kids, ’cause you ain’t,” he lit the cigarette and then reached into his robes. He pulled out a heavy-looking vial of murky, red liquid and a large, and I mean large, ruby.

“Ooh, look at the pretty ruby,” Danni said.

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“I hope you’ve made your peace with God, not that I believe in him or anything,” Wolfe said. He didn’t have to speak very loudly. The mass of corpses stood motionless and silent. “Which isn’t to say I don’t believe in a higher authority, which I do. I mean, how else do you explain all these animated dead folks?” He set the vial and the ruby down beside each other. “I’d go into my gods and all that, but we really don’t have the time. If we don’t get this ceremony before sunrise, it’ll be another twenty years or so before we get another chance. So,” the remaining of the skin on his face kind of stretched back. I think he was trying to smile. “let’s get started, shall we?” He reached back into his robes and pulled out a smaller vial, this one was filled with an icky brown liquid.

Danni tilted her head towards me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a plan yet?”

“I’m getting there,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said, nodding her head. “Well, no pressure, but if you could come up with one before they sacrifice us, I’d be eternally gratefully.”

“Exactly how eternally gratefully are we talking about here?” I asked.

“How grateful do you want me to be?” she replied.

“Gratefully enough to never bring me to another cemetery.”

“I think I can agree to that,” she said.

Wolfe dropped the brown vial and it hit the stone floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. The contents were released in smoky haze that billowed around the room. There was a tense moment of absolute nothingness and then, the corpses surged forward as one, all groaning that same bone chilling tune. I felt like I had stepped into a chorus scene from Night of the Living Dead.

I twirled the axe a little. It was now or never. “Ok, here’s the plan: Move for the altar.”

“Move for the altar? ” Danielle shouted back, knocking off a bony arm that had been trying to grope her, “Then what do we do?”

I swung the axe at an elderly woman who apparently had died from a gunshot wound to the head. I know you’re supposed to respect your elders, but there’s a line, you know? Usually that line starts around death. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .  in PART 4

a very grave love story

< < > >

Did you miss Part 1? Find It Here

PART 2

The words rang loudly in my ears.

“Are you ready to die?”

How does one answer that question?

“Uh, could we backtrack real quick?” Danielle asked. She sounded remarkably calm about all this. “Who, exactly, is ‘we’?”

“Well,” Wolfe replied, straightening his posture a bit, but as he was undead and British, there wasn’t much to straighten, “That’d be me and me dead blokes.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding my head. I turned to Danielle. “Now can we leave now?”

Danni gave me a vigorous nod. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me.”

We did a one-eighty and started running away as fast as we could. Behind us, I heard Wolfe’s voice echo one last time. “‘Fraid you’re not gonna get outta this that easily, kiddos.”

We rounded a sharp corner and came to a screeching halt when two slabs of marble flew off opposite walls and smashed into each other. I reached forward and yanked Danielle down alongside me. Most of the tiny pieces of marble only grazed our backs. We raised our heads and when the smoke cleared, I was able to make out two figures struggling out of the two open tombs.

One was a fairly young looking man with shaggy blond hair that kind of flopped over his face. Judging by his pale skin, I assumed he hadn’t been dead very long. The other one, however, was an old fashioned rotting corpse. Its skull was dark, hairless, skinless and very much split open. There looked to be a few pieces of dangling skin left, but I doubt they would be hanging around much longer.

Both of the corpses were making an awful, groaning noise that seemed to make me actually nauseous.

“Wrong way,” I said and pulled Danni down another corridor. Behind us, I heard several more tombs burst open. For a cemetery, this place was getting pretty lively.

Danielle gave me a puzzled look as she ran alongside me. “Where are we going?”

“The chapel,” I replied. “I remember seeing it down this way.”

I heard more tombs burst open, somewhere ahead of us.

“The chapel? Michael, these guys aren’t vampires or zombies, I don’t think a chapel will provide any kind of defense against them,” Danni argued, “I mean, they’re just dead guys.”

I looked at her. “You got a better idea, Ms. Let’s-have-picnic-in-the-cemetery-in-the-middle-of-the-night?” I had to shout to be heard over the increasing noise. It seemed like the marble tombs were being smashed all around us.

“There!” I pointed to a set of double glass doors. Next to the doors, on the wall, was a plaque that read: The Chapel of Peace.

Oh, irony.

I grabbed the handles and yanked really hard, expecting them to be locked. Instead the doors swung open wildly and knocked me onto my butt.

“Ow!” I exclaimed, but couldn’t hear it. The sound of smashing marble filled the entire mausoleum. I saw Danni’s lips move, but didn’t hear what she said. Probably had something to with me being a sissy-boy.

She gave me a hand and soon we were inside the chapel. I pulled the doors closed quickly. Even in here, the sounds were deafening. I looked for some kind of lock on the doors, but couldn’t find any. I looked at Danielle and pointed at the doors. We needed something to lock them.

Danni frowned and rolled her eyes. She pointed at the doors. I looked back at them. Of course, they were glass. Locking them wasn’t going to do much good.

I could actually feel my teeth vibrating from the noise of the smashing marble. It felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake. I saw the glass in the doors rattle. I even noticed that the pews were shaking.

Then the noise stopped.

I turned to Danielle, my ears still ringing. Neither of us said anything right away, we just shared cautious looks. We both slowly turned to look at the doors. We couldn’t see anything. There was a fine, smoky mist, blocking our view on the other side of the glass doors. A full minute must of have passed before I dared to speak, “That, cannot be good.”

I glanced at my watch and noticed it had stopped. I tapped it, but it was dead. Weird.

I looked back at Danielle, who was tapping a finger against her chin as she studied the small chapel. It wasn’t very big, there were only two rows of five pews. A small podium and a spot for the coffin stood in the front of the chapel, framed by two stained glass windows.

“Um, you’ve got that look.”

Danni turned to me. “What look?”

“That look you get when you’re thinking about doing something crazy,” I replied. “Don’t tell me you’ve already adjusted to all this?”

She didn’t reply. Instead Danielle walked over to the wall and pulled off a decent sized crucifix. She gripped with both hands like you would a bat and gave it a few experimental swings. Finally she said, “This’ll do.”

“Do for what?”

“A weapon. Although, I’d prefer my machete.”

I rubbed my forehead. “You’re not going Buffy the Vampire Slayer on me, are you?”

Danielle smiled. “Only if you’ll be my Angel.”

I frowned. “As I recall Angel was a vampire who eventually tried to bring Hell to Earth. He also brooded and wore a lot of black. Black makes me look fat,” We didn’t get to finish the conversation.

The two stained glass windows that framed the podium exploded as two rotting corpses jumped through them. Danielle leapt forward, swinging her cross. She hit the first corpse, who was barely staying together in the first place, and sent the skull crashing into the wall. The headless body kind of tottered for a moment, as if unsure what to do, and then promptly fell over.

The second was a bit fresher, but not by much. I watched as it jumped at Danielle, waving its decomposing arms wildly. If it hadn’t been so dangerous, it would have been funny.

Danni took a swipe at Corpse Number Two and lodged the cross-section of the crucifix in the dead guy’s chest. The corpse stopped its attack and looked down at the crucifix. Then it looked at Danielle. And then, I’m pretty sure it laughed, although it sounded more like some kind hacking scream. I think it might have spit up some maggots, too.

Danielle’s eyes narrowed and she yanked the cross out sideways, breaking the corpse in two.

“Wow,” I said, staring at the collection of bones, “Not bad, I guess,” I looked back at Danni, who was wiping fresh sweat from her forehead. She still held the cross in her left hand. “Is that it?”

“I doubt it,” she looked back towards the broken stain glass windows. “We really need to get out of here.”

I nodded. “Yes, I totally agree with that.”

Suddenly the double doors burst open, sending shattered glass flying everywhere, and dozens of corpses started pouring in.

TO BE CONTINUED . . . in Part 3

a very grave love story

< < > >

PART 1

Beneath the rusty gates Danielle gave me a mischievous smile. She stepped onto the worn stone path and said, “This going to be fun. Trust me.”

I raised a dubious eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After all, what was I going to say? This was Danni. I followed the skinny, brown haired girl into the cemetery. Our path was illuminated by the setting sun, it’s golden rays glinted dully off bronze tombstones that surrounded us. I’ll be honest, I was slightly disappointed these were not the kind of tombstones that stuck up out of the ground like in the movies. These just lay on the ground like mini-plaques or nameplates: Hi, my name is Phil and I’m dead.

Oh yeah, visiting the graveyard at night, on a Friday the 13th no less. This is just barrels of fun. Maybe later we could stab ourselves in the eyes with icepicks. I shook my head and followed Danni.

“Oh, look at this one,” she pointed at a nearby tombstone. It looked like all the others, rectangular and unimpressive. “Charles Schmitty,” she giggled, “What a funny name.”

“Yeah, hilarious. I’m just cracking up,” I replied dryly, running a hand through my short black hair. I looked around again, checking to see if we had been spotted by any groundskeeper. I did not want to be here and I did wanted to get caught even less. This was, after all, technically trespassing. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past eight. “Just for the record,” I said, “having a picnic in the cemetery after sundown was your idea. Are we clear on that? If we get caught, you’re not taking me down with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks for your support. You can be such a sissy sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, that’s me,” I replied, shifting the heavy backpack from one shoulder to the other, “Captain SissyBoy, here to protect overzealous and adrenaline high girls from themselves. Where did you want to eat?”

Danielle looked around for a moment and finally pointed to a couple of benches over in the mausoleum. I nodded and started in that direction. At least it wasn’t on a grave.

“Hey, Mike, check this one out.”

I stopped and turned to look at the tombstone that Danni had found. Although, calling it a tombstone seemed almost insulting. Tt looked more like a miniature, ceremonial, altar-type thingie. It was made of some shiny, maroon marble and had four little, half naked angels on each of its four corners. The name on it read: Arnold Schevenheiger. With a straight face, I said, “I knew a Arnold Schevenheiger. That bastard owes me forty bucks.”

Danni giggled again and punched me the shoulder. “Show some respect for the dead. Besides, I don’t think that’s how you pronounce his name.”

I took a closer look at the tombstone. I shook my head and looked back at Danni. “He’s not dead. There’s only a date of birth. It’s been reserved in anticipation of his demise.”

Danielle laughed. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

I nodded. “Visiting a cemetery at night will do that to you. Being surrounded by all these dead people, you work up quite the appetite,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcastic wit. “Happens to me all the time.”

We walked over to benches and I set the backpack down. Danielle unzipped it and started ruffling through the ‘pack. I glanced back the way we had come. The sun was gone, and in its place were red clouds, highlighted with fading tints of orange. In another part of the sky I could see the moon slowly rising. A full moon. I shivered involuntarily.

“Cold?” Danielle asked.

I shook my head. “Just a little creeped out.”

She nodded. “I know what you mean,” she smiled, “Cool, isn’t it?”

Sitting down, I rolled my eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were enjoying this.”

She tossed me a sandwich and said, “I guess you don’t know any better.”

Things were okay for next several minutes. We ate and chatted mindlessly about things that weren’t really all that important. While taking a sip from my Coke, I noticed Danielle rubbing her bare arms.

“Getting cold?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“No, not really. But then, I’m wearing extra layers. Here,” I took off my blue, longsleeve shirt and handed it to Danielle, leaving me with just my red T-shirt. She was right, it was getting cold.

Danni was putting the shirt on over her tank top, when we heard a loud noise. It sounded like someone had dropped something very heavy on the marble floor.

Danielle looked at me. “What time is it?” she asked.

I glanced at my watch. “Little after eight-thirty. It was probably the caretaker. I knew we shouldn’t have done this,” I rubbed at my own arms, feeling goosebumps popping up. “I don’t remember hearing anything about a cold front coming through.”

I looked back at Danielle. Her mischievous smiled had returned.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, and the answer’s no,” I said quickly, waving my hands. “You may have gotten me to come out here after dark, but you are not going to get me to investigate some weird noise.”

She apparently didn’t listen to me, because as soon as I was done talking, she stood up and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me in the direction of where the sound had come from. “Come on, Mikey, we’re already here. Might as have some fun.”

“Fun, right,” I muttered and followed her. I wondered when we were going to get to the part with the icepicks.

We were close to the other side of the building before we found the cause of the mysterious sound. The cover plate of one of the tombs had fallen off. It lay on the marble floor split into two pieces. Danielle and I exchanged looks and stepped forward.

I knelt down and turned one of the marble pieces over to see who the tomb belonged to. “James Wolfe. Born 1886. Died 1986. Wow, one hundred years exactly. Not bad.”

“Well, if you’re impressed with that, you’ll love this,” Danielle’s voice had a weird, bouncy edge to it.

I stood up and peered inside the tomb. The good news was that the coffin was still there. The bad news, however, was that the end of the coffin facing us had been busted open—from the inside.

I looked back at Danielle. “Okay, I’m not genius, but that’s not supposed to happen.”

“Maybe it was rats?” she suggested.

“Rats?” I repeated. “Seriously? That’s what you’re gonna go with?”

There was a light whistle as a cold breeze ran down the corridor. Danni and I both turned sharply, expecting to see a dead guy creeping up behind us. But the corridor was empty. We were alone. I felt goosebumps popping up over my goosebumps.

“I’m thinking,” I said in a near whisper, “maybe we should leave.”

Danni shook her head. “I’m thinking you’re a coward.”

I nodded. “I’m thinking you’re probably right. Can we leave now?”

“No.”

Danielle started walking back down the way we had come. I looked back at the open tomb and felt another cold shiver run down my back. Oh, yeah, this was going to be fun.

I followed Danni, noting that it had grown cold enough to see my breath. This was getting ridiculous. Strange noises and strange cold fronts? Did I miss a memo?

Our footsteps echoed loudly down the empty corridors of the mausoleum. Yep, it was just me, Danielle, the dead, and a restless dead guy or super powered rates. What more could you ask for on a romantic evening such as this?

Ahead of me, Danielle rounded a corner and stopped. I didn’t notice this until I had almost run into her. “Whoa, what’s up? Traffic jam?”

Danielle didn’t reply. I followed her gaze to the end of the corridor and felt my breath catch in my throat. A figure stood at the entrance to the mausoleum, silhouetted by the full moon. Judging by the broad shoulders and height of the figure, I assumed it was a man. I hoped it was only the caretaker.

“Hello?” I said, stepping out from behind Danni.

The figure didn’t reply. He raised his arm and lit a cigarette. The flicker of light from the Zippo was quick and brief, but in it I was able to make out some definite features. The figure was definitely male. He seemed to be mostly bald, save for a few clumps of white hair. He also seemed to be missing his lips, as well as half the skin on his face.

I tilted my head towards Danielle and asked quietly, “Did you see that?”

Danielle nodded, a look of amazement etched into her face. “Yep. Cool, huh?”

I gave her a look. “We need to talk about your definition of the word ‘cool.’”

The man exhaled a puff of smoke and spoke, “Well, don’t you two make a pretty little couple,” Voice had a definite British accent, although it did sound kind of broken and gravelly. But, I suppose being dead will do that to you.

“Great,” I said, “The first zombie I ever meet and he turns out to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, in America no less!”

“Hey!” the dead man snapped, “Bonnie Prince Charlie was a bloody Scot. I’m British. Also, I’m not a zombie. I don’t want to eat your flesh, that’s just disgusting. I’m just undead. Get you’re bleedin’ facts straight.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

The dead man took another drag from his cigarette. “Yeah well, that’s the problem with the educational system today. They get all the facts messed up,” he exhaled. “What do ya call yourselves?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your names,” he said, like he was talking to a slightly retarded child.

“Danielle Widgon and Michael Cray,” Danni replied.

I looked at her. “Excuse me?”

I couldn’t see the dead man smile, but I heard it in his voice. “Perfect.”

I whipped my head back to the shadowed figure. “Excuse me?! What’s that supposed to mean?”

The dead man flicked his cigarette to the ground. “It’s Friday the 13th, on a leap year. Plus, it’s a full moon.”

“And that’s supposed to mean . . .?”

“That if we sacrifice two young people, male and female, we get to roam the city at our discretion,” the dead man explained calmly, as though he were giving directions to the nearest gas station. “By the way, the name’s Wolfe. James Wolfe. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Ready to die?”

TO BE CONTINUED . . . IN PART 2

What? To be continued?????? What’s this all about? NO BONES ABOUT IT is a six part serialized story for the month of May and part of June. Make sure you check back next week for part 2.  Isn’t it this exciting? I know, you might wet your pants. It’s cool. I won’t tell anyone.