LET THE DEAD REST

Content warnings: detailed discussion of death/decay, desecration of graves and body snatching, injury, gross undead monster creature being gross.

The chill of the winter wind, rolling in off the sea, only motivated Augur further as he stepped up to the wide wrought-iron gates of his town’s only graveyard. Cemeteries at night were the best place to gather supplies, he’d found.

The bag slung over Augur’s shoulder was full to the brim with all the supplies he would need. A gardening shovel, a hammer, a flashlight, a knife, a set of lockpicks, and a large number of plastic sandwich bags with the label “BIOHAZARD” on them in marker. As he approached the lock, he ran his hand over the pockets of the bag, checking that everything was still there.

As he slid the lockpick carefully into the gate’s keyhole, he briefly thought about the possible morality of all this. He didn’t particularly believe in hell in the first place, and if he was going there for breaking and entering then he was certainly going there for all the other things he’d done, so it was a wash anyway. And with any luck, he wasn’t going to be dying in the first place.

Armed with those thoughts, he twisted the tension wrench and pushed open the gates to the cemetery.

He was glad for the flashlight—everything in this fucking town was always so dark at night. All the streetlights were still oil lamps. Apparently no one had bothered to replace them since oil lamps were actually a reasonable way of lighting large areas. It would be easy to get them replaced if anyone gave a fuck, but Augur wasn’t actually sure whether or not there were town hall meetings in this city, and even if there were he’d have no idea where to find them. So flashlights and mild annoyance it was.

Augur clicked on the flashlight, the golden beam spreading across the cemetery and bouncing off the gravestones. The purpose it served was twofold; helping him see and scaring off any raccoons or other animals that might try and bite him.

The beam from the flashlight showed a familiar sight. Since this was the only graveyard in town, and he went to get new supplies every two weeks or so, he knew this place like the back of his hand. It was almost charming at this point, honestly. About a million kinds of graves were set out here, from tiny worn-down stones covered in lichen to massive sculptures of angels standing above marble-covered tombs, making a patchwork mishmash of colors, types, and shapes. He had spent hours reading the stones—he’d gotten to know the groundskeeper a little and even helped her restore a few of the older graves.

But he didn’t have time for light reading tonight. Tonight, he had a goal.

At the top of the hill rising over the cemetery was a tall, proud mausoleum. Augur had passed it many times—the family name emblazoned on the marble structure was JUDGE, and there was some Latin phrase written underneath it that probably meant something flowery and boring and stuffy. He had no idea who in this town was rich enough to afford a giant mausoleum (in this economy?), but he wasn’t going to complain.

In the end, everybody died. At least for now. He was going to change that at some point, but for now everybody died. What happened to the body after death was really what Augur was interested in. Well-preserved parts were ideal for what he was doing, and no matter how annoying it was that the mausoleum was there, it was going to hold a wealth of parts that he could take.

And nobody was checking whether or not the mausoleum was still full—nobody ever did—so everything was essentially ready to use.

Augur shifted the bag on his shoulder, taking the first step up to the mausoleum with a groan. He really should have worn his knee braces today. He’d been walking for basically the whole day, carrying a heavy bag on his shoulder, and now he was going to have to climb a hill. But that was fine. Someday he’d have good knees, and he wouldn’t have to think about knee braces or pain medicine ever again.

As he finally made it up the hill, he breathed a sigh of relief. The hardest part was over. He jammed the lockpicks into the mausoleum locks, turning the key and pushing the heavy iron gate open. The cold night wind ushered him inside as he pressed himself up against the marble walls.

The mausoleum wasn’t as tiny as it looked. Not like it was bigger on the inside or anything like that, that would be ridiculous. It was bigger because the whole inside of the hill had been hollowed out and opened into a massive underground space. Like a cavern. Or a cathedral.

Cold marble stairs wound down into the depths, curling in onto themselves so he couldn’t even see where they ended. There were no lights down here, just packed-dirt walls and pillars holding up the ceiling. A massive archway led down into the depths, with some Latin motto written in big pretentious letters. It was pretty enough, he supposed, with the arch and the marble and the wrought-iron gates, but there was something strangely ominous about it. Apart from the fact that it was a mausoleum—that didn’t matter, he’d been in enough graveyards that it didn’t scare him anymore—there was really something strange about it.

Maybe it was the structure itself, the winding stairs, the eerie pillars and arches. There was something about the angle—or the color, or the way the light slanted against the beams. Something unsettled him about this place.

He shouldered the bag, stuck the lockpicks back inside. He’d get it done fast. He didn’t want to be here for any longer than he had to.

Augur started down the stairs. The sound of his boots on the stairs echoed up and around the winding halls, surrounding him with the sound of his own walking. He made it down to the first landing—why were there multiple landings in this fucking mausoleum?—and stepped inside.

A room entirely made of cold, empty marble. There were places that were clearly meant for coffins here. More stairs led down and away. It felt like he was in a maze of graves.

But there were no coffins here. And so he had to go down further.

His hands tensed on the strap of his bag as he climbed down, stair after stair. He felt his knees nearly give out as he made it halfway down the landing. He cried out, the sound of him falling back onto the stairs echoing higher and higher into the caverns above. The freezing stone beneath him leached what little warmth he had out of his body, and he forced himself upright, angry tears burning in his eyes and fogging his glasses as he limped down the stairs once again.

At long last he made it to the second landing. This one was full of coffins, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he made it to the nearest grave.

This one was old, almost worn together at one side. He dug the hammer out of his bag and slammed it into the nearly-closed gap, the sound reverberating around him as stone ground against stone. He pushed with as much strength as he could muster and finally his hands found purchase against the lip of the coffin. The stone tore at his nails, ripped against his already-fragile skin. But after an agonizing minute, the lid finally came free, falling to the ground with a painful noise that shook the whole chamber.

Inside, peaceful and still, was the body of a woman. Her frame was skinny, the black dress she was buried in loose around her. Years of death had taken their toll, and the remains of her face were worn into a death mask, but Augur didn’t need her to be living. That would be counterintuitive.

He picked his knife carefully out of his bag, shaving away the skin on her forearm and dropping it into one of the plastic bags he’d brought. Another bag, another turn of the knife, and he removed two fingers.

He wasn’t going to take too much—desecrating graves was kind of part of his job, but he didn’t want to really wreck these corpses. Yes, they were dead, but he wasn’t going to go so far as all that. He was okay with taking these little pieces from people. Carefully. Not too much. It made him a better person, maybe, or it just made it more likely that he’d get good joints. A bigger sample size.

That was all he was taking from this one, he decided, and put the samples in his bag once again. Now for the hard part. Getting the lid back on.

He didn’t know why he bothered doing this, he thought as he strained to pull the stone lid back onto the coffin. No one ever checked this place. Very likely no one had been here besides him in years, judging from the dust and dirt gathering on the stairs. There wasn’t even any sound to disturb this place, just the scrape of stone on stone as he hauled the lid up.

As soon as he was done, he paused, hand on top of the lid.

And then he dropped his knife on the floor, because the sound of stone on stone hadn’t stopped.

Slowly, he turned to look behind him—at the stone lid falling on the floor, at the thing crawling out of the coffin just behind him.

It used to be a person. Not in the same way a corpse used to be a person, not something that was still sort of a person. This thing, with its gaping eyes and toothy wide grin, was not a person at all. And it was coming towards him with fabric dragging behind, with overgrown toenails clacking—echoing—on the stone floor.

Augur ran. His knife lay forgotten on the floor behind him. He sprinted up the stairs as fast as he could, breathing hard, clinging to his bag with all his might. He could hear it, the clacking of its toenails on the floor, following him, chasing him.

It was faster than he was. His minuscule head start wouldn’t do him good for much longer, but it was the only thing keeping him going. And with any luck he’d be able to keep that head start and get out of the mausoleum, and it would lose him in the winding paths between the graves.

He glanced behind him, just to see how far back it was. That was his first mistake. Without the luxury of looking where he was going, he stepped wrong on one of the stairs. His knee gave out and he fell to the cold marble steps with a cry of pain. Desperately, he tried to right himself, but he could feel his knee moving wrong—he’d probably fucking dislocated it at this point, just his luck.

The thing cackled, the high bitter sound echoing over the marble floors and up into the cavernous ceilings, and grabbed at his ankle, pulling down hard. He felt a shooting pain course through his leg, his knee moving even further out of place. He screamed, and it laughed again.

He wasn’t going to fucking die here, not like this. Blindly, he reached into his bag, getting in a kick with his remaining good leg. He’d dropped the knife, but his hand closed around the sturdy, solid handle of his hammer, and hope suddenly burst in his chest. Raising it over the thing’s head, he brought it down hard, kicking again and sending it falling back down the stairs to the landing below.

There wasn’t time to celebrate. Augur shoved the hammer back in his bag and headed for the door, hands lowered to the stairs to crawl his way up as fast as he could. The pain in his leg was nearly unbearable, but he held his flashlight in one hand to show him the way as he desperately clung to the stairs below.

The thing down there was getting back up, howling like a wounded animal. He made it to the door of the mausoleum, not even bothering to close it again as he pushed himself up onto the freezing hard-packed earth of the cemetery path.

He wasn’t going to be able to get out, not with his leg burning like it was. He could hear it, hear the scratching of its nails and the howling voice growing closer and closer. All he needed was a minute of rest, that was all, and then he could stand and get back up and fight. Or run. Or whatever he needed to do to get out of this place alive.

Limping, Augur grabbed his bag more tightly and searched for somewhere to hide. He needed that safety, that moment of respite, and he found it behind a gravestone that was wide and tall enough to hide him for now.

One hand cupped over his still-burning knee, he dove behind the gravestone, heart pounding. He was so grateful for these goddamn dark oil lamps. The only light was from his flashlight—

Fuck. His flashlight. The light. It would be a dead giveaway. Heart in his throat, he fumbled for it, hands sweaty. Finally, what felt like hours later, it dimmed.

Augur could feel his heartbeat in his ears. With one hand pressed over his mouth to muffle his breathing, he strained to hear, praying to whoever was up there that he hadn’t been heard, that he was safe for now. He just needed a little longer to breathe, to confuse it, and then he’d get up and he’d run.

For one precious moment it was quiet. Augur let out a quiet, muffled sigh of relief.

And then a death mask of a face appeared in front of him, clambering over the gravestones.

He screamed again as he pushed himself back, colliding with another gravestone and hitting his head hard enough that he saw stars. The thing was closer now, its empty wide eyes staring right into his, its too-sharp teeth bared in a gruesome smile. He could smell the rot and mildew on its breath.

Knife, where was his fucking knife? Where—oh. Gone, he remembered, the knowledge hitting him like a blow to the stomach. Dropped on the floor of the mausoleum while he was making his getaway. He felt a chill settle around his heart.

Desperately he reached into the depths of his bag, hoping beyond hope that there was something in there to save him. He grabbed wildly at whatever he could find—some kind of handle, maybe the hammer again—the thing was getting closer now, its rotten filthy breath up against his face, and he closed his eyes tightly against the inevitable. With the last of his strength, he pulled out whatever it was from his bag and jammed it up and out, where he hoped the thing’s chest was.

It let out a scream like a bat out of hell, and Augur opened his eyes to see his gardening trowel, embedded right between the ribs of this thing’s emaciated torso.

With a choked scream, and a spurt of blackened blood bubbling out of its mouth and onto Augur’s face, the creature fell to the ground, no longer moving.

Augur didn’t bother with the trowel. He just sat there, mouth shut, lips trembling as he tried to keep himself together.

Every nerve in his leg was screaming with pain. He had a pounding in his head from hitting it against the gravestone. And his face was covered in blood and necrotic tissue. But he was alive, deliciously, terribly alive, and he was safe for now.

And he’d gotten the samples.

With the back of his sleeve, he wiped the gruesome mess from his face, taking in a gasp of air. He couldn’t risk staying here any longer. The cemetery was near houses, and someone would have heard the screams. Maybe a noise complaint, maybe the cops. And the frigid earth wasn’t good for his joints, not when they were already so sore.

Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet, stifling another cry of pain as his knee buckled. He pulled his bag close to his chest and started towards the gates, praying that he’d make it home.