TO WAKE THE DEAD

Content warnings: undead creatures, grave robbing. mentioned dismemberment, rot, and cannibalism.

Lane was very, very tired. This tended to be a side effect of being dead. Human bodies weren’t really meant to keep going after that, with a few very rare exceptions, so it was the unfortunate truth that he spent most of the daytime in his grave, sleeping.

He didn’t have to, not like Verity a few plots down; she’d gotten a nasty sunburn a few weeks back when they’d forgotten to adjust their single communal clock to Daylight Savings. No, he could go in the sun just as well as any human. It was just more convenient. People were in the cemetery in the daytime, sometimes, and when you went outside when it was bright out it was easier for people to see that you were weirdly pale and dressed like it was still the sixties and completely covered in dirt. So he went out at night most of the time.

Tonight, though, he’d woken up and realized he didn’t really feel that hungry after his meal two days ago, and it had just snowed so it’d be freezing out, so he turned over in his coffin and went back to sleep.

Or, well, he went back to sleep until he heard something above him.

This wasn’t super weird. There were a lot of animals around here. Deer, for one thing, and rabbits and foxes and stuff like that. And there was that new groundskeeper or whoever he was, whoever had been digging around in the graveyard.

On second thought, it was definitely the groundskeeper. He could hear a shovel above him.

Were they renovating or something? He had heard so many people’s graves getting dug up. Lucky it hadn’t been anyone else in the community yet, if it had been Verity or one of the other vampires on the old side of the graveyard the poor groundskeeper would be dead before he even had a chance to say “sorry”.

Lane held very still in his coffin as the shovel sounds grew closer and closer. If he was very still and quiet, then when they moved his coffin it wouldn’t be suspicious.

After a long while, he heard something heavier than a shovel land near him, and heard a creaking sound above him as cool night air rushed into his coffin. He kept his eyes closed and his face slack, ready for the coffin lid to close again now that the groundskeeper had checked he was still there—

And then he felt the sleeve of his suit being tugged up, and the cool bite of metal against his skin.

“Hey, ow!” Lane tugged his hand away, glaring up at him. Sure, yeah, corpses didn’t talk, but he didn’t give a shit about that anymore. Somebody was trying to take a fucking saw to his wrist.

“What the fuck?” The groundskeeper—no, he definitely was not a groundskeeper, no groundskeeper in their right mind would do that shit—the grave robber stumbled back and dropped his saw.

“How would you feel if someone tried to saw your wrist off, asshole?” He clambered out of his coffin, sitting perched on his own gravestone. He didn’t bother to look—he knew what it said, no point dwelling on a death date when there was so much undeath to live.

“You’re alive.”

Lane burst out laughing.

“What?!” The grave robber looked offended—and the littlest bit embarrassed.

“Look at the gravestone, buddy. Could anything that was buried that long ago still be alive?” He didn’t wait for a response. “No, I’m undead. There’s a difference. And the difference is if a living person had been buried down there, they’d probably just scream and then thank you for digging them up, and then run away.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Lane considered this. He’d make a good snack, this underprepared grave robber, but he had just eaten. And he couldn’t keep him anywhere. One of the worst parts about living in a hole in the dirt—no space for belongings besides your own self.

He could go get Verity. She was always looking for a fresh meal. But she’d make a big deal about grave robbers, and then she’d go find Conrad and he’d make a big deal about grave robbers, and he’d call a fucking community meeting and then Lane would have to sit through more than one community meeting a month. Which would, of course, suck.

So the only option for this guy was to keep him alive. Maybe scare him a little before he left, that’d keep him away from the graveyard again. If he came back, he’d probably run into one of the others, and they wouldn’t be as charitable.

“I’m going to eat you. Isn’t it obvious?” He grinned, showing as many of his teeth as he could—and that was a considerable amount, he was pretty proud of that. “Things that live in graves eat people, at least most of the time. But if you start running now, I like your chances of getting to the gates before I do—”

“How about we make a deal?” the grave robber said, looking not afraid in the slightest, and Lane was honestly kind of disappointed.

“What kind of a deal?”

“Well, I mean, there can’t be that many living people coming into this cemetery. And if you want to eat regularly, then you’d probably have to hunt humans down. That’s inconvenient, right?”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I can help. A quid pro quo.”

“You’re going to give me the body parts that you’re getting from graves.”

The grave robber looked at him, even more embarrassed than before. “Well, I—”

“Dude, you don’t think I can just go hunt down food for myself? I’ve been doing this for my whole un-life, I’m not just some… I dunno, baby who can’t find a goddamn leg to take a bite out of.”

“But when I give it to you, it’ll be clean, sterile, and most importantly living.”

“Oh, yeah, ‘cause that’s better—”

“You’re a ghoul, aren’t you,” he said, looking at Lane with a self-satisfied smile. “I know it’s healthier for you to eat living meals. I know, I’ve done my research. You won’t have to kill any living people to eat living meals if you work with me.”

“So you’re a ghoul expert.” That was definitely not a thing. He’d never met anyone who even recognized him as a ghoul. “Right.”

“No, not an expert. Just someone with an interest. It would be useful for me too.”

“Having someone who eats dead bodies hanging around you would be useful for you,” Lane said, unable to contain his shock. This was quite possibly the weirdest night of his life, second only to the night he woke up and had to dig himself out of his coffin.

“Yes, it would.” The grave robber smiled at him with crooked teeth. “You would get fresh meals, no hunting needed, and a place to stay that has a bed instead of a hole in the ground.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I got this right. You’re inviting me, a dead body that you just dug out of the fucking dirt, to go back to your place.”

“Wh—you don’t have to put it like that.”

“No, go on. Tell me more about this whole arrangement.” He settled back onto his gravestone, long legs crossed on the dirt pile beside it. “I want to know what could possibly appeal to you about having a man who is literally rotting living in your house with you.”

“Okay, well, first of all, it’s not a house, it’s an apartment,” the grave robber said, red-faced. “And I have a, ehhh, certain interest in the undead. It would be beneficial to me to have someone to study, and a disposal method for the experiments I’ve been working on. Of course, I wouldn’t do anything without your consent, it would all be non-invasive.”

Lane’s eyebrows rose. “You aren’t kidding,” he said. “You really aren’t kidding.”/p>

“Of course not. Why would I be kidding about this?”

“I dunno, because you’re fuckin’—inviting a corpse to be your roommate.” He shrugged, which had gotten a lot easier since his connective tissue had decomposed a little.

“You would have to be sure not to interfere with my life. I’d be doing you a favor, so you don’t get to pry or anything like that.” The grave robber picked up his shovel and slung it over one shoulder, wincing as it hit his shoulder.

“If anything, I’d be less likely to pry. I don’t even want to know why you’d ask a dead guy to go live in your house with you.”

“I just told you.”

“You really didn’t explain anything, but that’s… fine, I guess.” He pushed himself up off the gravestone, kicking a clump of dirt into his grave. “Damn. Kinda got used to this place.”

The grave robber frowned. “You know you didn’t have to say yes.”

“You’d probably have sawed my hand off if I didn’t.”

“No, you would have screamed,” the grave robber said, like he had actually considered it. “I’ll fill the grave in again.”

“Cool. Lemme go tell Conrad I’m leaving, he’s gonna lose his fuckin’ mind.”

The grave robber looked up. “Conrad?”

“The ghost in charge of this place,” Lane said. At the clear confusion on his face, he continued. “Come on, you didn’t really think I was the only undead thing here? You’re just lucky you didn’t dig up anybody else. Not everyone’s as… nice as me.”

“Because you’re the picture of manners.”

“Hey. Watch your mouth, I coulda eaten you.”

“I’m sure you could have. But you didn’t. That makes me think you don’t really want to, do you?”

Lane shrugged again. “Ehh. I’m pretty full right now. But watch your back.”