Writing Challenge Day 6
Day six already!
If you haven’t read the last four stories, you can find them here:
Today’s prompt: Cemetery where the earth rejects the corpses, leading to a night grounds crew who have to violently assist the wayward corpses back into their graves.
Dedicated to Alex Olson.
Midnight Exodus
The midnight siren wailed, the sallow moon cast its eerie light upon the cracked tombstones as the earth groaned. The graves split open, a creamy smoke billowed forth. A wailing rose, then a corpse was ejected violently from its grave.
Then another.
And another.
Rotting bodies, bloated bodies, dressed in formal suits and dresses—flung up into the chilly sky, to plummet to the ground, to stir and moan and stand.
Near the cemetery’s gated entrance, a long brick hall sat swathed in the moonlight. Its large garage door opened and bright white light poured forth as the siren continued to howl.
Out came the uniformed Grave Crew, their faces covered in shiny black face shields. In their hands they held net guns, harpoon guns, and poles that ended in savage hooks. Marching in tandem, these thirteen members of the Grave Crew headed deeper into the cemetery.
The closest corpse, a young woman missing half her face, spotted the approaching hunters and screamed. Turning, she fled deeper into the cemetery, dodging the glowing split graves. At the sound of her screams, the other undead turned, spotted the Grave Crew, and fled.
Some limped, others full out sprinted, yet others could only stagger. All tried to escape.
From the brick hall, another uniformed figure stepped out and snapped their fingers. Six dogs lunged out, snarling, and raced along the fences into the cemetery.
The Grave Crew members fell on the first corpses, the slowest ones. Using their hooks and nets and harpoons, they brought the elderly, the adults, the children down, throwing them into whatever grave was closest.
The graves swallowed back the dead, earth stitching back together with a whimper.
The dogs circled in, snapping at rotted hands and feet, herding the dead back to the center of the cemetery.
One hunter snatched an old woman around her neck with a hook. The older woman wept, feebly swatting at the handle as the hunter pulled her to another grave.
“Please!” the corpse gargled. “Please no! I can’t go back! Not there!”
Into the glowing crevasse and the grave closed up.
Two hunters dragged a couple of corpses—two young men in dirty suits—in a net.
“Dude, please! Have mercy! It’s horrible! Horrible! It hurts! IT HURTS!!” one cried.
“It’s hell! Hell! We all go to hell! No judgment! No heaven!” the other wept, scratching furrows into his cheeks.
The dogs snapped and harried. The hunters methodically captured and threw each corpse into whatever grave was still open. The dead wept and begged for mercy.
Once the graves were closed, the dead gone, the Grave Crew returned to their hall with their dogs at their heels.
The siren petered out, echoes of it still bouncing over the city. Now silent, until the next night when the dead would try to escape again.
x PLM
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