Name or nickname: Majin
Age: 18
Referred by: Er... that one guy. Nox! Nox. *nod*
Have you read the rules? Mmhm, scout's honor.
And because you can never have enough ZOMBIES:
Sample:Sounds of the night seemed to fade into a dulled quiet in Hathorne Cemetary; traffic of the highway beyond the gates was muted almost entirely, only a faint murmur filtering through the thick trees devoid of life. Some animals shifted, an owl called out once in a questioning, reverent tone, then retreated into silence.
Dead silence. Gene chuckled to himself, adoring that particular cliché. His camera sat untouched and unassembled in his waist sack, the tiny oil lantern unlit and tucked beside it. He’d thought another cemetery shoot might inspire him, and it did… just not to take pictures.
He stepped around a tilted, moss-covered headstone, gazing at it in disinterest. By scarce moonlight he envisioned the ways he could position the lantern for dramatic lighting, angle the shot for an interesting picture. Only vague ideas came to his mind. He sighed, glancing at the full-waning moon in muted irritation. So his career was on the line. He couldn't make himself care. Nothing was interesting right now.
The stone was one of the older ones he'd seen. Should have been one of the most photogenic; probably was. He let his fingers trail over the roughened edge, feeling for the warmth and texture of the weathered granite. The name and dates had been long worn to smoothness, its only remains of a defining feature a small circular portrait. A young, scowling face tapered to a round chin had been cut out of the rock, expression identical to all mid-century men, it seemed. Its black stone eyes sunk in their chiseled hollows, gazing reproachfully at the ghost of a craftsman’s tool.
Gene felt his eyes wandering from the stone to others in its row, glancing abstractedly to their multitude of shapes. Even the curiosity about the man in the portrait was faint and quick to pass. At the height of his youth, his passion, the face would have lingered in his mind and align itself into many fictional tales and speculations of the mysterious life and early death. Now, his fantastic and slightly morbid daydreams were as absent as his drive to capture the world through the revealing eye of a lens. His apathy only vaguely worried him.
So he wandered.
The cemetery had only one entrance he knew of, a rusted wrought iron gate off the highway, concealed by overgrown trees and several yards of gravel drive. He’d never seen its boundaries. The property was huge, woody and shadowed, unlike newer more upkept graveyards with polished white stones in rows and grass like manicured plastic. He’d always hated those. Who wanted a grass cutter riding over their final earthy resting place? They were annoying enough to the living, who deserved no reverence or respect.
This place, though. Even during the day, peace reigned here. Gene found himself making the several-hour drive with his equipment whenever he was in need of beauty, serenity and solitude. A photographer with no photographs was in dire and immediate need of inspiration and he’d thought he might find it here, as he’d never seen it at night and hoped the change would bring new vision. All he found, though, was silence. Which was fine.
He sighed, stepping over a row of low, broken markers mostly obscured by tangled thorny foliage. The trees lacing together overhead blotted out the moonlight almost completely, and he had to duck to avoid their lower branches. This took him through a tiny path, no more than a gap between bushes, really, and into a shallow clearing. Bright patches of moonlight contrasted sharply with the shadows cast by trees. His artist's eye appreciated the vivid black-and-white image.
The stones here were erect and white in even rows, obviously a newer section. Their uniformity was pleasing. For a moment, the stirring need to assemble his camera and capture the vision, but it passed as quickly as it came. The results would be artistic and inventive, yes, but lacking in the candid flair for the overdramatic his employers had come to expect. It would not be Gene's type of photograph. Something was just missing.
Another terrible cliché...He wandered between the rows. Some of the plots were bare earth: recently buried. He looked at them the longest. Visions of dropping to his knees in the dewy soil and sifting through it with his hands invaded the apathy of his mind, of cracking open a coffin's fading wood and exploring what he found there. That, he knew, would be photography material. The urge grew strong, but it, too, passed quickly.
It seemed this night held nothing for him. The thought was depressing enough to make him turn and start back the way he came.
It was at this point that the moon grew slightly brighter, and a black patch on the ground grew more apparent. He stopped and blinked at it, squinting in the darkness. A cloud set was coming in, he should probably get around to lighting his lantern so as not to get helplessly lost—was one of the plots empty?
It was. This was odd; there were some pre-dug graves at the end of the rows, but this wasn’t rectangular or nicely shoveled, and a scattering of dirt was flung haphazardly at its edges. A tiny jolt of excitement jumped in his chest as the word
graverobbers rose in his mind. Everyone had heard of these, but he’d never exactly gotten what one robbed from a grave. Did anyone really bury heirlooms with the dead anymore?
These thoughts rolled idly through his mind as he weaved through the white slabs to get a closer look. Yes… the dirt in tiny piles was indeed still dirt, and it had rained two days before. The hole had been dug since then. Approaching it, hand inching toward his camera-pack out of habit, he glanced at the headstone.
Martha Bennet. Deceased this year. Buried, perhaps, within the month; only juvenile blades of grass peered through the undisturbed soil. The buzz of excitement grew and he knelt by the hubcap-sized hole, squinting. The moonlight, of course, didn’t touch it. He might as well have been staring into a vat of black paint. It was deep, though… perhaps six feet?
He stood, set the lantern on Martha Bennet’s headstone and lit it. Behind Martha Bennet’s headstone, another grave was dug up, the hole wider and illuminated now with the small oil flame. The gleam of a polished coffin could barely be seen outlined within. Also behind Martha Bennet’s headstone, directly between the two graves, a kneeling figure looked up.
Gene momentarily forgot how to breathe. His throat constricted and burned.
The face staring at him from directly beyond the small lantern did not look surprised; it did not register any emotion at all, though its mouth moved slightly, chewing the strand of something long and glistening that dangled from its lips. Its skin was mottled and stretched wrongly over its cheekbones, dotted with dry abrasions and running streaks as if it were dry leather with old stains. Its eyes barely touched the light, so deeply were they sunk into its misshapen skull. Thin lips stretched from its jaws, revealing a row of perfectly formed teeth. It didn’t have a nose.
He’d fallen asleep. The thought came to him reassuringly, and he agreed with it. He was dreaming. He was not, in fact, staring down a zombie in the middle of Hathorne Cemetary.
But his body told him to run.
It took a moment to unlock his legs, and the moment stretched. His oil lantern flickered a little. The figure behind Martha Bennet’s headstone stood up almost erect; it tilted slightly. Wet chunks dripped from its hands and fell to the pile over which it had crouched. Gene’s eyes slid of their own accord to the mess at its feet, glistening sunset orange in the lamplight. It was unmistakably the shredded remains of a human corpse.
Well, of course. Everybody knew zombies eat people. Was it their brains or their flesh…? He couldn’t remember, and deliriously deliberated this as the thing took a slow, almost cautious step in his direction. His brain started up again and he felt his spine go rigid with fear.
He turned, stumbled, and ran.
Dramatic cut-off!
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