Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Water Burial

[froodle]

Written for Day 25 of the 31daysoffandom October challenge. The prompt I used for this one was "dead"



The pit that had been dug behind the tumble-down wall was full of spikes, and the spikes were full of zombies. Euclid Daganfort grimaced slightly as he squatted beside the skewered undead, his arthritic knees protesting at both the motion and the effect the early-morning damp was having on his bones. A couple of the nearest zombies moaned unhappily, their faces showing as much displeasure as decay and rigor mortis would allow, and made feeble grabbing motions in his direction. He knocked their hands away with the flat of the shovel, an instinctive gesture like a man waving off a bluebottle during an outdoor picnic.

He knelt for a while, peering this way and that at the zombie kebabs that were currently ruining the ambience of Eerie's oldest peace garden. Or adding to it, he supposed, depending on how you looked at things like ambulatory cadavers. Everything's relative, after all. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully against the reinforced knees of his hard-wearing canvas overalls, his head turning this way and that as he took in the scene. The sagging brim of his dirty yellow hat hid his eyes from view, but his lips were pursed as if in deep thought.

He rose with difficulty, supporting himself on the handle of his much-used shovel. Some of the brighter zombies tracked him with phlegmy eyes and the disgruntled moaning took on a more plaintive tone as they saw a potential meal making a break for it. However, their distress was to prove short-lived, as a few minutes later the grave digger returned carrying several stained lengths of chipboard under one arm.

The yielding planks slid neatly beneath the top-most layer of impaled revenants, separating them from the moaning masses below. Euclid Daganfort levered the wooden boards at a slight angle, slowly pushing them upwards and taking the zombies with them. Rotten flesh make a squelching sound as it was dislodged from the rough-hewn shaft of the sharped posts, leaving behind a gore trail of putrefaction. The zombies for their part gurgled and hooted with ghastly anticipation, chattering their broken teeth as they envisioned the feast to come.

It came as a shock to find themselves abruptly, albeit briefly, airborne, as the groundsman gave the raised end of the wooden planks a sharp tap with a mallet, sending the freed zombies over the tumble-down wall to splash into the weed-choked river on the other side. The wordless griping on the other side of the wall rose to an angry growl, then quickly to panicked whimpers as something huge and intemperate rose from the bottom of the river with a rasp of scale and a flash of flexing coils.

Down in the pit, the remaining zombies grew quiet, and tried to affect innocence as best they could.





Trusted Associates, Inc.

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