To whom it may concern

The rain was coming down, and the gravestones in the Eerie Cemetery stood tall and dark and crooked, multiple rows of long grey teeth rotting in a wet and diseased mouth.

Deep within their cocoons of damp soil, the restless dead moaned. Newly-turned earth and graves long turned to grassy green bulged and roiled as the decaying things beneath strained upwards in search of light and air and living flesh.

Euclid Daganfort trudged the narrow and winding paths between the burial plots, a shovel slung over one shoulder, the blade sharpened to a narrow silver line shining in the gloom.

Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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The grass needed cutting, and it squelched underfoot as Euclid Daganfort made his way to the little stream that ran behind the Eerie Cemetery.

He carried a fishing pole and a tackle box, and he wore a chainsaw across his back and a gleaming, serrated knife at his belt.

The Jenny Greenteeth was sunning herself amongst the weeds that grew in the shallow places along the bank. Her eyes were bulbous, white and glassy with pin-prick pupils, and her mouth was frog-wide and full of jagged verdigris blades.

She smiled when she saw him, and eel-like coils churned beneath her.

Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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The bells on the burned-down church were ringing, ghostly peals that echoed down the quiet, early morning streets. Euclid Daganfort paused in the act of shaving, his eyes meeting the waiting, expectant gaze of the thing in the mirror that was not, and had never been, his reflection.

It winked, and the old man scowled.

He turned off the tap and listened over the sloshing of water in the basin. Already he thought he could hear movement under the earth, withered limbs creaking to some semblance of life as absent hearts pumped formaldehyde through atrophied veins.

Gods, he hated Easter.

Ongoing Verse: Easter Weekend

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Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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The Teller's living room was crowded, but quiet. Edgar clasped Marilyn's hand in both of his, while she held Simon tight with the other. Harley pressed close against his brother's legs. Melanie and Janet crammed together on the arm of the sofa, Devon wrapped so tight around them that he was barely visible. Marshall stood beside the radio, staring at it as if he could pressure it into delivering up better news. Syndi leaned against the wall, notebook forgotten in her hand, while Tod McNulty chewed black-painted nails down to a chipped ruin beside her.

The radio hiccupped with static, it's messages garbled and distorted by outside interference. Still, through the pop and hiss of the fading signal, some things could be heard.

Quarantine. Shut downs. A plea to a frightened populace to remain indoors. Looting. Stockpiling. Riots at the Eerie Mall. Shortages. The sky falling. A man arrested for breaking containment. Something else arrested for breaking containment. A house reduced to rubble by the falling sky.

The Shuckers Bowl-a-thon Hall of Fame Inductees. Euclid Daganfort, again declining to accept the honour. Mrs. Walter-Funke, brimming with pride as her husband's name was called.

Edgar Teller.

The room erupted with cheers.

Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Euclid Daganfort looked out over the rows of empty graves, leaned against his shovel, and sighed.

Looking north, he could see the winding road that connected Eerie Cemetery to the rest of the town disappearing over the crest of a hill. Barely visible against the darkening sky of a late January afternoon, the last straggling members of the risen dead stumbled along it. The bright colours of their brand-new sportswear contrasted unpleasantly with the grey-green of rotting flesh as they dragged themselves towards the lights and sounds and smells of the living world.

Wearily, he rubbed his face with one hand, calloused fingers rasping against three-day stubble. He sighed again, just to let the universe know how tiresome he found all this, and began cleaning up the scattered mud and soil left by the departing zombies.

As he worked, he was pleased to discover that many of the grave markers were simply crooked, and resituating them in the newly disturbed soil was a simple enough task. Some, however, had fallen completely, chipping or cracking on the stone pathways or knocking chunks out of their neighbours in their collapse.

It was here that he found it, a glossy trifold pamphlet advertising Eerie Aerobicize. "Get fit and have fun!" declared the bold print on the front. "Special offers for new customers: see inside for details."

Euclid Daganfort, keeper of the Eerie Peace Garden, protector of the living from the dead, and the dead from the living, opened the colourful piece of discarded junk mail and signed for the third time that day.

"Get the life you always wanted!" screamed the headline above a pricelist only mildly inflated for the post-Christmas rush. "New year! New you! Visit our state-of-the-art facility for more info!"

"Well," thought Daganfort. "Even the dead are entitled to self-improvement."

Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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Written for Day 30 of the 31_days October challenge. The prompt was "give me something"

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( Read the rest of the Trusted Associates verse here )

Written for Day 16 of the 31daysoffandom challenge. The prompt I used for this one was "dead"

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( Read more of the Trusted Associates verse here )