Gravediggers
Authors: Christopher Krovatin
D
EDICATED TO THE CITIZENS OF
K
UDUS
AND THEIR FALLEN ASSAILANTS
,
ALL THOSE GUILTY AND INNOCENT
. . .
Â
T
O THE DEAD
.
Contents
Â
Â
H
eaps of thanks to Claudia Gabel, Alex Arnold, Katherine Tegen, and everyone at HarperCollins who made the Gravediggers series a reality; to all of the authors and publicists who joined me on tour; and to my family and friends for their undying support, especially my mother and father, Anna and Gerry, who believe in me. Hails to the many artists and musicians who have inspired me throughout the writing of this book, specifically the Misfits and Cannibal Corpse. Special thanks to Max Brooks, Mike Mignola, and, of course, H. P. Lovecraft, whose unorthodox interpretations of terror have always inspired me to push the boundaries of my own understanding.
And finally, I humbly bow to Ian, Kendra, and PJ, my brothers and sister in arms. It has been an honor to walk alongside you in your battle against the cold and the dark. Thank you.
Â
From
The Warden's Handbook
by Lucille Fulci
Â
Chapter 3: The Cursed
3.5âThe Bite
Â
T
he curse, ever insidious and persistent, attacks in two significant ways. One is its presence in the very air of a cursed landscape, which allows it to not only cloud the mind, but also to attach itself to any recently deceased human body within the boundaries of the afflicted area. Anyone unfortunate enough to pass away within the confines of a cursed area, even if their demise comes from natural causes, will have their body inhabited and taken up by the dark powers that run through this place. However, the other and perhaps more recognizable method through which the evil is spread is through being bitten by one of the cursed.
While the act of biting itself does not cause damnation, it is the most common method of damnation. In general, physical contact of any type with the undead is discouraged. In some cases, seemingly harmless scratches have caused death and reanimation, and some who have gotten the blood of the cursed in their eyes and mouth have perished from it. But because of the undead's insatiable hunger, they will more often than not attempt to bite their victims before scratching them or passing their ichor along to them. Thus, we must observe the bite as the most potent method of attack amongst these creatures.
Observed cases of bites have shown the following: that the undead's teeth must break skin to taint the blood and pass along the curse. (Perhaps due to some sort of functional imperative, the teeth are one of the last parts of the cursed to rot away, though toothless undead have been encountered.) Once the skin is broken, the bleeding stops swiftly, and the victim usually feels stronger, even more vitalized than before, for between thirty minutes and two hours. Soon after, however, the victim becomes feverish and light-headed. Then come dizziness, nausea, and an impossibility to catch one's breath. At this point, the afflicted person usually experiences numbness, with subsequent injuries painless and unnoticed. It has been posited that this is a response similar to that of the venom of certain snakes and insectsâto incapacitate the victim so that they are easier to catch and devour. After this, the afflicted begins both visual and aural hallucinations. Many victims have reported a dull, low moaning or droning, like that of a heavy wind, as well as voices speaking violent and suicidal thoughts within their minds. Approximately twelve hours after this, the victim will simply close their eyes and stop breathing. At this point, the Warden has approximately thirty minutes to disassemble the bitten person's body. After that, it is officially reanimated and therefore untouchable by the hands of a Warden.
It should be noted that, unlike other entries in this volume, the above sequence of events is not set in stone. Depending on the location of the curse, the severity of the bite, and other mitigating factors, the speed at which infection and death occur can vary. In certain cases, such as the Chimney Rock Massacre (see
The Fugue
, p. 138), bitten individuals were reported as dying from their wounds and reanimating all within an hour. Similarly, many Wardens have reported spells and poultices staving off the curse for days before the afflicted succumbed to their wounds. However, there is a moot point throughout all of this that any Warden will agree with, and that this author cannot stress enough to any young Wardens believing themselves to be unique in their abilities:
The bite is a death sentence.
To forget this fact is to create false hope and put yourself, and others, in severe danger. When a person is bitten by one of the undead, they will die, and they will return. No spell, totem, sigil, or any other magical tool can stop thisâthey can only delay the inevitable. To this date, no one has ever survived a bite from one of the cursed, and no one has ever died without coming back as a mindless drone. Time spent hoping against hope is better used gathering one's wits, making peace with what has happened, and either destroying the specimen or putting distance between it and one's self.
“H
elp!” I scream. “It's tearing my face off!”
“Calm down, Ian,” says PJ. “I know. I'm sorry. One more piece . . .”
PJ reaches up to my eyebrow, his face super intense like he's some scrawny mad scientist, all tongue between his lips and eyes wide, no blinks whatsoever. For a second, I hope that this last piece isn't a bad one, and then I feel his fingernails curl around the edge of the latex, and he slowly peels it back, and my skin tugs and pulls and stretches, and then
SKRRTCH
, it comes off, taking a nice amount of brow hair with it and stinging like crazy.
Sitting on the edge of the tub, Kendra's got her head lowered so that all I can see is a big brown ball of hair, but I know that under the 'do, she's trying not to laugh. Don't know why, just
know
. Man, look at herâso weird to see her in a
dress
, let alone this yellow Easter-type number she dug up to help make PJ's movie.
“There,” says PJ as I rub my eyebrow, “all done, you baby.” He lays the brow appliance on the sink next to the others, and it's kind of cool, man, looking down and seeing my werewolf face staring back at me in pieces. Two heavy brow prosthetics, two brown latex pointed ears, a dog nose and lip muzzle, and a chin piece, all stinking of acidic chemicals and face paint. Part of me kind of misses being the werewolf in PJ's movie already, like maybe I could put the stuff back on and do another couple hours of howling and snarling, but then I remember only, what, thirty minutes ago, when there was fake fur in my nostril and everything itched and sweat had started pooling up in the rubber chin, and I'm totally stoked I no longer have to wear these things, ever again.
“My face hurts,” I say, because that's pretty much what I've got going on right now.
Kendra raises her eyes to me, and yeah, look at her biting her lip, her cheeks blushing dark brown. She's been cracking up at my shouts and yelps. “Interesting,” she says, “because it's killing
me
.”
Silence, crickets, then it sinks in. See, Kendra's been trying to learn jokes lately. “Oh,” I say. “That's not
really
how that goes.” The smile and the bright sunny look on her face vanish, and suddenly I wish I could slap that last comment out of my own mouth. “See, it's âDoes your face hurt?' It's a question. And then they say no. It doesn't quite work if my face actually hurts.”
She nods, all determined, in a way that I've slowly learned is sort of like saying,
Thanks, you've taught me something
. It's crazy to think about earlier this year, when we hated each other and all three of us were these complete messes, you know? Me, Kendra, and PJ, wandering through the woods, crying and sniffling and eating termites to keep from starving, but now, here we are: PJ being a crazy genius with a totally hardcore look on his face as he makes us up as monsters and directs blocking in my backyard, and Kendra, looking . . .
I mean, she's . . . in a
dress
.
PJ hands me a jar of makeup remover and a washcloth and nudges me slightly toward the door. “I'll yell for you when we're ready for your training,” he says. “In the meantime, go use that.”
“You sure?” I say. “Maybe I should see the processâ”
“That would defeat the purpose,” says Kendra. “Don't worry, it shouldn't take long. Right, PJ?”
“Probably not,” says our tiny, dark-eyed friend in that quiet, intense voice he gets when he's working. He turns to his monster makeup kit, spread open in two diagonal stacks of bins overflowing with glues and rubbers and face paints and prosthetics. He cracks his knuckles like some
extra
-scary evil genius. “We'll go simple this time around. No wounds, just coloring. Well . . . maybe a few wounds.”
“Well . . . if you're sure,” I say.
Kendra grins at me, and it's like the inside of my brain melts into a puddle. “See you shortly, Ian.”
“I guessâ” The minute I'm past the door, PJ slams it in my face. Part of me gets all intense and angry inside, wondering what's going on in there and what Kendra and PJ are saying about me, only I know what's going on, so why does it matter?
Lower your temperature
, O'Dea told me two weeks ago.
Save it for the fight. Then, you need to be hot enough to cut through steel
. All right. Get all this gunk off my face, then an ice-cold soda. Should lower me right down to a nice cool.
My mom's in the kitchen sticking a lasagna in the oven when I get there. At first, she smiles when she sees me, but then she puts her hand to her mouth and tries not to laugh. Yeah, yeah, hilarious, I'm sure.
“Can you help get this crap off?” I ask, holding up the jar of remover.
She nods, takes the washcloth, and starts rubbing globs of creamy hospital-smelling remover into my cheeks and chin. Every time she pulls the cloth away, it's smudged a little darker brown.
“I almost forgot PJ was over here,” she says as she dabs. “Samantha hasn't called the house five times today. How'd he like your werewolf?”
“Think it went okay,” I tell her. “Got to run around growling.”
“I heard,” she says. “Kendra was screaming her face off for the last two hours. That girl has some powerful lungs on her.”
“Girls do that a lot in horror movies, Ma.”
The corner of her mouth goes up in this crooked way that makes her look like there's a joke I'm not getting. “Kendra sure looks cute in that dress.”
Blecch
. It's like she's reading my mind and trying to make me yak all at once. “I guess,” I say in a way that hopefully tells her I have
no idea
what she's talking about. “She won't be in a little bit. PJ's working his movie magic on her right now.”
“Oh yeah?” my mom asks. “Do you slash her with your claws or something? I thought you promised me this wouldn't be very violent. . . .”
“Nah, she's getting a . . . different thing done,” I say, my mouth going dry and numb, like I'm just back from the dentist. It's like the island all over again. “PJ's . . . trying something out. A new makeup technique.”
“Does this have anything to do with your big weekly phone call?” she asks.
“Nope.”
Man, I'm
so
bad at lying these days. I've never been great at it, but lately, I've just been the worst, scrambling and failing left and right. Maybe it's because I've just been so busy hanging out with Kendra and PJ all the time, and we can talk about what happened whenever we want, like the more I'm used to the truth, the harder it is to lie. I feel like both those guys have mentioned the same thingâtheir parents getting suspicious.
But my mom can't know, which I still agree on, which all three of us agree on. None of them can know that the dead walk the earth, that on our last two trips away from home we ran into cursed places teeming with bloodthirsty zombies looking to eat us, and that if it weren't for this insane network of witches called Wardens, we'd all be corpse chow. Because even if they don't believe us and they think we're crazy, then we've got
that
to deal with, the counselor and maybe pills or special classes, and then we can't do our job, which is kicking the butts of these horrible things whenever they show up.
That's why O'Dea, our local Warden, calls us once a weekâshe's helping us train to be what we are, these sort of famous zombie killers called Gravediggers.
Gravediggers. I know. After the first time, I didn't believe it. We really just stumbled on those undead modern dancers by accident, and we sort of killed them by accident, too, tricking them to tear each other apart. But after last time? Swinging a machete into an oncoming horde of melty zombie tourists on some desert island owned by a freaking
teenage supervillain
? Yeah, I'll bite. Since then, I've been operating under the idea that all of this is real, and man, it feels good just admitting it.
That's why none of our parents can knowâthey'll get in the middle of things and mess up what we're doing. They may not be destined zombie hunters, but they're still our parents. If we're grounded and the dead walk somewhere? Not a good look.
“There,” my mom says, “you're pretty much good. Definitely take a shower before you go to bed, though.” She squints at me, like she's trying to figure out whether or not to punish me for something I
might
be doing, which I totally am. “You know I love you, kid. Be good, okay?”
“Always,” I say, and haul back to my friends, dying to be out of my mom's line of vision and to know what's being said inside our bathroom.
I rap my knuckles against the door. “You guys done yet?”
“Almost!” shouts PJ.
“Come on!” I say, knocking again, and when that doesn't work, this wicked thought pops in my head, and I start slapping my hand against the door and moaning low and deep in my throat.
The door cracks suddenly, and PJ's head pokes out, his dark-rimmed eyes wide and a little concerned. “That's not funny,” he says. “You're a sick individual.”
“It was a little funny. Come on, let me in, I'm ready to see this.”
At first, I think that little smile that sprouts on PJ's face is because of my joke, like he's trying not to laugh. Then he swings open the door and says, “Voila.”
Instant brain freeze. Like my heart shoves its fist in my throat and everything from my knees down is made of ice.
Kendra stands there, face gray and slack, eyes dim and glazed, as though she's seeing me for the first time. Her cheeks are sunken, the skin all wrinkly like it wasn't laid down right, and her lips are a dark shade of blackish brown, but the one corner at the right edge of them is all torn away, revealing a couple of white teeth and some pink-brown gums. Both the gash on her face and the one on her arm are shiny and wet with chunky black goop. But it's her hair, manânormally this one single, perfect ball of frizz that's now sort of clumped together and dirtyâthat just gets me.
“I'm sorry,” says PJ, his voice taking that soft, understanding tone he does so well. His hand lands on my shoulder, and bam, I'm back, I'm here, with my friends, not lost in a state of blood-chilling terror. “I was just trying to get back at you for the zombie knock. Didn't mean to give you the full freak-out.”
“It's cool,” I finally gasp. “Had to see it eventually.”
Kendra's face breaks out of its far-off gaze and blinks into a delighted smile. “Is it that accurate? Were you genuinely afraid?” When I manage a nod, she giggles and turns to PJ. “Well done, PJ. Apparently, you did an excellent makeup job!”
“I do all right,” he says with a slight smile. “Let's go.”
We step into my bedroom, and after I've kicked all of the dirty clothes, basketball gear, and homework books into the corners, we have a nice space set up for practice.
“You ready, Ian?” asks PJ as I face off with now-zombified Kendra, who's swiftly typing something into her smartphone.
“I would be,” I say, “if someone got off the stupid internet.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she mumbles, pocketing her phone. “Redditors. You know how it is.” As she turns back to me, she lets that same sort of mindless dead look go over her face, and my heart goes fast again. This is my training sessionâfor Kendra, we jumped out at her nonstop to get her acting quickly, and for PJ we screamed horrible scary stuff at him while showing him pictures of spiders and dead bodies (what a gross Google search). Now, it's my turn: confronting the dead.
After our last fight with the zombies, I had a real problem at first when it came to facing off with themâjust kept freezing up with something like the heebie-jeebies on steroids. O'Dea said we've got to be “familiar with the enemy,” to be able to stare at them head-on and not mistake them for or treat them like people, even if they're someone we know. The way she said that last part made us think she'd been in that situation.
“All right, Ian, let's do this slow motion,” says PJ, using his camera to switch from his werewolf footage to a new file. “Kendra's going to come at you, and you're going to try and fend her off and take her out, but do it slowly so you can see and remember your instinct. Got it?”
“Sure thing,” I tell him, trying to keep from breathing too fast.
“Good,” says PJ. “Kendra, ready to roll?”
“Affirmative.”
“Great.” PJ raises his camera and, after a little moment, the red light comes on. “Aaand . . . action!”
Just like that, Kendra comes lurching at me, moaning deep down in her throat, and I have to admit, her zombie impression is pretty spot-on. She drags one leg like it's been broken midway through the shin and manages to twist her fingers in
just
the same way that the walking corpses we've fought have done. For a moment, staring at my friend, or this creature that's supposed to
have been
my friend, it's like I'm stuck again, frozen inside of my own bodyâ
Then, those weird bent fingers lightly touch my arm, and everything comes back to reality, and my hand comes out in a flying chop, swinging down at half speed and stopping just in the middle of Kendra's neck.
“Wait, stop,” she says, dropping the zombie act in an instant and leaving me stunned, blinking and sputtering, like she just pulled a magic trick. “You can't just go for the throat. That won't stop them, remember?”
“I just figured it might break their neck,” I try to say. “Especially if I have a machete. Doesn't cutting off their head work?”
“Technically, yes. But!” says Kendra, raising a gray-painted finger in my face. “It's all about the spine, Ian. Remember what O'Dea said? Unless you fully rupture the spinal column, they can still attack. Here's what I've been choreographing mentally. . . .”