Graveyard Romance

by Jason Krumbine

  A Graveyard Romance

  Jason Krumbine

  About This Book

  There's nothing like a romantic picnic in a cemetery...

  ...after dark...

  ...on a Friday the 13th...

  What could *possibly* go wrong?

  It's Mike and Danielle's first date. Will true love blossom as they make the transition from Just Friends to Boyfriend & Girlfriend? Or will zombie uprising squelch their romance and force the young lovers to join the throngs of the undead?

  Copyright 2009 by Jason Krumbine

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1 - No Bones About It

  Part 2 - Rubies Are My Girlfriend’s Best Friend

  Part 1

  No Bones About It

  < < > >

  1

  Beneath the rusty gates Danielle gave me a mischievous smile. She stepped onto the worn stone path and said, "This is going to be fun. Trust me."

  I raised a dubious eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After all, what was I going to say? This was Dani. I followed the skinny, brown haired girl into the cemetery. Our path was illuminated by the setting sun, its golden rays glinted dully off the bronze tombstones that surrounded us. I’ll be honest; I was slightly disappointed these were not the kind of tombstones that stuck up out of the ground like in the movies. These just lay on the ground like mini-plaques or nameplates: Hi, my name is Phil and I’m dead.

  Oh yeah, visiting the graveyard at night and on a Friday the 13th no less. This is just barrels of fun. Maybe later we could stab ourselves in the eyes with icepicks. I shook my head and followed Dani.

  "Oh, look at this one." She pointed at a nearby tombstone. It looked like all the others, rectangular and unimpressive. "Charles Schmitty," she giggled, "What a funny name."

  "Yeah, hilarious. I'm just cracking up," I replied dryly, running a hand through my short black hair. I looked around again, checking to see if we had been spotted by any of the groundskeepers. I did not want to be here and I wanted to get caught even less. This was, after all, technically trespassing. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past eight. "Just for the record," I said, "having a picnic in the cemetery after sundown was your idea. Are we clear on that? If we get caught, you're not taking me down with you."

  She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for your support. You can be such a sissy sometimes."

  "Yeah, well, that's me," I replied, shifting the heavy backpack from one shoulder to the other, "Captain Sissy Boy, here to protect overzealous and adrenaline high girls from themselves. Where did you want to eat?"

  Danielle looked around for a moment and finally pointed to a couple of benches over in the mausoleum. I nodded and started in that direction. At least it wasn’t on a grave.

  "Hey, Mike, check this one out."

  I stopped and turned to look at the tombstone that Dani had found. Although, calling it a tombstone seemed almost insulting. It looked more like a miniature, ceremonial, altar-type thingy. It was made of some shiny, maroon marble and had four little, half naked angels on each of its four corners. The name on it read: Arnold Schevenheiger. With a straight face, I said, "I knew an Arnold Schevenheiger. That bastard owes me forty bucks!"

  Dani giggled again and punched me the shoulder. "Show some respect for the dead. Besides, I don't think that's how you pronounce his name."

  I took a closer look at the tombstone. I shook my head and looked back at Dani. "He's not dead. There's only a date of birth. It's been reserved in anticipation of his demise."

  Danielle laughed. "Come on, let's eat. I'm starving."

  I nodded. "Visiting a cemetery at night will do that to you. Being surrounded by all these dead people, you work up quite the appetite," I said, my voice dripping with sarcastic wit. "Happens to me all the time."

  We walked over to benches and I set the backpack down. Danielle unzipped it and started ruffling through the 'pack. I glanced back the way we had come. The sun was gone, and in its place were red clouds, highlighted with fading tints of orange. In another part of the sky I could see the moon slowly rising. A full moon. I shivered involuntarily.

  "Cold?" Danielle asked.

  I shook my head. "Just a little creeped out."

  She nodded. "I know what you mean," she smiled, "Cool, isn't it?"

  Sitting down, I rolled my eyes. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were enjoying this."

  She tossed me a sandwich and said, "I guess you don't know any better."

  Things were okay for next several minutes. We ate and chatted mindlessly about things that weren't really all that important. While taking a sip from my Coke, I noticed Danielle rubbing her bare arms.

  "Getting cold?"

  She nodded. "Yeah. You?"

  "No, not really. But then, I'm wearing extra layers. Here," I took off my blue, long-sleeved shirt and handed it to Danielle, leaving me with just my red T-shirt. She was right, it was getting cold.

  Dani was putting the shirt on over her tank top, when we heard a loud noise. It sounded like someone had dropped something very heavy on the marble floor.

  Danielle looked at me. "What time is it?" she asked.

  I glanced at my watch. "Little after eight-thirty. It was probably the caretaker. I knew we shouldn't have done this," I rubbed at my own arms, feeling goose bumps popping up. "I don’t remember hearing anything about a cold front coming through."

  I looked back at Danielle. Her mischievous smiled had returned.

  "Oh, I know what you're thinking, and the answer's no," I said quickly, waving my hands. "You may have gotten me to come out here after dark, but you are not going to get me to investigate some weird noise."

  She apparently didn't listen to me, because as soon as I was done talking, she stood up and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me in the direction of where the sound had come from. "Come on, Mikey, we're already here. Might as well have some fun."

  "Fun, right," I muttered and followed her. I wondered when we were going to get to the part with the icepicks.

  We were close to the other side of the building before we found the cause of the mysterious sound. The cover plate of one of the tombs had fallen off. It lay on the marble floor split into two pieces. Danielle and I exchanged looks and stepped forward.

  I knelt down and turned one of the marble pieces over to see who the tomb belonged to. "James Wolfe. Born 1886. Died 1986. Wow, one hundred years exactly. Not bad."

  "Well, if you're impressed with that, you'll love this," Danielle's voice had a weird, bouncy edge to it.

  I stood up and peered inside the tomb. The good news was that the coffin was still there. The bad news, however, was that the end of the coffin facing us had been busted open—from the inside.

  I looked back at Danielle. "Okay, I’m not a genius, but that’s not supposed to happen."

  “Maybe it was rats?” she suggested.

  “Rats?” I repeated. “Seriously? That’s what you’re gonna go with?”

  There was a light whistle as a cold breeze ran down the corridor. Dani and I both turned sha
rply, expecting to see a dead guy creeping up behind us. But the corridor was empty. We were alone. I felt goose bumps popping up over my goose bumps.

  "I'm thinking," I said in a near whisper, "maybe we should leave."

  Dani shook her head. "I'm thinking you're a coward."

  I nodded. "I'm thinking you're probably right. Can we leave now?"

  "No."

  Danielle started walking back down the way we had come. I looked back at the open tomb and felt another cold shiver run down my back. Oh, yeah, this was so much fun.

  I followed Dani, noting that it had grown cold enough to see my breath. This was getting ridiculous. Strange noises and strange cold fronts? Did I miss a memo?

  Our footsteps echoed loudly down the empty corridors of the mausoleum. Yep, it was just me, Danielle, the dead, and a restless dead guy or rats with super powers. What more could you ask for on a romantic evening such as this?

  Ahead of me, Danielle rounded a corner and stopped. I didn't notice this until I had almost run into her. "Whoa, what's up? Traffic jam?"

  Danielle didn't reply. I followed her gaze to the end of the corridor and felt my breath catch in my throat. A figure stood at the entrance to the mausoleum, silhouetted by the full moon. Judging by the broad shoulders and height of the figure, I assumed it was a man. I hoped it was the caretaker.

  "Hello?" I said, stepping out from behind Dani.

  The figure didn't reply. He raised his arm and lit a cigarette. The flicker of light from the Zippo was quick and brief, but in it I was able to make out some definite features. The figure was definitely male. He seemed to be mostly bald, save for a few clumps of white hair. He also seemed to be missing his lips, as well as half the skin on his face.

  I tilted my head towards Danielle and asked quietly, "Do you see that?"

  Danielle nodded, a look of amazement etched into her face. "Yep. Cool, huh?"

  I gave her a look. "We need to talk about your definition of the word ‘cool.’"

  The man exhaled a puff of smoke and spoke, "Well, don't you two make a pretty little couple." His voice had a definite British accent, although it did sound kind of broken and gravelly. But, I suppose being dead will do that to you.

  "Great," I said, "The first zombie I ever meet and he turns out to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, in America no less!"

  "Hey!" the dead man snapped, "Bonnie Prince Charlie was a bloody Scot. I'm British. Also, I'm not a zombie. I don't want to eat your flesh. That's a disgusting and insulting thing to suggest. I'm just undead. Get yer bleedin’ facts straight."

  "Sorry," I muttered.

  The dead man took another drag from his cigarette. "Yeah well, that's the problem with the education system today. They get all the facts messed up," he exhaled. "What do ya call yourselves?"

  I blinked. "Excuse me?"

  “Your names,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a slightly retarded child.

  "Danielle Widgon and Michael Cray," Dani replied.

  I looked at her. "Excuse me?"

  I couldn't see the dead man smile, but I heard it in his voice. "Perfect."

  I whipped my head back to the shadowed figure. "Excuse me?! What's that supposed to mean?"

  The dead man flicked his cigarette to the ground. "It's Friday the 13th on a leap year. Plus, it's a full moon."

  "And that's supposed to mean . . .?"

  "That if we sacrifice two young people, male and female, we get to roam the city at our discretion," the dead man explained calmly, as though he were giving directions to the nearest gas station. "By the way, the name's Wolfe. James Wolfe. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Ready to die?"

  2

  The words rang loudly in my ears.

  “Are you ready to die?”

  How does one answer that question?

  "Uh, could we backtrack real quick?" Danielle asked. She sounded remarkably calm about all this. "Who, exactly, is 'we'?"

  "Well," Wolfe replied, straightening his posture a bit, but as he was undead and British, there wasn’t much to straighten, "That'd be me and me dead blokes."

  "Oh," I said, nodding my head. I turned to Danielle. "Now can we leave now?"

  Dani gave me a vigorous nod. "Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea to me."

  We did a one-eighty and started running away as fast as we could. Behind us, I heard Wolfe's voice echo one last time. "'Fraid you're not gonna get outta this that easily, kiddos."

  We rounded a sharp corner and came to a screeching halt when two slabs of marble flew off opposite walls and smashed into each other. I reached forward and yanked Danielle down alongside me. Most of the tiny pieces of marble only grazed our backs. We raised our heads and when the smoke cleared, I was able to make out two figures struggling out of the two open tombs.

  One was a fairly young looking man with shaggy blonde hair that kind of flopped over his face. Judging by his pale skin, I assumed he hadn't been dead very long. The other one, however, was an old fashioned rotting corpse. Its skull was dark, hairless, skinless and very much split open. There looked to be a few pieces of dangling skin left, but I doubt they would be hanging around much longer.

  Both of the corpses were making an awful groaning noise that actually seemed to be making me nauseous.

  "Wrong way," I said and pulled Dani down another corridor. Behind us, I heard several more tombs burst open. For a cemetery, this place was getting pretty lively.

  Danielle gave me a puzzled look as she ran alongside me. "Where are we going?"

  "The chapel," I replied. "I remember seeing it down this way."

  I heard more tombs burst open somewhere ahead of us.

  "The chapel? Michael, these guys aren't vampires or zombies, I don't think a chapel will provide any kind of defense against them,” Dani argued, “I mean, they're just dead guys."

  I looked at her. "You got a better idea, Ms. Let's-have-picnic-in-the-cemetery-in-the-middle-of-the-night?" I had to shout to be heard over the increasing noise. It seemed like marble tombs were being smashed all around us.

  "There!" I pointed to a set of double glass doors. Next to the doors, on the wall, was a plaque that read: The Chapel of Peace.

  Oh, the irony.

  I grabbed the handles and yanked really hard, expecting them to be locked. Instead the doors swung open wildly and knocked me onto my butt.

  "Ow!" I exclaimed, but couldn't hear it. The sound of smashing marble filled the entire mausoleum. I saw Dani's lips move, but couldn't hear what she said; probably had something to do with me being a sissy boy.

  She gave me a hand and soon we were inside the chapel. I pulled the doors closed quickly. Even in here, the sounds were deafening. I looked for some kind of lock on the doors, but couldn't find any. I looked at Danielle and pointed at the doors. We needed something to lock them.

  Dani frowned and rolled her eyes. She pointed at the doors. I looked back at them. Of course, they were glass. Locking them wasn’t going to do much good.

  I could actually feel my teeth vibrating from the noise of the smashing marble. It felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake. I watched as the glass in the doors rattled and the pews shook.

  Then, the noise stopped.

  I turned to Danielle, my ears still ringing. Neither of us said anything right away, we just shared cautious looks. We both slowly turned to look at the doors. We couldn’t see anything. There was a fine, smoky mist, blocking our view of the other side of the glass doors. A full minute must of have passed before I dared speak, "That, cannot be good."

  I glanced at my watch and noticed it had stopped. I tapped it, but it was dead. Weird.

  I looked back at Danielle, who was tapping a finger against her chin as she studied the small chapel. It wasn't very big; there were only three rows of pews. A small podium and a spot for the coffin stood in the front of the chapel, framed by two stained glass windows.

  "Um, you've got that look."

  Dani turned to me. "What look?"

  "That look you get w
hen you're thinking about doing something crazy," I replied. "Don't tell me you've already adjusted to all this?"

  She didn't reply. Instead Danielle walked over to the wall and pulled off a decent sized crucifix. She gripped it with both hands like you would a bat and gave it a few experimental swings. Finally she said, "This'll do."

  "Do for what?"

  "A weapon. Although, I'd prefer my machete."

  I rubbed my forehead. "You're not going Buffy the Vampire Slayer on me, are you?"

  Danielle smiled. "Only if you'll be my Angel."

  I frowned. "As I recall Angel was a vampire who eventually tried to bring Hell to Earth. He also brooded and wore a lot of black. Black makes me look fat…" We didn't get to finish the conversation.

  The two stained glass windows that framed the podium exploded as two rotting corpses jumped through them. Danielle leapt forward, swinging her cross. She hit the first corpse, who was already barely staying together, and sent the skull crashing into the wall. The headless body kind of tottered for a moment, as if unsure what to do, and then promptly fell over.

  The second was a bit fresher, but not by much. I watched as it jumped at Danielle, waving its decomposing arms wildly. If it hadn't been so dangerous, it would have been funny.

  Dani took a swipe at Corpse Number Two and lodged the cross-section of the crucifix in the dead guy's chest. The corpse stopped its attack and looked down at the crucifix. Then it looked at Danielle. And then, I'm pretty sure it laughed, although it sounded more like some kind of hacking scream. I think it might have spit up some maggots, too.

  Danielle's eyes narrowed and she yanked the cross out sideways, breaking the corpse in two.

  "Wow," I said, staring at the collection of bones, "Not bad, I guess," I looked back at Dani, who was wiping fresh sweat from her forehead. She still held the cross in her left hand. "Is that it?"