Osbourne Unknown

Chapter Two

Around the silent yard, hemmed by a tangled towering hedge to one side, dead trees and hideous bushes to another, and a road to one more, earth twitched and shifted. Turf split and soil spewed out, and the ground rose in new barrows, one, three, six. They grew and shuddered, even the petals of old wreaths returned to the surface with the displacement. The early evening sky watched without eyes as a hand clawed its way out, thick fingers flexing towards the growing night. Sores on the maroon skin wept as the stench of death cried out in triumph. That hillock fell still, and then, as if some buried bomb exploded, clods of earth and tussocks of grass erupted out and showered its neighbours. The simple stone fell back with a sigh and then a thud, as through the last dregs of dirt a body rose, muscular, maroon and festering. It ground as it tossed back its shaven head, the strong jaws stretching as the male, standing his height, heaved himself from the hole, clawing off the last remains of his interment, catching oozing pustules and making more ragged the sacking cloth tunic he had existed in. His stench was already foully strong on the even air.

Another marker toppled down, more earth rained, and with equal moans of something another body raised itself and tasted the air with its swollen tongue. Red eyes flickered from it, staring around for food and screaming when there was none to be had. Like lost brothers he and the other joined, moving towards another grave that had imploded without the body of its owner resting there. They paced and tasted as two more burials swelled and burst, their occupants moving to make a foursome slowly. One, virtually the twin of the second, sparked with strange lights and tore vainly at the filmy substance coating him, ignored in his plight by the other who snarled for the fourth, the late son of the one who had already risen and taken flight. He tested his arms and fingers, straining them with movement and then brushing clean his mouldy robes before he moved forwards, his skin a paler red than the beast that flapped up from the ditch he had left. It chattered inanely, shaking its horned head before settling like some scarlet bird onto the shoulder of his master, talons digging into dead flesh..

Three looked at each other, the fourth with himself. The little demon, buzzard sized, fluttered to steady his perch, tiny needle fangs chewing the fingers of his awakened owner.

‘Vieszcy and Nachzehrer are not moving.’ The rotting maroon vampire rasped, waving around at the exposed mounds that had stilled. His stench filled them all.

The one with a mockery of a pet hissed and snarled, lunging forwards towards the farthest tomb to scrape away the stony soil, met when doing so by squeaks and squeals. Earth become wood, as unnatural nails scraped decayed board, which ripped up and flew through the air with an anger. A snarl wrent the sundown and the nobler visage disappeared for barest seconds, arising eventually clutching another fellow, his shroud yellowed and jaundiced hands grabbing at each other. His human eyes were open wide as he was flung to the ground and stamped on in disgust, before Dracul, as the vampire was known, abandoned him for the other stationary grave. Shaken, his shroud still clenched between his teeth from where he taken to chewing it, he stood and shuffled over to the others, shamefaced even for the beast he was.

Meanwhile, behind a tall stone and a small mountain of earth, the last sleep was being awoken, and hauled from his crypt, mad and bloody. His hands dripped with the crimson ambrosia, from where in his isolated hunger he had ravaged his hands in mania. Forced upright, he slunk snivelling and still biting his mutilated limbs to the small gathering of undeads under the silver orb and the diamonds.

‘I can feel him.’ Neuntoter, the reeking and rotting vampire said. ‘He is back!’

‘We can all feel him.’ Dracul voiced. ‘My father has already gone to the castle.’

‘Then so must we!’ One of the twins declared. ‘We must join him!’

Three remained silent, one watching, one listening, and one insane.

‘And so we shall!’

The demon chattered and flapped its bat-like excitedly, tossing its tiny horned head. Around them the monsters shrieked their loyalty, and made their ways from the far flung graveyard, the twins as one, Dracul and his pet, the diseased with the mad and the dastardly coward alone. With the six and friend gone, quiet restored itself, with only seven opened and emptied graves to disturb the land. Blood spattered one, a stench another, claw marks on several shattered coffin lids also. But nothing else there was.

Midnight hung heavy, the stars faded and the moon gleamed with the joy of it all, he throne returned again. By the hedge, the grass started moving and shaking, twitching. Tears appeared, and grew, wider and wider as stones and dirt pushed upwards like some evil earthen blossom. A parody of a digging dog started to form, upside down, and then paws erupted, large ones scrabbling at the thin air. Tremors wracked the small pile violently, until a shoulder came through, the rump, a side of ribs, and the lastly the head, returning to the world after years in earth. Mud smeared the golden fawn coat, as short and smooth as had been on the day of the accident, only filthy with the rain in which it had been disposed of, worthless in death as had not been in life. The dog shook itself, stretched, and then gave a great howl to the giant orb above, before lowering the hunter head and snarling at invisible demons in the dark. It howled again, snarled, snapped, and then bounded off life a wolf after prey. From the shadows of the hedge, nearby from another hole, a smoke grey and stripy tabby cat hissed at the retreating canine, hateful of the best friend of man as ever in life. It ears flattened at the same transparent monsters, eyes widened to their nothing. Hissing and spitting, it deserted the thorny brambles, and vanished into the stones.

The sun rose the next morning on a desolate yard, disturbed by beasts that had fled with the moon. Flattened grass and dirty brown scars marked the morbid beauty. Nothing remained but those of the night.

A/N-There is something going on with these chapter updates, I just know it. Anyway, please review, if only a few words.