NaNoWriMo

So, I'm participating in NaNo this year. It's my first year doing so and so far I'm on track to finish on time.

*pause for applause*

Now, at some point the story will go up on fictionpress or here on the blog, but I don't know when.

So instead I shall put up an excerpt and the synopsis for your reading pleasure.

The Grave Watchers

Death rides a pale horse, and she is a beauty. Since man first buried his dead, she has watched over them. With her hand she raises those select few, those disturbed and maimed, to new life. These risen souls duty bound to protect the souls still buried and resting. The souls restless and walking.

Sebastien Crowle is such a watchman. But as a villain so profane and perverse enters the scene with a crime the likes of which Sebastien has never seen, can he stop the villain and confront the ghosts of his own past as they begin to rear their heads?

Excerpt

When I was entombed, London had no cars, no power lines, no mobile phones. My parents wept over me, their only child. I was young to die, even then, at twenty-three.
But in truth, a spark of life was left in me. So when grave robbers came and pulled my body from my tomb, I tried to call out for my father. No noise escaped my lips, and the robbers, mad and monstrous in deed and thought, pulled each and every tooth from my mouth. I had been told my teeth were lovely, so here these men saw an opportunity for profit.

They left me on the floor, they had no respect for the dead or the grieving. I wept silent tears at the thought of my family seeing me thus. I kept calling. A second night, and then a third. It was on that third night that my father found me, and he cried such tears. He himself replaced me in my tomb lest my mother have to bear the terrible sight. As a man of God, he prayed for my peace and soul. As my father, he prayed that too that retribution be done to those that would commit such crimes.

I don’t know if it was God, angels, devils or Death herself that took an interest, but on the seventh night, my eyes opened, my heart beat, and my lungs took breath. I felt teeth grow into my mouth with an ache and tear and at the last feeling returned to every extremity.

I rose from the dead.

My name is Sebastien Crowle, and I am a Grave Watcher.

“Mrs Gorman, as I’ve told you many, many times; I don’t have a pet. You’ve
searched my apartment several times now and it’s getting very tiresome.”

Mrs Gorman was a cranky, arthritic seventy-two-year-old with white hair cropped into short curls and rheumy brown eyes set into a face reminiscent of my third cousin Sheridan’s pet bulldog Mince. She tended to hunch and it did make her look like an evil witch. Today she wore a flower printed dress not especially different from the day’s past. I’m not saying she was all bad, just on days ending with Y.

She hated animals. Cats, dogs, parrots, hamsters, snakes, her hatred didn’t discriminate.

“I heard an animal in there,” she grumbled, “I know I did.”

“Hearing things is one of the first signs of dementia Mrs Gorman, are you scheduled to see a physician any time soon?”

“I will discover that animal Mr Crowle.”

“Of course Mrs Gorman—and now, I am on my way out.” I slid around her with a bit of a bow and slipped down the hallway with its peeling floral wallpaper. There were then four flights of stairs down to the ground floor to quickly check the little metal locker the postman put my mail in.

It contained the usual flotsam of adverts, junk, and bills. I threw away the junk and tucked the bills into my pocket. I felt a bit guilty about lying to Mrs Gorman again, but Bones wasn’t exactly a pet, and in any case, he wasn’t exactly alive. I found him many years ago and he decided to follow me. I liked the company and he did keep our residences free of mice. As far as I know he couldn’t eat them, but he did like to catch them.

The weather was foul, which made me think fondly of home. It would be years before I was to go back to London. I pulled the hood of my coat up over my head to keep off the rain. The winter was starting to creep up on fall, and soon the rain would be snow and things would become more difficult, and in some ways, simpler.

Few people dug up graves in the winter, but more spirits came out of the woodwork. I had a theory about that actually. Winter meant the holidays, which meant heightened emotion, an all of that emotion attracted the dead. The same seemed to be true of Halloween and Panic Day (which is March the ninth).

Thankfully, the only things that rose on other holidays were weak spirits jealous of the living and family spirits that wanted to celebrate. The only holiday I preferred not to work was Saint Valentine’s, too many love-struck and heartsick dead. They were a very depressing group.

Today was a Sunday, or I would not have been up before sundown. But my father had been a vicar and for my part I still took the time to attend Sunday Mass.

It wasn’t a whole lot of time from my day, and it wasn’t as though I didn’t have time. I walked to the church, down a broad, tree-lined street that was one of the main reasons I enjoyed living here. I didn’t know the name of the street, or even the name of the town, but I loved the trees.

My mail, such as it was, managed to find me with very little address. When I was in the larger cities, I tended to address more carefully. But in this time and place, I did not. Wet, yellow, maple leaves crunched under my feet and I was glad for my good boots that kept the wet out so well. Water dripped from my hood and onto the front of my coat to ride along the brown leather length down to my calves and drip off the hem and onto the grey concrete sidewalk.

The cemetery came out of the rain and the spirits flittered about, unseen to the churchgoers starting to file in through the open doors from the parking lot. The automobiles in the lot neatly parked. The automobile was one of the things I couldn’t wrap my head around, and as such I did not drive. There was this affectation with rush in this century I did not like.

I preferred to take my time. Why drive when I could walk? Really, I didn’t even like to take the bus. If I had to travel, I took a train, or a boat. I wasn’t completely behind the times though, I did own a telephone and a radio. Though most modern music disturbed me I had found a liking for the ballads of Queen for pure irony and some of the newer “rock” stars were very good.

Television, however, was only good for educational purposes, and I would rather read. I’d enjoyed some of the earlier programs, but this recent fascination with “reality” television programs was off-putting. I suppose I am a bit old-fashioned.

I waved to a friendly spirit, and then, all of a sudden, a gruesome figure staggered out of the cemetery, groaning. Skin was peeling from his bones and blood
dripped from his fingers.

“Hello Bernard.”

The spectre straightened and then pouted, “Aw, Sebastien, you were supposed to be scared.”

“I’m very sorry Bernard, but I can’t take seriously when your shoe is untied.”

He looked down at his trailing laces and groaned.

“I keep telling you, taking care with your appearance matters. Who will be afraid of a ghost with untied shoes?”

“No one looks at shoes.”

“I did.”

He shuffled his feet, “You’re different…you’re Sebastien.”

“And?”

“All right…I’ll do better next time.”

“Good. I’m sure, one of these days, you’ll manage to scare me.”

He perked up a little then, “You think so?” A bit more skin peeled off as he smiled.

“You have a lot of potential, Bernard. And now, I have to go to Mass.”

“See you next time then,” Bernard faded a bit and drifted back to his grave.

I smiled my smallest of smiles and hurried into the church.



That's it for now. Cheers!