Desiderium, Monsters the First Ch 17

My #WedPeeks post for this week is chapter seventeen of my new novella, now availble!  Desiderium is a dark fantasy/horror and is for mature readers.

*Warning: There is violence, sex, and a lot of profanity in these pages.

 

~ SEVENTEEN ~

Grave Robbery

I started immediately when I got home.

I pulled out the broom, the smudge—a gathering of sage and other herbs—and the collection of orange calcite from the occult shop. I opened all of the doors and windows and scrubbed the house from top to bottom. I cleaned every surface in every room.

Then I closed the doors and windows and drew the curtains closed as well. I took out the ceremonial broom and briskly brushed the walls and floor and ceiling in every room. With every brush I forced myself to imagine flames burning the surfaces clean of all negativity, of all traces of the monster that Annabel was.

Following the sweeping came the smudging. I burned the bundle and walked through the house, imagining the smoke purifying everything further still—binding to any negative energy the cleaning and the sweeping may have missed and carrying it away to be burned, obliterated. At every entryway to the house, door and window alike, I placed a piece of orange calcite.

At first I felt stupid going through such a routine. I’m a skeptic through and through, and this all seemed like complete nonsense to me. But I have to admit, with each step I felt lighter and stronger, as if the heavy shadow that had been settled over me for months, for years, was now lifting away. Once the house was thoroughly cleansed I felt calm, strong, and sure. With that done, and protection in place for me, I began planning the hard part.

In the end, it turns out grave robbing is actually quite easy to pull off.

Once I’d hopped the tall fence bordering the cemetery, the hard part was the digging and the thinking. Thinking about what I would find when I opened his casket only two years after he had been buried. I had read that with all the preservatives and processing they do these days, he may in fact look not all that different from how he looked the day we buried him. I prayed, fervently and violently, this would not be true for Blake. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could reach in and grab a single arm bone once I had the coffin open. But if it looked like Blake, even desiccated as he had been when he had died, and if I had to tear off a fleshy arm still connected to the shoulder with muscle and sinew, I didn’t think I could do it. No matter the cost. The thought of what I’d need to do to get past the flesh and to the bone made me nauseous and shaky.

These thoughts haunted me as I dug into the dirt of his grave. I had remained hidden in my apartment for weeks before this night meditating, reading, and preparing. I slept a lot and ate a lot, trying hard to recover from the extreme exhaustion the last couple of months had imposed upon me. But now it was only one night before I was to complete the ritual. I had waited until the last minute; I didn’t want to have Blake’s bone in my possession any longer than absolutely necessary, and I figured I only had one shot at this anyway. If I tried and failed, there would be no second chance. Once the world knew there was a grave robber on the loose they’d up security at the cemetery and my chance would pass me by.

So here I was, the night before I planned to banish a succubus, up to my hips in my brother’s grave trying to dig him out of the ground. I focused on the digging and kept my mind off the inevitability of opening the casket. I focused on my breathing and found a place of quiet meditation within the rhythmic pattern of digging. It was a clear night, and cool. A good night for digging up a grave, I guess.

The shovel clattered against the coffin in a sudden spate of noise that broke my meditative state like a plate dropped on a hard tile floor. I jerked out of my reverie and looked around in a panic. How loud had that actually been? I couldn’t tell. I got back to work. I had to hurry. I needed that bone.

I gripped the side of the coffin and paused.

Forgive me, Blake. Forgive me for disturbing your resting place and for taking part of you from it. I do it for you, Blake, and for your son. For me. We can end this together. Please forgive me.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and lifted the lid of the coffin. I held my breath until I started seeing stars behind my closed eyelids, and as I expelled it, I opened my eyes.

Bones. Relief flooded through me. It was only bones. Blake’s bones, but it was easier that it didn’t look like him. I reached in and grabbed his right humerus.  Rest in peace, Blake, you are soon to be avenged.  I pulled the bone out of the casket, stuffed it in my bag, and lowered the casket top back into place. I hopped onto it and pulled myself out of the grave. I began shoveling the dirt back in. It was silly, I know. It would be obvious when the caretakers came out in the morning that the grave had been dug up. I wasn’t trying to hide what I had done, that was impossible, but I didn’t want to leave my brother exposed like that. It was indecent.

I got two or three shovelfuls of dirt into the grave when I heard a voice floating across the cemetery grounds.

“John, over this way, I’m pretty sure it came from over here.”

I froze, considering, then dropped the shovel, grabbed my pack, and ran as fast as I have ever run, stooped as low as possible without impeding speed, and as quietly as I could. I jumped the fence easily, ran up the street a block, turned right for another block, and then I was in my car speeding away with the bone.

I’m sorry, Blake.

My heart was racing and I was sweating. I don’t think they’ll be able to trace it to me. I’d worn gloves and a hat, and left nothing behind but an anonymous shovel I’d stolen from a garden shed across town three nights ago. But I had never committed a crime like that before. I’d smoked pot and gotten a couple speeding tickets, but now I was a grave robber.

I forced myself to breath more slowly, to focus on what I was trying to accomplish instead of what I had just done to get there. In this case, the end justified the means. I was not stopping. I was going to see this thing through no matter the cost.

I got home and threw my clothes and backpack into the fireplace. I’d never wear them again. I hopped in the shower, bringing Blake’s arm bone with me. I washed the sweat and grave-dirt off my face and scrubbed beneath my fingernails. I washed Blake’s bone clean, too. When I got out of the shower, I dried off and then I burned another sage bundle in the bathroom, inhaling the clean earthy scent and clearing away whatever negativity I may have carried in from what I had just done. I rubbed the bone with a purification oil made from Frankincense, Myrrh, and Sandalwood. I pulled out my camping knife and purified it as well by running it through the smoke rising from the still-burning smudge, and began carving away one end of Blake’s humerus. It needed to be sharp. Sharp enough to impale a beast with sickly green eyes and row after row of lamprey teeth.

A beast that would be trying just as hard to kill me.