Happy Halloween
Oct. 31st, 2010 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessMultiple editors rejected this little flash fiction for being entirely too silly and far too implausible. These editors are of course completely correct, which is why I am choosing to inflict it upon you to add to the horrors of the day. You have been warned:
GRAVE MISTAKES
He could barely move his arms.
They had warned him it would be tight, but not this tight. He didn't exactly have the body of a young teenager anymore, and even then, he'd hardly been all that athletic. More – well, you kinda had to be honest with yourself in a coffin, right? – overweight. Pudgy, even. This had not bothered him then, and didn't bother him now, but he had to admit it was slightly inconvenient in a coffin designed for the anorexic. He supposed he could have gone on a diet, but why waste the last few days of living on salads? No, he had chomped on steak and eaten as many desserts and fried foods while he could, and he couldn't regret that, not for an instant.
Perhaps if he just tried to slide his arm over his stomach, or could slide, just a little, more to the left, to give his shoulders room to move. Maybe.
Nobody had told him the coffin part would be this difficult.
He'd anticipated problems, of course. These days, what with concrete grave liners and steel vaults no newly made urban vampire, no matter how strong, could break out of his grave without assistance. A few enterprising young vampire groups had begun searching out environmentally sensitive green graveyards, which did not require such coffin proetctors, but these graveyards were few and far between in urban areas, and still left the problem of the coffin itself. Long gone were the days of the flimsy wooden coffins the oldest vampires reminisced about wistfully – "All you had to do, my girls, was avoid any splinters, which admittedly wasn't all that easy, but that made the whole coffin breaking and rebirth a test of skill, you see? Ah, those days, you knew your vampires wouldn't just have strong arms and legs, but could balance those with a delicate touch and a delightful and extraordinary flexibility."
Damn it, why hadn't he arranged for a larger coffin in advance? He had taken care of the other issues, ensured that his new vampire friends knew all his funeral details so that they could arrange to slip a cell phone into the coffin, so he could signal them when he awoke. Since his new friends would not bother to come until they had heard from him.
"Too dangerous, my dear," one of them had explained languidly, running delicate, blood-red fingernails up and down his legs. (Even in his current state of discomfort, the memory stirred him, and encouraged him to make that shift to the left – yes. His right shoulder could move now. Good. He moved his hand across his stomach and up to the compartment above his head.) "Even the dullest policeman will notice a group of us waiting around a graveyard after midnight, and so many of those places have webcams and security cameras these days," he'd been told.
Above all, they had to avoid suspicion. Far, far too many people knew about vampires these days, and even the most skeptical cop could easily leave a vampire in a cell with a small and dangerous sun lit window, or decide to transfer a vampire suspect by day. No. And, besides – they hated to mention this, but they must, they felt, be truthful, not everyone turned, and what was the point of all of them risking their unlives to unbury his coffin only to find an ordinary corpse? No. He would signal, and they would come, working as quickly as possible, with one or two people keeping watch, and if all went well, they would quietly escort him to his new unlife.
He had tentatively suggested attempting to leave the city, to have his death and burial in some more remote location. But the vampires had all nixed that idea. Truthfully, none of them were that comfortable outside urban areas – "What if you can't find anyone out there? What on earth would you eat?" but even beyond that, they pointed out the many logistical problems: his family would protest, and possibly require a reburial, which would inevitably lead to the discovery of his missing body, which would inevitably lead to questions – No. Much better to do things the normal, unsuspecting way. With the slight addition of the cell phone.
Damn. He couldn't reach the phone with his right hand. He sighed, shifted hard to the right, and began moving his left hand. He was going to have a few words – well, bites, really – with Elena, his wife, when this was over. Not the sorts of bites that led to an eternal unlife, either. That thought made him shudder so hard that he thought he could feel the coffin shifting in its vault. No, an eternity with Elena was not to be contemplated. That very thought was part of what had driven him to this.
His left hand, too, was squeezed. No need to panic yet. He had a night to reach them. A full night. Everything else had been arranged – the hidden cash and gems for his new false IDs – "My dear, so exhausting, and so much easier in the old days." The plans to slip away in the darkness to a new city, to avoid the chance of running into anyone who might know him. He had, as instructed, carefully pulled all of his pictures from Facebook. "Don't be tempted by the internet," the vampires had instructed him. "Best way to get caught. And everybody knows about stakes these days."
His left hand found the phone. He dialed, and dialed again, and a third time, feeling, for the first time, real panic. He imagined the vampires, lounging in their coffee shop waiting for his call, shrugging their cold shoulders at his silence. Their planning had forgotten one thing: six feet beneath the earth, wrapped in cold steel, he could not get a cell phone signal.
GRAVE MISTAKES
He could barely move his arms.
They had warned him it would be tight, but not this tight. He didn't exactly have the body of a young teenager anymore, and even then, he'd hardly been all that athletic. More – well, you kinda had to be honest with yourself in a coffin, right? – overweight. Pudgy, even. This had not bothered him then, and didn't bother him now, but he had to admit it was slightly inconvenient in a coffin designed for the anorexic. He supposed he could have gone on a diet, but why waste the last few days of living on salads? No, he had chomped on steak and eaten as many desserts and fried foods while he could, and he couldn't regret that, not for an instant.
Perhaps if he just tried to slide his arm over his stomach, or could slide, just a little, more to the left, to give his shoulders room to move. Maybe.
Nobody had told him the coffin part would be this difficult.
He'd anticipated problems, of course. These days, what with concrete grave liners and steel vaults no newly made urban vampire, no matter how strong, could break out of his grave without assistance. A few enterprising young vampire groups had begun searching out environmentally sensitive green graveyards, which did not require such coffin proetctors, but these graveyards were few and far between in urban areas, and still left the problem of the coffin itself. Long gone were the days of the flimsy wooden coffins the oldest vampires reminisced about wistfully – "All you had to do, my girls, was avoid any splinters, which admittedly wasn't all that easy, but that made the whole coffin breaking and rebirth a test of skill, you see? Ah, those days, you knew your vampires wouldn't just have strong arms and legs, but could balance those with a delicate touch and a delightful and extraordinary flexibility."
Damn it, why hadn't he arranged for a larger coffin in advance? He had taken care of the other issues, ensured that his new vampire friends knew all his funeral details so that they could arrange to slip a cell phone into the coffin, so he could signal them when he awoke. Since his new friends would not bother to come until they had heard from him.
"Too dangerous, my dear," one of them had explained languidly, running delicate, blood-red fingernails up and down his legs. (Even in his current state of discomfort, the memory stirred him, and encouraged him to make that shift to the left – yes. His right shoulder could move now. Good. He moved his hand across his stomach and up to the compartment above his head.) "Even the dullest policeman will notice a group of us waiting around a graveyard after midnight, and so many of those places have webcams and security cameras these days," he'd been told.
Above all, they had to avoid suspicion. Far, far too many people knew about vampires these days, and even the most skeptical cop could easily leave a vampire in a cell with a small and dangerous sun lit window, or decide to transfer a vampire suspect by day. No. And, besides – they hated to mention this, but they must, they felt, be truthful, not everyone turned, and what was the point of all of them risking their unlives to unbury his coffin only to find an ordinary corpse? No. He would signal, and they would come, working as quickly as possible, with one or two people keeping watch, and if all went well, they would quietly escort him to his new unlife.
He had tentatively suggested attempting to leave the city, to have his death and burial in some more remote location. But the vampires had all nixed that idea. Truthfully, none of them were that comfortable outside urban areas – "What if you can't find anyone out there? What on earth would you eat?" but even beyond that, they pointed out the many logistical problems: his family would protest, and possibly require a reburial, which would inevitably lead to the discovery of his missing body, which would inevitably lead to questions – No. Much better to do things the normal, unsuspecting way. With the slight addition of the cell phone.
Damn. He couldn't reach the phone with his right hand. He sighed, shifted hard to the right, and began moving his left hand. He was going to have a few words – well, bites, really – with Elena, his wife, when this was over. Not the sorts of bites that led to an eternal unlife, either. That thought made him shudder so hard that he thought he could feel the coffin shifting in its vault. No, an eternity with Elena was not to be contemplated. That very thought was part of what had driven him to this.
His left hand, too, was squeezed. No need to panic yet. He had a night to reach them. A full night. Everything else had been arranged – the hidden cash and gems for his new false IDs – "My dear, so exhausting, and so much easier in the old days." The plans to slip away in the darkness to a new city, to avoid the chance of running into anyone who might know him. He had, as instructed, carefully pulled all of his pictures from Facebook. "Don't be tempted by the internet," the vampires had instructed him. "Best way to get caught. And everybody knows about stakes these days."
His left hand found the phone. He dialed, and dialed again, and a third time, feeling, for the first time, real panic. He imagined the vampires, lounging in their coffee shop waiting for his call, shrugging their cold shoulders at his silence. Their planning had forgotten one thing: six feet beneath the earth, wrapped in cold steel, he could not get a cell phone signal.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-31 08:39 pm (UTC)