"Deep Ones (Chapters 1--4)" by Brittany Ann Zayas

Chapter 1: Graverobbers
Paul Haring had worked at the cemetery on Van Sicklen Street for fifty years, so nothing was really new to him. That is except for new graves, but almost all graves were the same. He was used to the youths outside the gates at midnight, daring one another to trespass, and he was used to the brave kids who walked boldly down the rows of graves, and the kids who screamed because they thought they heard a noise or saw a ghost. He was used to the grieving visitors, and their asking where such-and-such a person’s grave was. He was used to the ones who sat and spoke to the occupant of a grave for hours on end, or the ones who stood there solemnly, or those who placed down flowers and wept.

It got boring after a while. When Paul was a boy, he used to dare or be dared to go into the cemetery, and he had been terrified. But it had been a fun terror, a thrilling terror, like a good murder story. Now it was boring, like any old job. Paul remembered when, as a teenager, he had gotten a job in the old Tub’o’Burgers restaurant. At first, it had been fun to get burgers whenever he liked, but after a year, it became boring and he got sick of burgers. Even now, over fifty years later, Paul did not eat burgers.

This night, Paul strolled boredly through the graveyard, barely listening to the mingled sounds of scared yelps, boys’ muffled laughter, weeping, soft talking, and the wind.

“Hey! Hey, old man!”

The stage whisper caught Paul’s attention, and he spun around quickly. Two men were standing outside the gate. Paul came closer.
The taller one wore a black cowboy hat, a corduroy jacket, and jeans. He was younger than Paul by about thirty years. His companion was bald, wore a leather jacket, dirty jeans, and biker boots. But what Paul found most unnerving about this man (who was a few years younger than the other), was the tattoo under his right eye–a teardrop.

Paul was sure he had heard that a teardrop tattoo means you have killed someone. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“Open the gates. We want to make a deal,” said the tall man, the one who had spoken earlier. He had an accent; Paul was sure it was Texan.

Paul opened the gate and let them in. “Not from around here, are you?”

“Nah,” said the Texan. “Just visiting.”

His friend looked around the graveyard, adjusting the strap of the big bag on his shoulder. Paul heard something heavy and metal clunk against something else heavy and metal.

“Look,” said the Texan. “Take this.” He stuffed something into Paul’s hand.

The old man looked down at his hand and the hundred dollar bill there. He opened his mouth to speak.

“More?” The Texan handed him two other hundred dollar bills.

“What is all this for?” Paul asked.

“We want a favor, old man. You bring us to a grave, walk away, and allow us to take the body.”

“Grave-robbers,” Paul breathed. He had heard of those before, but not on Van Sicklen!

“Yes,” said the Texan. “It’s no harm done. Who’s going to know? We’ll take the body, close up the coffin, fill up the grave again, and no one will ever know.”

“This is wrong,” said Paul. “Just wrong.”

The Texan snorted. “What use is the body to you? You wouldn’t lose anything. You gain.”

Paul looked down at the money. He could use this. He was low on money lately...“Fine. Take what you need. But only one.”

“Of course,” the Texan said. “Which is the newest grave? We want a fresh body. Preferably a young body too. Not an old person.”

“We have just the thing,” Paul said, stuffing the bills into his pocket and beckoning the men to follow him. He was leading them down a row of rather large conspicuous grave markers, when the Texan stopped. Paul turned around, and saw the Texan staring at one of the gravemarkers.

It was a two-foot column with an angel perched on it, and holding a sword. Its wings were bigger than the Texan’s hand. The Texan knelt down to read what was written on the column. “The one you wanted to show us, old man–How old is the corpse?”

“He died at forty-three,” Paul replied promptly.

“This one should be better,” the Texan said. “Only two days dead. Brat died at fifteen years old. Did you know him?”

“Yes,” Paul said, and the memory of the funeral–only held that morning–came back to him. The boy’s parents had been there, doing their part. The mother sobbed uncontrollably and the father put his arm around her sympathetically. Everybody talked about what a good boy he had been...but Paul knew that this boy had been a troublemaker. He used to walk around the graveyard when he was younger, and Paul remembered him lying down in the dirt and saying: “Right here. I want the grave to be right here.” Except every time he came, he had chosen a different spot.

Paul remembered seeing Kitty Brauk there with that boyfriend of hers, that photographer from New York. They had been great friends of the dead boy. They had stayed at the grave after the others left. The photographer took photos of the grave, which Paul found to be creepy. Rumor had it that the photographer had even taken pictures of the corpse at the wake, but had been stopped after he had only taken two or three. However, he had refused to give up his camera and had stowed it in that creepy briefcase of his, the case with seven locks.

Paul blinked, and focused his bleary eyes on the Texan. “Did you say something?”

“I said that we’re taking this one. We’ll take him.”

“Fine.”

The Texan nodded at his friend, who reached into his big bag and took out two shovels. The two men set to digging. An hour later they had unearthed the coffin, and pried it open. Paul came at that moment, and stepped back in disgust.

The Texan grinned brightly. “Good corpse. Come on, pal,” he said to his friend, “pull him out.”

His friend grunted in response, and pulled out the corpse. The dead boy’s skin was white with a strange greyish tint. The Texan nodded approvingly, and unrolled a body bag, where they put in the body.

They were about to zip it closed, when Paul stepped forward, and peered at the corpse. “Good-bye, Andrei,” he murmured, as the zipper came up and hid the boy’s face from view.

Chapter 2: The Deep Ones
He breathed and his scrawny chest rose and fell. He felt a rush over his entire body, and he shuddered, as feeling returned to his body. He felt something heavy and warm on top of him, and something warm and wet...He sat up and shoved the dead man off of him.
Where was he? He swung his legs down from the white table he had been lying on, and stood there shakily. He looked down at the red blood smeared all over his bare chest, which was an odd greyish-white color. All he was wearing was a pair of worn, blood-stained pants. He looked around the small white room, then at the dead man, who was dressed in a suit. The dead man had been slashed across the stomach...

The one who had awoken tried to remember how he had gotten here, but the only information he brought up was I am fifteen. I am fifteen...

He looked around the room in search for a mirror, because he could not recall how he looked. It was then that the door burst open and a girl dashed in, locking the door behind her.

He jumped back in fright; the girl was frightening-looking. Her skin was almost a pale green-grey, and her eyes were huge. One eye was blue, the other a startling violet. Her shoulder-length hair was a dark green color, longish and scraggly, like seaweed. She wore a ragged blanket draped over her body, rather like a toga. Her greenish legs and arms were visible. On her body were stitches. Like stitched-up cuts, but there was no blood. The boy thought vaguely that she wasn’t quite ugly; if she hadn’t been such a nasty color, she would have been rather pretty.

The girl looked him up and down, then her mismatched eyes flitted to the man in the suit’s corpse. “Did you kill him?” she asked, her voice bearing a hint of a Southern drawl.

“No,” the boy said immediately, his voice coming out as a rasp. His hand flew to his throat.

“One of them must have come in here then and done him in,” she said, shrugging. “Why didn’t he kill you?”

“I wasn’t conscious,” he said, glancing at the table where he had lain previously. “I think I was sleeping.”

“I was too, but this man came up to my cage and opened it. So as soon as the door came open I knocked him down and made a run for it. Too bad there’s no window in here to escape out of–”

“How can you consider popping out into civilization like that?” he snorted. “You look like something out of a horror movie.”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” she asked. “You look like a corpse.”

He frowned. “Who are you?”

“What am I, would be a better question. I was created out of dismembered corpses and other scientific means by the Frankenstein Company. The Company was founded by Victor Frankenstein, who was creating an army to take over the world.”

“Not very original,” he said.

“No, not really. But the mission failed, Frankenstein was terminated, as were his workers, and all of the Frankenstein soldiers–that is except for me. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, but my brothers and sisters died miserable deaths at the hands of the law. I was cryo-ed.”

“Eh?”

The girl stamped her foot impatiently. “I was put in a cryogenic chamber. Now, I don’t know what year it is now, but it’s probably been over a year since then. I was pulled out of my cryo chamber, and they put me in this filthy cage, feeding me this disgusting moldy bread and water. Now I think somebody’s come and invaded this place. And from somebody who’s seen this kind of thing happen before, you should believe: they’ll kill us if they find us.”

“Why?”

“If the project is illegal, not only the creators will be punished, but the creations.”

The boy turned away, looking for some way to escape. “There’s a vent,” he said.

The girl snorted. “A vent? Everybody goes through the vents.”

“Originality should not be an issue if we’re about to die.”

“I’m made up of pieces of dead people, and you, by the looks of it, are dead.”

The boy glared at her. “Would you stop concerning yourself with technicalities? First you scare me half to death–” The girl smirked at the use of that word “–with your prattle about us being killed, then you say we’re already dead, so it doesn’t matter anymore–”

“Stop your shouting,” she interrupted. “Give me a boost up.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m not strong enough.”

“I don’t weigh much.”

“Still.” The boy stretched out his scrawny arms. “Not much more than skin and bone here.”

The girl huffed. “Fine. I can’t give you a boost.”

“The vent is covered anyway, and nailed shut,” he murmured.

“That’s great. Just great.”

“Hold on...” The boy bent then jumped up.

“Hey–hey! You’re sticking to the wall! How’d you do that?” The girl stepped out from under him, expecting him to fall any moment.

The boy grinned down at her, and crawled quickly across the ceiling to the vent. He didn’t know why, but he could stay on the ceiling as easily as he could on the floor. With remarkable strength, he pried off the vent covering. The screws that had held it in place fell down, nearly landing on the girl.

The boy stuck his head into the vent. “All right. There’s this short step that goes upward then it goes horizontal from then on. It’s awfully dark too.”

“Fine, fine! Just get in there.” She glanced worriedly at the door. “Eventually they’ll try to break the door down. Hurry up!”

The boy sighed. Girls–always rushing. He climbed into the vent, going feet-first, which was more uncomfortable, but he had to pull the girl up.

She stepped under the vent. “I’ll jump, then you grab my hands. Got it?”

“Yes, yes.” He reached his arms, down and she caught his hands when she leaped up. “Ouch,” he muttered. “You’re weighing me down.”

“Just wriggle backwards,” she said. “Is it narrow in there?”

“Narrow would be an understatement,” he said, grunting as he tried to wriggle back.

“My arm!” she cried suddenly, and he saw the stitching encircling her greenish arm straining, as if ready to snap.

He slid his grip to her wrists, and she grasped his bony wrists.

“Ew, your hands are cold and clammy,” she said, making a face at him.

He didn’t bother replying. He was focusing on the straining stitches...they snapped. She screamed, but he was still holding onto her other arm–her left–and it seemed to be secure enough. That was when he realized that her dismembered arm still clung to his wrist. He tried to shake it off, but when he did that, it sprung up and slapped him hard across the face. This startled him so much that he loosened his grip on her left arm, and she screamed at him.

“I can re-attach it, you idiot, don’t get rid of it!”

“Sorry!” He tightened his grip on her left arm, as her dismembered arm released him and climbed onto his back. He tried to ignore the uncomfortable ticklish feeling across his shoulder blades. “I can’t heft you up now, I’ll just wrench off your other arm!”

“Just try!” she snapped.

Desperately, he reached down with his free hand and grasped a fistful of her hair. She squawked in pain, but he yanked anyway. “Just a little bit more!” he said, trying to pull her up into the vent, and wriggling back.

Something caught onto his ankles, and he gasped. “Something’s got me!”

“Kick it!” the girl said.

He did so, and was rewarded with a pained noise, but his attacker didn’t let go and instead roughly pulled him back, twisting his ankle as he did so.

The boy was gasping and making pained noises, and the girl continued screaming as his grip on her hair tightened. His attacker was moving back fast, dragging the girl roughly into the vent. It was extremely uncomfortable and the boy couldn’t understand why so many people chose vents as their escape route. He doubted the writers of books and screenplays had any idea how uncomfortable and painful it was.

Finally, his attacker must have backed out of another opening and all three fell from a ceiling onto a hard linoleum floor. The boy fell on top of his attacker, and the girl fell on top of the boy. The boy pushed her off, and turned to his attacker with a snarl.

His attacker punched him hard in the nose, and the boy gasped with pain, but was fine a moment later. His attacker looked at him and smiled warily. “That would have broken a human’s nose.”

The boy glared at him, and clenched his hands into fists. His gaze flitted to the girl who was pressing her arm to where it had fallen off from. The stitches went back, tighter and more secure than before. She got to her feet, and walked over to the boy’s attacker, her greenish face set in a scowl.

The attacker was not so very young, he was likely in his thirties. His brown hair was short, and he had a goatee. His eyes were warm and brown and held an amused look in them. He had a barely discernible scar across his right cheek.

“I should have locked you in the cage,” the girl hissed. “Instead of leaving you on the floor.”

“You are not well-nourished,” the man said. “Which explains why you don’t punch hard. And why Andrei doesn’t kick hard.”

“Andrei?” The girl looked at the boy. “Is that your name?”

The boy shrugged, and looked suspiciously at the man, who smiled again. “Were you two trying to run away from the officers combing the building? Were you afraid of being killed?”

The two did not respond, but the answer was clear. The man nodded. “The officers might have killed you. Fortunately you met up with me instead.” He fiddled with a strange hairy bracelet on his wrist. “You, girl, are one of the Frankenstein Company creations, correct?”

The girl didn’t respond.

“I’ll take that as a yes. You,” he turned to the boy, “are Andrei. I saw a bit of your file before all your files were set aflame by some mad doctor.”

“Who are you? And what do you want if not to kill us or experiment on us?” the girl asked, her mismatched eyes blazing. The boy–Andrei–was silent.

“My name is Jacob Roberto. And I came to find you two. By the looks of you, you both have Depth. I thought you might.”

The girl blinked. “Huh?”

“I’ll explain later. For now, just come with me and I’ll take you somewhere safe.” Jacob Roberto glanced over his shoulder. “If you would just be calm and follow me quietly outside, we can get into my car and drive away to a safe place.”

“Why can’t I go home?” Andrei asked, unsure of where home was exactly, but feeling that he would prefer to be there.

Jacob Roberto smiled sadly. “Because it would appear, Andrei, that you are dead and have been brought to life by scientific means.”

“Who was I before then?”

“I don’t know. Your files were burned. I only read that you died at fifteen, not long ago, and you were buried on Van Sicklen Street.”

“Van Sicklen Street where?”

“I don’t know. Come with me, and don’t talk.”

The girl and Andrei exchanged a look, and followed. What choice did they have?