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A brief story I wrote a while ago, set in a fantasy world of my creation. It seems a bit cheezeball, and I couldn't really think of a proper ending, but I'm still rather pleased with it. Thoughts?

The Grave Robber

The midnight sun stole quietly into view over the eastern horizon, slowly mounting the steep angles and pointed spires of the city skyline. Pale violet light washed over the sleeping city, shining forth from the radiant blue orb and casting a shroud of serene twilight over everything it graced with its gentle touch. This light permeated into every niche of the rough brick and stone, into the rooms of the sleepers; the soothing glow played across their faces and, entering their dreams, illuminated the way from the real world to the more peaceful realm of sleep.

In the shadows of a silent graveyard very near the heart of the city stood the thief Harold Carter. He watched the sky intently, gazing at the distant sun in its lofty perch above the world of Antur. That sun would be his stopwatch, for he had but twelve hours of darkness to complete his grim task. Sprawled before him were many hundreds of graves, and the time he had would only grant him to dig into one. It was fortunate, then, that he had already selected the burial plot with the greatest potential for profit: Charles of Dunsbarrow, former scion of a fabulously wealthy noble family from the uptown Rose District. It was common practice, you see, for the people of Gom to bury their dead with items of value, usually personal items such as jewelry or other trinkets and baubles, as Gom was a place ruled by ancient rites and superstitions. For the cautious thief, grave robbing could prove to be quite a lucrative pursuit, so long as one was prepared to deal with the risks involved: the dead did not take kindly to being disturbed from their final slumber, rarely offering a hospitable welcome to intruders; and the act of defiling such sacred turf would easily provoke the wrath of the temple order that maintained the burial grounds. There was also the distasteful nature of the work, of course, but such sentiments that would dissuade the weak of heart are a mere discomfort to a practical man.

Carter unpacked his tools from the sack slung over his shoulder: a long-handled spade, a miner’s pick, a small hand shovel, and a pry bar to negotiate the sealed lid of the casket. There was also one special tool that he had crafted specifically for the job: he had spent many hours copying the holiest symbols of Yssulk, god of the zealous war-priests from the north, and painting them onto an iron railroad spike with a mixture of silver dust and the root pulp of a virgin willow. He had once heard rumors of monster hunters driving similar implements through the bellies of undead beasts and into the earth, symbolically returning them to their rightful places in the grave and rendering them helpless; it was with these tales in mind that he had assembled the crude object, and he would use it in the manner described by the myths should the need ever present itself.

He then set to work, using the pry bar to tip the heavy cairn stone that marked and warded Dunsbarrow’s final resting place. The tip of his spade bit into the dry and grassy earth, slowly but surely scraping out the six feet of dirt that lay between him and his prize. He worked swiftly, appreciative of the cool night wind that eased the strain of his digging, and he descended into the grave as the sun passed him by in the heavens above.

It was shortly after midnight that Carter’s ears rang with the happy sound of steel on wood; his spade had struck the casket at last. He threw the spade over the edge of the pit and pulled himself up after it to retrieve the smaller shovel, as well as the pry bar and the iron spike. These he lay at his feet as he nestled into the alcove he had dug to give himself a place to stand without treading on the casket lid. The last layer of loose earth was easily shifted, and ethereal light from the sun overhead poured into the open pit to envelop the exposed oak timbers in a grim, foreboding aura. The old warped wood was stained dark with rot and mildew, and its surface had been scarred by the multitudes of venturous bugs and worms that had attempted to eat through and reach the desiccated meat entombed within. He could see the empty husks of several small beetles lodged into the pitted oak, likely killed by the poisonous resin finish applied to discourage the tiny carrion-sucking fiends. The steel pry bar fitted perfectly into the groove that ran between the lip of the casket and its heavy lid, and with a few minutes of firm, continuous pressure, the wood around the brass latch split apart.

The rusted hinges obstinately resisted the opening of the casket, and Carter just barely forced them to budge. He threw open the lid, flooding the pit with the pungent stench of death and the musky perfume that had tried its best to mask it. The interior of the oblong box was lined with velvet and silk cloths, and much of the space around the body was occupied by luxurious goose down pillows, beautiful woven blankets, and gaudy treasures. The body itself was bedecked in extravagant finery matching the running theme of material exhibitionism and elegance: many layers of flamboyant court attire liberally adorned with gold leaf, lacy frills, and the feathers of exotic birds. Shrouded within the silken confines of his encumbering dress lay Charles of Dunsbarrow himself, his pitifully shriveled and stunted form contrasting grotesquely with the lively nature of his clothing.

Carter was dumbfounded by the staggering display of wealth and power that lay so close within his reach. He leaned out to pluck a ruby ring from the dead man’s hand, which suddenly sprang into life and viciously clamped his wrist in its steely grip before he could pull away. The dead man’s sunken eyes had snapped into wakefulness, staring into Carter’s own with a look of vengeful malice that sent chills down his spine.

He recoiled in terror. Though he had predicted such a thing would happen, it had not prepared him for the realization of such a horror and the shock it would bring. He flailed and thrashed with his free arm as he struggled to wrench the other from Charles’ claw of a hand. He tore from the ghoul’s vice-like grip and scrabbled over the edge of the pit to safety, forgetting in his panic that the iron rail spike with its eldritch runes still lay at the bottom. He swore violently, cursing his foolishness, and cursed louder still when from the bottom of the pit came a dirge-like wail, a sound very much like the ravings of a senile old man with very few remaining teeth. Carter peered into the shadowy hole from above, taking care to stand back from its edge, seeing that his fine festering friend was now standing upright and brandishing an ornamental silver dagger as a weapon. The ghastly revenant stood there shouting guttural obscenities, shriveled tongue flapping angrily between black, rotten teeth as he cursed in incomprehensible speech at the one who had disturbed his rest. He started forward, gripped the walls of his grave and, judging by the hatred burning behind his beady eyes, there was no doubt that he intended to climb out and cut the throat of the intruder. The sun had set into its decline, sinking deeper in the western sky as faint hues of gold stained the eastern horizon.

For want of a better weapon, Carter seized the heavy pickaxe from the grass at his feet and hefted it over his shoulder. Charles’ skeletal fingers appeared over the edge and clawed at the dry earth, finally finding purchase in the tough roots of a weed, and the grave attained a state of uncertain residence as its dweller clambered awkwardly to the surface. He pushed himself to his feet just in time for Carter’s pickaxe to smash into his skull, splitting it down the center with a papery crunch. The dead man swayed drunkenly for a moment before tipping over and plummeting back into the hole, stiff as a board. With a faint sigh, an earthy plume of dirt and dust belched forth from the mouth of the pit upon the corpse’s impact with the bottom. Carter ventured to the edge of the pit once more, sniggering maniacally at the crumpled mass which lay sprawled across the bottom.

“Ha, ha! That did him! Not feeling so lively now, are you, Charlie boy?”

Carter half-expected to hear a witty reply from his adversary, but received none; the corpse appeared to be dead, again, as it did not stir and made no sound. He gripped the pick by its head and extended the handle down, nudging the body to check for signs of life and finding that it had become quite limp. He couldn’t imagine how even a dead creature could survive such a horrific blow to the head, and so deemed it safe to jump back down and snatch the treasures tucked into the lining of the casket, but when he did this he was seized by the neck and strangled. His imagination had failed to explore the concept of killing a thing that is already dead.

The claws shook him viciously, and his vision rapidly began to fade into darkness and swirls of color. Carter clutched desperately for the rail spike, brushing it once in the dark with a fingertip. For several panicked seconds it seemed that he had lost it, but just before blacking out he felt it in his grip and plunged it into the chest of the ghoul beneath him. It pierced the frail body, tearing through the splintered, rotten wood and burying itself into the dirt. As though someone had flicked a switch, the dead man’s hands fell away as his strength faded to almost nothing, and they feebly grasped at the iron bar protruding from his narrow chest. Carter collapsed at the creature’s feet, sucking in the stale air of the open grave in ragged gasps. He fell upon the treasures, throwing them haphazardly out of the pit and finally scrambling up after them once everything worth stealing had been taken.

Just as the faint rays of dawn broke in the east and the midnight sun began to set, he fled from the frightful cemetery laden with gold, silver, and jewels. The groundskeepers could deal with the mess he had left behind later in the day, once he had left the city and was a safe distance outside its walls. The priests would no doubt dispatch an inquisition to find him and punish his crime, and thus a swift escape would be vital to his ultimate success. He would travel to some faraway city, a place far away from any threat of justice or supernatural revenge.

Political humor. Not much else to say.

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