Jaded
By SarahFish
Chapter 1
Her mother was a whore.
But then again, so was his, so what did it matter? At least his mother had been interested enough in him to give him a name. Zebulon. Shortened to Zeb before his she'd died, miserable and disease-ridden, body left to decay behind a dumpster.
Her mother never got around to naming her. None of the other whores took it upon themselves to do so either. He called her Jade. For the color of her eyes. Wide, and pale, and luminous.
At seven years old, he was already adept at caring for himself. Adding Jade wasn't much more trouble. After all, she was already three. She wouldn't have made it that long if she didn't have some survival skills. She became his constant companion, his shadow, always underfoot like a lost puppy.
During the day they would often play in the cemetery. It was quiet sort of place, and, though they did not know it, the safest place they could have been. They spent their daylight hours playing hide-and-seek behind the tombstones, scaling marble angels, learning to read by sounding out names and epithets engraved on the memorials. Sometimes he would gather flowers left by the living and weave them into crowns for Jade's tangled red curls. He figured out how to sneak into the black marble mausoleum overlooking the eastern side of the cemetery, and they began sleeping there at night, curling up together on the bare stone floor. It was comforting to lie down surrounded by family, even if its members were nothing more than bones and dust.
Though they called each other brother and sister, the children knew they weren't. If they seemed to become less aware of this as the years passed, it was perhaps only because their shared identity as orphaned bastards was kinship enough for them.
They survived by picking pockets, Jade acting as lookout or serving as distraction. At four years old, she was a master actress, able to summon tears at will. The sight of the sobbing little girl with the big green eyes and mass of red hair would invariably attract the attention of a passer by long enough for Zeb to slip hands into a coat pocket, lift a wallet, or slide a watch from an unsuspecting wrist. Food was earned in much the same way, Jade having only to stand forlornly on a street corner, crying that she was lost and couldn't find her brother. How often would some grandfatherly figure walk past and take the little girl by the hand, buy her an ice cream or a hot dog from a street vendor, before she was joyfully reunited with her brother. When food wasn't given, they stole, returning at night to their mausoleum to count out the day's haul and ration their meals.
Sometimes Zeb would sneak out while Jade slept and wander the city streets. He loved to talk to people, to observe them, to piece together what made everyone else tick. If he grew bored of it, there was always something to steal. He never failed to return from his secretive night trips without something for his Jadie – a ring slipped from an unsuspecting finger, a chocolate bar snatched from the corner store, tattered books rescued from trashbins – loving to see the delight on her face when he pulled each unexpected treasure from his tattered knapsack like a vagabond magician.
Whenever he was bored or desperate for money, Zeb would sing at graveside services. With organ repossessions legal, there was no shortage of clients. And although he claimed to make his dirges up on the spot, they all seemed to go along the lines of:
"Your spouse/parent/child was a pretty good guy, too bad he couldn't pay and had to die. They cut his throat, the broke his nose, the slit him open from neck to toes…"
By the second verse (which usually went something like "They cut out his eyes and took his balls, unwound his intestines, but that's not all!") the mourners were practically stumbling over each other to shove money in his hands just to make him go away.
It wasn't an easy life. But it was their life. So what if they weren't always clean, or they were sometimes cold at night, or if they went to bed hungry for days in a row at times? For four years, they managed on their snatch-and-grab existence, fancied themselves, in a way, rulers of their own little kingdom of the dead from their black marble mansion on the hill. It was only in the deep hours of night, when all was quiet and still that Zeb would sometimes remember just how alone they were.
The night the grave robber found them, Zeb was throwing shadow puppets up on the mausoleum walls at Jade's request. She clapped her hands at the rabbit hopping across the flickering orange background, giggled as it turned into a cat, tail swishing in annoyance. Jade threw a butterfly onto the walls, and he turned into a duck which caught and ate it. She laughed, kicking out her feet as Zeb pounced on her, tickling her ribs. Then her foot connected with the candle, knocking it over, throwing them suddenly into darkness. "Now see what you've done, Jadie?" he asked.
"Sorry," she said, not sounding it in the least. Zeb was reaching for the pilfered lighter in his pocket when something slammed against the door to the mausoleum. Jade yelped before Zeb could clap a hand over her mouth, pulling her into a shadowed alcove beneath a crypt.
The door burst inward, and a man strode in, a heavy leather case one hand, a lantern in the other. He whistled a jaunty tune into the darkness, setting his case down beside one of the crypts. He stooped, examining the date (1940 – 2012) on the memorial, before stretching upright and shoving the lid off. A could of dust smelling of decay rose from the open vault as he reached in, dragged out a shriveled corpse and laid it out on the floor. Turning to his leather case, he pulled out a cloth bundle and unrolled it beside him, spreading out an array of tools. When he selected the large-bore syringe and shoved it into the corpse's skull, Jade whimpered, despite Zeb's had clamped tight over her mouth. The grave robber froze, turned, shining his lantern at into their hiding place.
He chuckled. Zeb stood, putting himself between Jadie and the grave robber. "I've heard about you," the grave robber said, turning back to his work. He selected a smaller syringe, slipping it into the corpse's sternum. It began to fill with a dark liquid. "You're the little beast that sings at the funerals. What's the one…. He shat his pants when they broke his neck, but he was a goner so what the heck? That's a good one." He laughed again, emptying the contents of the syringe into a glass vial.
"These amateurs, these days," he continued, slipping the syringe into the elbow joint, "Think that Zydrate is the only thing worth taking. Ahh, but a body is a veritable treasure trove, boy. There's Rotonasin….that's what you make Rapture from, see…in the joints…." He held up the syringe to show him. "Quodite that can be extracted from the bones…" he waved a vial full of powdery stuff in Zeb's direction. "And in some of these corpses, when the conditions are just right…the skin…"he bent low over the body, inhaling deeply. He sighed. "The skin is the perfect host site for Numtar mold spores. You think Ergot poisioning was a beautiful thing…you ain't seen nothing 'til you see a whole family driven insane by Numtar…..Say," he said suddenly, waving at them, "Aren't you a pretty little thing?"
Jadie ducked back behind Zeb, terrified at being addressed. "Aw, don't be shy firefly," the grave robber said. "Pretty little thing like you with those big 'ol green eyes." He chuckled to himself. "So…what about you, little man?" he asked. "Do you talk? I know you can sing…"
"I can talk," Zeb replied.
"Good, good," the grave robber replied. "I was worried I had a singing idiot on my hands, which wouldn't do me a goddamned bit of good. I need someone who can work."
"What?"
"Work! Work, boy. Damn, I thought you weren't an idiot. These hands aren't what they used to be," he held up his gnarled appendages, fingers swollen with arthritis. "Don't do me a damn bit of good when it comes to the details. But you, on the other hand….well on the other hand, you have different fingers. Let me see 'em."
Dear God, Zeb thought with slow, dawning horror. The old bastard's bat-shit crazy.
The grave robber reached out and grabbed his hand. The move was fast, too fast, and the old man's grip was iron. He turned the boy's hand over in his own. "Too soft," he muttered. "Needs some calluses. But it'll do, it'll do. Whattya say, boy?"
"What do I say to what?" he asked. The old man might sound crazy, but there was a terrifying sharpness in his pale blue eyes. A sort of cunning, plotting gleam that was at odds with his nonsensical chatter. The grave robber chuckled, rocking back on his heels. Pulled a syringe out of his leather case, and held it out to Zeb.
"Whattya say to making a little money, kid?"
When he reached out and snatched the syringe from the grave robber's hand, the old man began to laugh. A deep cackle that went on and on, echoing against the marble. And just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped, the grave robber's face grim. He gestured to the body laid out beside him.
"Then let's begin."
A/N - Don't own anything, not making any money. Just having a little fun. More chapters to come. While any reviews are good, I do appreciate chapter-by-chapter reviews, so I know exactly what people like/don't like, what I can fix and so forth.
Also, as I know people will undoubtedly wonder...why Zebulon? Because it's weird. Sure, there's some subtlety at play that'll come to light over the next few chapters. But mostly? It's a weird name, and it fits. I have a hard time placing an American Standard Name on him. I mean, can you imagine the following conversation: "They call me the Grave Robber. But you can call me Steve." Yep. Didn't think so.