FROM THE GRAVE

By Grand High Idol

Part III

For a while all Buzz could do was stand in place, shivering for a few moments. The receiver dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor, but he took no notice; he was too deep in thought. Normally such things as this wouldn't frighten him, but it sounded serious this time. Delete was dead, right? Then why had he called in the middle of the night, on a collect call line, saying that he was back from the grave and was going to take revenge on Jackie, along with each and every one of them? It didn't make any sense at all. Delete's body hadn't even been reported as found yet…he had no idea what the Cybersquad had done with it after they had found he was dead…

After a few moments of shivering, dripping with cold sweat, his eyes finally narrowed as he looked down at the fallen receiver, which lay on the floor, still, near his feet. Emitting a low growl noise, he immediately snatched the receiver up from the ground, then punched in a number and held the phone to his ear, tapping his foot impatiently as it began ringing.

The person on the other line picked up on the second ring. "Hello?" another voice said, rather timidly, into the other line. Buzz's eyes narrowed further; just as he had planned upon, Digit had answered the other line. "This is Motherboard Control Central. Is there anything that I can do for you?"

"Yeah, Digit," Buzz replied, rather hotly, into the other end. "Stop fooling around with your stupid prank calls. You ain't fooling anyone but yourself, ya know."

"Buzz? Is that you?" Digit appeared confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You know dang well what I'm talking about!" Buzz snapped at him. "I recently received a phone call on a collect call line. 'Dey said 'dat it was Delete calling, but I know 'dat it can't be him. He's dead, you idiotic turkey! He can't call me up on a collect call line and claim 'dat he's back from 'da grave!"

There was a momentary pause on the other end, then Digit spoke again, this time sounding rather annoyed himself. "Listen, tin-head, I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but I swear I didn't call you. I was with the Doc and Motherboard, okay?"

"'Den who did?" Buzz challenged. "'Da voice was a dead-on impression of Delete's, and I know quite well 'dat Delete is dead, thank you very much. And no one else besides you can do a dead-on voice impression such as 'dat."

Digit was silent again, then he finally spoke. This time his voice tone mirrored complete disgust. "Oh, so just because it's Delete's voice, and Delete's dead, you blame me, eh? Well, let me tell you something, Buzzie. I never called you, and that's final."

Before Buzz could get another word out of his mouth, Digit slammed his end of the receiver back down on its base, nearly smashing it into the wall in the process. He then clenched his fists and snorted before turning away toward where Marbles and Motherboard currently were at the time. "Just who does that bucket-head think he is? Why the heck would I do that?" He sighed and shook his head. "To be honest, I didn't think it was that funny either."

* * *

The new morning, however, brought promise for the cybird. He hadn't slept very well at all last night—he was still much too busy thinking about Delete, and about how Buzz had called him so late at night—and was now slumped over the table in the kitchen, sighing as he tried to peck at a piece of bacon left sitting on his plate. Decided that he was not very hungry at the moment, he sighed again, then pushed the plate with the bacon aside and reached for his mug of coffee.

His wing was halfway from the cup when he caught sight of the daily paper lying on the table. Curious, as always, about what was going on, he halted his wing's descent toward the coffee and began to reach over the table for the paper—who knows, maybe there would be a written article on how they had almost saved cyberspace…he doubted it, though. Why would they write an article on that when they knew that they had saved cyberspace for real, countless times before?

Nonetheless, he grabbed the paper from the table and opened it to look at the inner articles—their defeat surly wasn't front-page material. The first headline he saw, however, made his spine jump, and he almost choked on his bacon after seeing the print, in clear, bold type:

An Unexpected Murder Scene?

Mangled Robot Found in City Dumpster

At first he did not dare to read more, but his eyes led him down the narrow strip of article anyway. His first thoughts were that it had to be a mistake; that they had coincidentally found another robot in another dumpster somewhere, and not Delete. But the article soon enough proved him wrong:

Last night, at approximately 10:00 p.m., the scenario of what appears to be a suspected murder scene was uncovered.

A local civilian was walking down the alleyway last night, and supposedly came across a nearby dumpster. He claims to have had a slice of pizza with him and was not going to finish the crust, thus he lifted up the lid of the nearest dumpster to toss it in. When he looked down, he was both "shocked and appalled", or so he says.

At the bottom of the dumpster the police later pulled out the body of a robotic creature, and a rather mangled one, at that. Blood was coating the bottom of the dumpster, so the police had guessed that it was killed only a few hours before the civilian had come across it. An autopsy was run on the creature—which appeared to be a rather young, teal colored android, about four foot ten inches in height and an approximated 150 pounds in weight. First guesses led us to believe that it was the Hacker's Delete, a henchman of the famous villain who had a very high criminal record.

Of course, the dissectors were not entirely sure of this. The autopsy led to believe that the robot was killed by sudden force; several of his limbs were broken—neck and back included—and a few more of his internal functionings had been destroyed. Whether it was a suicide or a murder, the specialists are not sure.

The creature's cadaver is currently being held at the city morgue, where it will remain until someone comes to claim its lifeless form. Further information as of now will be classified.

Digit grabbed himself by the neck to prevent any further choking, then he shakily swallowed the bacon, panting harshly in both aftershock and fear after doing so. They had found Delete. In the dumpster. They had run an autopsy, identified his looks, everything. There was no mistaking that description they offered; Delete was Digit's little brother, and he knew him well enough to believe that. But they had considered it a suicide, and for that he—they—were safe for the time being. But if they found out in further studies that it was something other than an attempted suicide…

"Oh, they will not," Digit scolded himself, crossing his wings over his chest as he looked back down at the article. "If they think it's a suicide, let it be so. But if they find anything else out…well, we're going to have to prepare for a court case." He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "Woof. It's a good thing Motherboard doesn't know about any of this yet…"

It was then that he remembered what Buzz had said after he had called him last night. "He's dead, you idiotic turkey! He can't call me up on a collect call line and say 'dat he's back from 'da grave!"

"What did that mean?" Digit muttered to himself as he looked back down at the paper. "Could Delete seriously be back from the grave?…No, Digit, stop scaring yourself like this. He's dead. I saw him die. He can't come back unless he's a member of the walking undead or something like that." He shook his head and reached for his cup of coffee again. "It was probably just a joke on me. That's it. What with the way Buzz blew up yesterday…but it just didn't seem like him to do something like this." He took a sip of coffee to calm his nerves a bit. "Especially when he gets so ticked off like this…he can never be serious."

* * *

"In ya go, dead man," one of the morgue workers exclaimed rather cheerfully as he shoved the drawer containing Delete's body bag closed with a loud RRRRCHAACK, dusting his hands off after doing so. He was in a rather good mood today—he had never liked Hacker much, and for that he was glad that at least one of his henchmen were stone cold dead. He had even poked fun at the corpse by ripping out one of its prized teeth and making it into a necklace, which he now wore strapped around his neck.

Whistling to himself, he headed back toward his desk, his hands in his pockets, before finally plopping down in his leather swivel chair and picking up one of the pencils from his desk. He toyed around with it for awhile before finally deciding to make something of the time he had, then reached for the morning paper.

Chuckling at the article on the front page, he flipped through the pages upon pages of other happenings going on about cyberspace and went straight to the crossword puzzle. Eyeing his pencil for a short moment, he shook his head, then flattened the paper out on the neatly organized desk and began to try and fill in the blanks, his head in one hand, pencil in the other.

As he tapped the paper's surface with his pencil point, he stopped as he heard a deafening RRRRCCHHAACK noise, the exact same noise that he had heard only a few moments earlier when he had stashed away Delete's corpse. Curious and at the name time rather nervous, he quickly turned his head in that direction, wondering if it was just another one of the morgue workers storing another corpse until the relatives came to get it.

He heard nothing for a few more moments, then he finally heard the faint sound of footsteps echoing throughout the main room. Slowly getting up from his desk, the morgue worker rested his hands upon the table, looking over in the direction from which the noise had originated from—the look on his face was one of obvious puzzlement. Slowly releasing his hand from the pencil, the man pushed his swivel chair away from his desk, then faced the noise and slowly took a step forward.

His foot made a slight clacking noise as it hit the linoleum, but other than that he heard nothing. Absolute silence had resumed throughout the morgue, and nothing seemed to be ready to break it anytime soon. Straightening back up, suggesting to himself that it was, indeed, another one of the morgue workers, he shrugged it off and turned back to his desk.

He was just about to write down the first answer to the puzzle when the footsteps came again. Rather nervous at this moment, he dropped the pencil again and looked over toward the direction of the noise yet again, only to find that there was nothing there. Sighing in frustration, he picked up his pencil yet again…then the footsteps came again.

The morgue worker ignored this and wrote down the first answer, then, when the footsteps didn't falter, he sighed and looked over toward the direction of the noise yet again…and this time, he was dead sick of it. He wanted to know who was making that noise and why. And whoever it was, it was deeply interfering with his crossword puzzle.

"Marty?" the man called, slowly getting up from his chair. "Is that you, man?"

There was no answer, just a noise that sounded like something hitting the ground. The morgue worker sighed, then slowly arose from his chair, dropped the pencil, and began to walk briskly along the narrow hallway to the area where the corpses were originally stored. He stopped in the doorway, then raised his hands to his mouth and called again.

"Marty? You there?"

His voice echoed over the locker-covered walls, and still there was no answer to be heard. Sighing in frustration, he looked around for any signs of another employee, then shook his head and decided that if anything, Marty was playing a prank on him…a rather idiotic prank, he thought to himself. He walked into the center of the room, stopping near an autopsy table, then his eyes searched the room yet again for any signs of another life form other than himself. When he found no one, he grunted in annoyance, then was about to turn around and head back to his office…

When he noticed that one of the wall lockers had been opened. Tilting his head to one side, wondering what this was all about, he slowly approached the open locker and looked down at the drawer—the drawer in which a corpse should've been; he could tell from the odor that one had been slid in here recently. But there was nothing there. Nothing but a body bag, and a very mangled one, at that. It looked like it had been torn open from the head down, due to the marks. But who would do that…?

"Wonder who this was, anyway," he muttered to himself as he grabbed the handle and began to slowly slide the drawer closed, looking at the ID card slid into one of the locker's slots upon doing so. Taking one look at it, he froze, then quickly released his hand:

It was the exact same locker that he had slid Delete's corpse into earlier.

Shaking his head, thinking that this was all just a simple joke, he looked around the room again, searching for any signs of another morgue worker—surely they had just removed the corpse for some reason or another? But no, why would they…the autopsy had already been done, and there really wasn't any other reason to do so…

He then looked over toward the area that led into the other compartments of the morgue, along with a few of the autopsy rooms. The footsteps began to come again, and he took another step closer, hoping that it was just Marty returning with Delete's corpse…then his eyes grew wide and he stumbled backward, losing his balance and landing rather hard on the floor.

A shadow had loomed over the wall; a shadow that he recognized very well, there was no mistaking the distinct features of the head that the shadow cast. Shaking his head as the shadow grew thicker (which apparently meant that the caster was drawing closer), unable to believe it, he quickly scrambled to his feet, then looked around frantically for something, anything, to defend himself with.

Just as the figure loomed around the corner, the worker had managed to find an autopsy knife on one of the nearby examination tables, much to his relief. Whipping around to face the figure, he stood poised for action, the knife handle gripped tightly in his clammy hand, an angry and somewhat determined glare on his face.

The figure reared its head to face the worker, then narrowed its eyes as well and began to slowly walk toward him, in a stiff gait, one leg dragging behind it. The morgue worker gritted his teeth, taking hissing breaths, then, when he finally could stand it no longer, he gave a loud roar and lunged forward with the knife; before the figure could react he had stabbed into the chest with all the force he had.

Now that the knife had made contact, the morgue worker grinned, then drove the pointed blade deeper into the chest, until only a few inches of the blade were to be seen outside the body. His breath coming in shaking gasps, he gripped the knife handle tighter, then yanked it out, lurching the unknown individual forward and almost causing it to drop to the floor. Its blade now well stained with blood, he held it up at an arm's length, still gasping for breath, the figure looking at him with a pained expression.

"How d'ya like that?" the worker responded, growling. "How d'ya like that, hellspawn?"

The figure's expression remained pained for a few more seconds, as both its hands flew to its bleeding chest. It made a pained noise before falling to its knees, appearing to be slowly slipping back into death. The worker grinned, then, feeling very sure of himself indeed at that moment, took another step forward, just to prove to the figure in front of him that he was not afraid and that he'd do it again if he had to.

Minutes passed without tension, and yet the creature was not showing any signs of death. This made the worker confused—he knew very well that this thing was undead, but he didn't think that it would be that undead. Scratching his head, he looked down at the knife, then shifted his gaze back to the thing in front of him—and gasped again.

The creature was now getting to its feet, slowly but steadily, and the pained expression that had been on its face a few moments ago had dissolved into one of pure anger. That wasn't what frightened the man, however—the wound at the chest was no longer bleeding and appeared to have closed up. The only sign that there had once even been a wound there were the rivers of blood still trickling down the front of the shirt and staining it a deep ebony.

Shaking his head, the worker slowly drew backward, stammering almost unintelligibly: "N-no—no—that can't be—that's imposs—that's im-impossib—"

He gave a cry of surprise as he tripped over the leg of one of the tables and fell onto his back, hitting the linoleum with a sickening CRACCK sound. He made a frightened noise, then quickly felt over his aching body…no, nothing was broken, thank God, but it was going to be much worse if he didn't do something soon. The creature had sensed this moment of weakness and was now drawing closer, arms outstretched, ready to leap on him at a moment's notice.

The worker shuddered intensely, his face paling, as he covered his face with one hand, hoping that the creature wouldn't kill him and just back away. He didn't think that this was actually possible; this thing was apparently set on revenge…it was restless. Why would it just walk past him and be on its way?

He screamed in horror as the creature's hand cut through his blue jeans, scraping the skin and leaving a rather long cut in the leg. The worker quickly flipped over onto his frontside and tried to struggle away, but the creature had leapt and, within a split second, had pinned him down to the floor, coming dangerously close to grinding his face down into the linoleum. The worker shuddered again, then scraped the ground with his nails, trying to get away, but it was hopeless…

He heard a CLANK sound as the knife was removed from the floor, then looked up in time to see the creature raise the blade up at arm's length. The worker screamed again, but the moment he did so the creature's hand shot out, hitting the back of his head and sending his face to the floor again. He could feel blood trickle from his now broken nose as it became harder to breathe.

Is he going to suffocate me like this? The worker thought to himself, or is he going to stab me to death? Will he cut me to ribbons and then shove me into the body bag in his place? Oh God, please, no…

Moments passed to no avail, the creature seemed to be playing with its prey before it delivered the final blow, or maybe it was just considering. The worker tried to struggle, but it was clear that the monster had a tight grip on him…then, just as he was about to scream for help again, the creature lowered its ugly head directly to the side of his face, and whispered, in a voice that sounded like it hadn't been used for days:

"You're not who I want."

The worker swallowed, not sure whether to be relieved or more horrified than he already was. The creature then lowered the knife, wriggled it underneath his neck, and sliced the string binding the tooth necklace in half. With a heavy jerk, he then removed it from the man's neck and slowly released his grip on him.

The man didn't watch him leave, however; he'd already passed out cold on the floor from the aftershock.