Cemetery, Shepherdstown

Time: Sunset

The sky had grown black and the stars, only faintly visible on account of the town lights, slowly passed overhead of Janos as he sat behind the gravekeeper house, keeping an eye out for any motion among the graves. He wasn't terribly sure that anything would come up, but after scouring internet forums and asking some of his friends on campus, he'd learned that there had been at least three appearances of skeletons in the graveyard over the past couple days.

"Spooky scary skeletons send shivers down your spine," he sang quietly to himself. "And shrieking skulls will shock your soul..." he trailed off as he heard a sound. But nothing seemed to be moving. Must have been a squirrel. "We're so sorry skeletons, you're so misunderstood. You only want to socialize, but I don't think we should." Nope, there it was again, rubber treading on pavement. Someone had come in over the fence and was sneaking along the road a little farther in. Janos peered into the dark, but couldn't see much. Then he remembered he had a stand.

As the dark purple aura surrounded him, the shadows at his feet coalesced and grew into Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone turned and glided silently along the cemetery road until Janos heard a shriek and saw someone stand up. He willed the ground to bind the person's ankles. "That's weird," he thought to himself as he ran. "Spooky Skeletons has a male owner, but that sounded distinctly female..." Twilight Zone had made the ground around the suspect's feet warp and bind so that her feet were trapped in place. As Janos got closer, he could make out her face...

"So that skeleton of your can make skeletons too?"

"What the... What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well since you're stuck in place, maybe you could answer first,"

"No! Memento can't make skeletons. He just remembers things. Everything in fact."

"Precisely, I remember everything I see, hear, feel, et cetera. For instance, I remember that from here we were able to hear your singing as though at whisper level. Since a whisper has a decibel level of..."

"Don't talk to him!" Jenny interrupted the miniature skeleton.

"Right, sorry. It would seem that I am under orders not to converse with you, terribly sorry."

Janos just stood still with a confused look on his face. "So..." he began at last, "you aren't the person making skeletons by night?"

"Yes!" Jenny fumed in exasperation.

"Sweet!" exclaimed Janos."

Jenny gave him a confused look. "You're happy. Why?"

"Because I was pretty sure I knew who it was until you showed up and then I saw you so I wasn't sure but now I am sure." He looked around the cemetery for any signs of life, but there was still nothing. "I don't suppose that you two saw anything unusual when you came in?" She looked at her feet. "Oh, right, here." The asphalt unbound itself from around her ankles. Then Jenny punched him square in the chest and Janos stumbled back in surprise. "What was that for?"

Jenny didn't bother to answer, she just turned to Memento. "Did we see anything on the way in?"

"Yes," responded the stand, and both Jenny and Janos were surprised. "There was a large cat near the back of the cemetery. It was sitting still but its tails were quite lively."

"You mean tail," corrected Jenny.

"No, I mean tails, it had two," Memento retorted indignantly.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you were intent on finding the source of the singing."

Jenny looked fit to snap, but before she had a chance, the trio heard a chittering sound. They turned to look further in to the cemetery and saw a skeleton standing at the top of the hill. "What the hell is that?" Jenny shuddered slightly.

Janos wasn't listening to her. "Spirits supernatural are shy, what's all the fuss? But bags of bones seem so unsafe, it's semi-serious..." he softly sang as he wandered towards the skeleton. Suddenly, it gave a bone-chilling screech and ran at him. "That's faster than I expected," Janos thought. As the skeleton reached him, Janos swung out in a right hook, and watched, stunned, as the skeleton ducked him and returned with a powerful jab to his stomach. Janos landed on his back and glared at the skeleton. "Welcome to the Twilight Zone, freak."

Twilight Zone emerged behind the skeleton and tore it apart swiftly, but, in the light of the moon, Janos could see the bones rapidly reassembling. Jenny ran up behind him, "Hey, are you okay? What is that -"

"I won't be when that thing is fixed." He pointed to the hilltop. "Back of the graveyard; you're looking for a guy with a cat near him, your stand has seen him before. Lead him this way, the cat is what brings these skeletons back."

Jenny nodded, clearly skeptical, but snuck off into the cemetery's gloom. As the skeleton finished healing, Janos backed up trying to think of a plan. Then he had an idea. "Mr. Joestar said it worked on zombies and vampires... I wonder if it works on skeletons." He concentrated and tried to breathe, but he couldn't get the right rhythm. "Fine, Twilight Zone, go!" Janos felt his stand manipulate his lungs, and he knew he was breathing properly. "Let's see if I can artificially induce it." He looked down at his hand as the skeleton rushed him, and was surprised and satisfied to see black lightning crackle across it. "Midnight Black Overdrive!"

Anticipating the dodge, Janos feinted with his left and then struck the skeleton's head with his right. The black hamon rushed across the skeleton's body and the bones fell apart. They showed signs of trying to reassemble, but they were very sluggish. "I guess that answers that question. Now where's the..." three more skeletons appeared at the hilltop. "... cat." He looked at Twilight Zone, who was patiently waiting for an order. "Well I guess practice makes perfect. I wonder if you can multitask, Twilight."

The next few moments were a blur for Janos. Twilight Zone would use its superior speed and shadow merging to slip behind the skeletons they encountered and take out their legs to slow them, Janos would follow up by having Twilight Zone force him to hamon breathe and he would use the strange black overdrive to slow down the skeletons' recovery. They had made their way through 13 different skeletons by the time the back of the cemetery was in view. Standing there, with two skeletons holding Jenny in place, was the same guy from Harpers Ferry. Sitting upon a tombstone next to him was Spooky Skeletons, its twin tails waving in unison.

Janos rushed forward but as he approached, the man shouted, "Stop where you are, or else!" Janos came to a halt, letting his momentum carry him a short distance forward to get as close as possible. "I don't why you did this to me man. I've been coming out here at nights to practice. When people come in I have fun scaring them, and sometimes I steal whatever they've got on them. They're typically too freaked to believe what happened, and the few who call in tips haven't convinced the police that anything is going on. They weren't even supposed to be here. No trespassing by night. Then someone heard about it and cam here at night and hid. They were quieter than you two and saw me."

"Well they started the rumor recently about skeletons here and I figured it was only a matter of time before you came looking for me. Spooky Skeleton's power waxes and wanes with the moon. So it's too bad for you you came out tonight; the moon's pretty bright right now." He paused for a moment to look at him and Jenny. Four more skeletons rose up from the ground and stood menacingly around Janos and Twilight Zone. "Now, keep your stand where I can see him. You put me in a bad way. I can't just let you walk out, but I don't really like the idea of killing people." He gave a short sigh. "I don't really have any options though. I'll be sure to give you both decent burials."

Janos immediately tried to bend the ground around the man, but he and Jenny were too far away, just out of range. The skeletons had placed dirt in Jenny's mouth to keep her from screaming as they began to pull on her arms and legs. The four skeletons jumped at Janos simultaneously. The ground beneath him shot out and blew their bodies apart, but they reformed instantly; likely from being so close to Spooky Skeletons, Janos thought. He looked about him for an answer, something to outwit them. Then he had it.

"Here's how this plays out!" He shouted. The man turned to look at him in surprise and the skeletons halted for a moment. "You're going to disbelieve me and go back to trying to kill us. Then, I'm going to break away from your welcome party and reach you inside of 6 seconds. Lastly, I'll take out your stand and show you just how spooky the Twilight Zone is. Ready when you are."

The man laughed and his southern drawl became more pronounced. "Have fun with that, dumbass."

"I gave fair warning," Janos muttered. He felt the ground beneath him sink for a moment, before it sprang upward, catapulting him straight over the skeletons and right at Jenny and the man. He felt Twilight Zone force the hamon breathing again, even as it slipped past the skeletons and moved along the ground right below him. The man looked up as Spooky Skeletons hissed, just in time to see Janos descend on him, shouting, "Midnight Black Overdrive!" Spooky Skeletons leapt up to protect his user, but Twilight Zone interposed itself and rapidly grabbed the cat, swinging it by it's tail into a tombstone. Janos fell straight onto the man, the black hamon rushing across him and knocking him out cold.

Janos lay still for a few moments, winded from his fifteen-foot fall onto a person. When he finally managed to sit up, he saw the skeletons were gone, Spooky Skeletons was gone, and the man was out on the ground beside him. Jenny was appeared to have been knocked unconscious and was lying nearby on the ground where the skeletons had been holding her. Reluctantly, he got up and searched the strange man's pockets. After finding two stolen wallets and $40 in cash, Janos was surprised to find a student photo ID that clearly belonged to the stand user, naming him Bill Hunter. As Janos put the wallet back, Hunter began to stir from his nap. Janos immediately made the soil around Hunter's wrists form into mitts to hold his hands in place.

"Ugh," Hunter moaned as he came to. "What the..." he continued as he noticed his predicament.

"Wake up Hunter. You've left me in a quandary here. I don't want to kill you, but I don't know that I can guarantee you won't start back terrorizing people." Janos paused and looked at the young man in disgust. "However, I'm more merciful than you, so I think I'll let you go. But let this be a warning if you ever try to use your stand for crime." Janos kicked him in the head, knocking him out again. He turned around and saw Jenny groggily standing up. "Are you okay?"

"I think so... it all happened so fast..."

A reedy voice piped up. "In a last-ditch effort to kill you, a third skeleton came up behind you and struck you as hard as it could on the back of your head. The blow was of insufficient force to kill, though you may have sustained a small concussion on par with a minor football injury." As Jenny's breathing became stronger, Memento had reappeared on Jenny's shoulder giving her head a comforting pat.

"Here," offered Janos, "come back to the hotel with me. I've some friends there and you can rest up and eat. While we're there, we can compare notes on what you know about stands and stand users in general."

Jenny nodded, still slightly dizzy. "You walk in front of me though. I still don't know that I trust you."

Janos gave her an incredulous look and was about to object when Memento hopped from her shoulder to his. "Don't mind her, she's just like this. Very protective of herself and her family. I think that when she's less out of it, she won't mind you so much."

Janos nodded and began to walk back to the hotel, Jenny following along behind him. He looked back at Jenny to see if she was paying attention and then leaned in to Memento. In a conspiratorial whisper he asked the stand, "So, is Jenny single?"