Notes: If my story was actually zydrate, two things would happen. One, I would be making money from it. Two, I would experience a constant and pleasant feeling of numbness every time I opened the file on my computer. Additionally, I might actually be able to sleep in this unseasonable heat.
At night, The Graverobber haunts the largest cemeteries, guarding the dead from those without proper respect. You could only avoid his wrath if you observed the Graverobber's code, or if you left him offerings in thanks for his generosity. Those that failed in his judgement would be tied up and thrown in open graves, gassed, or subject to various other gruesome punishments which often ended in death.
Every so often someone would come back from a dare, swearing that they'd met the Graverobber and that he was as big and shaggy as a bear, with skin as pale as chalk and eyes as black as sin.
Occasionally the survivor would mention a very small, annoyed looking schoolgirl standing next to him, but those were dismissed as fanciful additions or some dumb attempt to make the stories more interesting.
-
The Graverobber had returned from one of his many unexplained absences. Shilo had found him sprawled across a couch in the living room, boots on the upholstery, an empty arm of his coat flung over his eyes to chase the light away. Shilo tiptoed away without waking him, intending to show off a newly acquired skill that she'd been working on in his periods of absence.
Shilo was going to make dinner, and not just reheat something that someone else had made.
Twenty minutes later, with a smoke alarm shrieking its displeasure at the world, Shilo began to think that perhaps this hadn't been the best of ideas. Especially not when the Graverobber burst into the kitchen, coat half-off, still mostly asleep, to stare at her with his very driest expression.
"I didn't know we even had a smoke alarm," Shilo protested in vain, attempting to shoo the remaining haze out of an open window with a slightly charred tea towel.
Dark eyes took in the state of the kitchen, the charred mess of what was supposed to be food, the wake of Shilo's desperate struggle to put out the small fire, smoke-stains above the otherwise pristine oven... The smoke alarm died, leaving only a faint ringing in her ears.
Very slowly, Graverobber slid his arm back into his coat and tugged the monstrosity into its proper place on his shoulders. He checked one of the pockets, then nodded. "Chinese," he decreed.
"Please," Shilo replied gratefully.
"Garlic prawns, fried rice, and lemon chicken."
"That sounds so good right now."
"Please don't try to cook again."
"Never," Shilo replied fervently, shoving the charred remains of 'dinner' straight into the bin.
-
The Graverobber, already a moderately famous figure in the underworld of zydrate addiction, was soon a name that everyone knew. The Graverobber, not just a man, but an idea.
It was as if they'd completely forgotten that he actually existed and instead believed what they heard more than what they saw with their own eyes. It made a sort of sense. They believed what they were told to believe, and apparently the media was starting to tell people that the Graverobber was an urban legend.
-
Magic Li's was a half-way decent takeout store only twenty minutes walk from the Wallace house, with regular customers varied enough in appearance that the Graverobber didn't stand out from the crowd. Ordering was simple. The food never seemed to take very long, and the bill was good value for a takeaway shop. Graverobber had collected his food and was just about to leave when he was stopped by a very insistent shop attendant.
"Fortune cookie for you," the old woman told him firmly, pressing a tiny paper bag against his gloves, poking him with the sharp, paper-covered edge of the cookie until he gave in and took it. "No charge," the woman insisted, beaming at him and showing off two missing teeth - a rarity these days.
Authenticity couldn't be bought, he supposed. It had to be staged.
"You take," she continued, pointing at the bag. "No charge."
Graverobber raised an eyebrow at her. "You do realise I could hear you speaking perfect English," he drawled, "to your husband."
The woman flushed. "Enjoy your cookie," she snapped, then turned on her heel and scurried out the back to the kitchen.
The Graverobber shrugged to himself, then began the walk back to the Wallace house, cutting through a couple of alleyways to make the trip shorter. If he noticed that the people he passed fell silent, only to start whispering furiously amongst themselves after he'd passed, he paid no attention to it. Keys jingled in his hand, flashing in the dim light from a street lamp. This place wasn't exactly home, but it had a nice, welcoming feel to it. A highly repentant, sheepish, delicate little girl might have had something to do with that feeling of 'welcome'.
Graverobber had to grin. Shilo had set the coffee table with her good dining set, and had somehow managed to find a pair black lacquered chopsticks. "My, aren't we fancy."
"If you're not careful," Shilo replied, trying not to look embarrassed, "I might even make you wear a suit."
"Spare me the indignity. Here," he said, tossing the paper bag with the fortune cookie at her, "I got you a cookie."
-
The Quest began the fad by running a front page story about the ghost that haunted the central graveyard. Others soon followed suit, and before long it was common knowledge that The Graverobber was some kind of mythical being. Fleet claimed that The Graverobber was a vengeful spirit, driven by honour and revenge to guard the graveyards. The Reporter claimed that The Graverobber was, in fact, a man... And went on to claim that he was a mystic man raised by a travelling carnival, with powers and skills beyond those of any normal, mortal man.
Rumours of vampirism persisted, fueled by the fact that he was never seen before dark. Shilo actually framed an article from the Journal of Know that featured an artist's rendering and the headline 'Raver Vampire Terrorises Amateur Graverobbers'. It was the closest any of the gossip rags had come to the truth. Of course, The Journal ruined it by running an article the very next week that claimed that the so-called Graverobber was actually a large, purplish bear that had escaped from the circus.
-
"I think it's because you don't have a name," Shilo remarked rather sensibly one evening, gloved fingers delicately pulling the plunger of a large industrial syringe. She tapped the vial once, twice, then pulled the needle from the corpse. "'The Graverobber'. It sounds like something somebody made up, so they assume that you have to be a story."
There was a crunch as heavy boots landed on gravel-strewn grass, and another, more muffled noise as Graverobber dropped a fresh corpse, recently dragged from its resting place, to the ground. "People are sheep," he reminded her, taking the glowing vial that she offered him and tucking it away out of sight, "stupid, impressionable. Not altogether very bright."
"Did you notice the pile of fortune cookies by the main gates?"
A rustle of plastic as the Graverobber pulled the covering from the corpse's face. "I did," he remarks, checking the point of his own needle to make sure it's still sharp enough to crunch through bone, however thin.
"They think you're Chinese."
"It must be my hair."
"You really don't care, do you?" Shilo asked, frowning slightly at him as she carefully pulled a ring off her corpse's finger.
He looked across at her, a familiar smirk on his lips. "It's ridiculously funny." He offered her a delicate gold chain that he'd just plucked from his corpse's neck. Shilo was getting quite the jewellery collection, since he rarely sold the valuable bits that he took from the respectable dead.
Shilo considered the ring in her hands for a moment, then offered it to him in trade. Graverobber took off one of his gloves to slip the ring onto his thumb while Shilo placed the fine gold chain around her neck.
"We could have some fun with these rumours," Graverobber said casually, rolling his tools back into their leather pouch. He wondered if she'd take the bait, or if she wasn't yet so corrupted to consider what he was suggesting. He watched her in the faint glow of the moonlight, a porcelain doll in jewellery robbed from the dead. She came to it on her own, no further prompting from him - the perfect mix of innocence and corruption.
"Can I tell them to leave something better than fortune cookies?" Shilo asked.
Graverobber grinned at her, eyes gleaming in the dark.